Taking Liberties since 1997

[jumpy]

Understandably humorous at times but all too revealing in the way authority has changed for the worse in the UK.
Contains some language and images some may find offensive.

























I think there's a lot to be questioned by us brits about many issues raised; not necessarily all of the individual cases themselves, more the fundamentals of what is reflected in them and the response of law and our leaders.
I suppose we should be glad programs like this one were allowed to be shown on tv in the first place; ironically so when you see some of the reactions to people being stopped by the police for not doing much at all. Seems like anti terrorism laws stretch much further than dealing with the 'bad guys', or perhaps it's merely the definitions of such?

I have to admit to a certain dichotomy where the whole business of Iraq is concerned. Like many in the UK I believed the claim of WMD (largely on the basis that it was well known that the british government, like many others, had sold saddam such technology) and thus was in favour of deposing by force, a vicious and tyrannical despot of the highest order, based upon such a conviction stated as truthful and reliable by our leaders. Now I am finding there to be less and less difference between those I consider despotic and those who run my own country, in the way statements and information are manipulated to an end.

But we're stuck with it now and have to follow it through. I can have support for the troops of all nations there and elsewhere, but it doesn't mean I believe wholeheartedly in the motives behind the war and subsequent occupation, nor the whole host of erosions our civil liberties have sustained since the whole debacle began.

Disturbing thoughts for a wednesday afternoon. I wonder if our politicians who sanctioned many far reaching and seemingly righteous decisions are having the same thoughts and ideas too, but just won't admit it in public?

[Letum]

Already posted.

And with a better link so you dont have to watch a dozen YT vids


http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=136260

[STEED]

We have a two fold problem in the UK today. The Politicians are making us work for them, and screwing us all up the ass why? Because most people don't give a toss due to watching there soap or sport along with having fun with there latest gadget. People today will sit and live in sh*t for the rest of there lives as long as they have fags booze and porn along with what I have already said.

The time I have heard. "What can you do?" Go out and bloody well vote for a start. "That will not change a thing." of course it will not if you stay at home bitching on before turning the TV on to watch your soap. Most people today in England are PROS which cuts right across the class boundaries.

This country is being reshaped for a time where you will obey them and have the RFID implant. You will be a number and a slave, not me. I will go out fighting with my last breath against this evil. Democracy is slowly being wiped out in this country, wake up people and fight to restore what we have lost and about to loose as well.

Discussion over it's time to act.

[Letum]

^ Damm right!

If you don't like it, then vote it out.

If you vote, but find you self in the minority, then try to show everyone why you think
you are right so they will vote with you. Debate, publicise, protest lobby, etc.

If you think plenty of people agree with you, but there is no one to vote for, then stand
for election.

Democracy only works if you do it.

If you do not, then you can't complain when you find you are a victim of your government.
You are really a victim of your own inaction.

[Cohaagen]

I think the Iraq "war" showed up democracy to be the sham that it is. Over a million marched in London to protest, and Blair blithely ignored them with impunity. Such are the fruits of an electoral system which enables a government to achieve a 200-odd seat majority, effectively short-circuiting the "democratic" procedure.

As anyone who has read Alfred Korzybski will know, there is usually a gulf of difference between a word and the reality of what the word represents - the word is not the thing. We do not have "democracy" in the UK - we have an elected dictatorship. Democracy is purported to be founded on the freedom of the individual. In practise, the state protects nothing except the freedom to make money. That was the real threat posed by Communism during the Cold War. The influence of Gordon Brown over the last decade has been to define a persons worth by their economic productiveness, hence the creeping demonisation of the unemployed, benefit "cheats", those who live in council houses (soon to be a thing of the past), and economic migrants. We are only behind the US in having one of the most politically divided, viciously intolerant, easily manipulated, crass and craven population in the world. The government, and the civil service they have cynically politicised, persistently feed the tabloids with hate propaganda which the "Great British Public" enthusiastically wolf down like a dog eating it's own faeces. You only need look to America to see a country hoplessly divided along abstract and artificial lines of "liberal" and "conservative", whilst the politicians and lobbyists reap the rewards yielded up by a people so distracted by self-indulgent internecine squabbling they cannot see that they are already divided and thoroughly conquered.

While years of passive resistance to the Poll Tax such as non-payment and demonstration resulted in nothing, tens of thousands of people smashing Trafalgar Square to bits did achieve something. As far as I'm concerned, those who wage aggressive war - insulated by many degrees of bureaucracy though they may be - have forfeited the right to peaceful debate. I have seen nothing to indicate that they regard civilised discourse and protest as anything but weak and contemptible. They shamelessly exploit a system that rewards those who seek power, from the town council to the Cabinet, and regard manipulation of society as an end in itself. They are scum.

As a last word of warning - it is a popular assumption that if Jews and gypsies aren't being shot in the street or liquidated in death camps then we cannot be living in a police state. The new totalitarianism has learned from history, and will not rely on such crude methods in the dark future we are now beginning to enter. New scapegoats have been found, exploiting blind spots in the media and public eye, and technology has enabled them to leave behind the overtly oppresive "papers please" methodology.

Take my word for it: even if we do not exist in a police state now, we have constructed the techno-bureaucratic apparatus that makes its future existence not just likely, but inevitable. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Do I have a better way? Not sure, but here's a start:

Ban The Sun, The Daily Record, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, Telegraph and any other paper in collusion with the security services or otherwise used as a mouthpiece for government disinformation or for organising hate, and turn their offices into low-cost housing or hostels for the homeless.

Outlaw all political parties and select all elected officials, MPs, councillors, etc at random from the electoral register.

Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now.

Repeal all Firearms acts from 1968 onwards and their amendments.

Rip out every CCTV camera in the country without exception.

Disband the Security Service (MI5) and SIS (MI6).

Get the police out of their self-indulgent and unecessary proto-paramilitary black uniforms and back into the navy blue serge outfits that served just fine for 80 odd years.

Disband the Scottish "Parliament" and Welsh Assembly, dynamite the buildings, and use them for aggregate in low-cost housing - not poncey apartments for "young professionals" who even then can't afford the sodding things.

Revoke our status as a supplicant state of the USA, abandon the bogus "War on Terror, tell them to get their poxy planes and all other nuke-magnets out of our countryside, turn Menworth Hill into a new-age kibbutz, and generally put over the message that we have repaid our war debts many times over, duuuuude.

Reopen the coal mines, steelworks, shipyard, etc. if only to provide a better prospect for young people than working in a call centre or other nameless component of the so-called "service industries". Subsidise as necessary as a social investment.

Generally turn the clock back to 1910.

[August]

Originally Posted by Cohaagen

Generally turn the clock back to 1910.

Gee I don't think Europe really wants to relive WW1...

[Cohaagen]

Originally Posted by August

Gee I don't think Europe really wants to relive WW1...

I bet America would though - a chance to finally squash those hangups about being a bit-player. Still, all that collaboration with and mentoring from the French forces might be an embarrassing reminder in the age of "Freedom Fries".

[Skybird]

Depressing.

[August]

Originally Posted by Cohaagen

I bet America would though - a chance to finally squash those hangups about being a bit-player. Still, all that collaboration with and mentoring from the French forces might be an embarrassing reminder in the age of "Freedom Fries".

Actually I think we've gotten over any hangups over being a bit player in WW1 long ago, definitely by the end of WW2. As for being a bigger part of that war, no thanks. We're happy with our position as tie breaker thank you.