That Was The Year That Was

It has come to that time of the year again, a time when I reflect on what has been and what I feel is to come!

Wow, 2010, have you been eventful or what? In the UK we had our general election leaving us with the wonderful Con-Dem coalition. This has heralded in a new wave of budget cuts which we will begin to feel in the coming year. We have already seen anger at the way the Lib-Dems have turned their back on their tuition fees promise made in the run up to the election.

This quite nicely bring me onto the topic of the tuition fees protests. It has been many years since a student movement with the size and power we have seen at Millbank [link] and Parliament Square [link]. This year we have seen a reawakening of the student body to the activism of yesteryear. Now in this post I am not going to go into massive detail about the movement but what I will say is this, it has given me renewed faith in this generation. If you had said at the start of 2010 that 10s of thousands of students would march into London under a common cause to show their anger at the powers that be I would have laughed. We are meant to be the apathetic generation, "generation meh", but no more. We have shown that we can still mobilise and be powerful and from here we can build.

However this has also brought with it a darker side to the year. The police retaliation to the multiple protests and the resulting white wash of the media has left a sour taste in our mouths. First people were kettled into an area that they didn't want to be in so they went into Parliament Square to free up space. Then they were beaten, contained and even charged at by police on horseback. The tactics were heavy handed resulting in a man being pulled form his wheelchair twice [link] and one man was even left with brain damage after being hit over the head with a baton, the police even attempted to expel him from the hospital were he required emergency surgery for 3 hours [link].

Needless to say in the days following we were bombarded with stories of how the police were valiant heroes in the face of feral students from all the major media outlets. Some reports went as far as to claim protesters had pulled police from horseback [link], when the truth is very different [link]. This has caused a great number of people, both at the protest and not, to question the validity of the news and with it has woken up more people to the bullshit that we are fed every day.

On the other hand there has been a great change in the nature of news outlets this year with the fabled Wikileaks fiasco taking centre stage. Now Wikileaks has been around for a few years now but it is in this year that they have stepped up their game. The idea of Wikileaks is that officials can anonymously submit leaked documents and after removing personal details and ensuring the documents do not endanger people the documents are placed into the public domain [link]. This has opened up a new era in reporting in which the governments can no longer lie to our faces safe in the knowledge that their lies will stay under cover and never see the light of day. This movement has the power to fundamentally change the way governments operate and their relation with the people they govern. It is this that has so scared the people in power and caused the knee jerk reaction we have seen this year.

Obama stated as he took to office in 2009 that ""Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known" [link], oh how things have changed. After Wikileaks released around 250,000 embassy ties the mood of governments both at home and in the US turned sour. Political pressure was put upon websites connected with Wikileaks to force them into abandoning the site. Furthermore Julian Assange was arrested on dubious at best rape charges [link]. This shows to an ever increasing number of people that the powers that be these days only value free speech when it does not put them in a bad light. An encouraging effect of the political pressure is the backlash of DDoS attacks against the websites that have turned their back on Wikileaks and the way in which no matter the pressure applied by governments around the world the website has stayed functional even if it has had to change servers multiple times. This shows that even in the face of adversity free speech will succeed.

A major reason for the backlash of power against Wikileaks is the amount of information released in regards to the lies around the invasions and ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Videos of indiscriminate murder and destruction were released to an angry public as more and more of our people die over there. This year and last have been the deadliest in the history of the Afghanistan war [link] showing that rather than winning we are in fact losing, and badly. Not only this but the war is spilling more and more over into Pakistan threatening the stability of the entire area [link]. I'm not going to go too much in to depth on this matter but I will add that this again is another area where the reports by the main media should defiantly be taken with a pinch of salt. The "embedded" reporters must only report what they are told to by the army and thus cannot be fully trusted to be telling the true story. Now I wont go through a million examples but I will suggest you watch "The War You Don't See" by John Pilger [link] before believing everything bring said by these "embedded" reporters.

This year my faith in humanity was put into question again by the horrible Pakistan floods in July [link]. The floods killed (directly) thousands and displaced many many more. They resulted in an estimated £30billion in damages. With the war in Afghanistan spilling over resulting in the death of civilians the floods were the last thing Pakistan needed. Whilst this is a saddening event in it's own right it's the response of the British public that was more depressing. As the floods subsided the problems did not, as with any large floods the whole infrastructure was destroyed leaving many with nothing and at risk of cholera and other such diseases. There was a response and some aid was sent but many feel not enough. The TV and radio reports were filled with people saying that they wont support aid because of Pakistan's political stance. Now I understand that some people don't agree with Pakistan but this doesn't mean we shouldn't help their people when they are in need. The fact many turned their noses up at donating any money at all to help the civilians in need makes me sick, it shows the true dark side of humanity but alas I shall not go on too much about this as there is a lot to cover!

