The media demonizes the Tea Party while making excuses for the British rioters. by AURaptor

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The media demonizes the Tea Party while making excuses for the British rioters.

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 07:20
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 1:31 AM

America loves a winner!

The Riot Act

A. Barton Hinkle | August 15, 2011

"This is the uprising of the working class," said a London anarchist taking a momentary break from smashing things last Monday. "We're redistributing the wealth." Said another, "[We're showing] the rich we can do what we want."

If you have been keeping up with the news from Britain, then you know who bears the blame for this: conservatives!

The "deep cutbacks in social programs" made by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron "have hit the country's poor especially hard," reported a major U.S. newspaper, "including large numbers of the minority youths who have been at the forefront of the unrest."

The "unrest." Nice touch.

This line has been trotted out by others—most notoriously "Red Ken" Livingstone, the former mayor of London. As well as a London MP who cited "disillusionment." And an analysis on Salon that blamed "youth unemployment." And NPR ("The unrest has spread, apparently spurred by anger over the high cost of living" as well as economic "disparity"). And The Washington Post's Courtland Milloy (the rioters are "striking out in anger over the theft of their futures").

A scholar at Johns Hopkins blames "austerity cuts." So does The New York Times: "Economic malaise and cuts in spending and services instituted by the Conservative-led government have been recurring flashpoints for months." Reuters says a "sense of disenchantment" is shared by a "generation of young people with opportunities that fall well short of their aspirations." And—

Well, you get the point: Yes, the hooligans have destroyed family businesses, trashed London institutions, sent millions of real and sweat equity up in flames, inflicted misery on thousands of innocent people. But one mustn't judge too harshly. One must try to understand. And to mollify.

You hear that sort of flummery a lot.

Or at least you hear it when the perpetrators of mayhem are objects of liberal approval. Labor unions, demonstrators against global free-trade agreements, environmentalist activists—they have legitimate grievances that must be addressed. The blind rage of young people in working-class neighborhoods is the product of socioeconomic conditions. They should not be held responsible for their actions—the people who created the conditions should be held responsible. (David Cameron, this means you.)

Funny thing, though: You didn't hear that sort of guff in 2009, when middle-class conservatives turned up at town halls across the country to vent about health-care reform. Back then, the town-hall events were filled with "angry, sign-carrying mobs," wrote Politico, which lamented the way constituents were "shouting criticism" at members of Congress. Signs and criticism: Oh my!

"Angry mobs" were trying to "destroy president Obama," fumed Democratic Party leaders back then. "This is something new and ugly," seethed Paul Krugman of The New York Times, which described the town hall events as "brutal." No one seemed interested in the root causes of the sign-wavers' agitation then. You didn't hear much about the "disillusionment" and "disenchantment" of Tea Party protesters who marched on Washington in September 2009, and again the following March.

To be fair, after the Taxpayer March on Washington on 9/12, Reuters did pause to wonder what the source of public anger was: "Protests Against Obama: Race or Policy?" it asked, noting how "former President Jimmy Carter said out loud what Democrats had been whispering for a while, that the protests against the country's first black president are tinged with racism."

When conservatives wave signs, it's not "unrest" caused by a "sense of disenchantment." It's because they're bigots. Society as a whole is not to blame; they are, individually. They need an attitude adjustment. When violent mobs of young people burn down a city, though, they are not individually responsible—society as a whole is (or at least that part of society that ostensibly ticked them off). They don't need an attitude adjustment: conservatives do.

Memo to Britain's ruling party: Look what you made those poor kids do!

This neat bit of rhetorical jiu-jitsu ensures that, no matter what happens, one side is always to blame.

(click below to continue )

http://reason.com/archives/2011/08/15/the-riot-act

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 4:58 AM

BYTEMITE

Actually, the austerity measures thing is probably right. This isn't the only recent riot in the UK, there's also been riots over schooling expenses. It really probably does have a social agenda behind some of it, though people also probably did join in later for the hell of it.

I wasn't one of the people who dismissed or mocked right wing people for being angry and showing up at town halls. Whatever I may think about the tea party without Ron Paul leading it, I think people in the US are pretty justified being angry, left and right. If you aren't angry, you aren't paying enough attention.

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:12 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I can see where Raptor is coming from here, I'd rather have angry sign carriers running around than angry rioters burnin stuff down and busting things.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:34 PM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

No matter what the reasons the rioters don't have an excuse for what they did.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011 5:23 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I do not advocate the actions of these rioters, who misdirected their ire and were criminally violent.

I am simultaneously not entirely surprised that some kind of civil unrest such as this developed in a nation which typically keeps its citizens under such close controls, and mediates any unhappiness they may have about this with social programs that improve their well-being. When the counterbalance of social programs crumbles, uneasiness at the overbearing authority seems likely to manifest.

I am most concerned, however, for how the government is responding to this incident. While the rioting was still in progress, government officials were brainstorming how to take control of communications.

This follows the usual pattern of the government using an incident to strip freedom from their people under the banner of public safety.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011 6:59 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Doesn't the conservative media in this country demonize the left while making excuses for white religious domestic terrorists, though?