SCUM

Got this overnight from London (I'm still on their email group list)

Dear All,

For once, a serious message: We have received a warning at the London
Ambulance Service and have been asked to pass on the information to all
our families and friends.

The LAS have units closely associated with the Police 'D.A.R.E.' squads
based in South London who are basically fighting Gang Crimes.

The 'street gangs' in London (particularly South London at present, but
it is sure to spread) have initiation tasks which new gang members have
to carry out to be admitted to the 'gang'. The latest craze is to drive
around, deliberately with no lights on their cars. The first person who
'flashes' them, points at them or sounds their horn at them, has to be
followed by that new gang member in their car, who then has to fire a
shot into that vehicle !!! with no regard as to who is inside.

Our official instruction is that if we see a vehicle with no lights on,
we are NOT to 'flash' it etc. and the advice to friends and family is
that you should ignore any vehicles you see without lights.

I would ask that you pass this info on to all your family, friends and
colleagues by phone or e-mail, and who knows, it may save a life!

Its a lovely world we live in, isn't it.

Then we have the now infamous www.chavscum.co.uk website which higlights and lampoons "Britains burgeoning peasant underclass".

But this is by no means a purely British phenomenon.

You can see the same bored youths hanging around in any European city looking to cause trouble because they can't think of anything else to do.

And at the same time we have the probably the ultimate display of "peasant underclass" going on in Iraq where it seems clear to me a group of bored, under-educated trailer-trash who had been left in charge of a prison decided to have some "fun" (and then, in the ultimate display of stupidity, photograph themselves at the same time).

Now I'm not pretending this is a modern social problem only. I'm sure that these sort of people have always existed - but growing prosperity means their influence is spreading, and their power is growing. The "dumbing-down" of mass media to the lowest common denominator seems to merely make the problem worse. In it's early days TV was seen as a great way to educate people and inform them about the world - it was going to be a force for good, a way to raise everyones awareness and knowledge. Now it seems merely to be a way to provide people with mindless entertainment and un-funny sit-coms - candy-floss for the brain - in a desperate effort to keep them off the streets.

I'm not sure what the solution is (either compulsory education or compulsory sterilisation should feature though, and in some cases both), or why I bothered to put this up seeing as no doubt I will get abuse from bleeding-heart liberals bleating about lack of opportunities for the poor etc, but I just wanted to highlight the issue.

P.S. - for those who also bleat on about universal suffrage and democracy I would like to point out these people are able to vote - do you really want your government to be chosen by these people?