NBC Sees London Riots as Fight Between 'Haves and Have Nots'
On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Martin Fletcher borrowed a line from Karl Marx as he explained the cause of violent riots in London: "It's a collision between two worlds here, the haves and the have-nots."
Fletcher played up the class warfare angle as he noted how in a wealthy part of the British capital, "This building, 106 New Bond Street, has just been sold for $42 million cash. And what's more, there were 22 cash bidders on the property." He then pointed out: "On an average wage, to buy a house it would take a Londoner 31 years."
Anchor Brian Williams introduced Fletcher's report by proclaiming: "...more on the anger and hopelessness that's fueling a kind of tale of two cities."
Here is a full transcript of Fletcher's August 9 report:
7:07PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: This has, of course, rocked the people of London, as you saw, and elsewhere, who want to know what it is exactly we are witnessing here. Our veteran correspondent Martin Fletcher, a London native himself, is there tonight with more on the anger and hopelessness that's fueling a kind of tale of two cities.
MARTIN FLETCHER: It's a painful week for Londoners. We saw this man being mugged tonight. They beat you up?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, they beat me up and took everything.
FLETCHER: And this YouTube video, a bleeding boy who'd been beaten. Others appear to help him, then robbed him. Everyone's asking why.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN B: There's nothing more I can take. I'm really shaken up at the moment.
FLETCHER: This is part of the answer. This building, 106 New Bond Street, has just been sold for $42 million cash. And what's more, there were 22 cash bidders on the property. It's a collision between two worlds here, the haves and the have-nots. On an average wage, to buy a house it would take a Londoner 31 years. We found four boys looking on, wise beyond their years. Why are they looting and stealing?
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Well, they...
UNIDENTIFIED BOY B: I think they just want to show the power that they have.
FLETCHER: A final thought that may say a lot about our times. In this shopping center every store had been looted but one, the book store. Martin Fletcher, NBC News, London.
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Comments
Really? I see it more " real
Submitted by Barack Must Go on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:10pm.
Really? I see it more " real " people vs scumbags.
It’s more a collision between
Submitted by Reaver on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:30pm.
It’s more a collision between the productive and the nonproductive. What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is ours.
BOTH
Submitted by KornKing on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 8:02pm.
Spot on
"WISE BEYOND THEIR YEARS"....???
Submitted by gopcongress on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:23pm.
This is incredible. "We found four boys looking on, wise beyond their years. Why are they looting and stealing?
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Well, they...
UNIDENTIFIED BOY B: I think they just want to show the power that they have.
Yes, you heard it. The Mainstream Media equates looting thugs as boys "wise beyond their years." Probably because they won't be voting Conservative / Tory, which qualifies them as wise, according to the NBC.
"The news and truth are not the same thing." -Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER
"wise beyond their years."
Submitted by ant on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:30pm.
Reminds me of Obama's inauguration.
MSM correspondent, "Obama has the highest IQ of any President we've ever had."
Anchor, "What is his IQ?"
Correspondent, "I don't know. What do you think it is?"
classic.
Probably off the charts, ant,---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 8:07pm.
if IQ = Idiot Quotient.
To be fair, though, the "idiot" has made more money than I'll ever see.
Wait, wait; that is NOT fair. :o)
MD
"He's gonna give me money..from his stash."
Submitted by ant on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 9:22pm.
The fact that he has made lots more money is telling of the IQ of too much of the electorate, I think.
boys looking on
Submitted by nanabanana on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:18pm.
Did I read it wrong? I thought it said the boys were "looking on", and they answered with 'they', not 'we'. Just askin'.
I wonder what the property tax is on a $42 M London townhouse?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:30pm.
.
Whatever it is
Submitted by Tjexcite on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:32pm.
They are not paying there fair share. /O
Between the haves and the have nots?
Submitted by Fenwick on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:51pm.
I think it's more like a fight between the working and the working nots. This is a fascinating read:
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Worldview-Makes-Underclass/dp/15666350...
Idiots don't realize that
Submitted by Rikki_Doxx on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 6:59pm.
Idiots don't realize that those "rich" people are paying their "forever on the dole" money.
Buying a home
Submitted by Joe C Camel on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:44pm.