This year was catastrophic for the Gulf of Mexico with the Deep Water Horizon oil spill causing the largest environmental disaster for decades [link]. The amount of oil that erupted out of the drilling hole is unprecedented and at such at depth that the effects may not be known for years to come. 13 people lost their lives and many have lost their livelihood due to this disaster. The problems faced by BP were great when stopping the leak especially due to it's depth which resulted in the long time it took to stop the oil spilling out. I'm not going to place blame because this is a very complex issue and rather then pointing the finger this issue should be a wake up call. Our dependency on oil has meant we have had to drill deeper and deeper where the oil is a high pressures. This disaster will not be the last and most likely not the biggest as long as we rely on fossil fuels for our lifestyle, there's only so long they can last.

During 2010 the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, erupted grounding much of the air traffic over Europe [link]. This caused widespread disruption amongst travellers and commuting workers. The issue highlighted the vulnerability of our transport system and of international business in our age. We were lucky that the eruption was not larger and that the cloud did not remain in the atmosphere for longer. It shows a need for backup plans to be in place in case an event like this happens again for it goes to show that even in our advanced society we are still at the mercy of mother earth. However there is an upshot of this eruption, as a volcano erupts it releases CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. During this eruption though the amount of CO₂ released was less than what the planes it grounded would have released making it the first carbon neutral volcano [NewScientist 25/12/10 pg.23].

As I have already mentioned there is a cyber-war going on over Wikileaks. However this year we have also seen the start of a new cyber-war one that is more immediately threatening than the one oer Wikileaks, I am talking about the Stuxnet computer worm [link]. This was a worm that infected many industrial control systems, most prominently in Iran. For a long time it was unknown what the purpose of said worm was but it has recently came to light that the worm was intended to target centrifuges working at a certain rate required to enrich uranium. Due to the nature of the worm and the fact that it's impact was generally centred around Iran (suspected of enriching uranium for nuclear weapons) suggests that this worm was in fact created by a state in order to hamper Iran's ambitions. If this is correct (which it most likely is) then we have step boldly into the realm of cyber-warfare and this is just the first shot. In this case the damage was limited to simply breaking centrifuges but it is obvious that this could have been a lot worse if whoever programed the worm desired it to be. We have entered a new level of war and there is no going back.

Now I have talked a lot about what has happened in the past year but now I shall set my eyes on how I feel the next year will go. I'll start off with a safe bet and say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue and so will the bloodshed. Combat troops may begin to be removed from Iraq but these will be replaced by peace time troops and more private arms. The war in Afghanistan will get worse and continue to encroach on Pakistan. A lot of civilians and soldiers will die, there is no doubt about that.

Another safe bet is that the Gulf of Mexico will not fully recover for many decades, if ever. The amount of damage caused by the Deep Horizon spill will not fade away over night no matter if the media simply forgets about it. We already know a lot of the claims put in against BP will not be settled as many of the people do not have full financial records (they catch the fish and sell it cash in hand) so I doubt there will be any major reparations on the part of BP. They will continue to be hugely successful and this event will be but a small slip on their radar.

Now as we've already seen I can't help but be doubtful that there will be any major changes to that way the bankers operate. The very people who lost all of the money are getting billion pound bonuses and we already see dozens of adverts on the TV telling you it's easy to get a loan in half an hour, be that at 2000%APR. Indiscriminate lending got us in this mess and I see no end in sight. There will be no long lasting effective reforms in banking and we are doomed to boom and bust for many generations.

Now there is a chance however that due to the huge cuts being made (in many cases unnecessarily) by the Con-Dem government will lead to a double dip recession. We have already seen the growth in the economy slow down and with the cuts in public sector jobs a lot less people will be able to spend to keep the growth going. We will see huge cuts across the board, including the likes of the NHS, meaning these next few years will be very hard, especially for those worse off already.

One thing I do see happening is an increase in the number and the severity of protests. There will be more student protests, more union walkout and more strikes as the Con-Dem government attack everything and anything public they can. The people will not take this sitting down and that means there will be an increase in civil disobedience. We are seeing the dawn of a new pro-active age, or are we seeing a recurrence of the 1980s? Either way it means there will be a lot more action in the coming year.

However that bring with it the fear that the police force, already heavy handed, will continue to increase the level of force used against protesters. We already frequently see police horse charges and people bloodied up. This year we have seen Alfie Meadow's almost die at the hands of police and as much as it sadness me to say it I would not doubt that we see another Ian Tomlinson this year. I just hope that some time some how the police tactics get re-thought and protocols re-drawn.

This year has had it's ups and it's downs. Next year promises to be as exciting as the last. I for one am looking forward to seeing how it will unfold. Comment with your ideas and have a happy new year, let's hope to god it's not our last.

