Yes, definitely. The people I feared most when growing up were my family. I got up to all kinds of silliness as a kid but the thought of getting in trouble with my parents was a major restraining factor. Parents, especially younger ones, seem totally ill-equipped to raise children.

I'm going to offer an economic idea: in London, there is a very heavy emphasis on money. It's shit-difficult to get a job and a mortgage and live in a nice enough area. The reason nearly everyone on the tube during rush hour is a cunt is because you have thousands of people rushing towards a place where they feel demeaned and under-paid. The high-paid cunts in suits who will mow a geriatric down just for not walking quickly enough (or, sin of all sins, standing on the left on the escalators) have very little regard for anyone. This attitude comes to perpetuate itself in the 'lower' ranks of society.

It's not all doom and gloom, there are a lot of amazing, wonderful people in London. I used to live in Clapton, and the Homerton train where I would get to the rest of the world from was where someone was stabbed a couple of years ago. I met some wonderful people in that area, some amazing teenage freestylers, some of the friendliest African people you could imagine, a crack-head who would give you the shirt off his back (etc etc).

My point is that because the 'higher' ranks in society are often utter turds (which I suspect is a non-causal consequence of house prices (etc)), the young 'uns pick up on that general social nihilism, and manifest it in a different way, with knives.

Video games.

Hip Hop.

Undercooked burritos.

My post is easier to read than Glice's so mine's better.

I'd buy that if it was a problem isolated to London, but it takes place all over Britain. I really think it's a cultural thing, albeit one that finds it's most acute expression within more economically deprived areas (be it in parts of London, Manchester, Nottingham and, I'm sure, Bristol). It seems to be a shift in mindset, in which ideas of self-worth are shown almost solely by disregarding the worth of others. In its most extreme form this can be the act of stabbing someone simply because ..., at its more benign level it is playing music at levels that would inevitably antagonise one's neighbours.

Maybe we should stop thinking of kids as 'special', and start letting them know that, in the big scheme of things, actually, they aren't that special at all. I dunno, it's an argument that just goes around in circles. But definitely, until the 'Left' feel willing to look beyond mere economic causes, while the 'Right' come around to acknowledging tougher sentencing isn't the sole solution, we'll be stuck in the middle, having to cope with a problem that doesn't fit particularly comfortably with any political agenda.

New York is safer now than when I was growing up.

It's not exactly like you see kids stabbing each other in London all the time either.

No, you don't, and I'm very aware that a lot of the media has become quite hysterical about the issue, but equally I can't say that it isn't becoming a problem in turns of an increase in incidents.

I don't know, there isn't much anyone can do about this unless they either open many cans with many worms in them or go for the zero tolerance approach that ultimately can result in more sporadic violent and appalling crime.

I mean, it's alright to chat about it but ultimately the root of what happens is largely ignored in favour of what you see on the surface. You can't really resolve an issue like this, you just reduce its effects on society as much as you can.

God, you sound like an old nostalgic fool. You're obviously going through something. Sometimes these things are hormonal--have you seen a doctor?

YOU DON'T!

thank gawd they are only using knives!

i think pretty much all the problems in this country are due, to some extent or another, the appaling state of education here.

with their dicks.

nothing has changed in the mindset of today's youth. what has happened is that a neighborhood has changed, or is in the process of changing. perhaps if the youth would kindly contain the violence to the designated ghetto areas, then a grumpy old man wouldn't be confused.

See, this sort of sentiment makes me quite angry. Not a personal thing, I have no major reservations against your good self Mr & B. But. I went to a shitty comp. There was a couple of (non-fatal) stabbings, plenty of teen pregnancies, lots of under-achievers, lots of people for whom English wasn't their first language given inadequate language support (and thus failing in spite of their superior intellect), lots of people wasting their lives on weed, pills and 'higher' drugs and then people like myself who, arrogantly enough, should've done better but no-one cared about the 'gifted' kids. It hasn't affected me massively - I was going to be a cunt whatever - but I was a lot more 'socially disadvantaged' than a lot of the now smack-heads, and while I was failed by the comp system, I was failed because I was clever, and I'm still a smart-arse cunt, regardless of the education system I was in.

I don't really have a very big point except it's very easy to point the finger at education, which always strikes me as erroneous. By way of a counterpoint to the above, I ended up in quite a good college with some 'best education money can buy' sorts, at least 12 of which are now on smack and living on the streets, after their families finally cut their financial-umbilical cords sometime in their early-mid-20s.

Not enough in the south-west to constitute 'exceptional', I'm afraid. Although suicide rates continue to rise in Devon/ Cornwall, drug deaths in Somerset and both rising in south Wales. Unfortunately, unless a statistic is outside of an area's 'average', it doesn't get much press. Oh, and unless I'm much mistaken, Somerset has the highest levels of underage drinking in the whole of Europe. There is something exceptional about the gun/ knife crime increase in London/ Manchester/ other, but these are areas notorious for the same - the worrying thing, in press terms, isn't that it's happening, it's that it's happening amoungst the under-16/18s.

Ignorance is fucking ENFORCED, the arrogance of the stupidos on this board is evidence, but they don't seem to be around so much lately, maybe that psyop is over now?

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/062908.html

Not that I've noticed.

i thought this was going to be another thread about gmku.