Surveillance and control

[friend catcher]

This mornings Guardian/Obsever <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Observer/uk_news/story/0,,1750138,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/Observ...38,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> has a smallish headline devoted to a nothingness story about cars with false registration plates evading speed camera fines.<br> Towards the end <br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>But he said the planned introduction of automatic number plate recognition cameras, which automatically connect a passing numberplate to a database with insurance and other driver details, would be harder to deceive.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>At the moment we are world beaters in cctv monitoring and have more per person than anywhere else. The idea of a soon to be introduced national identity card, is that all info is linked and accessible. i.e. I drive past a camera and my number plate provides the operator with any info he wishes(or is authorised) to see. There is also impending legislation to force car manufacturers to build satellite tracking devices into cars to allow for automated road usage charges. There's a good deal more of this kind of stuff in the pipeline. In short a nightmarish control society worthy of Jeremy Bentham. This being RI i doubt the need to spell out the ambitions of those who seek to impose it nor the consequences for the future. <br> <br>I'm wondering if anyone else is getting this techno nightmare or does the sheer scale of the US and Canada make it unworkable Perhaps you still have enough constitutional protection for privacy to avoid it? <p></p><i></i>

[havanagilla]

Being poor now, and for the first time in my adult life, carless, I am starting to appreciate the privacy I enjoy. In fact, being poor these days protects you from most of the pernicious intrusions - car surveillance, credit card tracking, TV (I will never be convinced that it is not a TWO way device, sorry), etc. The less you depend on technology the more privacy you enjoy, but then you also really have very little to "no life" at all. Still there is a lot in my "big brother" files. Medical treatment is ALL on one magnetic card, for instance. My ATM card still reports back to hq, and I suppose that even my very basic and cheap cellular can be tracked (not sure though, I think that the older types are safer ).<br>Driving a car these days makes you movements very visible anyway. Naturally in the USA you can stil disappear, and not in Israel or a small size country. But, then, in the USA and those big countries moving without a car is almost impossible.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[friend catcher]

I agree poverty has its benefits, and I slung my tv out the house a couple of years ago. Remembered Marshall Mcluhan<br>using a Shakespeare passage to describe tv. I paraphrase<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>But soft what light from yonder window <br>It seems to speak, yet says nothing</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. <br><br>The sad thing is that all the encroaching Big Brother measures are passed off as improvements in efficiency, security, practicality. The ID card has been named as an entitlement card with imagery of doctors refusing treatment to non provable citizens etc. The even sadder thing is that many people buy into it. <p></p><i></i>

[StarmanSkye]

Friend catcher sed:<br>"The even sadder thing is that many people buy into it."<br><br>The more I see how absolutely stupid, self-absorbed and uncreatively loutish so much of the public is, I almost think they deserve what they're sure to inherit.<br><br>Christ, the lack of critical-thinking ability is stunning -- It HAS to be part of the long-term public-education program to make 80+ percent of the public dull-witted and gullible -- Look at the evidence!<br><br>All those surveillance technologies are designed to make a feudal-serf society possible, and to make criticism and resistance impossible -- at least until the people finally realize that freedom is worth fighting for.<br><br>What a sick, sick, sick poison has been unleashed as society renounces their duty and obligation to ceaselessly defend their once-just, equitable people-led democracy in favor of the convenience of being protected by their unelected Padron and his security forces.<br><br>It's enuff to make an intelligent person sick.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>

[friend catcher]

I agree with you but I'm also sometimes surprised that people have a good understanding but choose to keep their heads down and hope for the best.<br>It seems that those with most to lose, young children, mortgage secure employment etc are the quickest to close their eyes. Not always, but often. I recently asked a Blair supporting friend just how many dead Iraqi's are needed for her to feel safe and secure. Not subtle but subtlety doesn't always work. <br> I try to avoid the people as sheeple concept as it leads to the same place as people as useless eaters ie me being enlightened and them being thick as mince. And yet I also think it's probably true. <br>Thing with sheep is that they're not as stupid as they look,My dog can drive a flock with ease but I've seen him Knocked senseless by a lone ewe because he was in the way. <p></p><i></i>

[havanagilla]

basically friendcatch, this has been the same always. while I get frustrated daily, I am also reminded of humility. Namely, one has to limit oneself to one's real obligations (family, your dog etc.) before anything else. A buddhist monk once said, that along the compassion blah blah, a spiritual person should always carry with them the "who gives a fuck" moments, namely, on a very deep level, even on seeing an injustice or atrocity, one should maintain the inner "who gives a fuck", and that being properly meek. We are not in control of the world, even if we know a lot about it. Humility is also knowing how unimportant yet very important is your position or attempt to enlighten others. its a tricky one, and I usualy tend to feel overblown and driven (i also tend to attribute it to MC programming at times). While most other people feel quite helpless to deal with "big things" so they just make up some nice story to feel ok about not doing anything. that's the world, right ? (words from "the jew who wrote the bible" alter, this morning...:-) <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

sooo - when all car movements are trackable down to database identifying the individual - what excuse do our bent cops come up with for not catching the perps? just a thought y'know. <p></p><i></i>

