Fathers 'must fight gang culture'

Started by neonsamurai, Feb 16, 2007, 02:53 AM

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neonsamurai

BBC

Quote
Fathers 'must fight gang culture'   

A task force has been set up after the deaths of three teenagers
Tory leader David Cameron has called for more powers to "compel" fathers to look after their children in an effort to tackle gang culture. He told the BBC he backed tax breaks to help families stay together and promoting a "culture of responsibility and respecting authority".

Mr Cameron's comments follow the shootings of three London teenagers in less than a fortnight.

The Tory leader called for a "complete change in our values".

'More than laws'

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I believe in marriage. I believe in people making a commitment to each other and staying together and trying to bring up their children properly."

Children were often attracted to gangs if they lacked a father figure, he said.

Mr Cameron said: "It's not just about passing a law or getting a bit more money.

"We have got to sit up and realise we are running things by the wrong values. We need to support families."

The Child Support Agency was "meant" to collect money from fathers to pay for raising their children, but men in other European countries faced "tougher rules and had to stand by" their families.

Mr Cameron said: "Part of it is social pressure."


A Unicef report published this week put UK children at the bottom of a well-being league table of 21 industrialised countries.

Mr Cameron will later tell a youth organisation in Oxfordshire that this means society is in "deep trouble".

Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan will reinforce that theme in a speech in London, where he will claim Britain is becoming "de-civilised", with parents and teachers unable to exert authority over young people.

After this month's third fatal shooting in south London, armed police officers are to patrol the streets as part of a new task force announced by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

Billy Cox, 15, was found dead by his 12-year-old sister at their home near Clapham North underground station on Wednesday.

Michael Dosunmu, aged 15, was shot dead in the bedroom of his Peckham home on 6 February. A man has been arrested in connection with the killing.

Three days earlier, 16-year-old James Andre Smartt-Ford died after he was shot at Streatham Ice Arena.

The new task force will run alongside Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime in the black community.

But Mr Cameron will say issues like teenage gun crime cannot be dealt with by better policing or tighter gun controls alone when the problem - and the solution - lies within families and communities.

"We urgently need to encourage a culture of intervention. In a healthy society, children are the responsibility not just of their parents, but of the whole community," he will say.

"I'm not talking about taking on a gang of dangerous thugs. I'm talking about treating children and teenagers with respect - with the expectation that, if they are spoken to as reasonable people, they will respond as reasonable people."

Meanwhile, the Black and Minority Ethnic Education Conference will discuss gun crime when it meets in east London on Friday.

Conference organiser Dr Larry Jones said young people needed to be taught how to better communicate their emotions, to help stop them using guns.

"What is the most likely cause of uncontrollable emotional outburst? Insecurity. Wrong company. Choice of music and entertainment. Depression. Drug addict," he said.

"These are the things that lead to this kind of problem.

"Our main message to them will be - you can be who you want to be, understand yourself. Don't allow yourself to be conned into believing that carrying weapons, using weapons will be the best way forward."


At least it's not Blair saying it, I suppose. But I do like the way that absent fathers are now being held responsible for gang culture, rather than all the mechanisms in place to help create single parent families.
Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies: "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!"

Mr. Bad

I've said this before but it bears repeating:  While feminists have been monopolizing the conversation for the last 35 years, obsessing over trivial issues for girls like body image, etc., boys have been ignored and allowed to falter.  What is more important and urgent:  An insecure girl worried about being fat or not popular enough, or a disenfranchised boy who is assembling a bomb, getting a gun ready, etc., to go out and maim and kill people?  The answer is obvious, at least for sane people.

We need to drastically shift our focus away from trivial issues that girls might have to urgent issues related to the ongoing disenfranchisement of boys in our societies.  Literally, our safety and future depend on it.
"Men in teams... got the human species from caves to palaces. When we watch men's teams at work, we pay homage to 10,000 years of male achievements; a record of vision, ingenuity and Herculean labor that feminism has been too mean-spirited to acknowledge."  Camille Paglia

poiuyt

A culture of violence that begins with feckless fathers and family breakdown

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1392500.ece

Quote
...The killing of three teenagers within ten days comes after well-publicised warnings for at least two years by police and social workers that easy access to guns, grinding poverty, the grip of drugs on some drab estates, unemployment, the growth of gangs and an embedded culture of criminality were creating a chronic, violent underclass.

