Northern Colorado Gazette

When Will America's next round of riots begin?

BBC – “We ain’t got no jobs, no money … We heard that other people were getting things for free, so why not us?” explained E. Nan, surrounded by other youths in Hackney in east London.

Google ‘British riots’ and you can read the details of riots across England in the King’s English. Many of us with deep roots in the hills find the language of British reporters and bloggers confusing and entertaining. But we can read about what might be own future between the colorful phrases.

The consensus is the riots began after “some unfortunate community policing” during which a young man was “shot whole evading arrest”. After the incident, a peaceful protest march triggered violence and set into motion three days and counting of violence, looting, and wholesale destruction of property throughout much of England.

Unemployment among youth in the US continues at record levels. Obama’s economic strategy to transform America to socialism continues to fuel recession. How soon until we have headlines reading, “It’s been building up for years. All it needed was a spark,”?

An even more disturbing quote is one that we here should try to understand. It came from a man who refused to give his name when he said, “I am from South Africa and it reminds me of the riots there, except the police here are not so rough,” “But the kids don’t have any respect for the police or for property.”

Riots are not new. What is new is the widespread use of internet messaging sites by looters to co-ordinate their raids, avoid the police, and brag about the things they’ve stolen. Riots in the US have historically been limited to rioters burning and looting their own neighborhoods. Most of us watch television news and neither understands nor feels threatened by something going on the other side of town. With the coordination and leadership available from instigators like moveon.org and the internet social sites, rioters can now be instructed to preserve their ‘hood’ and move across town for higher value targets.

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