Monday, August 8, 2011

Babylon's Burning

Every time I read or see the riots in London, this song by the Clash pops into my head.
Remember being in the Brixton Riots back in, what, 1986? Cops burst into a house and shot a crippled Jamaican grandmother in her bed, the lastest in a line of racially divisive police shootings. Brixton exploded.
I don't blame them. I don't blame them for the looting either: these are people who know already, even in their teens, that this society offers them no future. It's a perfect counterpoint to the mayhem going on in the markets while nation's leaders promise to pay off debts with these people's lives.

This society is a powder keg right now, and the Police seem to have lit the fuse.

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