...The causes accelerating this downward spiral are as clear as they are controversial. At heart is the breakdown, or often complete absence, of family structure, especially within the black community. Much work has been done, often by black sociologists who have risked the opprobrium of community "activists", on the disastrous absence of fathers, who do not know, care about or pay for their children and who leave young black males without any role models, at home or at school, to instil values or a sense of self-worth.

...It is a question of changing a culture, with zero tolerance of even petty crime, confiscation of criminal assets, curfews, and above all holding to account feckless parents and criminal role models. Only then can police hope to prevent the brutal murder of boys in their beds.


Everyday events and official reactions show just how extensive is the grip of bigottry in our society. A mass social-psychosis under which a multitude of male lives are deliberately destroyed but over which many others including males are dubiously enriched.

In the above article alone you see an attempt being made by journalists and bureaucrats to associate violent criminality to fatherlesness in boys. But with no attempt being made to connect fatherlessness in boys to rampant misandry.

Today many an elite man in this society has grown rich and fat, judicially depriving young boys of their fathers. Not disimilar to the other men who have also grown rich and fat, politically, bureaucratically and editorially mislocating the violent criminality of sons to the wilfull absence of their fathers. That is, instead of to societies' rampant misandry from which they originally grew rich and fat !.


Mr. Bad


A culture of violence that begins with feckless fathers and family breakdown

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1392500.ece

Quote
...The killing of three teenagers within ten days comes after well-publicised warnings for at least two years by police and social workers that easy access to guns, grinding poverty, the grip of drugs on some drab estates, unemployment, the growth of gangs and an embedded culture of criminality were creating a chronic, violent underclass.

...The causes accelerating this downward spiral are as clear as they are controversial. At heart is the breakdown, or often complete absence, of family structure, especially within the black community. Much work has been done, often by black sociologists who have risked the opprobrium of community "activists", on the disastrous absence of fathers, who do not know, care about or pay for their children and who leave young black males without any role models, at home or at school, to instil values or a sense of self-worth.

...It is a question of changing a culture, with zero tolerance of even petty crime, confiscation of criminal assets, curfews, and above all holding to account feckless parents and criminal role models. Only then can police hope to prevent the brutal murder of boys in their beds.


Everyday events and official reactions show just how extensive is the grip of bigottry in our society. A mass social-psychosis under which a multitude of male lives are deliberately destroyed but over which many others including males are dubiously enriched.

In the above article alone you see an attempt being made by journalists and bureaucrats to associate violent criminality to fatherlesness in boys. But with no attempt being made to connect fatherlessness in boys to rampant misandry.

Today many an elite man in this society has grown rich and fat, judicially depriving young boys of their fathers. Not disimilar to the other men who have also grown rich and fat, politically, bureaucratically and editorially mislocating the violent criminality of sons to the wilfull absence of their fathers. That is, instead of to societies' rampant misandry from which they originally grew rich and fat !.


Let's cut to chase here:  It isn't fathers raising the kids in fatherless families, it's mothers.  The reason that the elite beaurocrats and other players don't connect the dots is because it would be political suicide to point out that the problem is that  mothers are failing miserably at raising kids to become productive members of society, especially boys but increasingly girls now too.

Men may be the face of power in our societies, but it is women who have the real power and therefore run the show via their proportionally-greater participation in elections and politics in general.  Women have been able to do this because up until recently they were able to opt-out of working and have men support them while they did volunteer work for their chosen causes and candidates.  No more.  Now that women are compelled to participate in the workforce while men are being shunted aside to make room for them, I see an oppontunity.  We need to harness the energy of unemployed and under-employed men in positive ways, which to me means organizing groups to plan and attend rallies and demonstrations, work for campaigns of (male or female) political candidates that support our views, organize and implement 'get out the vote' efforts for men, etc. 

Women gained power because men were too busy supporting them by working; now that they no longer have the time and there are more and more umemployed and under-employed men, I see that tables turning.  All we need to do now if figure out how to get men to get up off their butts and do something positive for the cause.
"Men in teams... got the human species from caves to palaces. When we watch men's teams at work, we pay homage to 10,000 years of male achievements; a record of vision, ingenuity and Herculean labor that feminism has been too mean-spirited to acknowledge."  Camille Paglia

alien

#4
Feb 17, 2007, 09:49 PM Last Edit: Feb 17, 2007, 09:50 PM by alien

Cameron blames fathers for 'broken' society

By George Jones, Political Editor
Last Updated: 12:17am GMT 18/02/2007

Fathers should be compelled to look after their children in an effort to tackle the breakdown of family life and discipline in society David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said today.

