This is an important post this gives dignity to actuality.

The RCP's <a href="/http://revcom.us/socialistconstitution/index.html" rel="nofollow">new constitution</a> speaks of giving a platform to dissent but is rather weak in concrete terms.

After the Oscar Grant rebellions many store owners putting up pictures of Oscar Grant. (I think it is important to frame people rising up against unjust police brutality as a "rebellion" and not a "riot" - this is a resistance to systemic oppression - top down - from institutionalizing poverty, an army of necessitated unemployment under capitalism, police brutality, and inhumane prison conditions.)

The capitalist system is to blame and it is the role of revolutionary leadership to make this clear - but how often the bourgeoisie and it's press distorts the meaning of rebellion into "spontaneous rioting" - unable to address the basic needs of the people.

I do not think the situations are necessarily comparable. I have no opposition to looting and smashing, but I think that the major difference here is that the looting and smashing is also ending up on the heads of other marginalized communities and peoples, and dividing the have-littles and the have-nots. This does not mean that those in the uprising need "discipline" or "leadership", but rather represents a greater failure of the left to create the necessary consciousness for the political (I mean 'the political' in the Schmittian sense: the capacity to determine friend from enemy, which the Chinese peasants certainly had). I think it is important to understand that riots are generally a form of political rebellion, but not the only form, and not necessarily the best one, and it can often depend on the circumstances and the manner in which they are carried out; there are very different kinds of riots.This is different from characterizing insurrection as 'excessive', because excessive says that they are going in the right direction, but they have gone too far - my question is really: is this the right direction? I do not know for sure - or even at all - but my gut feeling is that this is a lot of powerful energy (for insurrection, for smashing) not hitting or even aimed at the right target. Isn't it the goal of the left to help with the aiming, not simply to cheer on rebellion?

The goal of the left is to help with the aiming, and conscious revolutionaries in the U.K. should be doing that right now to the best of their ability, but in situations like this, when the ground for a conscious revolutionary movement hasn't been sufficiently prepared, you have to make a choice: stand with the rebels or stand with the forces of reaction. That doesn't mean all criticism is wrong, but it does mean that the criticism should avoid parroting the memes of the rulers.

Revolutionaries must make it crystal clear to the rebels (and to the World!) that they are right to rebel.

I don't think it's necessary to binarize things like that. To me the situation calls for a critical analysis rather than simply support or condemnation. I have no qualms with the thought of revolutionary violence, but I think the question is whether or not this falls into that category: rather than excessive (i.e. slaves murdering their masters and their families in the Haitian Revolution) this is much closer to a missplaced spasm of rage where the cathartic act seems to be more about expenditure and simple release than political moment. When the students burned down the Tory headquarters a few months back there was no question as to whether or not to support the action except from staunch pacifists. But this is different - there is a lot more hemming and hawing, and it's a reasonable hemming and hawing as well. I think it would be as much a mistake to not at least think things through (regardless of the conclusion one comes to) as it would be to outright condemn what is going on. The goal is not simply to be oppositional, to burn the capitalist order to the ground, but to be revolutionary, to transform and unleash the creativity which capitalism seeks to capture. There is too much nihilism in what is going on in London to support it uncritically. Critically, yes, certainly there is good reason to support it. But reflexively? No.

We none of us wish to usher in a new golden age of conjecture....not while our rulers are out and about lighting and trying to put out fires. Plain to see the negative consequences, lets not cowardly silence prevail.A 68 yr old man beaten to death....3 victims killed in a hit and run...26 familes fled from humble homes with toddlers and elderly in just the clothes they stood up in.Flames and choking smoke....with a baying mob outside. Just one incident The police killed a gangster, crack dealer, his neighbours feared him so much , even in death he cast a shadow over their lives , Nobody could be found to speak ill of him or his gang.Another pathetic hoodlum, another East End Legend. Look out for the floral tributes, they will be bigger than your dining table. Anyone remember the Krays? The divisions? Just one family.....

"Among those in court was an 18-year-old girl chosen to be a youth ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Chelsea Ives was arrested after her own mother spotted her on television in a news bulletin during violent disturbances in Enfield, north London.
Ives denied violent disorder, two counts of burglary and throwing bricks at a police car, at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday. She was remanded in custody.
Her mother Adrienne Ives, 47, later described how she "had to do what was right" after seeing footage of her daughter among the rioters.
She said, "We were watching people lose their homes and businesses. She won't thank us -- but what else were we supposed to do?" FOX news....we giv'em.... they print'em....stories......human interest. The rioters are not some macabre underclass...the clever ones will be tucked up in bed watching the new 3d screen tv and be woken up by a Teasmade. One or two of the dafter ones actually displayed their ill gotten gains on Facebook. PLOD never looks at FACEBOOK. Plenty irate members of the public do....."they are helping police with their enquiries!" The police have made arrests with both murder enquiries.

A 24yr old student, unable to sleep, crying all night handed herself into the cop shop, along with the TV she had stolen. The judge warned her she must expect prison when she returned to the bench for sentencing. Cue NIAGARA FALLS,. oh dear!...

A lawyer who had worked all through the night prosecuting rioters, shared with us, he never even stopped for tea!! It would have spoiled a lucrative nights work to find yer BMW burnt out in the morning., no such luck.
...
The police have played it like a Stradivarius , FACED WITH SWINGING CUTS IN NUMBERS, PAY, CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AND PENSIONS Their cup overfloweth with overtime and a chance to put off doomsday.

Back to school Monday....back to college....back to work ....back to the dole queue...back to face ma and pa...back to Facebook....please don' be a dolt and give your criminal resume and pictures of your nights work for all to see(it creates social envy). G E T R E A L, ......THE CLOCK IS TICKING.........it's wakeup time and your picture's on BREAKFAST NEWS..............

http://imarxman.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/riot-acts/

IT'S ABOUT TIME ALL AROUND THE WORLD PEOPLE UNITE!
THO W/O THE BURNING AND LOOTING

Interesting comments ... so, in essence, "Go Revolution!" until the god of private property is disturbed ...

This is a rather pathetic stance, both on a ideological level - this being a 'communist' site - and on a historical level : westerners bitching about private property when all your private property comes from looting the rest of the human and natural world.

Apparently, driving alone in a tank, while the non-western world supports the bulk of the externalities, is not 'excessive'. Maybe it is deplorable, maybe you could write 4-5GB of blog posts about it, maybe you can come up with an infantile verse on a cardboard and picket on a western boulevard, but it is not excessive.

However, burning down the private property of some westerners who, out of their own free will, perpetuate a vicious and destructive system, IS excessive. I can imagine what kind of fascist white supremacist turned bleeding heart liberal when the economy collapsed would characterize Haitian slaves murdering their masters as 'excessive'. Newsflash : they got what they deserve. Your fanatical brand of christianitized notions of 'civilization', law ad order are not in any way universal, no matter how many trillions of military hardware you put on every people on this planet.