The story of Mark Duggan is being lost.
It started as a vigil for Mark Duggan, a man shot, perhaps in cold blood by the Police. It was a peaceful prayer led vigil. Anger behind the secrecy justifiably turned to protest, that escalated to a riot in Tottenham, a borough of intense contrast between the haves of the nearby City and the have nots.
What has followed has been nothing more than copy-cat looting. It is indeed mindless violence. Few out smashing and burning will have heard of Mark Duggan. At best they are not fighting a "class war", at worse they are doing everything to undermine any gains made the poor in the UK.
It is not sticking it to the man to burn poor people out of their own home.
It is not sticking it to the man to kill businesses in unemployment blackspots of London.
It is not sticking it to the man for riotous thugs to storm Birmingham for gay bashing.
It most certainly does not help the family of Mark Duggan. It does not help deal with police racism or police intolerance and in fact it drives people right back to full unquestioning support of the police. It does not help the children being drawn into this who now face being charged with aggravated burglary. These children and angry adolescents are also victims in this. Being led in to criminality is not an excuse for criminality.
If the rioters wanted to effect revolution or social change, they were 5 minutes away from the home of the World's banking systems and 10 minutes away from the "Mother of Parliaments".
So who do these riots help? Everyone from the authoritarian right to the the hard right racists who will exploit this in every way they can. It sickens me to watch the BBC encourage this.
The police could have easily stopped these riots getting out of hand. They were able to effectively shut down protests in Central London and at the G20. Even the authoritarian US were not able to do that. With cuts to police budgets it doesn't serve their purpose now to do so. So they hang back, play dumb and lazy. Now you will have the public calling for tougher laws to deal with this "problem". Because the police never get it wrong.