Paedophobic Britain Getting Worse.

A survey commissioned by children's charity Barnardo's has suggested that more than half the population believe UK children are "feral" and behave like animals.

Some 54% of the adults questioned thought that British children behaved like "animals".
More than a third of those surveyed also agreed that the streets were "infested" with children..

On internet messageboards and comments

Staff found messages where children were described as "feral" and some suggestions teenagers should be "shot".

Barnardo's points out that

The British blame children for "up to half of all crime" when in fact they are only responsible for 12% of criminal activity.

Barnardo's campaign to reclaim childhood from those trying to destroy it for money is spearheaded by this powerful film. It says it all.

THE HUNTING

'Breaking the Cycle' PDF

Why should Britian should be like this? Most other european countries adore their children and their childishness. We seem to see childhood as an incovenience. A messy, noisy, squabble until they can earn their own keep and are out the door. We have 'child-free' restaurants, curfews and Baby P. We demand more freedom and safety for our cars than we do for our kids, and allow them far more room to express themselves, including their more homicidal tendencies.
The Daily Scum will howl in agony at a fee of £5 to drive a Porsche into central London but sees nothing wrong with a single mother having to pay twice that to get her child into a creche so that she can work part time in a school just down the road.
It's a total disgrace, and apparently getting worse, and the international court of opinion is watching.

171 Bus Boy

Sleeping it off on the back seat of the 171 - hopefully. Who was to know whether this was just a casualty of too much good times, or something else? And what response would an offer of help or concern get? According to the general wisdom, anyone can be an enemy. And young people carry knives. So don't get involved. If someone wants to die on the back seat of a bus, what business is it of ours?
So the entire bus from Peckham to Catford simply turned away and hoped for the best.
Assuming again that this was innocent enough, and ignoring any larger condemnations of society for the time being, the more mundane fact is that this spectacle is only possible on the unsocial, greasy ghetto of the top deck of one of Batty Boris Johnson's beloved routemasters.
Downstairs, or on a Bendy Bus, instant peer pressure, facial contact and a diverse passenger list creates a far more social environment, and people tend not to disgrace themselves.
Shame Boris can't learn the same lesson somewhere.

Poor Chav. Hate-Word Vandalism

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One meaning of the word 'chav', as now used, is as a derogatory label for a superficial person addicted to clothes with designer labels. A way to slag someone off. A superficial label in its own right which says more about the user than the person they are slagging off. By their own definition, people who use chav in its new, malicious sense, are therefore a bit of a 'chav' themselves - not to mention being a monumental slag.
Originally a gypsy word for child or youth, chav was commonly used as a term of endearment and greeting among the working classes. As a synonym for 'mate', as in a dozen regional dialect equivalents. 'Butt' and 'wuss' and 'man', for instance. It is there in the Only Fools and Horses dvd box set - from Boycie, if I remember, and it must be somewhere in the collected scripts of Galton & Simpson, and Croft & Perry. It was a real, helpful, social word, available to all to ease the flow of conversation and make a working relationship easier to maintain. And now it has been kidnapped, subjected to a garish media makeover, and turned into an insult. Now it is a slur whose only purpose is to generate the emotions of hate and contempt. All it can ever do is cause trouble - and for what? Why do we need to sacrifice a perfectly innocent, useful word to make way for this term of abuse? It's an act of vandalism far worse than anything any chav would spraypaint on a concrete wall in Walthamstow. Why does New Grub Street need it?
'Chav' also means a person with a blinkered or ignorant frame of mind, susceptible to loud aggressive behaviour in public, and a generally instinctive, hedonistic lifestyle. (Again like the Daily Mail and The Sun) But in fact it is now a term so wide as to be meaningless, other than in terms of its one true reference point, social class. However the Hackocracy likes to spin it, chavs are the working classes on their day out. On Epsom Downs in their funny hats, singing their raucous rude songs about winkles and puddings and beer. The same sneers can be heard in every Servant - Master gag in human history. They are a reflex defence mechanism of a middle class under threat from below. In this case from a working class with more spending power than ever and the historic new ability of co-ordination and communication. It is therefore more necessary than ever to control the language as well as to convey the message that the lower orders are simply not capable of dealing with money or success or fame - that they are simply too vulgar. As the Daily Mail calls the Beckhams: "The celebrities that taste forgot." As if The Mail was an arbiter of taste. 
Farcically enough, by calling them 'chavs' the Mail is patronising the working class with a word which does in fact mean 'child'. But that is no excuse for giving hate such a word to use. In this case, one which enables the user to feel innately superior to a vast sector of humanity, and also to feel horror at the prospect of any possible bond or common purpose with these 'Yahoos' - another example of a universal term of alienation. A word which reinforces the notion of inequality; that some people are simply more human than others, and therefore more deserving of the good things of life. And some people are just animals who deserve to be herded and bred and driven and eventually culled like cattle .

From being the first word a baby heard, 'chav' is now a hate word. Another way of dividing people from each other rather than bringing them closer together. That is a little linguistic tragedy, but as part of the greater ruthless swindle of Consumerism, it is as much a babykiller as the girl who oils the spring that turns the thing that winds the nob, that makes the thingumybob - that's going to win the war!
Poor old chavvy is just another victim of this need. Another Rose Cottage in the path of the motorway. It's a shame the Fabian Society still seems to think it can have the motorway and the cottage. That it can eradicate the symptoms of class conflict without removing the causes. But what else can you expect from people in straw hats who travel by punt? Why can't they just say what they mean? People who use chav as an insult are just slags.
Already, entire towns are being labelled Chav Towns. The hunger of the media for stereotypes is insatiable.
And now the hate sites have started up, inciting violence against these new sub-humans.
One particularly raving lunatic claims of Stourbridge:

But beware, anyone not drinking Stella will be immediately glassed by some footballer’s jumper wearing try-hard and then kicked around the floor via his Rockport’s for being ‘a gayer’.

