There's undoubtedly a hard core of ringleaders orchestrating this. What they have doing all the dirty work though is bunches of kids with a cultural inability to just get out and do something positive for themselves. There's loads of kids out there who simply don't have the wherewithal or imagination not to be bored unless someone tells them what to do. Depending on who is doing the telling or how "interesting" the doing appears to be, they may or may not actually do it. Their need to be led and their need for "entertainment" makes it very easy for a situation like this to flare up and get out of hand. They're caught up in the hysteria, seeing safety in numbers and are too dumb and selfish to even consider that the people whose homes and livelihoods they're destroying could be their own family (specially if they've never known anyone in their family actually work for a living).

Some people just need a nanny state, unfortunately.

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I don't mean crazy as in angry, I mean crazy as in your thoughts/perceptions of a situation have degraded well past any societal definition of normality.

And that wasn't what Livingston said at all :-/

Ken was saying, in.between interuptions, that there are sections of.society that, through recesion and culture, have so little hope for their own future that the potential repercussions from looting are no worse, in their mind, than what they can reasonably expect from life anyway.

Oh, I'm sorry, I misread yours as being London/Luton, not looting/Luton :(

(hug)

But that's bullshit though, isn't it? "I'm angry at not having a job/money, so I'm going to destroy the livelihood of some guy who's worked hard all his life".

People like that are a drain on society and should be expunged. The only value that they have is if their carcasses were sent to Somalia as food relief.

I still just don't see any anger here, just opportunists getting a thrill out of doing something they know they could never normally get away with, with the added bonus of walking away with some very expensive new TV for their bedroom.

But maybe I'm too detached from this shit now.. not many riots in my little village.. B-)

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).