He said the shooting of three teenage boys in south London in the last fortnight had shown that British society was "badly broken".
   
David Cameron blames fathers for our 'broken' society
Cameron favours families over the economy

"That's what our society's now come to - teenagers shooting other teenagers in their homes at point blank range. It is deeply depressing," he told GMTV.

The Tory leader said the report this week by the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, which found the UK was the worst country in the developed world to grow up in, should mark a "turning point" for Britain.

Issues like teenage gun crime, Mr Cameron said, could not be dealt with by better policing or tighter gun controls alone when the problem - and the solution - lay within families and communities.

In what will be seen as a significant shift away from the Tories traditional emphasis on wealth creation, he pledged that a Conservative government would put family life ahead of economic prosperity for Britain.

In a speech in his Witney, Oxon. constituency on the wellbeing of children, Mr Cameron said if working habits were "damaging our families, we need to change our working habits".

He said there should be no more "grandstanding" about the exclusive importance of competitiveness in business.

"Nothing matters more than children," he said.

"If it comes to a collision between our wealth as a nation and the well-being of families - I choose families.

"Every working parent knows that you can't have it all. There is a natural conflict between hours worked, money earned and the time you spend at home. I believe that businesses have an overriding corporate responsibility to help lessen this conflict, and make it easier for parents to find the proper balance for their lives," he said.

The Tory leader said he was not seeking to preach "morality" to grown men or women, or tell them how to conduct their own relationships. But the foundation of society was the care of children "by the man and woman who brought them into the world".

Mr Cameron said his support for marriage did not mean "bashing single mothers".

But he wanted to see more couples stay together - and the best way to do that was to support marriage.

He confirmed that the Tories were looking at reintroducing tax breaks for married couples, though he said the party was still looking at the best way to do that.

He said child maintenance laws needed reform "to compel men to stand by their families".

"It means finding the father, it means attaching an order to their benefits or their earnings and taking the money out of their bank account and giving it to the mother. That's what compulsion means," he said.



Cameron favours families over the economy

neonsamurai

Quote
Mr Cameron said his support for marriage did not mean "bashing single mothers".


Quote
He said child maintenance laws needed reform "to compel men to stand by their families".

"It means finding the father, it means attaching an order to their benefits or their earnings and taking the money out of their bank account and giving it to the mother. That's what compulsion means," he said.


Typical bloody politician. "I won't bash single mothers, but I'll happily lay the blame on absent fathers."

I agree that some men leave their kids and don't want to support them, and shame on them, but things aren't black and white here. Single mums good. Absent fathers bad.

Haven't any of these politicains been paying attention to F4J?
Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies: "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!"

brian44

As I said on Saturday in another post, feminists have been telling men they are useless and surplus to requirements. For years they said that single mothers were as good as two parent families and have encouraged women to be as selfish as they want. Left wingers, liberals and feminists have done everything they can to destroy the marriage, but now they are shifting the blame onto ordinary men.
It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.

Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did." Doris Lessing

zarbyman


The mother in most instances kicks the father out of the family. She in some instances moves far away or obstructs the father from having any meaningful involvement in the child's life. The mother sometimes introduces a loser "substitute dad." Yet, when the child goes bad, it is the father's fault? The government of course assists the mother in doing these things. Actually, "assist" is too soft a word. The government actually enforces the mother's wishes literally at the point of a gun (trying ignoring family court orders). Obviously, there is only one appropriate response to the government and these mothers, screw you!!!!

Now, on a more positive note, although blame for these children is being misplaced, at least, the value of fathers is being acknowledged. That is a very, very positive thing.

neonsamurai

Quote
Now, on a more positive note, although blame for these children is being misplaced, at least, the value of fathers is being acknowledged. That is a very, very positive thing.


It is a positive thing, but the UK government isn't about to change its approach to fathers. If they acknowledge that they have been largely responsible for the demonisation of men and fathers, then they're effectively taking responsibility for the state of children. So I expect we will now hear lots of stories about how men have abandoned their kids, rather than been alienated by our law courts.

However, I hope F4J are ready to make use of this chink in the governments armour and drive home their point about how unfair British law is for fathers. Now would be the ideal time to get their point across and demand that something is done about it.
Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies: "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!"

zarbyman


There is another similar article by this same MP to which I responded by email:

Quote

You are quoted in the Telegraph as stating that

    "child maintenance laws need reform to compel men to stand by their families. It means finding
    the father, attaching an order to their earnings, taking the money out of their account and giving
    it to the mother, etc."

