Big Brother Britain


Just what is Prime Minister Gordon Brown thinking of? What’s going on? Britain is acknowledged as being the surveillance society of the western world. There are more CCTV cameras per head of population in Britain than any other nation in the west. So when the Police officer responsibe for overseeing the way this technology is used describes it as an ‘utter fiasco’, when High Court judges describe Government legislation designed to thwart terrorism as ‘unlawful’,  when kids under 12 years old are having their fingerprints taken by schools, when the most detailed and intrusive identity cards in the world are being rolled out, when people who have committed no crime can have their DNA profile stored on Police databases then it begs the question - what is really going on here?

Last night, by the skin of its teeth (and the promise of a new set of falsies to the DUP) the Government won the right to forward legislation enabling terrorism suspects to be held for 42 days from the current 28 days, without charge, without legal representation and without an appearance in court. No one takes terrorism lightly, no one questions the difficulties the police forces of Britain and the intelligence services face when confronted by complex investigations involving terrorism suspects. But neither do we take our civil liberties lightly - and whilst recognising the need for a trade off between our ‘rights’ and the ability of our security services to perform effectively, the latest bill to pass parliament is a bill too far. How can I be so emphatic when we are dealing with something so shrouded in mystery, intrigue and secrecy? Well, let’s look at the facts which are known.

Currently a terrorism suspect can be held for 28 days without charge, so the need for this threshold to be raised should be a direct consequence of the intelligence services or the Police having difficulties which they have articulated to the politicians. But that’s not the case. MI5 have declined to comment and stated they are not ‘best placed’ to determine whether any shake up in the law is required - does that sound like an intelligence service in desperate need of new legislation? The last two cases the Police cited as ‘difficult and complex’ and may have required more than 28 days to fathom, appear to have led to charges being brought against the supsects after 4 days and 12 days respectively. Scotland’s Chief law officer goes on record as stating that no terror case has ever been in trouble because of the current 28 day limit - so who’s kidding who? Just what is going on - and more importantly - why? These are the questions every single ’subject’ (there are no citizens in Britain regardless of the common belief that there is) of the United Kingdom should be asking this morning.

***STOP PRESS*** I am no fan of the Conservative party but I totally applaud the decision of the Shadow Home Secretary David Davis to resign his seat and re-fight it on the single issue of the erosion of British Civil Liberties and in particular the 42 day detention limit. At last a politician with balls who appears to realise how woefully out of touch the Labour Party are with the feelings and wishes of the British people. I am a Scottish Nationalist and Socialist, always have been, always will be, and never would I have dreamed I’d be applauding a Tory - but here it is - take a bow Shadow Home Secretary, the British people have been pleading for someone like you since Tony Blair made us all guilty until proven innocent.

Ben

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Is there a search engine for blind people?


I’ve been predicting doom and gloom for too long - time for the blogging equivalent of the commercial break. After a few years of doing this I still delight at some of the search terms which bring people to my site - even though no such expression will be found written here (or indeed on any of my other sites)…Here’s a few of my favourites…

‘Is there a search engine for blind people?’ - I’m sure I’m missing the obvious with this one - maybe there is?

‘Why do men have hairy arse cheeks?’ - Again I’m sure there’s an answer to that but it won’t be found here! I don’t normally go around checking out men’s arse cheeks - but after playing soccer all my life and sharing the odd shower or two afterwards I can only presume the answer to this was sought out by Robin Williams, as apart from his, I’ve never seen a male hairy arse cheek in my life?

‘Why do horses have two penises?’ That one scared me because it didn’t say ‘Do horses have two penises?’ I image googled ‘horse - two penises’ and regretted doing so immediately - who would have thought such things happen??? But I could see no other appendage which could be confused with a surplus penis on a horse??? The closest I came was this one….

‘In what year did the sun die?’ I think I can explain this one - I can only imagine there’s some poor person lives alone and has become blind but thinks they can see - hey it’s just struck me that this could be related to the blind search engine dude! Damn, I wish we could communicate with people who use search terms like these - they are whole stories waiting to be told!!!

How long am I going to get in Jail?’ - If you recognise the term and it was you who sought it out - please contact me and tell me what it was you did!!! I’ve been dying to know ever since reading it - Ah, maybe dying to know was the wrong expression - let’s just say I’ve been curious, ok?

‘We did not go to the moon we had breakfast’ - I offer no explanation for this one at all - anyone out there help me with it? The words of a song maybe?

‘Republicans shood be able 2 sell licker 24 hours’ Eh?

This one not only caught my eye - it hurt. ‘Blog about a man who needs viagra’ - Why my site?

‘Who is teh Antichrist’ - Again why my site?

‘Polar bear ice caps are melting’ They wear caps?

In fact if you were responsible for any of these - please drop me a line and tell me what you found here that matched any of those? Skip the viagra one though - you can piss off.

