London's Burning
- Thread starter horusd
- Start date
"Immigration did not cause our collapse, but the refusal to create an immigration policy was an intellectual companion to our populist failure to control our banks"
Interesting article.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/a...-common-a-lack-of-father-figures-2844058.html
Interesting article.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/a...-common-a-lack-of-father-figures-2844058.html
Three more IMF Budget Cuts and it mightn't be far off!
That link is broken Monagt. Can you repost?
I agree re: the levels of deprivation in some areas of the UK. However, a lot of the commentators are blaming the riots on the entitlement culture in these communities. I think that entitlement culture is much stronger in Ireland that the UK given that non-working people here seem to expect to be provided with more and in fact receive a lot more from the State than similar people in the UK. If entitlement culture is one of the root causes, then we'll get riots here when cuts are made.
While we dont have loads of high rise poor housing, there are still large swathes of west Dublin (Tallaght, Clondalkin, Blanchardstown) with large estates of poorly built/maintained properties where the majority of people seem to be dependant on welfare and thug culture rules.
Agree with your post Csirl.
Our 'career choice unemployed' who have never worked a day in their life have yet to feel the brunt of this recession. I shutter to think what will be the outcome when they realise the country can no longer afford to keep them in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
Our 'career choice unemployed' who have never worked a day in their life have yet to feel the brunt of this recession. I shutter to think what will be the outcome when they realise the country can no longer afford to keep them in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
I think the entitlement culture is only part of it. I think a big contributor to the riots in the UK is the complete lack of moral compass for large groups of people - probably due to lack of a strong family unit and the UK's seeming obsession with not infringing human rights by imposing any kind of discipline or boundaries. I don't think we have that here (yet...) - authority figures (gardai, teachers) are generally respected and backed up by family - a kid knows they won't be able to tell a teacher to F-off without consequences. And if anyone was pictured on the front page of a newspaper running down a street with armfulls of looted stuff, there would be unhappy extended family and plenty of people willing to shop them to the gardai - whereas it seems that many of the looters in London were on a night out with their like-minded neighbours.
It's hard to know how to fix the situation though - I remember an article a couple of years ago where a headmaster in the UK was pilloried (and I think forced to resign) because he described an underclass of 'uberchavs' who were essentially uneducatable. Education is the only way out and where 25/50/100 years ago families saw education as desirable and a way to improve their lot, that just doesn't exist anymore for many people. All quite depressing really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
A few media outlets even refering back Enoch Powells speech in 1968.
A few media outlets even refering back Enoch Powells speech in 1968.
Get out the water cannons and plastic bullets. Maybe a few taser guns too.Let the lot of them have it and don't feel one bit sorry for them. They're a disgrace and only doing it out of pure badness, not for any cause. Well, sorry, their one cause being destruction and robbery.
Completely agree with this one. They are distroying their own communities. They probably do not feel part of it!
It was reported and also shown children very young talking part in these riots.
??????????????????????????
Hate to be the bearer of bad news....
My wife is a teacher in a relatively disadvantaged area - teachers get told to F-off and worse on a daily basis in her school. Minor assaults on staff are now common.
I was in a supermarket in a disadvantaged part of Dublin recently. A group of 7-8 teenagers in hoodies walked in, grabbed a load of alcohol off the shelves - as much as they could physicall carry and walked out the door without paying in full view of staff/customers. None of the local customers though anything of this - many of them though it was funny. What's even worse was the reaction of the staff - the women at the checkout I was queueing at laughed and said ".....fair plead of them.....".
Having had my shops in ballyfermot, tallaght, Condalkin and Inner North city for the last 30 years until last year I can, with some knowledge, confirm and add to csirl's comments..
.. 30 years most kids had a mother and a father. I don't know the figures, but in the areas I know the number of kids with no family structure was frightening.
..30 years ago we (local shopkeepers and others) were not to scared to rebuke or even belt misbehaving teenagers.
No way we'd do that now. We know we'd get a kicked in window ,or worse.
... 30 years ago we started to vaguely hear about drugs. By the '90s we were often held up -usually at needlepoint and once at gun point.
.. many of these muggers were caught.We indentified them. they were up in court.And released on bail.
I could go on but you get the picture. We know that kids on irish estates throw rocks at fire engines and ambulances and local buses and have been doing so for years. What csirl says about thuggish robbing kids in hoodies is increasimngly more common.
Whether its the lack of fathers, the drugs or the fact that the state pays -rewards - single dumb teenager girsl to have kids I just don't know.
But when you're sitting in your shop and all day watch 16 year old slags, fags hanging out of their mouths, pushing prams whilsts creaming and swearing at their kids then ,yes, you become a grumpy old fascist like me. God help those kids.
.. 30 years most kids had a mother and a father. I don't know the figures, but in the areas I know the number of kids with no family structure was frightening.
..30 years ago we (local shopkeepers and others) were not to scared to rebuke or even belt misbehaving teenagers.
No way we'd do that now. We know we'd get a kicked in window ,or worse.
... 30 years ago we started to vaguely hear about drugs. By the '90s we were often held up -usually at needlepoint and once at gun point.
.. many of these muggers were caught.We indentified them. they were up in court.And released on bail.