You had just recognized accurately the problems associated with father absence and then your
solution is to create more father absence?

Mandatory child support regardless of equities or need combined with nearly automatic maternal custody
ios what leads to father absence. It allows the mother to essentially the kick the father out of the
family while forcing him to support the family regardless of maternal fault or anything else.

Racheting up child support is almost guaranteed to increase father absence. It is like winning the lottery.
It is much bigger than most lottery winnings, actually, if the father is fairly well to do.

The solution to avoiding father absence is to punish those who break up families -- usually mothers --
not to reward them. Those who break up families through fault should be punished in various ways
including a presumption against receiving custody. This would greatly slow down the breakup of families.

Now, in most of the English speaking world, the mother can commit adultery, etc. and be completely
responsible for the breakup of the marriage and yet nevertheless be nearly sure of receiving custody
plus substantial child support. This is why family breakup is so common.

If the mothers knew they would not necessarily be rewarded especially if they were at fault, there would
be less family breakup. Yes, most families are broken up by the mother not the father.

What your contry needs (and mine) is not more of the same but a realism. This means taking into
account fault. This means awarding child support only when it is necessary and appropriate and
equitable. The equitable thing to do when a man's wife cheats on him is to award him the children
if he is a suitable parent not to attach his wages, etc. after he loses his children.

More rigid child support collection is guaranteed to make the present situation worse.

Blaming fathers for the present situation is the worst kind of "victim blaming."

Fathers are usually in today's day and time the party who broke up the family.

It is the vast majority of the time the mother.

You think blaming fathers for problems created largely by the government is good politics?
I doubt it will be for long assuming it still is. Those say the kinds of things you are saying
will soon be political outcasts. I see it coming. You obviously don't.


poiuyt

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2324204.ece

Quote
Not Broken, Fractured
Communities without fathers are likely to become enclaves of their own

This has been a week dominated by murder and children. It began with a furore and fury over the future of Learco Chindamo, who as a 15-year-old gang member stabbed Philip Lawrence to death outside his school in 1995, and it ends with the immense collective grief felt for the parents of Rhys Jones, an 11-year-old boy shot dead while playing football. He was almost certainly killed by a child of a similar age to Chindamo when he committed his crime. Children killing adults is an appalling enough event. Children killing children in this callous fashion is yet more numbing still.

Politicians should be at the forefront of the national conversation that follows such atrocities and not embarrassed on the sidelines. The moment that the death of a child in circumstances such as these is deemed so commonplace that it is not the catalyst for comment is the occasion when a country has lost the struggle against its demons. In a speech yesterday David Cameron sought to place the tragedy of the Jones family in a broader context, that of his claim that Britain has a "broken society" in the same way that 30 years ago it had a broken economy. The comparison is superficially attractive. Yet it is too sweeping, encompassing more of the community than the facts on the ground suggests is valid. Stagflation in the 1970s and youth culture today are different in character. The questions that now have to be addressed are even more complicated.

On one aspect, at least, Mr Cameron and his partisan opponents are in complete agreement. The Conservative leader referred to "fathers who run away from their responsibilities, who don't stick around to give their sons the discipline they need". Earlier this week Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, referred similarly to a crisis of fatherlessness in certain places, depriving the sons left behind not simply of figures of authority but also of adult male role models of any form to emulate.

Whether it be council estates at home or failed states abroad, societies dominated by teenaged boys, unrestrained by fathers, are invariably dangerous locations. Gangs rapidly take the place of the orthodox family unit. Loyalties to these institutions undermine traditional respect and values. The ability to generate fear in others becomes a prized social asset. Not only do other young men want to avoid young men but so also do adults of all ages and those bodies, such as the police, that are meant to be a community's armour. Society loses its self-confidence and with that the ties which bind it together. There are manifestly enclaves in Britain where this has happened.

To concede this is not, though, to admit that society as a whole is "broken". Not all poor estates have been so afflicted, nor is the damage associated with fatherlessness limited to black rather than white families, or exclusively to working-class ones. It would be more accurate to refer to fractured societies, not a broken society. The dilemma, nonetheless, is that no one has a specific policy solution for compelling or inspiring fathers either to remain with, or exercise a positive influence over, their sons. In truth, there is probably no system of either tax inducements or financial sanctions that can make fathers who have abandoned interest in sons behave in the manner that others would want them to do.

This is not a fatalistic assessment. Attitudes to fatherhood did not change for the worse because of past political activities and they are capable of changing for the better for reasons other than a programme constructed in Whitehall. To an extent, fractures will heal naturally if allowed the opportunity. Mr Cameron and Mr Straw might both have been vague but by speaking out they encourage others to talk about these issues.