Ben

Forging a Nation - The American identity crisis


Think of England - what do you see in your mind’s eye? Rolling landscapes, villages, warm beer and you lazily lounging on the green at a local cricket match on a Sunday afternoon? Or think of Scotland - do you see mountains, eagles, wilderness, deer and mist rolling into the glen? Reality of course is somewhat different. Those things which symbolise Scotland, are a daily reality only for a tiny portion of the population. The same applies in England as in Scotland, over 90% of the population live in crowded cities or very large towns. In Scotland over 80% of the people live in a small fraction of the country known as the Central belt which spreads ugly between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Reality is a pressurised, crowded existence and whilst the symbols which represent both Scotland and England express freedom, space, peace and unity, it is a state of reality achievable only by an elite few or that small percentage who still choose the rural option.

The symbols of most modern nations are largely forged and necessarily so, as nations themselves have to be forged. Politicians have always been aware that ‘difference can cause discord’ and that discord assists social unrest, (which in turn threatens social control), it’s in the interests of a nation for the politicians to appeal to powerful, benevolent, proud, strong unifying symbols - the flag of the nation (arguably the most potent symbol of all being just one example). This is not to say the nations themselves have no justification in identifying and aligning themselves with certain symbols. Take the United States of America for example - I’m not an American and yet when I think of the USA I think in the first instance of a homogenous, unified people who would instantly recognise and rally round the symbols of their nation - Freedom, Democracy, Peace, Justice. Or at least I used to.

The United States is composed of 50 States and one Federal District; all of which have their own unique identity, people, local culture, laws, history of development and of course landscape. It’s a huge responsibility unifying such a diverse group and powerful unifying symbols are necessary. One of the things which made America truly great was that it claimed as its own some of the most powerful and yet ethereal symbols right from the beginning - peace, freedom, justice and democracy. Try arguing against any of those! But it is an interactive process - every nation has has to at least nominally accomodate the ideals those symbols represent. It’s why the majority of Scots will still symbolise Scotland with Eagles (something which the majority of people have never even seen but they do exist in Scotland), mountains (where only a tiny fraction of the population ever go, but again they are there should they choose to do so). In America’s case (regardless of what detractors will tell you) historically they really did try to represent freedom, democracy, justice and peace in the vast majority of their foreign policy. Where justice and freedom was concerned however, domestic policy was somewhat different (and still is) - just ask a native American or a Black person. However the notion that America represented the powerful symbols outlined above was enough to unify the majority, and at the end of the day that’s enough for the politicians to continue appealing to those symbols again and again.

Is it really the politicians who create this imagined landscape? It’s worth noting that during the Cold War, we in the west could conceptualise the Eastern Bloc nations as dark foreboding places, there was no joy in the East, oppressive regimes ruled (which was true politically) but this translated into the symbols we associated with those nations. East Germany for example was a heartless concrete landscape where no sun shone through the toxic clouds spewing from the heavily industrialised badlands. Now East and West have kissed and made up, slowly but surely the symbols in our minds are changing - Poland, Czeckoslovakia, Hungary and Russia to name a few are now home to breathtakingly beautiful cathedrals, churches, resorts, they have vibrant cities, historical treasures and more. Thing is, they always did have. All that has changed is the political landscape. So who was telling us otherwise thoughout the Cold War? I’m comfortable citing politicians as the source of the symbology we identify nations with.

Greater minds than mine have argued that nations are such a fictitious creation that none can define themeslves by setting out who and what they are, a Nation defines itself by who and what they are not. Scots are not English, the French are not German, Americans are not Canadians and so the pattern repeats itself the world over. Nations when looked at under the microscope are internally fragmented and typified by difference - shared, unifying symbology is essential for keeping the majority, however tentatively, recognising a greater ‘whole’ to which they belong. Britain stretched it’s territorial boundaries outwards and claimed half the world as its own, it over-reached itself because with every new culture, new race, new people it claimed for itself, new customs were brought on board, new languages, new practises, and inventing symbology to unify the whole became more and more problematic. Every new possession diluted the power of the unifying symbology - until only naked aggression was left as a means of control and legitimation, and that road leads to ruin. The good folks of the nations we oppressed had their own defining symbols and they never matched up with that of the British.

On this idea of symbology not matching reality - I indicated earlier that the USA has forever been associated with peace, freedom, justice and democracy. Indeed when I think of the America I love - it’s precisely how I conceptualise it. And yet I know currently America does not fit with that symbology. The actions of its Government over the last 8 years have flatly contradicted those lofty ideals. There is a real danger that as Americans suffer a kind of dissonance when trying to match its actions against it’s symbols, that patriotism will falter. They may well re-define themselves and quite how I’m not sure but it’s a worrying thought. They may do so along lines of State, Race, religion - I really don’t know, and I don’t know because the symbology which unified America held a vast range of competing and different people together. Arguably more ‘difference’ is locked inside the USA than any nation on earth. The unifying symbols had to be amongst the most powerful on earth - and what can be more powerful, more unifying than peace, democracy, justice and freedom? Lest I be misunderstood I should point out that that George W Bush could have cited any number of political reasons for engaging Americans in the war in Iraq or for constructing Guantanomo bay, but he didn’t cite political reasons, he cited moral reasons which were inextricably entwined with the very symbols that represent America . He forgot that all nations are forged, all nation states are states of mind upon whose continued existence the symbology must be aspired to and that the counterfeit offered has to, at the very least, resemble the real thing .

Ben