Again you're replying to what you think of the situation rather than what I said. Which is fine, but ignores the real issue.

Interestingly Ive seen loads of people on FB/twitter referring to the rioters as scum today. Mostly the same people who'd refer to these people as scum a week ago, a month ago, whatever. Opinions towards these people haven't changed, just that they've got a new telly and we've got a new reason to despise them.

Well.. maybe they are, in a way?
"Scum" is a bit extreme for probably a lot of them, as in those who are just following the herd. However there's no excuse for this kind of behaviour. Are you saying (not putting words in your mouth here, geniuenly wondering) that because they're estranged and society isn't taking care of them that's a suitable excuse for them to behave like this?

There's no positive action happening around here from almost anyone - only thing I'm grateful for is that no-one's been killed yet (besides the initial spark for all this, of course).

What xen said, reaally.

I don't think there's much use in excusing or condemning it, it needs to be understood and explained so that it can be dealt with and the root causes 'fixed'

(i still.favour revolution, though)

Exactly, when people are talking about the root cause the response is always, "That's no excuse!" It's not about an excuse or legitimising what happened. It's about what are the steps that have caused this to happen and what can we change to stop it happening again

Oh, and these guys are dicks.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6Gex_ya4-Oo%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&feature=youtu.be&v=6Gex_ya4-Oo&gl=GB

This seems to have all started from an yet-unresolved killing in Tottenham (incidentally, just up the road from a friend of mine..). I don't know what the participants to the disturbances (I don't mean the initial protesters concerned with the killing and the associated investigations) are actually acting on as far as reasons go, but they don't seem to be actually rioting about anything in particular hence my lack of sympathy.

I don't mean to say that they're doing it purely because "it's fun", what I mean is that even though there might be a root cause (perceived poverty, isolation and social injustice, etc) that doesn't justify what they're actually doing - ie mindless smashing, looting, and starting to get violent with ordinary citizens now too.

No I haven't interviewed anyone, and I do agree that someone should at least try to figure out what they're after.

The point of "perceived" was that this is what they think - their relative point of view might be entirely valid as far as they're concerned and their situations preceding these 'riots' might well be because of bad government or what/ever/ else.

What I'm trying to say (albeit in a possibly nutcase kind of way) is that their reaction seems to be out of proportion to what's happening to them. I didn't say "send them to Africa to learn how lucky they are!" or "shoot them all!" or anything like that. Despite this happening quite close to me last night (and therefore feeling slightly unsafe), I'm not prone to going for extreme solutions like that because they simply almost never work.

Then again, the government went to war in Iraq with very little proof. Lead by example my a$$. (yeah ok completely different situation, I know)

I've not read this thread because it seems quite long now and I was BANNED :@

But yeah....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

Really?!

"it's the government's fault, yeah, dunno"

FFS!