Named and shamed.

[Tank]

Who are the rioters and what jail sentences have they received?

The racist disturbances here in the UK have dropped off dramatically. I wonder if the very public publicity of the offenders sentences are having an affect?

This morning the local TV news showed 13 men whom police are attempting to identify.

[Asmodean]

"Racist disturbances..."

Tank, my dear friend... You fling words around like they were meaningless these days - at least more often than you used to. What happened to you?! Next you'll be reading Guardian and calling Trump supporters Fascists... Or has that ship also sailed? ( )

...Nah. If your view of the events comes from media coverage, then I do see how you would sit with that impression. Thing is though, even a cursory examination from a other side of a sea very quickly shows that there is more to it. (For example, some such disturbances rose to the level of riots and while I have not specifically gone looking for racism, I did not consider it among the primary drivers of the events. Anti-Muslim/Islamic/Islamist sentiment - sure. Racism? Not so much)

It's been  a long time coming, long-time warned about and long time ignored by the globally-minded. I thought maybe they would learn from Brexit referendum, but they still push much the same line as they always did, and not just in the UK.

It may just be that the opposition to an open world is stronger than they think and will eventually bubble up if its concerns - whatever one may think of their legitimacy - go unaddressed.

[Tank]

It's a blend of racism and anti-islamic sentiment. To the low end intelligence people with the wrong coloured skin are Muslims and Muslims have the wrong coloured skin. It's a self fulfilling prophecy as far as the rioters are concerned. They don't know what they are angry at they are just fucking angry!

[Asmodean]

From what I heard from those "on the ground" sources I could find, it was more an issue of people being "culturally local" or not.

That is a legitimate concern. If you live in a community, you may well want that community to align with or at the very least not contradict your value set and you may want some measure of influence on who is and is not welcome to that community - based on their value set, which can often be approximated to race or ethnicity. (By the same token as you would expect a Japanese person to "act Japanese" - that is not to say, however, that no person of Japanese descent can be or aspire to become culturally Lithuanian, nor is it inherently discriminatory or indicative of the opinion holder regarding the Japanese at all negatively)

That's neither racism nor other istophobias, though it's very common these days, at least in the Socialist- (Or American Liberal-) leaning circles to label it thusly.

Are there racists motivated by racism there? Almost certainly. Would unrest have bubbled up without them? Almost certainly, although it may have been postponed somewhat.

In my experience, racists, much like Fascists, Communists and other-such -ists will march along causes that, if not fully agree, at least do not go contrary to their message - then try to subvert them and steer them more towards their own agenda. When those other people, attempted to be thusly steered, have had enough of the prevailing status quo, they may just let it happen. At best, what you then get is "protest elections" where suddenly a no government experience populist party of some sort becomes comparatively huge "overnight." At worst... Yellow vests, car fires and lots of cursing in French. (Yeah, I know that's not the worst-worst, but do let us pretend that we live in civilised societies)

[Icarus]

Some of our solid citizens are willing to riot or engage in armed protest because they believe in conspiracies. The question is: why do people believe in such stuff when evidence shows that the conspiracy does not exist?

The Big Think weighs in a little bit................

https://bigthink.com/questions/why-are-there-conspiracy-theories/

[Tank]

That's going to take some time to read

[Asmodean]

Personally, I do find it fascinating how often some version of "down with Capitalism" creeps up when there are pro-Palestinian, andt-police or other such protests.

What does one have to do with the other?

...But it's a bit like you say, "they" seem to believe in conspiratorial, factually flawed or just plain politically opportunistic messages... Probably because someone suitably charismatic peddles those to "them," and "they" wouldn't know critical thinking if it slapped "them" in the face.

[Icarus]

My country is the victim of a growing mass of naivete,  perhaps better described as "stupidification".

https://religiondispatches.org/the-overwhelming-whiteness-and-increasing-maleness-of-u-s-churches-isnt-an-accident-its-a-selling-point/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=daily

[Icarus]

Different subject but more evidence of America's expanding cognitive dissonance .........

https://capitalbnews.org/hurricane-helene-florida-project-2025-noaa/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

[Asmodean]

Cognitive dissonance... Perhaps.

Is there a solution though? And by that, I do not mean some partisan gameplan since in a nation of over three hundred million, even a 25% minority is a huge number of people, who, if properly dissatisfied, are prone to rioting, burning stuff and otherwise violating their (or someone else's) community's peace.

How do you reconcile mutually-incompatible (even if by choice) world views that are simply not interested in stepping out of their respective bubbles?