Stay Alert, Stay Free.

PROTIP: V for Vendetta is awesome!

P.S. This is likely to be my last post until after the exam period in January.

Like Pigs To The Slaughter

We are winning! We'll at least that's what they want us to believe.

How many times have you turned on the news to get a story of our progress in Afghanistan/Iraq [link] only to be told moments later that the number of casualties is increasing at an ever faster rate [link]? Now I may not be an expert but that doesn't really make sense. If every day we are making progress then how are we constantly losing more and more troops?

It just takes a look into the history books to see why they call Afghanistan the "graveyard of empires". Not only did the Soviets get defeated there [link] (with a little help from the US funding the Taliban but that's another story) but also us, the British, have been defeated on Afghan soil, not once, but twice [link1][link2]. These are but two states that have been defeated in Afghanistan and there are many many more [link]. It is obvious from the history of this region that any war would inevitably be long and drawn out leading to a large number of casualties, Mission Accomplished indeed.

As the war in Afghanistan continue it is becoming more obvious that this war is not going to be confined to within the borders of Afghanistan. It began subtly with drone attacks starting to edge across the border into Pakistan as early as 2004 [link]. It is estimated that between 2004 and 2010 there have been 200 strikes into Pakistan, 100 happening between 2009 and 2010. This signals a shift in the battlefield. The war is shifting across into Pakistan, a nuclear state[link], which promises to further destabilise the country and the area. Pakistan has been at war and close to war with it's neighbour India many times throughout it's history [link]. This is particularly scary due to the fact that India is also a nuclear power. With conflict possibly spilling further into Pakistan this brings a real threat of war if Pakistan were to become destabilised.

As the Afghanistan war threatens to destabilise yet more of the middle east at least it means we are protecting our own shores? Nothing could be further from the truth, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq raise the risk of an attack if nothing else [link].

We are being sold lies in an effort to continue these illegal wars which are now only causing more death and lowering global stability and security. The people here do not agree with the wars [link] and they are quickly turning into unjustifiable slaughterhouses. We need to get out, how many more lives are these illegal wars worth?

There are many more issues to be covered here but I'm not going to create a sprawling post right now so this is your lot at the moment.

Stay alert, Stay Free.


Any comments are always welcome, keep the discussion alive.

The Lies, The Slander

Now I am unsure as to how this post will go, I have so much I want to say and much of it is in an incoherent mess within my mind but I feel like if I wait too long to post this I feel as though it may never be made and will not be an accurate portrayal of my feelings.

Any way I and around 30,000 other people marched onto parliament square on Thursday the 9th of December 2010 to protest against the increase in student fees, the education cuts and generally against the effective privatisation of the education system within this country.

The measures put forward by the Con-Dem government will put further education out of the reach of many of the young people of this country under the guise of cutting the deficit. However this is not the case, how can increasing fees in 2 years decrease the deficit now and help us get out of the current crisis. A crisis which was caused by people taking out loans that they could simply not repay. How are the majority (not all as some, namely the upper class, student will be able to) of students be able to repay a debt of around £40,000. A lot of this debt will go unpaid which will do no favours for anyone. We already have the highest fees in Europe [link] why should they be any higher? Do we want a system similar to that of the USA were parents need to start saving from the birth of a child in order to send them through education or indeed for people to be completely priced out of further education. We need educated people to build a future for this country.

Furthermore the idea that cutting the funding by 80% or even 100% for the arts is a good way to ensure our education system is well funded and world class is an utter disgrace. Other countries are investing in their future whilst ours is cutting back, I say cutting back more like cutting out. This will cause the closure of many universities which many less well off students rely on again pricing students out of university.

A Con-Dem proposal for paying the first year or two of the poorest 16,000 or so student does little to compensate for those who are just above this threshold who will be left to suffer the full brunt of the fees. Furthermore the fact one or two years is payed doesn't help when the people still come out with more debt then they would previously, some A LOT more.

Alas at the moment I do not wish to dwell on why these cuts and increases in fees are a terrible idea. I would prefer to dwell upon the illegal and out of proportion response of the police to these actions.

Firstly I shall start on the point of police horses. The whole idea of having an animal in this sort of situation is sickening and cruel. Sure these animals are trained but there is only so much an animal can take. An excuse often used for police brutality is that the person gets stressed out. Now we are logical animals and have more of an understanding of the situation, an animal no matter the training will not understand the situation. That amount of noise and violence will stress out a horse and cause it to become dangerous, both to us and the police [link] as well as itself. This is animal cruelty and must stop.

