by Starman » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:02 am
Excellant article referral by Bowles, Peachtree Pam -- Somehow I missed it but found Bowles' article through another link to his Investigating Imperialism portal -- great info resource BTW.<br><br>So I was going to post at least an excerpt of his article with insights about likely clampdowns on free-speech and liberty including targetting of 'inappropriate' internet useage and rephrasing the so-called war on Terror as the War on Violent Extremism, an even BIGGER ambigious catchall concept that allows the State far greater latitude in outlawing disagreement with its policies and crimes -- and while I was looking through the RI blogsite for the best thread to attach it to, found this thread you'd already started with the very same article! So it only seemed natural to bump-up the thread and provide an excerpt. I believe even members of Bush's Admin. have taken to using this 'new' phrase, 'War on violent extremism.' Of course, the irony of the US and UK governmments calling what OTHERS presumably do as 'violent extremism' is almost too profound for words -- Like the smoke-belching foundry-smelter accusing the pancake griddle of being unacceptably 'sooty'.<br>(Roll eyes).<br><br>In the same article, Bowles examines the phenomenon by which the State rearranged the 'facts' of the Menezes shooting to suit the evidence, essentially exonnerating the broad-daylight murder-in-cold-blood by Police officials who clearly weren't exercising basic prudent judgement -- compounded by the MSM going-along with this appalling travesty of public policy and exemption from the principles of law. <br><br>As Bowles points out, the officer who killed Menezes should be held accountable by law for his actions -- or else the 'message' is that Police and officialdom are 'above' the law. Well, of course they are -- that's an unmistakeable in-your-face sign of Britain's slide into authoritarian fascism by way of the criminal misfeasance of the Blair Administration and the abysmal role of GB in the horrible war crimes and atrocities and disaster that is the Iraq War -- part of the same mindset that is capable of pulling-off state-sponsored false-flag terrorism to distract the public and get them in the 'right' all-aboard frame of mind. <br><br>And as Bowles points out, Blair has taken to incoherant rambling nonsensical notions somewhat as his 'Master' Prez. Bush has for quite some time now. (I recommend the whole article too).<br>Ennyway: Thanks for the Heads-UP!<br>Starman<br>***<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.williambowles.info/index.html">www.williambowles.info/index.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>Death of a Brazilian or how to massage the facts to fit the crime<br> <br>by William Bowles • Saturday, 30 July 2005 <br>--excerpt--<br><br>... I would like to offer the following observations on the government’s tactics that point I think to some serious flaws in the government’s calculations that first and foremost hinge around the disastrous debacle of the Menezes murder.<br><br>In the first instance, it is clear that as the situation goes from bad to worse in Iraq, it has revealed the strategic disaster that is the ‘war on terror’ from which the USUK alliance is unlikely to recover. All attempts to bring the other leading capitalist states onboard have failed miserably, so with every passing day, the ‘coalition of the killing’ finds itself ever more isolated and most dangerous of all, desperate. Those who scorn the idea that 7/7 was in actuality instigated by the security services of the ‘Axis of Terror’, the US, UK and Israel, need to bear this reality in mind, never mind alleged forged photos, airbrushed images and the like.<br><br>And if we need proof of this we need only note the change of tack announced this week; goodbye to ‘the war on terror’, hello to ‘the war on violent extremism’. Extremism of course is a much wider and even vaguer definition than ‘terror’, for clearly this change in tactics is designed to prepare us for the next stage in the creation of a full-blown police state simply because it is inevitable that resistance to Blair’s policies will increase as the implications of the failed invasion sink in.<br><br>The announcement of new and even more repressive state powers this week, are a clear indication of the increasing desperation of the ruling elite’s situation, justified by the ‘convenient’ events of July 7 (and what I still consider as the accident of the botched and obviously amateur copycat attempts on July 21).<br><br>Police last night told Tony Blair that they need sweeping new powers to counter the terrorist threat, including the right to detain a suspect for up to three months without charge instead of the current 14 days.<br><br>Senior officers also want powers to attack and close down websites, and a new criminal offence of using the internet to prepare acts of terrorism, [and] to “suppress inappropriate internet usage”.<br><br>They also want to make it a criminal offence for suspects to refuse to cooperate in giving the police full access to computer files by refusing to disclose their encryption keys.<br><br>Now what the hell is “inappropriate internet usage”? Once the state embarks on a course of repression in order to enforce policy on an unwilling population, it is on a one-way street to fascism for there can be no backing down nor turning back. The only course of action is even more repression or the overthrow of what is effectively becoming a dictatorship.<br><br>The ‘middle ground’, represented by a social democratic model of rule through some kind of consent and compromise is no more, abandoned as with much of the rest of the inconvenient baggage of social democracy such as being answerable to the public.<br><br>And, as the situation gets ever more polarized by the actions of the government, it is inevitable that ‘terror’ morphs into ‘extremism’, thus widening the net to encompass an increasing percentage of society that opposes Blair’s ‘ordinary’ fascism. Before you know it, independent media sources such this will be branded as ‘extremist’ simply because we oppose the government’s policies.<br><br>Driving the entire enterprise is the state’s demonisation of Islam which has become ever more strident and extreme.<br><br>"That is why I don’t even agree actually … that in the end they just want us out of Arab countries, they don’t, it is far more fundamental than that, they want a war between Islam and other religions, that is what they want, that is why they keep referring to this as the crusader Zionist alliance and all this sort of rubbish. That is what they want, they want a situation in which we end up being divided" – Tony Blair<br><br>The we being of course, the white, Anglo-Saxon alliance of the US and the UK. Interestingly, the only time the term “crusader Zionist alliance” has been used was allegedly by Osama bin Laden in October 2004 in a taped speech that was identified with “moderate confidence” as bin Laden by the CIA, so it’s not even certain that Osama actually used the phrase. Moreover, the speech was released on one of the will ‘o the wisp websites, much favoured by the alleged al-Qu’eda terror network.<br><br>"And we are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level. And not just their methods, but their ideas. [my emph. WB]" – Tony Blair<br><br>But note now the use of the phrase “Not just the methods but the ideas” heralding the nature of the relationship between the US and UK as the US too alter their propaganda campaign to mesh with the reality of the failed military option. For failing to win the ‘war on terror’, there is only one option left, wage war on their domestic populations as the opposition to failed policies increases.<br><br>The speech from which these quotes are taken reveals an ever more unhinged Blair, with sections of the speech resembling nothing so much as a ‘stream of ranting consciousness’, replete with all the by now familar buzzwords. But it is the way reality is twisted that is most disturbing such as this example:<br><br>"Israel shouldn’t exist, yes American foreign policy is evil, yes what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan was designed to suppress Islam, if people accept those as ideas it is far less of a step into the extremism of terrorism."<br><br>In other words, if you oppose USUK policy in Iraq, Afghanistan or their support for the policies of the Israeli government then it’s a short step to accepting “the extremism of terrorism”. And there is the inference that the invasion was designed to “suppress Islam”, a first for Blair.<br><br>Extremism and terrorism are now completely interchangeable terms. It is obvious that those of us who oppose the government’s policies are being set up for the next phase; the inexorable logic of the slide into fascism.<br> <p></p><i></i>
