Snitching, Snooping, Surveillance Democracy??

            How deep have we sank into the fascist world of Orwell's 1984? More and more legislation stopping you from doing this, more and more legislation stopping you from saying that, more and more surveillance, a polite word for snooping, ever greater encouragement for people and institutions to snitch on people's idiosyncrasies, if you don't fit into their straight-jacket, you're a threat. Always the bogey man of terrorism is dangled in front of you, seeking your acquiescence in this avalanche of fetters on your freedom. 

            The recent case of school boy, Rahmaan Mohammadi who had a visit from the police after his school reported him under the government's “Prevent” scheme, gives us some idea of how this snitching, snooping, paranoia permeates our society. What was Rahmaan's heinous crime, he wore a “Free Palestine” badge, what narrow minded, paranoid member of the school staff thought that supporting the cause of the people of Palestine, merits a police investigation? Rahmaan also alleged that the police warned him not to talk about Palestine in school, and further claimed that staff members put pressure on his 14 year old brother, telling him to get Rahmann to ”stop being radical”. This is an outrageous assault against the individual's right to voice their opinion on whatever matters to them. You and I know, this is not an isolated case, this cancer is everywhere. The government is spending £40 million on the snitchers program, “Prevent”, while continually cutting budgets to health, education and all other social services. Under no stretch of the imagination, would you call this democracy.

        Our millionaire friendly state now plans to go further, 

under new government legislation Local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions are to be banned by law from boycotting “unethical” companies, as part of a controversial crackdown being announced by the Government.
        Under the plan all publicly funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

        So you elect your local council, they are supposed to do your bidding, you instruct them to stop handing your money to industries that ruin your kids health, tobacco, industries that gain from bloodshed, the arms industry, and those millionaire shareholders sitting the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, say, no you can't do that, we might lose if the share prices go down. According the millionaire Bullingdon Club boys that walk our corridors of power, the boycotting of such vile, destructive, money making concerns is responsible for, “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-Semitism”. 

       So, where is our “democracy” that illusion that the state has created by means of smoke and mirrors, that same illusion the state used to get millions to shed their blood, supposedly defending, when in fact they were participating in an imperialist land and power grab, defending the wealth and power of those who control that state. Democracy can only be found outside the state, the state is authority, democracy is anti-authoritarian, the two are totally incompatible. If you want freedom and democracy, the state has to crumble and the system that it spawns must be destroyed.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk