From Suzie at Echnidne of the Snakes. Reposted without further comment, to elicit thought and conversation.

Riots & gender

Large-scale violence rarely triggers a public discussion of gender, even though men and boys are the majority of perpetrators. Consider last week’s mayhem in Britain: Although some women participated, most of those involved have been young men from poor areas, the Guardian reported.

The civil liberties of male suspects are being discussed, and for good reason — some sentences sound absurd. But what about the rights of women who wanted to go about their business, without ending up in a mob of angry men? The threat of male violence restricts the lives of women, but people have become so accustomed to it that it often goes unquestioned.

Concepts of masculinity play a large role. A man may get respect through violence, or with the right consumer goods. After all, marketing tells us how men should look and what stuff they need. But it does the same for women, and we’re not nearly as likely to break a store window to get what we want or to gain respect. . . .

A 15-year-old boy has been charged with raping a 13-year-old girl in Woolwich. But the Guardian points out that it happened after the riots there, not during, as had been first reported. Now we are free to ignore it, just like most rapes, which get no political analysis.

Next time a girl or woman gets raped, why don’t women take to the streets and smash any business that caters to men? Oh, never mind, men would strike back harder, just like British authorities are upping the sentences for the rioters.

Most conservatives consider those who stole and/or destroyed property as criminals. In response, Naomi Klein writes about the riots as political. When people in politics and business loot their own countries and others, Klein says, you can expect those hit hardest to hit back. She calls this physics, but it appears to be a physics of men, since the highest authorities are predominantly men. How do we change society so that men aren’t hurting us from above and below?

. . . Unlike gender, there has been much discussion of race and ethnicity in regard to the riots. The Guardian reported that people of all races and ethnicities participated, while some white conservatives are blaming blacks and/or Muslims. There needs to be an examination of culture as it intersects with gender. For example, will street crime lead to greater restrictions for some women?

Why is it so easy to see class, race and ethnicity but not gender?

— Suzie, Riots and Gender, at Echidne of the Snakes

From Richard Bejtlich, TaoSecurity (2011-04-12):

Bill Sweetman wrote a good article on the new Air Force bomber program titled USAF Bomber Gets Tight Numbers. I found the following paragraph interesting:

One factor will drive up the cost of the bomber's R&D: its status as a SAP [Special Access Program]. SAP status — whether the program is an acknowledged SAP, as the bomber is likely to be, or completely black — incurs large costs. All personnel have to be vetted before they are read into the program. Information within the program is compartmentalized, reducing efficiency. SAP status has been estimated to add 20% to a program's cost.

Security for SAP isn’t cheap! Sweetman elaborates:

The most likely reason for this measure is the sensitivity of ELO [extreme low-observable] technology, combined with the fact that the U.S. is the target of what may be the most extensive and successful espionage program in history — China's Advanced Persistent Threat.

. . . That means, for this program alone, the APT costs the US taxpayer $8 billion.

Well, no. Taxes cost the U.S. taxpayer $8,000,000,000. And those taxes are collected by the IRS, on behalf of the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force.

The reason that these guys keep extorting billions of dollars from innocent taxpayers is because they insist on building ultra-secret, ultra-high-tech robot bomber death machines, which serve no conceivable defensive purpose^[1] but are extensively fitted out for dropping high explosives or thermonuclear weapons on cities full of innocent men, women and children, and to rain devastation on any country in the world without the least threat of retaliation. There is an easy, no-cost way for the Air Force to stop costing the U.S. taxpayer billions of dollars to cope with electronic spying and APT: they can stop building new high-tech bombers. If you don’t have ultra-high tech robot bomber death machines to build, then you don’t have something valuable for the Chinese government, or anyone else, to try to find, and you don’t have to expropriate funds to keep secrets when there is no secret to keep.

You might think that a problem with this plan is that it would impair the United States government’s ability to carry on multiple air and ground wars world-wide. Well, maybe it would. If so, then I think that’s a problem for the United States government, but not a problem for the plan — in fact it would be one of its best features.

1. ^[1]At least, if defense is intended to mean defending actual people, rather than the global power of U.S. politicians, or vital national security interests.↩

The guest posting at Bleeding Heart Libertarians continues apace; my latest is a reply to an earlier BHL post on neoliberal free trade agreements, which gets into (among other things) politically-lubricated capitalism, grassroots organizing, intellectual protectionism, and KORUS FTA. Here: I’m Against Free Trade Agreements Because I’m For Free Trade.

From England, via CNN:

(CNN) — British Prime Minister David Cameron thinks he’s found some culprits to blame in the recent riots that have rocked London and other cities — Facebook and Twitter.

Saying the “free flow of information” can sometimes be a problem, Cameron’s government has summoned those two social-networking sites, as well as Research In Motion, makers of the BlackBerry, for a meeting to discuss their roles during the violent outbreaks.

Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organized via social media, Cameron said Thursday during an address to Parliament. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them.

Cameron said that government officials are working with authorities to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

. . . Cameron, a Conservative, seems to have support for a potential crackdown, even from members of the opposition Labor Party.

Free speech is central to our democracy, but so is public safety and security, said Ivan Lewis, the shadow secretary of culture in the House of Commons, according to London’s Guardian newspaper. We support the government’s decision to undertake a review of whether measures are necessary to prevent the abuse of social media by those who organize and participate in criminal activities.

— Doug Gross, CNN (2011-08-11): In wake of riots, British PM proposes social media ban

I’m sure it’s true that the free flow of information sometimes can be a problem for the project of social control that Mr. David Cameron and his organization represent.

But here’s the thing. If the free flow of information is a problem for your project or organization, the problem you have is a problem is with your project or organization — not a problem with the free flow of information.

If public safety and security is so bloody important, well, then the Metropolitan Police and the British government have obviously proven incapable of providing it. And now they have nothing to suggest but (1) scapegoating service providers and the basic facts of sociality for their manifest failure; and (2) doubling down on exactly the sort of violence, institutional opacity, and coercive control that sparked the protest and the riots to begin with. I suggest that, after all this, we need to look at whether it would be right to shut Mr. Cameron’s organization down.

I’m guest blogging for the next few days at Bleeding Heart Libertarians. (Many thanks are due to Matt Zwolinski, for the generous invitation, and for his patience as my schedule shifted and re-shifted around our recent move.)

My first post, Libertarian Anticapitalism is about the concept of capitalism (and advertising in Times Square); it’s now up.

My next post, I’m Against Free Trade Agreements Because I’m For Free Trade, will be about neoliberalism, grassroots organizing, intellectual protectionism, and KORUS FTA. Should be forthcoming soon!