Lot’s been written this week about our feral youth gangs. The songs are being written but we’re not listening. We’re wondering why several thousand kids decided to rampage regardless of the consequences. We knew their lives were pointless but couldn’t see much point of bothering about about them…
No point in me adding to the literary burden already produced on the subject. Life is pointless. We all know that. In earlier ages and other places, we take refuge in religion. Camus taught that the trick of life is to find meaning. Generally we find this wisdom in others and our relationships with them, thus the appeal of charitable endeavour.
The thieving Tory bastards scream their pleasure at this apparent proof of party policy. These people need punishment! Too many rights! Insufficient family values! Sadly, people who become politicians to rant about family values know little of family life across urban UK. If they really cared about family life (as opposed to power, which is the business of politics) they would be working in social services, the church or some such thing.
The rest of us stand in broken glass and lives, fired by the established description of the problem as complex and, simultaneously not being a problem at all. Even Orwell couldn’t have dreamt up this piece of political gymnasticism. It’s pretty obvious what the problem is – the Blackberry issue is a sideshow – there are lawless gangs of would be thieving Tory bastards of whom the police had little control. That’s the first part of the problem. The second part is that whilst large numbers of these youths have seemingly now been removed from the streets, presumably leaving a big gap in the social fabric they’ve left behind. These teenagers have taken up these roles because there was room for them to do so. Refusing to engage proactively in these neighbourhoods and families will inevitably allow gang culture to persist. Yet is commonly undoubted that gangs caused the problem.
All this is common sense. It is almost trite to restate it. The thieving Tory bastards hold dear policies which cause this kind of anti-social behaviour writ large. As for the girls and boys involved, I’m as lost as anyone else as to how they can be better organised than us. They’ll have their songs but they won’t be speaking of the heroism of other times.
Talking about heroism, I’ll wind up today’s post with a link to Abram A Heller’s tale, an uplifting tale from one of favourite cheerier uppers: Badass of the Week.