I could go on but you get the picture. We know that kids on irish estates throw rocks at fire engines and ambulances and local buses and have been doing so for years. What csirl says about thuggish robbing kids in hoodies is increasimngly more common.
Whether its the lack of fathers, the drugs or the fact that the state pays -rewards - single dumb teenager girsl to have kids I just don't know.
But when you're sitting in your shop and all day watch 16 year old slags, fags hanging out of their mouths, pushing prams whilsts creaming and swearing at their kids then ,yes, you become a grumpy old fascist like me. God help those kids.
a relation of mine has just started primary school teaching in a 'disadvantaged' area of west dub. It would both sadden and anger you in equal measure the stories she has to tell from her few months there
Kids coming to school hungry, parents not showing up to collect them in the evening. Some kids can't even speak properly as they are left in front of TV's all day with little or no interaction with their parents. Physical and verbal abuse of teachers by 5 and 6 year olds!!!
Some days when the teachers have to walk the kids home after another parent no-show, she gets to see the houses. Mostly nice houses in small recently built estates, all taxpayer funded of course, with big TV's and all the latest consoles etc lying around... and not exactly bangers parked outside the gaffs. But they can't even be bothered to bring their child home in the evening or even feed the kid in the morning.
It's scary what some kids have to grow up with...
As a parent this is quite upsetting. Even worse for those couples who cannot, for whatever reason, have children of their own to witness this abuse. And it is abuse.
Oldnick and Delboy have summed it all up. The welfare mentality has the country destroyed. I have retail business in some of the areas Oldnick mentioned. A birdseye view of the system. One of the shops is a stones throw from a prison so I am graced on occassion by grandmothers bringing their grandchildren to vistit the childrens fathers. A pathetic sight. Should children be allowed anywhere near the inside of a prison?
SORRY (SLIGHTLY) OFF TOPIC...
firefly -
"even worse for those couples who cannot, for whatever reason, have children of their own ....."
Absolutely right ! This explains my burning anger at the way society seems to think it's fine for single teenagers to have as many children as they want, but when those who can't have children apply for adoption they spend years going through the hoops.
I know because I'm one of those who applied for adoption. I was refused because of my age - I was 45 wife 35. Fortunately, we went off to UK and applied there and eventually got the OK and now have a wonderful 17 year old daughter.
Can you imagine how we felt sitting in our shops watching ill-kept kids being shouted and sworn at by what appeared to be older children who were in fact their mothers, many of them smoking even when pregnant again. No dads in sight ,except a series of passing drug-addicted boyfriends.
(O.K. i know this looks like an OTT diatribe, like the Kevin Myers Mother-of-*******s article and I'm aware there are countless single mums doing a grand job)
We in the meantime had to go through years of waiting ,as do thousands of other respectable comfortable couples desperate to give a home to an abandoned baby, whilst social workers interview us, obtain police, financial and other records ("all in the interest of the child," mind you).
In U.K. the wait ranges from 6mths to a year. in Ireland I gather it's now between 18mths to 30 mths (far better than 20 yrs ago) In both UK and Ireland the wait depends on the area you live.
Sorry, moderator, you can strike this if you think it inappropriate. And I dont want to start an adoption forum.
Just wanted to highlight society's paradoxical attitude towards those who are able to give a child a good upbringing and those who are far less able -and it is this attItude that is contributing to the problems we see with many of today's youth here and U.K.
firefly -
"even worse for those couples who cannot, for whatever reason, have children of their own ....."
Absolutely right ! This explains my burning anger at the way society seems to think it's fine for single teenagers to have as many children as they want, but when those who can't have children apply for adoption they spend years going through the hoops.
I know because I'm one of those who applied for adoption. I was refused because of my age - I was 45 wife 35. Fortunately, we went off to UK and applied there and eventually got the OK and now have a wonderful 17 year old daughter.
Can you imagine how we felt sitting in our shops watching ill-kept kids being shouted and sworn at by what appeared to be older children who were in fact their mothers, many of them smoking even when pregnant again. No dads in sight ,except a series of passing drug-addicted boyfriends.
(O.K. i know this looks like an OTT diatribe, like the Kevin Myers Mother-of-*******s article and I'm aware there are countless single mums doing a grand job)
We in the meantime had to go through years of waiting ,as do thousands of other respectable comfortable couples desperate to give a home to an abandoned baby, whilst social workers interview us, obtain police, financial and other records ("all in the interest of the child," mind you).
In U.K. the wait ranges from 6mths to a year. in Ireland I gather it's now between 18mths to 30 mths (far better than 20 yrs ago) In both UK and Ireland the wait depends on the area you live.
Sorry, moderator, you can strike this if you think it inappropriate. And I dont want to start an adoption forum.
Just wanted to highlight society's paradoxical attitude towards those who are able to give a child a good upbringing and those who are far less able -and it is this attItude that is contributing to the problems we see with many of today's youth here and U.K.
Most of the looting in the UK and Ireland started years ago and is still going on and the majority of the people responsible for it come from a stable background.When there is nothing to loot the looting stops. They then make the rest of the population pay the bill for all the damage they've done ,Some live in tax havens and move on to loot somewhere else, others stay in politics, others retire on the proceeds of their looting.
Sometimes the people at the bottom after being given such a great example riot.
Sometimes the people at the bottom after being given such a great example riot.