I shall take a step back and explain what I meant by violence in relation to police horses. A tactic used a lot on Thursday was to charge into the crowd of protesters (never mind some were as young as 13/14) in an attempt to separate them. The crowd however is not always able to separate resulting in people getting trampled causing great damage to the person. This causes great fear as people could well die under the hooves of these horses. If a person is faced with the possibility of death or serious injury they may well throw whatever they have to try and stop this. The protesters did not target the horses in a malicious manner and even when something was thrown in a last ditch attempt at self defence it was undoubtedly aimed at the police on the horse. This means that the police by introducing the horses lead them directly to harm which is cruel and should stop.

Furthermore the actions of mounted police aside the rest of the force were also staggeringly heavy handed and illegal. As we entered parliament square we were instantly kettled, few, very few, people were able to leave from that point onwards the majority had no chance of leaving and had no real access to toilets or food and water. This is a direct attack on our freedoms and human rights and is an attempt to anger the masses into escalating the violence. A lot of violence was due to people aiming to leave the kettle, especially near the end when we had been detained for at least 6 hours. The majority of the demonstration were peaceful, no matter what is portrayed in the media, and we were all trapped on Westminster bridge for around 3 hours. This serves no end but as an attempt to scare as many of the first time protesters from protesting again. This is not however the effect it had, if anything it has made many protesters question the establishment and yes the police.

The kettling and the provocation it caused is just the tip of the iceberg. The sheer force that the police used against unprotected people is astounding. Now I can understand some force in order to keep people out of parliament, after all these peoples jobs have been manipulated to mean that their duty is to protect a government that is gong to cut their jobs. However the sights that I saw cannot be fully described by my words but I shall simply tell it like I saw it. People of all ages returned from the front line after clashes literally pouring with blood from their heads and young girls crying their eyes out along side old women hysterical with fear. People with broken bones were sent back into the kettle and denied medial help leaving them to have makeshift slings made until they were aloud out.

The violent methods used by the police did nothing but anger the protesters and escalate the violence. Images of fences being carried across the top of crowds were pounced on by the media and the masses told that they were being thrown at police. This was NOT the case. Fences were being taken to the front line. They were not however, being used as weapons. What actually happened was that the fences were being placed between the protesters and the police in order to protect the protesters from the truncheons of the police.

A person was nearly killed after being hit by a truncheon to the head. As a result of this he got bleeding on the brain, he was then denied medical assistance by police officers before an ambulance worker intervened [link]. Another protester was dragged from his wheelchair multiple times. We are expected to be thankful that they did not open fire? What has happened to this country? It is disgusting but it will not stop us. As long as the government acts to destroy out country we will continue to fight.

Now the point of this post is not to be anti-police because in most situations the police are necessary and a force for good but I fail to see how nearly killing people is for the people. We will hold solidarity when you are cut if you march. We will march for the more general cuts then just in education. This is our fight, this is your fight. Rise together and win together, solidarity until the end.

I'm sorry this post has been a lot more opinion and first hand experience than being backed up by sources as usual but this has made me very angry. I will endeavor to make a post supported by more factual sources next time but I hope this has made you question a few things said by the media and at least entertained.

Stay alert, stay free.

We Are Free

The governments of this world are growing out of touch. They do not understand the internet and it's culture at all. This is shown by their attempts to close down Wikileaks [link for now at least].

Wikileaks as I have said before is a website that enables people from around the world to release documents detailing lies fed out by their governments, effectively allowing whistle blowing without the immediate threats encountered if they were to approach a more conventional outlet. This has allowed us to begin to level the laying field. It allows us to know if we are being lied to and the real motives behind the governments actions.

However for obvious reasons this has not gone down well with the powers that be. How can they claim to be for the people if there is a constant stream of documents being released that states otherwise? For this reason the US and European governments have been making attempts to shut down Wikileaks without taking into account how this wonderful thing known as the interenet works.

Firstly there are the relentless DDOS[?] attacks, an attempt to overcrowd the server and cause it to crash. This was successful in temporally bringing down the site [link]. This however is as said a temporary thing and after some time the site was back up and operational after all the attacks.

However the game then took a step up, international governments began applying political pressure on the companies owning the servers that Wikileaks was hosted, such as Amazon [link]. This caused the site to be taken down but alas again this was only temporary. The beautiful thing about the internet is that it is based on free speak and this means that there are a great number of able people out there that believe in this cause. This has lead to the site being "mirrored" and hosted in numerous places all over the world. As one is shut down another opens, it's like a game of cat and mouse but this time as the mouse is caught another 5 appear.
Another attempt to end Wikileaks has been made recently with the arrest of founder Assange [link]. This will not in anyway bring an end to Wikileaks as this site is not a single man, it is not a collection of men, it is an idea. An idea of freedom and liberty that cannot and will not be extinguished no matter how many arrests are made. Once something like this is out on the internet there is no way of stopping it, Wikileaks has already stated categorically that it will not stop due to Assange's arrest [link].

