Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [3]

[Pettytyrant101]

Well in my own case I pay out about 500-700 a month. Thats rent + council tax+food+electricity and gas, then theres things like internet, bank payments stuff like that- when I was doing care work I earned about 750-800 in a good month- and I had to work on average 48 hours a week of twelve hour shifts.  

I have no idea how families manage to be honest. But my friends who are married with kids both parents need to work fulltime just to get by- and then there is problem of childcare costs- not to mention you children being raised in preschool nurseries from about age3.

[Ringdrotten]

I get depressed only by thinking about it. It's the same story in Norway too, though there might be fewer of those that can't or only just manage their payments and expenses each month. Still, poverty is very real here too, despite promises to make it extinct from party leaders years ago.

[Pettytyrant101]

Got to hand it to your Fjordian PM- I liked this-

'Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.' - BBC

Although not sure why it was done in conjunction with an advertising company.  

[Eldorion]

Probably cause it's a publicity stunt.  A very good one to be sure, but then again, that's one of the things advertising companies are supposed to come up with.

[Pettytyrant101]

Advertisers and politics   - I like it when he did it on a whim to find out what folks think- like the King walking among the commoners in disguise- takes something away from it when its just a PR stunt.

[Eldorion]

Well that's an assumption on my part, but (without knowing anything about Mr Stoltenberg in particular) I think it's a fairly safe one. If he just wanted to find out what people thinks he probably would have had a better disguise, and he definitely wouldn't have had a hidden camera.

[Pettytyrant101]

Yeah sadly you are probably right- shame- changes it from a quirky thing to do to just another shoddy PR stunt.

[Eldorion]

I gotta be honest, I don't really understand the 180 you took as soon as it occurred to you that the Prime Minister of a sovereign state might have spent his day driving a taxi for reasons other than childish whimsy. I think you can understand that something was done for PR reasons and still appreciate the gesture or example being made, so long as it's backed up by concrete action when the time comes.

[Pettytyrant101]

Ah Americans and your love of advertising!
Advertising + anything makes the anything worse, instantly.  

[Pettytyrant101]

What to make of the detention of David Miranda by Uk police under the terrorism act.
For those who havent followed the story David Miranda is the partner of the Guardian journalist who has been breaking the Snowden leak documents to the world.
Mr Miranda was stopped at the airport and detained, unusually, for the maximum 9 hours legally possible- he had all his electronic equipment seized.
The police say it was "legally and procedurally sound".
Its clear the decision t detain was cleared from the top too- the PM's office- they even gave the US a heads up they were going to detain him and seize his equipment.
And the Home Office said, ""The government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security.
If the police believe that an individual is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism, then they should act and the law provides them with a framework to do that.
Those who oppose this sort of action need to think about what they are condoning."

Ok lets take look at this action.
The government in their spying and covert recording of everyone's online activity, in this country and in other peoples is illegal- it not only breaks UK laws on private life it also breaks international law when applied to spying on other peoples citizens.
A whistle-blower makes this public news.
Yes, the information they have is stolen, but it also uncovering what should be crimes committed by the government.
But those associated with revealing the information are detained under terrorism laws.

So as far as I can tell the question becomes, does the government have the right to break the law, then use legal procedure to prosecute those who try to expose their crimes, if they believe its in the national security interest?

And the obvious follow up to that is what is the scrutiny given to what constitutes national security, and how far into acting illegally should a democratic government have license to go in defending it?

[Lancebloke]

I suppose we (yes, the royal we there) voted then in to power and let them bring in all sorts of terrorism laws and loopholes. I dont know them all well enough to know what loophole they have to excuse themselves but I bet there is one.

[Kafria]

The oddest thing now is the stick the guardian are getting after they revealed that government officials had supervised the destruction of files in the offices.

[Pettytyrant101]

Its a bit worrying.
Journalist are protected under the law, they can refuse to reveal sources. Its supposedly part of a free press and a democracy.
Using laws brought in primarily to try to catch Irish terrorists to confiscate journalistic materials is very worrying indeed.
And when you hear of the government going into newspaper offices and forcing them to destroy material- well you start t wonder what sort of country you are really in.

[Kafria]

Also completely pointless when as the guy told them, the info was backed up in other places too.

[Pettytyrant101]

Its the overall picture worries me- if we look at not what the government probably are doing, but what they have the ability to do in this country it is frightening.
They can track everything you say and do online.
Leave your house and there are now few places in Britain they cant watch you on cctv. Got a phone?They can pinpoint where it is at any time.
They can threaten newspapers.
The MET have been shown to be guilty of taking cash for political favours and from newspapers, to misuse of powers, institutional racism, how far a stretch, if any, to them planting evidence, ruining careers, destroying political opponents through smears.
If our government was to become truly corrupt, if someone with a mind to control came to power, the tools available to weed out and put down dissenters are frightening.
And right now it seems to me we have all these capabilities suddenly, but none of the legislation to safeguard any of it or its uses.

