Riots against lockdown in Europe

[Downriver]

The scenes of young people burning down a COVID testing facility in the Netherlands and burning the Danish PM at a stake in protest against lockdown have really shaken me. Would it happen here? Who is organising this? Fascists? Sometimes I read comments against lockdown on here and I think such a mood is being primed.

I don't know why fascists would be organising this

They like to control other people.

Fascists?? Are you serious?
Those people have every right to fight for their freedom. It’s being taken from us without so much as a shudder. Good for them and good luck to all the people that are out there protesting!!

Every time a liberal person wants to protest they are now called a fascist.

Protests are now being called 'domestic terror' things have just become scary if people actually believe either is true.

My politics are very centre. I hate extreme politics on both sides.

I think what's happening to our freedoms is terrifying

Just think, decades ago in the 2nd ww, we sent young men to their deaths to protect our freedoms. Now we're giving up our freedoms to protect the lives of, in the main, elderly people.

It's nonsensical

@feelingquitehopeful

truly That just isn't right, I am sorry to say. The lockdown sadly does not end when the infections go down and hospital admissions slow - you would think that would be the end wouldn't you? But no, SAGE are now talking about waiting until ALL the over 50s are vaccinated!! It seems to me like they intend to extend this as long as possible until the whole country is vaccinated even....so the hospital admission rate is by the by it now appears to me.

We were told we were locked down to save our hospitals. That covid would spread whatever we do, but the important thing is to ensure our hospitals can cope.

This message is slowly being replaced with something else entirely, and your mental health, your kids health, education, businesses, livelihoods, mortgages and life itself is all irrelevant

Yep we are being screwed over But why?

But no, SAGE are now talking about waiting until ALL the over 50s are vaccinated!! It seems to me like they intend to extend this as long as possible until the whole country is vaccinated even....so the hospital admission rate is by the by it now appears to me

and then we can really relax a little and get back to normal, buy breathing space and start to live a little again? Or you want stop start - enabling more mutations etc.

@furonthecoat

But it is the fact it is young people that interests me. It is not those under massive stress of wfh and homeschooling etc. I just want to know the demographic, the motives, whether the Q people have got into their heads.

OP your narrative of this is exactly why young people are rioting. You think we're not under stress and should just put up and shut up and that you have it the hardest of all

Young people are being locked away for what we're always told is 'the best years of our lives'
We're the majority of people employed in industries that have been massively affected and shut down by COVID (bars
We've been largely ignored by the government except when they want to vilify and blame us
Uni students are paying the same amount for massively reduced teaching, restricted access to resources and no 'uni experience' (clubs, societies, ect) that we were promised
Students are paying massive amounts of rent for accomodation they can't use with not even a mention of rebates by the government
Young people are aware that we're the ones who are going to pay for this in the long run whilst simultaneously seeing our futures decimated as there are no jobs
We're being locked away to protect an NHS that realistically many of us think won't be there by the time we'll really need its services
We're staying home to (mostly) protect the elderly whom are comfortable in their big houses with their pensions whilst we have no hopes of ever getting on the housing ladder and will never realistically get a pension.

Young people feel like we're giving up tons of things for other people. And then when we dare complain about what we've had to give up were told by people like you that we have it so easy with not having to home school and to put up and shut up - essentially diminishing our struggles.

We've all been asked to sacrifice during this time. But not everyone's sacrifices are as great as others. And for many the sacrifices is not proportional to the gain.

This absolutely It really grates that students were lied to. My dniece decided to defer her place until October 2021 because I told her that there definitely wouldn’t be much face to face teaching and that she wouldn’t get the university experience. Fortunately for her, she managed to get a job and is saving up for university . I am absolutely furious at the way young people have been shafted and predict that in the next two months we will see scenes similar to those in The Netherlands

@Downriver

I think it is whipped up by the US influenced far right who hate the state and want to produce chaos in uncertain times

Replace the word 'right' with 'left' and your statement becomes true

I don't know why fascists would be organising this

They like to control other people.

^^ and the far left dont?

What about the younger people currently in hospitals with COVID? Hasn’t there been a marked increase in the 30-50 age bracket being hospitalised? Do they warrant treatment? Should we not be trying to protect them?

@Justthebeerlighttoguide

Sorry but its just as likely to the far left - I find it strange people don't accept this

They pretend to be 'confused' and stir up muck in the meantime

@LunaHeather

Dodo "I've just come off a call to a friend of mine in the Netherlands, and she's afraid to leave her house right now"

So it's countrywide? And if you don't mind me asking, is she in a residential area?

I have been hiding from news so I didn't realise the Portland/Seattle lot had started again.