It is now that we see that the governments are out of touch with the internet culture and are genuinely scared. This Wikileaks battle has shown that we can make them accountable for their lies and misleadings. It shows that whilst they may try with all their might that the internet will remain free, that whilst it may not be the most direct form of action that whilst we have the ability we can remove the veil over our eyes on the internet. This is truly a wonderful time. I hope that this Wikileaks escapade will encourage others to whistle blow and not be scared, for it is now that we know we can be free.

Stay alert, Stay free.

A New Beginning

One good thing about the Torys, they're waking up this generation to the absolute bull that comes from downing street and the media. They can kettle and they can shutdown Wikileaks but they can't shut our eyes once they have been opened.

A new generation took to the streets, a generation that supposedly doesn't care. Sure this is over fees which many feel will effect them financially in a direct way, for many this is the first time they feel as though their way of life is under direct attack by the government. It feels normal for a change to take up a banner and march in the street, I don't feel marginalised for wanting to go out and show my disgust with the way things are ran.

There has been a shift in the consciousness of the young people of this country. No longer are they content to say "If you don't like it then move" or "At least its better than [insert country name here]" and for that I thank the Torys and their elitist regime. This is an exciting time to be a student, we finally have an enemy we all identify with. Cameron the smug upper class weasel that we all resent and Clegg for lying straight to our faces.

What is most exciting though is not that students and none-students a like are fighting against cuts in their thousands, it's that there are thousands of people simply mobile in the streets. One act of civil disobedience over an issue will make it more likely that they will continue onto other issues. The police have tried to quash the protests for this reason, planting police vans and kettling protesters to try and scare us from returning. Alas all it shows is that the powers that be are scared, the Lib-Dems changing dates and venues for meetings shows this. As Thomas Jefferson once said "When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." We are witnessing a scared Government, we are regaining our liberty.

However there are two sides to this post. As you may all now Wikileaks released a great deal of documents dealing with the Iraq and Afghanistan war as well as other documents. My opinion on the matter is that information should be able to freely move and if there is evidence of the Government lying to it's people then we should be able to access this information, obviously information on current operations should be kept secret to protect our troops but I feel as though we should have a right to know if we are being lied to. Yet as we stand on the brink of our generation waking up we are confronted with outright censorship by our freely elected governments. Wikileaks has been shut down and has moved servers many times in the past weeks due to political pressure. This is a blatant act against freedom of speech and information. When we live in an age were we are told that North Korea fired unprovoked into South Korea [link] before discovering this is may not the case at all [link].

We are entering an age were the government is more open to blatant abuses of power and attacks against our freedoms yet we are also seeing more and more people wake up and fight back. It may be student fees and education cuts that have got people onto the street but there is a sense that this is only the beginning. These are exciting times, the balance of power is shifting. We can fight and we can win. A mere few months ago that sentiment would seem ridiculous to many but now it seems this thought has penetrated the zeitgeist. This is merely the beginning of the war, the people together will never be defeated.
Stay free.

We will march on the 9th, we will march until we win.

Zombies!

The Government is wanting more and more of our information but don't worry they will be able to keep it 100% secure shouldn't they? I mean surely our security and governmental organisations have some sort of defence against known viruses don't they? Well apparently they don't. Manchester Police have recently been hit by the "Conficker worm" virus (link). This virus got into the system via an officers memory stick and spread quickly throughout the system. The virus itself has been around since at least November 2008 with the most recent variant being found in April 2009 (link), this to me would seem like ample time to set up some sort of defence to detect the virus before infection. With such sensitive and valuable data on the system a scan of any external memory devices should be run to ensure our information is safe, this is obviously not a priority of the police force.
In this case the infection was caught fast and the system was isolated meaning that the damage caused was minimal. If the virus had gone undetected for long it would open gateways for other more damaging viruses and hackers to enter through, this is very worrying considering what information is held on these types of systems.
Even though the damage was minimised the system still had to be taken down for three days. During these three days police couldn't access information to check for criminals and suspect vehicles effectively crippling the whole system. Now this may appear as a small and negligible problem in the long run but what happens if this kind of thing happens on the now developing National Identity Register (NIR)? If the NIR went down for a few days people would not be able to access any information on the system, effectively removing them from the planet for those few days. Any checks that need to be ran would be impossible and all transactions for that time would be halted.
This however, would be a best case scenario, one in which the virus was not detected early allowing it to spread could be so much worse. If a similar virus was allowed to mature and spread through the system peoples information would become readily open to attack from hackers and other viruses. This could lead to peoples information being effectively lost from the system, this person would then have to prove themselves against a system which is apparently fool proof in order to restore their identity. Furthermore peoples information could be easily stolen and sold on or used for identity fraud, with the amount of information held on the system this could be devastating.

This is not adequate protection.