[leelee]

the governments have been doing all this all along. All of them. We cannot know all they are doing by taking stupid actions we endanger all of the people and end up not being protected by anyone and having people that are worse than the governments taking over , maybe for good.
We all know that. We have to choose. We pick a government that has the best integrity we feel we can get and try to get into places that have some clout so we can help our people out. But to think so juvenile a thing as to whistle blow is going to magically make people so on the straight and narrow is a joke,. what we do is to put a lot a lot of people in jeopardy and let our enemies, real enemies know things that are going to hurt US, and that is frightening. It is all a game and each group that comes along will say what you want to hear until they are voted in. And then they too lie and cheat and ruin us a little, and vote again and again and again thinking that this time the bad guys will hearken to public opinion and we will all live happily ever after.
Our country went ahead and started euthanasia, and all our screaming and watch dog activities went unheard and unheeded. Oh sure once in a while a great many of us yell and scream and voted out a leader and we feel great about it. And then we find out down the line that it was all set up that way anyway.
They shot a poor boy on a bus a little while ago. He was on a bus alone and he had a knife., They shot him, brought him down , tasered and then shot him, in a prone position on the floor six more time and he died. They did not send for an ambulance, and we could see his little legs and feet still twitching as he died. That makes about four of them who died horrifically. While this police officer was convicted of second degree murder and we were glad. But the truth is it took the heat off all the other murders and make john q. public think we did something.
So nothing will change at any level as long as the majority, including we public lie and steal and cheat and hurt one another. Because if we cannot govern ourselves you can bed no one else cares either. The guilty are rarely ever innocent, on both sides. Everyone , well almost everyone has his/her interest first.

[azriel]

Hit the nail on the head LeeLee ! We all say we are against the oppressor & rally round to sound our own trumpets, yet when it really comes down to it, a smaller number really are caring about society as a whole. All the time we have members with power thrusted on them or people that FIND power to trample people down, they will use it as a stick to beat us with. I trust no one, they all have ulterior motives, & thats self preservation. Humans are a waring species, from the 1st grunting caveman fighting for his own cave to the Government of any country today.

[Pettytyrant101]

Yes but laws are framed in the knowledge people will try to corruptly use them.
In both the US and UK there are laws which require the police to show probable cause before a judge will grant them warrrants to spy on people and intercept their mail ect.
What our governments are currently doing bypasses all those safeguards.
The technology's so new- this world of the internet simply did not exist not so long ago- the legislation never formed to protect against abuse of it by government in the way it had time to form over police procedure.

Ive being thinking (worrying and getting crabbit) about how much of Orwell's warnings in 1984 seem to be coming true, not exactly obviously, that would be weird, but in general outline.
Trends he was observing and warning about have come to fruition in my view in several ways- so I thought I would try to put my thoughts down on that and compare the predictions of the book with reality.

Here's the first part of my thoughts- I decided to take the Party slogans from the book as the starting points- so here is the first-

War is Peace

This has two meanings behind it in 1984.
The first is that by becoming continuous war has ceased to be what it was.
In effect if war is continuous there is no difference between that and a continuous peace.
The second meaning is that war can be used to maintain control over the domestic population.
A society which is at war will more naturally hand over powers to a small leading group in order to defend themselves.

Lets take the first one- war is continuous- and see how that stacks up in the modern UK.
In the past wars were about something- land, resources, ideology, wealth or power- and there was a period of war and a clear winner and loser at the end of it.
This is no longer the case.
War now is effectively continuous- its just different wars.
The names of the enemy changes, but the effect on the domestic population remains the same. And that effect is the real reason for waging continuous wars, not the outcome of the actual war, which is largely irrelevant.
The UK army hasn't been out of active service in a very long time.
The UK is always at war.
In my own lifetime the enemy has been the IRA, the USSR, Argentina, Serra Leone, Serbia, Iraq (twice), Al Qaeda and the Taliban (and I am probably forgetting a few).
But war is also expensive and ruinous to the home territories, at least it once was.
This problem has been solved exactly as Orwell predicted in 1984- the mass wars of the past would not be allowed to occur again, wars would be fought with increasingly smaller amounts of specialised forces using tech and involving comparably few people on the side of those engaged in the war.
Nuclear war has to be avoided as it would destroy the power of everyone, so in a pact of mutual silent agreement all sides simply continue to stock nuclear weapons and produce them, fully aware they will never use them. I will shortly get to the reason behind doing this.
Nor is the purpose any longer to win wars- few of the wars the UK has recently been involved in could reasonably be called victorious.
To a large degree winning or losing these wars- which always take part a long way from home soil and don't directly involve  the local population except occasional acts of terrorism when they need stirred up to accept further restrictions, more handing over of personal freedoms or to distract from other events- has become irrelevant, as either outcome, win or lose, can be used to manipulate the mood of the masses as required.

