Friday, January 28, 2005 :
Woah, woah, woah
This gets more and more worrying. The Times reports that “friends and relatives of the four Britons freed from Guantanamo Bay this week could also face intensive police monitoring. People sharing an address with any of the four could be denied access to the telephone or internet and have to undergo body searches”.
Charles Clarke is quoted as saying:
“I accept that an individual is different to a family but where there is an individual deemed to be a threat on security grounds we need the powers to stop that person engaging in terrorism.
Just because somebody’s wife wants to chat with her friends about going shopping that’s not therefore a reason to let somebody cause a bomb explosion. These are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society”.
This is dangerous nonsense he’s talking, isn’t it? He’s trivialising the interference with freedom and over–exaggerating the threat. Is anyone really going to “destroy our society”. We’re starting from the already shaky position that it is acceptable to curtail the freedom of individuals who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime, purely on the Government’s assertion that they may be a danger based upon “intelligence”. It is now suggested that this is also a justification to curtail the freedoms of people with whom they associate. Where is this going to end? Fast forward:
“Just because British Muslims want to go about their lawful daily business, own property, drive cars, communicate with their friends, earn a living, that’s not therefore a reason to let somebody cause a bomb explosion”.
Is there really no other way to protect this country than for the executive to have these sorts of draconian, potentially very far–reaching “because we say so” powers? Who exactly is most likely to “destroy our society” here? My money’s on Charles Clarke.
The hubris, chutzpah, brass neck - call it what you will - of this administration is truly astonishing. The sad thing is that the electorate at large is unlikely to appreciate the gravity of what is going on and will most likely blithely re-elect the fcukers come the general election.
I don't know if anyone saw it, but there was an excellent documentary series on BBC2 last year called "The Power of Nightmares" that examined the methods used by the neo-conservative right in American politics, throughout the Cold War and beyond, to unite their nation under a more conservative, traditional morality. The synopsis is as follows: In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this. But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed. And today, people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life. But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism. A powerful and sinister network, with sleeper cells in countries across the world. A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It’s a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.
This is what Blair, Clarke et al are plugging into and, quite frankly, it stinks.
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