The way that this system is designed to be interconnected across the entire country leaves many openings for some sort of virus to enter through. Unless their are thorougher checks on every device added to the system (this is neglecting any viruses picked up via other methods) an infection is inevitable. If a system the size of Manchester Police can fall prey to something like this what hope does a national system have? Sure, there may be a raised sense of security about it but an infection is inevitable.



Keep alert, stay free.

Fear

Fear is no longer an emotion, it is a product. A product being sold to us everyday without us even noticing. It is the fuel of this capitalist dream and those dispensing the fear hold the power over the terrified masses. Fear is what is controlling us and it is the fuel burning away at our freedoms. We need to reinstate fear as an emotion and not a product in order to be truly free.
Fear is a natural response to a threat and is perfectly natural and healthy. That is as long as the threat actually exists. However more often then not we are being lead to be fearful of threats that simply do not exist simply in an attempt to control. You watch the TV and see images of death and destruction, the news shows us engaged in another futile war whilst the soaps get involved in large murder plot lines. All to remind you that you are indeed mortal, something that instills fear into most people. This is however, not the end. We are then bombarded with advertisements for products we don't need telling us that we wont get laid if we don't buy there new wrinkle cream or anal bleach. By ensuring the consumer is scared the companies can manipulate this to sell their worthless products. There is money to be made out of fear.
It is not only the corporations that can profit from fear but also those who are instated to protect our best interests, our governments. The buzzword this past decade was terrorism, any news article could be sexed up with the words terror or extremist and result in the audience lapping up what ever spews from the newsreader. In a state of fear the people become sheep. The staggering number of CCTV cameras and the simply deplorable ID card scheme are both products of fear. The threat of terror is amplified to simply ridiculous levels in the media to create this level of fear in order to produce enough flag wavers to allow the government to have it's way. The fear created clouds people's judgement and makes them more susceptible to manipulation.
To illustrate the amplification of the threat from terrorism I give you the fact that almost 400 times more people die in car crashes in developed countries than from international terrorism (link). What does this tell us? Is it that we should be petrified of driving? No. It is simply that the threat of terror is so small it is almost negligible. The fact that road accident are so frequent and terror isn't results in the skewed view of the world we see on the news. To put it simply drama sells and terror attacks are dramatic. The whole idea of a terror attack is to create fear and due to the way the news portrays terror the attacks often have their desired results. What happens when we realise that a certain terror group isn't as scary as we first were lead to believe? After all isn't terror a new thing to the 21st century. Well the faces and names simply change. The people we are told to fear varies over time, I mean weren't the reds meant to have killed us all by now?
However terror is not the only thing we are taught to fear. If you were to take the threats printed in the news all seriously life would be impossible. Every other day there is breaking news that causes cancer or if toxic or can kill you in any number of ways. People buy into fear so if you can print a story with a scary headline people are going to buy your paper or magazine or even watch your show. So by increasing the fear in peoples lives the media companies increase their profits which intern allows the advertisers to pick up on the fear and take it running. A scared society is a stupid society.
So as this has dragged on for a while and I am positively knackered I shall round it up here. Basically a lot of what we fear is not scary. It is often blown out of proportion to fit others needs. Threats are not always as overt as those posed by politicians discussing terror, some are much more covert. The media paints a picture of a terrifying world in which everything must be feared, the advertisers then pick up on this and offer their products as the only solution. We need not fear the entire world, we need not fear each other. I believe in the intrinsic goodness of man despite the atrocities we have committed, I believe people are good. The more we succumb to this state of fear sold to us the darker the world becomes. No wonder the depression rates are always increasing, we are taught to be scared of everything and everyone. Once we see the true beauty in life, the beauty obscured by fear, we will be free. You need not be afraid simply think next time a politician or a news article or whatever tell you you need to be scared because most of the time, they are wrong. We live in a wonderful and beautiful world, too often is this forgotten. Stay happy, stay free.
Also if you enjoyed this post you may enjoy this mans work:







P.S. I realise this article has a lot of my own views as apposed to factual content but I feel this blog belongs here. If anyone has any thoughts or arguments to do with what I have written then simply comment below and I shall expand upon this.

I'm Spartacus

This shall be a short blog post. Lately new adverts promoting ID cards have arose. Below is said advert.



Cute isn't it? Why it seems only innocent people are fingerprinted is beyond me but this is not what I want to discuss. The scene they are relating to is from the film Spartacus (link). In this scene the slaves are told they can all be allowed to live if they produce Spartacus to be killed. However the group of slaves all group together and defy the Romans. So effectively what the ID card scheme means is that bad people will be able to find and kill however they please. Nice... Nice.




Keep alert, stay free.