[hmm]

world,this is already the case.. <p></p><i></i>

[Gouda]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The more I see how absolutely stupid, self-absorbed and uncreatively loutish so much of the public is, I almost think they deserve what they're sure to inherit.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> Kissinger, Leo Strauss and Karl Roverer would agree, starman, and this their premise has become our reality. I am not sure if this is really to be interpreted as one of the sentiments feeding or informing your parapolitical frustrations, but I think many of us here, me included, can, on a bad day (too many there are) find this response pretty attractive, and even cathartic. Thus, I think we have to check ourselves and not let our anger at the overall situation force us into misanthropic isolation - such contempt for regular people is only a synapse or two away from the tyrannical mind which works so hard to ensure everyone gets the inheritance they deserve. Ahem. <br><br>If this becomes our attitude towards regular people, then all our words against Bush and US imperialism and Israeli aggression and local/global injustice are empty. We might as well join the oppressors and assist them in achieving our inevitable inheritance (the ignorant sops get theirs, and the privileged elite get theirs). <br><br>I would count some of my own family as 'stupid, self-absorbed and loutish'. But I certainly do not think my family or friends deserve to reap "what's coming to them"; what they are, yes, in part, sowing. And that is why I try to share with people what I am learning, which entails a bit of humility and empathy, because I know I was not born all-knowing or clued-in, and I know I have been there too, an ignorant, selfish lout - maybe still am, but with just a bit more knowledge and understanding these days, I hope. <br><br>Regular folk are responsible, in part, for the situation, but not on the whole, I think. Their present mental landscape and their economic toil are not entirely their own fault and their reality is certainly not conducive to building awareness, or self-awareness, or community-awareness, of the situation. <br><br>Sure they bought some bad land, but the bad gods sold them some bad seed, and hell, when they got control of the spigots, we can't exactly blame the working dolts for the drought, toiling bassackwards they may be. <br><br>People deserve a well-meaning kick in the ass, but nobody deserves repeated establishment kicks to the head. <br><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>edit: word change</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 4/10/06 9:25 am<br></i>

[NewKid]

Besides total economic collapse, what pre-martial law event do you think would be significant enough to awaken people out of their collective stupor? <p></p><i></i>

[friend catcher]

I don't know about the US, but in the uk an military action against iran may well be too much for many people. Hard to exaggerate how much Bush is hated. <br><br>The stupedous level of personal debt that has been accrued in the last 6-7 years means economic stability is becoming harder to maintain by the day. Interest rates going up by 2-3% would bankrupt half a million and cause serious problems for a couple of million more. Threaten peoples purses and they wake up quickly enough.Total economic collapse isn't neccessary just a couple of points on the rate. I don't think this is a secret and the state knows it's walking on eggshells. <br><br>Then again things flare up seemingly from nowhere and only with hindsight does it seem obvious. <p></p><i></i>

[Gouda]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Besides total economic collapse, what pre-martial law event do you think would be significant enough to awaken people out of their collective stupor?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> Economic collapse will not waken anyone out of their stupor, but will enrage and divide people and they will be looking for scapegoats and they will gather around strong "leaders" who offer control, stability, and security. And so it goes. Martial law may be quite welcome in the event of economic collapse or raging viral epidemics - and we know the martial lawyers are pretty damn prepared for this already. <br><br>For example, in the US (and Europe), the "immigrant" issue will just become more divisive, I think. The present immigrant-rights mass marches in the USA have got some people I know battening down the hatches & stocking up the ammo - figuratively, for now…<br><br>No one is going to 'wake up' on the event-to-event program, I think. <br> <p></p><i></i>

[NewKid]

You may be right. I'm not certain it would wake up that many either. But then I certainly don't see anything short of that doing it either. <br><br>A population of battered wives . . . <p></p><i></i>

[Gouda]

It looks bleak and it is maddening, but this does not absolve us from the responsibility of sowing good seeds, sounding the alarm, teaching history, educating, healing, organizing, forming bases of unity instead of division...<br><br>Patience is required on the one hand, urgency on the other...and a third ball to juggle: umm, not sure about the third ball..maybe the calm zen composure required in a chaotic, emergency situation? If you've got it, share it. <p></p><i></i>