Humm...I have a 30 year mortgage, like most Americans. Did I miss something out there? Why what is natural here in America, somehow unnatural in GB concerning the life of a mortgage? Just asking.
It would take 31 years?
Submitted by bikeromany on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:55pm.
It would take the average Londoner 31 years to buy a $42 MILLION home? That's what, $1.35 MILLION per year that the average Londoner can afford to put into housing, and that's without interest? Or does he mean just any house, and the average Londoner wouldn't have any interest in a $42 million building, any more than the average American cares how much the Empire State Building might sell for?
I'd say on that basis the average Londoner has little to complain about. The average American needs 30 year to buy homes under 1/2 million. What's so different?
Britain spent over 100 years importing poverty, and now they have this huge disparity. American only spent the last 50 or so years importing the same sort of poverty - is this what we have to look forward to?
How and why?
Submitted by Unsane on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:15pm.
Importing? No need to when you can manufacture it all on your own.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Lines
Submitted by Tjexcite on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:57pm.
I may be a clash of hoodlums but there is a deep divide within the welfare society. Of race, wealth and entitlements. The native Brits do not like the brown invaders as they are the chosen by the government and are perceived to get more handouts than the poor Brits. The African or Arab Brits along with young Brits think all white people are rich and all rich people are white. So it is time to take back what has been given to them when they do not deserve it. As they are not paying there fair share so lets take it. One quote from a lotter was "getting out taxes back" they were stealing a TV and other electronics. In the welfare state if someone has more than you, they got it by cheating and or not paying there fair share, not that they worked hard. They need to be arrested and go to jail if they are rich because they own a store. The lines get blurry when they define rich as if someone has a iphone and someone does not the one with the phone is rich and they are open to having that phone stolen. If someone has a car they are rich as others can not afford a car so they got it unfairly and it can be burned.
This may go down as nothing but a bunch of hoodlums but it may also be the start of the night of the broken glass. Not only the Jew shops where broken anyone that was rich. And there is no one more rich than one that owns a electronic store. When the time is right they may be someone to focus this class warfare because that is what "they" want all over the world.
...
Submitted by Eugenia on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 8:22pm.
It's time to re-open the Tower of London.
Marxists spread hate, ignorance and riots
Submitted by j17ghs on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 8:54pm.
I've been saying for years, that what happened in Detroit in 1967 was just a prelude to what would happen to major Western cities; in Detroit, the riots were conceived by small but well-organized groups of Marxists who spread hate and ignorance and who then demanded seats in positions of power as the "answer" to the social injustices -- all of which they contrived or caused. They then became as termites in a log cabin, slowly but surely destroying the structure from the inside.
More on the hopelessness????
Submitted by pbthinker on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 9:24pm.
These guys are coordinating on Twitter and Facebook. Poor, underpriviledged people can't do that. There was a headline, earlier in the day, about liberal policies being responsible for this. I'll second that.
Bryan Williams got his marching orders from Move On...
Submitted by Thalpy on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 9:36pm.
Bryan is a Marxist shill all dressed up. He's a sharp dressed man spewing totalitarian drivel.
Poor blind fools, the race
Submitted by Rowane on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:12pm.
Poor blind fools, the race war they've been reaching for all these years has broken out in England and they refuse to see it.
You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. (Aaron Tippin)
Why skip the book store?
Submitted by HelloDare on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:01pm.
I'm sure they had a copy of "Fugitive Days: A Memoir" by Bill Ayers.
Maybe they even had a copy of "Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism" by Bernardine Dohrn and Billy Ayers.
I wonder how many of those rioters were conservatives?
Submitted by HelloDare on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:04pm.
That's a rhetorical question.
Hastings nails it
Submitted by Unsane on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:17pm.
Great article.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Uns---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:35pm.
and a scenario that is completely interchangeable with the Watts riots in L.A. - mid sixties - the Rodney King riots, or any other of the shameful debacles in the U.S.
I have almost as much to fear from lawyers and the judicial system, post event, as I do from those who would cause me to have to defend myself, my property, or my family members.
MD
It's coming to America,soon.
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 12:07am.
It's coming to America,soon. You can thank the GOP for handing obama another victory by doing nothing. Obama wants riots here and the GOP is willing to obilge by continuing the non-stop hand out of scam entitlements to the useless losers in society. They will never have enough until they destroy everything.