Safe as (card) houses

Now as you will probably have guessed I am indeed against the new ID card scheme and there are many reasons for this which will be explain through the time I maintain this blog. One reason I appose the system greatly is the blatant risk this scheme creates regarding our personal information's security. Now if the government is going to collect and hold so much information about us then the least you'd expect is that it would be kept safe. We are promised gold standard security regarding our information held on the database but what does this really mean?

Now the way the database is designed for information to be passed around means that it is stored online meaning that security is not as simple as locking a door. I do not claim to be an expert when it comes to Internet security but what I do know is this, any information held on the Internet will ever be 100% secure. There will always be people who can hack through firewalls and play with the information which, when it involves your very identity, could be disastrous to your life. Now when hacking is brought up in debate many people will say that this is not a risk as the security system that will be put in place will be created by the government and thus it will be almost impossible to hack making it absurd to imagine people being able to pay a local hacker to damage others information. However this will simply not be the case. The problem being that just because it is the government in charge doesn't instantly make a system more secure, many cases can show this ideal of superior security to be flawed.

Firstly let's begin with the American government and the pentagon. This is an organisation with billions of dollars at its disposal and with secrets that would lead you to conclude that they need the best security in the world. Somebody simply hacking into the system without the backing of criminal masterminds and a whole team of experts seems absurd doesn't it? Yet this is exactly what Gary McKinnon, a 43 year old Asperger's syndrome sufferer, did (link). Now if the information is so delicate that it warrants his extradition (link) then surly their security would be top notch? It has also come to light that the Iraqi resistance have been hacking into US drones using nothing more then a £16 piece of software which is widely available to the public (link). If it is possible for war machines to be hacked into by such simple methods what hope do we have for this database which will be so central to our lives.

That is just the problem you see. The fact that this database and ID card will hold so much of your information that eventually peoples lives will become dependant on it making it a target for cyber terrorists or indeed cyber warfare (both are real threats shown by this link). Not only this but the fact that practically all of someones personal information will be held in this one place will make the database a huge target for fraudsters and other criminals. The huge amount of people who could find gain by hacking or simply damaging the database is staggering, meaning that sooner or later a way in will be found and the ramifications of this will be catastrophic.

The real question here is whether you trust our government to keep the astounding amount of information they want from you safe. This is the same government that lose Cd's containing very personal information (link) and leave laptops on trains (link). If they can't keep the amount of information they already have on us safe then how do they expect to keep the ludicrous amount of information they want on everyone in the UK safe. When past security specialists for the MoD warn that the system is a major threat (link) you know something is wrong. The prospect is terrifying.


Keep alert, stay free.

Naked Pictures

Not many people will be hard pressed to remember the events of 7/7. If you've somehow forgotten here's a nice link for you: Wiki article

The attacks were horrific and nothing anyone says will ever change that. We all saw the images and we all felt the pain. However this does not mean we should be scared, by being scared we let the terrorists win.

Many of you will remember this cover of the "newspaper" the Sun. It shows the academic John Tulloch injured after the attacks. The important thing however is the fact that around his face the words "Terror Laws: Tell Tony he's right" are written, insinuating that John Tulloch had spoken to the Sun and that he did indeed support Tony Blair's views (At this instance this would mean increasing the time a terrorist suspect can be held without trial being extended to 90 days). This was actually contrary to Tolloch's views and he is quoted as saying "Not in my name" during an interview. A full article can be found here.

This shows that even victims of terror attacks can see that simply making terror laws more extreme and intruding on civil liberties does not equate a safer society. It also goes to show that images in the media are used to manipulate feelings for political gains without necessarily representing the feelings of those involved.

Now why do I bring this back up you may be asking? Well it seems that terror has again reared it's ugly head bringing with it the question of safety procedures and civil liberties. On Christmas Day 2009 a man attempted to detonate an explosive on a plane in Detroit (article here). The attempted bomber carried the explosives within his pants meaning normal techniques for searching personnel did not pick up on this allowing him to board the plane and attempt the attack.

What can possibly be done to stop people doing this all the time you ask? How about having naked pictures of every passenger taken in order to find any concealed weaponry which could be taken onto planes. Crazy you say? Apparently not. Now this may just be me but I personally do not wish to have naked images of myself taken for security reasons which are flawed to begin with. At what point do we stop with scanners all together and just have people periodically strip off and have full cavity searches before they are allowed to board a flight?

Now lets say these scanners stop anyone wearing explosive unddies from boarding flights thus cutting out this possibility for terrorists. Would this stop attacks on planes? Of course not. This bomber did not simply decide that he wanted to put explosives in his pants just for the fun of it. No, the group he was working with saw the current searches and found a way around them. No matter what precautions are put in the way if someone wants to blow up a plane then they will find a way. Even if it were possible for it to be made impossible for a bomb to be taken onto a plane then the target would simply change to another. We seem to forget at these times that car bombs can just as easily be made.

