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| we shall not be cowed |
I thank God that we’ve been able to keep the pictures of the scenes of devastation from our two little kids. I don’t feel ready to see the scenes of devastation that are plastered all over the news and the television, so goodness only knows what it’s doing to little kids, some of whom if we’re to believe the news are witnessing it first hand at the age of seven or eight.
I’m struck by two tweets from a lad I went to University with:
“Too many people blame society for their own poverty of aspiration. Did society make you believe going to school is beneath you?”
followed by:
“I grew up in a poor family that believed in bettering ourselves rather than sinking to thieving and violence.”
Grumpyrocker
The culture of failure that has inculcated itself with lads from deprived areas nowadays is at the root of the problems, not politics. I’ve read Penny Red’s widely publicised attempt at politicising what’s happen in London and it simply doesn’t wash with me.
If your peer group penalises/ostracises you for succeeding academically, the only way you are going to be able to have the uniform that whatever subculture you belong to demands you wear is through hard low paid work or theft.
If it’s easier to steal that work honestly, it’s not difficult to guess what a lot of people will chose is it?
No, this isn’t about politics, it’s about envy. Kids are smashing up things because they know can’t have them and if they can’t have it nobody should. They’re stealing things because they can’t afford them. Looting a Sony distribution centre or a PC World is never going to be a political statement.