Burn Scum Burn

[whiffey]

I see it every year on a smaller scale with Mitcham Common, yer kno, let's start a fire an have a larf watchin the firemen struggle to put it out. In Greece, this has so far caused 46 deaths. I despair, I really do, and I would like to see the penalties for these so-called casual 'bit of a larf' crimes go through the roof. Scum.

Society is beyond redemption, unless and until we start thrashing them in public and hanging them, scum. Sticking your tongue out at a policeman is one thing, but setting fire to your homeland is quite another. Hang them.

[bensmum]

Why don't you say what you really think, whiffey!
Seriously I have to agree that there seems to be a great deal of mindless vandalism going on and people doing the stupidest things with no thought for the possible consequences. There is no respect for the law or for other people .
Perhaps we should find a desert island somewhere and deport people again!

[China Doll]

Yes dear, Course it is. That'lll sort it. America is proof of that.

Why is the last meal of those off to the electric chair fast food.... Just wondered.

[China Doll]

Apologies.

Please disregard my first answer.

It's complete nonsense.

[Dassie]

Just bring back a year's National Service for all school-leavers and earlier if they are found guilty of any offence, in addition to the judges sentence. Discipline and respect has gone from our society.

[whiffey]

Don't apologise CD !! Just another rant.

National Emergency in Greece, 50 dead, just because someone thought setting fire to the country with a cigarette lighter would be a bit of a laugh. A few people have been arrested, let's hope they lock them up for life.

[China Doll]

I concur.

[amonty1144]

My husband and I were discussing whether other countries were better than here, as in the UK the moral fibre of society has collapsed.
In view of this incident, perhaps not.

[rojash]

Most of the arson in Greece is not caused by people setting fire "for a bit of a laugh". It is caused by developers clearing forestry land so that they can start building. Last year we had a fire to the West of my village, and within two weeks the surveyors and back-hoes had arrived. This year we had a fire to the North - it actually came right into the village. The back-hoes, bulldozers and surveyors arrived the day after the fire engines left. The Greek government could easily prevent the arson by simply passing a law that all land currently designated as forest remains so. As things stand, as soon as the trees are gone, the land is no longer forest, and so is available for building.

[rojash]

To put it another way, the 60 (so far) people who died, died so that some fat rich b*stard could get fatter and richer...

[whiffey]

Thanks rojash for that insight, it is just trickling through on UK radio. Can they call these acts of arson terrorism? I really hope so.

Every year I see it on a smaller scale here. A green hill, as best can be hoped for in an urban environment, then the scum decide how enormously funny it would be to set fire to Nature. Very very funny. Who needs a decent environment after all.

[rojash]

I think the reasoning behind calling them acts of terrorism is that it gives them much greater powers of arrest and interrogation than if they treated them as normal crimes. Morally, they are at least as bad as acts of terrorism (in fact, worse, when you consider that terrorists at least believe that what they are doing is for a "just cause".)
And this vandalism will affect not just Greece, but the whole of Europe, and probably the world.

Although I live on an island off the West coast of Greece, a long way from the current outbreaks (though we did lose 45,000 square metres of forest land earlier in the year), today we awoke to what looked like a foggy British October morning.

My wife was asked by some newly arrived tourists if the sky here is always so strange. She explained that what they were seeing was smoke from the mainland. The sun is a pale, fuzzy disk in a grey and yellow sky...