Moreover it was not simply a flaw in security at the airport itself but a fault in system put in place to monitor terror suspects. The US had intelligence capable of stopping this event happening, namely having the attempted bomber on a terror suspect list (link). This shows that the attack could easily have been stopped without this new costly (and many suspect ineffective) scanner.

Now what we seem to forget is that the UK has had a long history of terrorism (link), how do people forget the IRA???? Now I realise that the IRA and Al Quieda are very different organisations but the effect is the same, innocent British people are killed. So how is it that suddenly all life must change forever because of terrorist attacks? Now putting security doors on planes I can see being nesicarry but how is taking naked pictures of people going to help? Paranoia in this country is rife and we are at risk of giving up all liberties before we know it. People are now being stopped and searched or even arrested for taking pictures under new terror legislation (link). This is not a stand alone case by any means and if you were to look around on the page provided previous there will be many many cases similar to this.

Keep alert, stay free.

Quotes

Today we play a little game. I will post some quotes and you guess who they are from.

Number One:
(On being asked why they said no1 successful outside politics would want to be an MP)
“Basically, it’s being nationalised, you have to live on rations and are treated like s**t. I spend my money on my garden and claim a tiny fraction based on what is proper. And I could claim the whole bloody lot, but I don’t.”

Number Two:
"[I] wouldn't wish [the NHS] on anyone"














Answers?

Number One:
Mr Duncan, a former oil trader and a multi-millionaire. He is also a Tory MP.

Number Two:
Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP.


Now there are two things similar with these remarks I believe. Firstly both seem to come from a point of view of a rich person. People who can easily afford to survive on the £100000 or so MPs get in wages. People who can afford to pay for private health care, unlike most of us.

The second, and more worrying, similarity is the fact both are from Torys. Now this isn't surprising due to the history of the Torys. Alas in the current climate it appears we shall be stuck with these people in power for the next four years after an election. This will come from people angry at Labour and not from people who actually believe in the ideals of the Conservatives.

Now if these statements at all represent the ideals of the people involved in the Tory party then I do not have high hopes for our future under their power. If people cannot survive on £100000 a year and moan about a health service that quite frankly is amazing compared to many then there is no hope for the common man. I hope these statements do make people reassess the Tory party for what they really are, and if they want to vote for them after that then fair dos to them, but a blind vote is a dangerous vote.

Poster Fun

Today I bring you posters.
Now it can't just be me that thinks these are to say the least a little retarded? I'll start with the top one. So someone in your street decides it's time for a good clean and after they're done they throw out the bottles of chemicals they used. So you being the upstanding citizen you are see the bottles and remember this poster... Now what was I meant to do again? Ahh yes phone the fucking cops. So now for cleaning their house they get armed police raiding their house searching for bomb making equipment and probably a little bit of interrogation to make suffice. Ok, ok, so a terrorist is REALLY making a bomb and needs to get rid of the bottles do you really think they'd be retarded enough to throw them away like this? If they're serious they'll have ways to cover their tracks.
Moving on to the second poster and all I can say is this is just a lie. If someone can give me one example of anything like this happening then I'd be happy to listen and I will admit I'm wrong but I highly doubt that will happen. Also would a CCTV camera really stop a suicide bomber blowing themselves up? I mean there was plenty of footage of 7/7. Even if some "terrorists" have been staking out CCTV why wouldn't the trained policemen at the other end of the camera spot it? Are they so badly trained that it's our job to survey the land? If that's so they why do we bother with CCTV at all if no-one with half a brain is watching the other end?
These posters just seem like a futile attempt to scare us into a state at which we're ready to give up our freedoms. To a point we'll take anything they give us. I for one am not terrified, if I was wouldn't that be playing into the terrorists hands? Or is fear a tool used by both sides? We shouldn't be any more scared then usual for when we are fearful we cannot enjoy ourselves. I'm not saying be stupid. If you, by some astronomical chance, see something which truly makes you believe something could be happening then fine report it. Don't be scared but don't be retarded.
In other yet connected news videos of Ian Tomlinson (R.I.P.) have been arising across the Internet and various news outlets. Basically it shows him walking away from police in a calm manner with his hands in his pockets when police basically smashed him to the floor. Moments later he dies of a heart attack. The attack is unprovoked, Ian wasn't even a protester, he was walking home from work, he wasn't threatening the police at all.
If this sort of conduct is allowed to go without anything being done then I personally feel sick at what this country has become and what it will become. If you mix the factors of fear and police brutality together you get something sickeningly like a police state, add citizens informing on their fellow man the picture turns much like 1984. I fear for what this country will become, for what humanity will become. No justice, no peace.

If you want to watch the video here it is but it is rather somber.


R.I.P. Ian Tomlinson