Thursday, September 01, 2011

David Starkey on Newsnight

David Starkey was wrong to suggest skin colour played a part in the riots (by saying Enoch Powell had been proved right), but he had a point about youths having been corrupted by a gangster culture (although the guilty gangsters aren't the ones he had in mind).

The gang ACTUALLY responsible for corrupting and inciting youths is the CAPITALIST GANG. Tax avoiders, like Sir Philip Green (who sent a £1 billion dividend offshore a few years back) are celebrated, praised and palsy-walsy with our most prominent politicians who reward their selfish immorality with peerages, knighthoods, CBEs and MBEs.

And it is these same prominent politicians who themselves have had their snouts in the expenses trough for years. It is truly galling to hear the likes of Gerald Kaufman MP asking the Prime Minister how rioters can be "reclaimed" by society, after he submitted a claim for three months' expenses totalling £14,301.60, including £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

And David Cameron himself, quick to declare, regarding former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, that "everybody deserves a second chance", shows no interest in giving second chances to those who took a pair of trainers or packet of cigarrettes from riot-hit stores.

It is this hypocrisy and double standards, with one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and another set for eveyone else, that creates underlying anger, bitterness and hopelessness in society which can then suddenly erupt in violent mayhem.

As long as capitalism continues, there will exist a tiny asset-owning elite pursuing ever greater piles of wealth through immoral exploitation of resources and human beings which they should never have had ownership and control of in the first place.

The most sickening criminality hasn't been seen during the rioting, it's been seen from the corrupt capitalist system aided by successive two-faced cheating governments.

Max Hess

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