But the most effective encouragement for this has to come through schools and not the House of Commons. It requires a remorseless concentration on those in the bottom tenth in the GCSE results in recent years -- individuals who are often paying an academic as well as a social price for the absence of their fathers. Children cannot and certainly should never be "nationalised" but the gang and its mentality cannot be the only alternative to the family. Society has not disappeared in the most deprived areas of Britain. Yet it is for its members to choose to reactivate themselves.


But what part do you play mr. politician in driving a wedge between boys and fathers whilst interfering with their hitherto happy family lives ? This year alone across the western world all manner of nasty legislation has been passed to further diminish the status of men in their homes and every where else. Does this not impact badly on boys who if you dont know now, will be tomorows men ?

You too mr. journalist, you freely incriminate fathers and sons for consequences of problems the causation of which brings you riches and decent employment. What part do you play in the destruction of young boys eh ? That is, alongside Judges, lawyers, police and other middle class theives who have mined private relationships between fathers, sons, wives and daughters for every last worthy thing.

You mention failed council estates at home and failed states abroad being dominated by violent teenaged boys and young men unrestrained by their fathers. Once again mr polititian and mr journalist what part have you yourselves played in creating this state of affairs at home and abroad ? Did not state interferance in peoples homes bring about anarchy and violence in society you now decry as it did bring about internecine, religious and ethnic violence in other peoples countries.

Then as an afterthought inorder to hide your complicity and profit in the destuction through interferance of mens families, yourself and other aspiring polititians cast about for excuses and justifications. You freely tout the panacea of schools, youth clubs, enforcing child support, father responsibility laws bla. bla, bla bla bla etc, etc.

Why not quit fooling yourselves or telling such obvious lies and accept the natural position in the home of fathers and husbands. In short butt out !!!. The state, even a democratic one, has never and will never be a better friend of women and children than their own husbends and fathers respectively. And you will do well to recognise this principle in the lands you freely intrude in with the aim of spreading democracy if you similarly wish to avoid the failed state. That is one dominated by violent and disaffected youths you so describe.

CaptDMO

Simple really.
Just like welfare to work in the US, cut the dole '"entitlements" in half.
Offer business "incentives" by cutting the tax and social mandates burden.
Essentially, give up the Socialist folly that has routinely enabled the slackers and
eroded pride, accountability, and integrity.

Need to find places to trim the "budget"?
START with a 50% SLASH of bureaucracy employment.
Yes, it IS that simple!
How many tax refugee Brits have expatriated from the UK THIS year.
Haven't those stupid greedy fucks learned ANYTHING from past experiments in
oppressive taxation, especially piss poor "labor" demographics, and micro management?

"The Full Monty" was a funny movie (and play I guess). Was the social and political thesis lost amongst  the opiate of laughter, on an ENTIRE freakin' nation?   

Cordell Walker

 a local drug dealer/property fence in his mid 40's whom I am aquainted with and who has  at times had pretty big money, was asked  when he was going to figure out he was too old for  the life; he replied that he will quit when dad's quit leaving thier teenage sons in the street for guys like him to raise................................it made sense at the time he said it, but, like dr E said, what about mom?
"how can you kill women and children?"---private joker
"Easy, ya just dont lead em as much" ---Animal Mother

Cordell Walker

 And what is interesting to me is how no one seems to  make the connection between the ridicule of males in popular culture and  the  increased gang culture among  males who live in suburbs and have 2 parent families
"how can you kill women and children?"---private joker
"Easy, ya just dont lead em as much" ---Animal Mother

Garak



The mother in most instances kicks the father out of the family. She in some instances moves far away or obstructs the father from having any meaningful involvement in the child's life. The mother sometimes introduces a loser "substitute dad." Yet, when the child goes bad, it is the father's fault? The government of course assists the mother in doing these things. Actually, "assist" is too soft a word. The government actually enforces the mother's wishes literally at the point of a gun (trying ignoring family court orders). Obviously, there is only one appropriate response to the government and these mothers, screw you!!!!

Now, on a more positive note, although blame for these children is being misplaced, at least, the value of fathers is being acknowledged. That is a very, very positive thing.


Exactly! This post is spot on!

Just like usual. Empower women and disempower men....then when things go wrong...blame men. Nothing new here to see, just more male bashing...move on and don't believe the nonsense.
I will stop staring at your boobs when you stop staring at my paycheck!

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