I'm afraid I don't know where she lives (she's a business colleague with whom I talk quite regularly), and therefore I don't know whether her fears are justified; merely that she has two small children and that she's (obviously) concerned for their safety.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55796126

@feelingquitehopeful

The lockdown sadly does not end when the infections go down and hospital admissions slow - you would think that would be the end wouldn't you

As you say, the situation changes and moves quickly - and the goverment tries to adapt. That's why I think it will be very difficult for them to justify the same strict measures if the situation improves markedly (that's how I read it, anyway)

I’m assuming COVID will change/accelerate changes in the way we live. University life is not the be all and end all. Some professions, which used to require degrees, are now favouring apprenticeships eg accountancy. Yes living on campus can be great, I went to university, but campus life should be not something that the Government/taxpayers should be funding

It is normal people in the middle - not left or right. Both extreme left eg under communism in the Easter bloc took away many rights and freedoms and indeed north Korea and China are leading examples and the far right in Germany in the 1940s removed rights.

Having rights is a centrist position and something a lot of Tory and Labour voters want to retain - it is moderates who do not want these changes. I have been against them since March although I do follow the law.

I’m starting to wonder about the cost benefit ratio now. I just don’t care anymore when they wheel out another tearful ICU nurse. My kids have had 2 terms of school in a year. My youngest is struggling with his MH and has considered self harming. I can’t get on the train and see my vulnerable and lonely brother , etc etc. I also think we need a wider discussion about obesity and how or very high rates have undoubtedly contributed to our horrific death rates.

@whataboutbob

I’m starting to wonder about the cost benefit ratio now. I just don’t care anymore when they wheel out another tearful ICU nurse. My kids have had 2 terms of school in a year. My youngest is struggling with his MH and has considered self harming. I can’t get on the train and see my vulnerable and lonely brother , etc etc. I also think we need a wider discussion about obesity and how or very high rates have undoubtedly contributed to our horrific death rates.

Yep. I'm entirely unbothered by crying icu nurses at this point. Death was around long before covid

@Xenia

There's nothing 'normal' or 'moderate' about 'burning the Danish PM at a stake' (in the words of the OP)

My politics are very centre. I hate extreme politics on both sides.

I think what's happening to our freedoms is terrifying

This is me, 100%

Trying to pigeonhole it as ‘just the far left’ or whatever is really shortsighted and blinkered.

Many ordinary people have living with extraordinary impositions for too long and have had enough.

Centrists and the far left are not attacking hospitals and medical tests centres. Libertarians aren’t attacking hospitals and test centres. Yes, there are far left Covid denying conspiracists and libertarians who would let a lot more people die in the name of freedom. Those groupings do not attack hospitals and test centres. That’s the far right.

But no, SAGE are now talking about waiting until ALL the over 50s are vaccinated

They are going to wait a long time as I am over 50 and I am not having the vaccination. Not because I am an anti vaxer but more to do with the effects vaccinations have on me.
I have already had Covid and don’t want to get ill again.

Just like labelling anything you don't like as "The Left"...

Far right and fascism was offered as an explanation in the very first post, that is why others are suggesting that it could as equally be far left involvement as it fits their remit. Posters who see the pattern of their actions, are responding to that assertion not necessarily labelling these protests as far left.

When stuff starts being burned down etc. it's usually just the "disenfranchised" scum acting out as they're bored. The devil makes work for idle hands as my grandmother used to say! Of course it could happen in the UK, remember the London riots a few years ago?

Its not about left or right, old or young, or Marxism or fascism.

Brits are no more happy, or unhappy to follow blindly the rules. They are quietly going about making individual assumptions and assessments, breaking rules, or sticking to those rules according to their individual needs or opinions.

We are moaning, just as we always do, Covid is now a little like the weather.

Civil disobedience occurs out of collective action. We are one of the worlds oldest, most advanced and most docile capitalist States. We have the most neoliberal of ideologies, and state control is not actively imposed violently, but imposed through the neoliberal self identity of individualism and competition. We are truly docile.

For those thinking Marxists are chomping at a the bit to create civil unrest.....haha. All that stands between you and your civil liberties now is the state sanctioned fascism of far left dogs like Farage. He might appear to stand up for your freedom, but the reason the state allows and stirs up far right sentiment is because its main purpose is to reinforce the power of the state.......over you. Marxists are generally not well tolerated by the fascist state!

Right now the only collective rational response is coming from the government. You show me a collective rational response arising from the people and I'll listen. Protecting life first, the rest we can work out later.

Rioting in a pandemic is the ultimate stupidity. When we have protected life we can start to look at reshaping society. Its the ultimate selfishness, and vile individual entitlement to go rioting just because you can't live and consume as you did pre-pandemic. That life (toxic as it was) that you so desperately want to return to, trust me you'll be returning to it because it suits Bojo and chums to have us return to it. So, why riot? I'm not. But civil unrest has been bubbling since the first G20. And there is a time and place for the sort of collective action to reshape society, that's not now.

There are a lot of pissed off people at the moment