So what then is the purpose of a modern war?
That brings us onto meaning two.
Since 9/11 in particular the UK government has used the threat of war and attack to accumulate a lot of new powers over its populace.
The mood of war allows for this, as Orwell noted when under the threat of war the population will become more patriotic and more willing to hand over freedoms in return for apparent security. It seems like the natural thing to do.
One of the big benefits of war to a modern ruling class is that it costs a lot of money. Money that if not spent on warfare would have to be spent on the people- this would vastly improve education standards and health and thus be a direct threat to the very notion of an elite ruling class. It would undermine class structure and damage the required mass of poorly educated workers necessary for the structure of society to be maintained.
Money therefore must be spent but not distributed.
This problem has been greatly exasperated by the industrial age- where in the past 400 factory workers produced x amount of goods, now 10 people can do the same.
This pool of wealth must be gotten rid off by the ruling class if it is to maintain its position.
War is the perfect means to do so.
In theory the money could just be burnt, but that would not be acceptable- war is a psychologically acceptable means of getting rid of wealth.
Poverty is one of the main  tools of control and therefore rule, its abolition would be a disaster for the ruling class.

For a modern example of this in the UK we need look no further than the 7 billion being spent on a  new aircraft carrier for which we have no planes.
Or the 14.9 billion being spent to replace the current Trident nuclear missiles, which themselves cost about 12 billion and of course have never been used, or intended to be used.
Or the 6.5 billion Ministry Defence overspend just on procurement contracts alone.
Or the sum of 240 million spent on 8 helicopters which then needed a further 90million spent on them to get them up to standard.
And all of this during a time of supposed economic collapse when the financial situation is being used to further push down and punish those at the bottom of society who have the least and are furthest from having been the cause of any collapse.

Examples of the nations wealth being burnt up in military spending, just as Orwell predicted, are legion in current UK policies, and the policy of continual warfare whose effect on the populace makes this wastage of money seem acceptable, is fully in place.

[azriel]

Reading what you have just said has made things very clear. You have articulated much more precisely than I, I have often thought along the same lines as you have just stipulated but, whenever I put in my opinion, I have usually been shot down in flames ! Im paranoid, Im nuts, you dont know what your on about, is the usual remarks I get.
Thats why I say, the insane are saner than you think.  

[Pettytyrant101]

It genuinely frightens me the way our government has been going over the years since the end of WW2- they learned a lot about propaganda, modern warfare, and the pendulum of history from the two great wars- and Orwell, who had a similar job to that of Winston in the book- creating propaganda, manipulating information and falsifying records, was in the perfect place to see what was coming.
Its when you compare the trends he warns of to the modern world it gets really scary.

[azriel]

I think its obvious to a lot of people really, question is, WTF do we do ? how can we stem it ? WTF is next ? how far can this go ? Your not the only one afraid of what is going on & what is due next !  

[Lancebloke]

I suppose the obvious counter to that is that it can really only go so far. At some point, people wont accept things any more. Especially in an age where you can clearly see what is going in elsewhere.

I also think that these 'trends' are not as obviously controlled as it seems from your writing. Technology develops as fast as it needs to through competition (war, economics etc) and the competition is not something that can be controlled in this age. We cant go to war with China or India to stop them exerting their power and they want their companies and people to do well to further their own interests.

My opinion is that the ruling elite are always hanging on by their fingernails dangling their feet above the pack of wolves snapping at their heels. They fight their own wars both internally and externally and so can never afford to really go too far.

I think that power people have never had so much to be able to manipulate but have probably never had such a lack if control of it all.

[azriel]

I like reading your clear, concise thinking ! opens my eyes a bit & my mind, (its that small rattily thing buzzing near my ear !)  

[Lancebloke]

Well... I dont think I am right... just trying to balance the arguement a little. Other than those that attend the bilderberg conference and sit in the halls of power... we dont really know what goes on. Could be new world order type stuff, illuminati, forces of satan or whatever other theories are out there.

[David H]

Orwell definitely saw it all coming.
I have an old set of Word Book encyclopedias from 1949, intended for younger students. It gives a 5 point test for how to recognize fascism and how we are different from it.  It's kind of interesting to see how much (and how little) has changed in 60 years, isn't it?

The meaning of the word fascism has been obscured and confused by the fact that the name Fascist has often been applied in ordinary conversation to any person whose social and economic views are more conservative than the speaker. The chief characteristics of Fascism are as follows:

The Police State.  Fascism depends on the police to crush all opposition or dissent. Secret police spy on the whole population, and any casual remark against the regime leads to swift and severe punishment.

Superpatriotism. Fascism is highly nationalistic. It tries to identify its principles with the country so that disagreement will look like treason.

The Cultivation of Ignorance. Fascism, like all forms of government, rests at last on the sincere consent of a large part of the population. To maintain the consent, the fascist leadership must cut off the people from any information which might cause them to doubt the complete rightness of the fixed principles.

Suppression of Labor and Industry.  Fascism in Italy and Germany at first won the support of the wealthy classes, both landed and industrial. These people of property saw in fascism a protection against the demands of workers.

Militarism. Fascism maintains among the people a permanently warlike frame of mind. Every citizen feels that he is mobilized against the enemies of the regime within, and against possible foreign foes.

(And by the way Petty, the flashdrive still hasn't arrived. I suspect it's been "lost" in the mail.)