Immediately.
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3/11/08 John Prescott on Class

Kids Again

kids that do no wrong george nelson - 49th post - 26 Nov 2004 14:34
It would seem the little darlings of Bournemouth have been playing children’s games.
I think it’s called terrorise someone who is defenceless 40 year 10 girls attacking 1 year 11 girl threatening to kill her oh the share bravery of them.
Oh well I suppose it is only to be expected now that there are no restraints on kids.
You better not punish them though else you will end up in court for trying to keep your kid on the straight and narrow road.
Just remember not to scream at them too loud else you might hurt their little feelings oh dear what shall we do?
The funny thing is it’s never your child it’s always someone else’s until the knock on the door comes. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: kids that do no wrong Rosie T - 802nd post - 12 Dec 2004 15:36
I too was bewildered by this. I live in Holland and I give both lines and detentions. Admittedly, this policy is not approved of by the specialists and school psychologists, who insist that understanding and talking and positive feedback are the only way to deal with bad behaviour.
Biggest problem though is parents. They often write me indignant letters that are twice as long as the lines I gave their child, Lol! [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: kids that do no wrong Little Richardjohn - 434th post - 13 Dec 2004 18:52
So what sort of provision is made by the Dutch state for the street needs of teenagers?
As you probably know, in Britain, we spend almost nothing on keeping pre-adults off the streets. That is their natural habitat before they are old enough to drink. And then they are drunk all the time.
We kick our kids into the streets with the pimps and dealers then expect them to behave like angels.
How much control do you think Dutch parents really have over their kids?
I've noticed that once kids are bigger than their parents (which is happening earlier these days) there is no holding them. I was certainly like that as a teenager, and I had an almost idyllic childhood.
So what do we do? Lock them indoors - UNINVENT TV? Because let's face it, Rupert Murdoch and the other media Gorgons have much more control over children's attitudes than even my parents ever did over me. And that was some time ago now.
Punishment is not the answer. Investment is.


re: kids that do no wrong Rosie T - 814th post - 14 Dec 2004 14:32
Provisions for kids here depends on where you live: plenty of provisions in the areas where there is a lot of crime and vandalism, but very little in other areas.
Personally I think there's nothing wrong in kids hanging around the streets; we did it all the time, and had great fun. Only difference is that we didn't break the law, vandalize or go too far with our mischief, because we were too scared of our parents finding out. Why were we so scared? I was never beaten, it was simply that I was scared of them, they were figures of authority and would give me such a telling off if I misbehaved that it influenced my behaviour. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: kids that do no wrong Little Richardjohn - 440th post - 15 Dec 2004 12:57
But you're talking about a time before the streets were as full of extremely valuable items of private property (cars) than they are now.
And the streets of somewhere like London were, until about 1978, full of areas of 'waste' ground, derelict land mainly left over from the war and undeveloped because of the economic climate.
Other places had similarly flexible environments.
Kids were able to crate a territorial identity from such places. The whole British adventure playground movement grew out of them.
Then property values increased and they all got built on. From about then, the streets have become a disputed territory between kids trying to socialize and adults trying to protect their property. It's a fatal recipe. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: kids that do no wrong Rosie T - 828th post - 15 Dec 2004 13:08
That is a very pertinent argument, Richard! Our village is being re-vamped at the moment and a "hanging-around" place for teenagers has been included in the plans. It is in a wooded area behind my house (!) and is to be on a hillock, so the police can keep an eye on it. But I don't think I'd have found this very attractive at their age! You are absolutely right, they do need territory and not more structured "constructive" activity centres where they can be policed by adults.

re: kids that do no wrong Little Richardjohn - 444th post - 15 Dec 2004 13:42
Gratis.
Having had the childhood I did, I weep for kids nowadays.
They are like caged animals.
A canny business operator should seize the gap in the market for a range of 'Kiddispoons' after-school teenypubs. Membership-only, adult supervised, democratically-run, alcohol-free hang-outs where kids between oo.. twelve and 18? could go to pretend to be grown up AND have fun and even do their homework... Think of the joy of not having them under your feet ALL the time and knowing that they were OK. You could even have a webcast on an intranet system to all members' families so that they could be sure of their safety.. and on and on and on.
We simply don't make any INVESTMENT in kids. They are simply future units of production, it seems.


re: kids that do no wrong Rosie T - 835th post - 15 Dec 2004 14:22

"Having had the childhood I did, I weep for kids nowadays.
They are like caged animals"

Me too, Richard. I sometimes tell my enthralled pupils some of the stuff we used to get up to as kids, and the incredulity and envy on their faces is pathetic. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: kids that do no wrong Little Richardjohn - 451st post - 15 Dec 2004 15:04
So what sort of generation are we (and Rupert Murdoch and other comparable pornographers) creating?

re: kids that do no wrong Rosie T - 839th post - 15 Dec 2004 15:13
I suppose we are simply postponing puberty: they get it "out of their system" at a later stage, when they are students or working and living out of the home. Unfortunately this results in binge drinking, reckless driving, etc. At that age most of us were married or had our noses to the grindstone.:)

re: kids that do no wrong Little Richardjohn - 452nd post - 15 Dec 2004 15:41
It seems that the play deprivation of the Thatcher's children, for instance, has produced a race of people with only two states of consciousness:
Mindless work and wrecked out of their brains.
With maybe just a touch of Big Brother for a hangover cure.
That's life for these poor creatures.