the Bogeyman cometh

The recent serious loss of service experienced by many social network site, I include Google in this, could simply be due to the paranoia of nations states as they try to syphon off the ever increasing chatter, within their own country and equally that of friendly or foe states. The secret state surveillances that we know are taking place may be failing top keep up with the traffic growth. It is possible that their collective snooping has crashed the very sites they are so desperately keen to snoop on.

All for our own good and safety of course. If it was not for their constant vigilant monitoring we would be overwhelmed by all those terrorists out there for ever creating ever more sophisticated plots to overthrow us. On the scale of probabilities I am most likely to die in a car accident than encounter anything even peripheral to terrorist action. Set aside the probables in life and let us look at more extreme scenarios. I am much more likely to be raped or knifed in a street brawl than suffer even a minor graze resulting from a terrorist action. The collective paranoia and the accumulative hype about terrorism far exceeds the capacity of the terrorists to action. They do not have any super-powers, they do not have laboratories with highly skilled technicians dreaming up ever more complex devices, they do not have a highly organised and covert secret organisations able to baffle and confuse, no. They are relative simpletons, bumbling along making it up as they go along, limited to a few devotees and preying on the disaffected, disillusioned and despairing youth who are willing to commit suicide by strapping bombs to themselves. This is the true cost of the social inequality that is being so vigorously promoted, disaffected youth beyond hope.

We live with the awareness of unimaginable horrors, large numbers of people dying unexpectedly in dreadful circumstances, but we get on with life, we dont freeze up and cancel life. Not just natural disasters either, but man disasters. Planes do fall out of the sky, from time to time, we carry on flying, learn the lessons, but life carries on as normal. A few extreme acts of terrorism have been carried out, no one can forget the shock of 9/11, shocking but isolated, yes and in the scale of daily events exceptional. Sometimes through our own inefficiencies they get in their view, lucky. But terrorist acts are not the norm, they are not a constant in daily life. Despite what our security services would have us believe. This motley incompetent collection of the disaffected, that talk big, boast about their 'elaborate' plans but seldom have the nonce to succeed, are talked up by the security services. They promote them to arch enemy status and invest in them all the skills needed to justify the ever more elaborate defensive screens the security services think would be nice to employ. The Government, being the government, have to be seen to act, so can only support the only advice they can turn to, and up the security screen to the next level. There by confering on the bumbling terrorist the prize of being taken seriously and more credible than they are in reality.

The collective fear that has been talked up is just a later day version of the witch hunt. The Inquisition were on the hunt for witches, our Security Services are on the hunt for terrorists. The Inquisition were on the look out for covens, our Security surveillance seeks out terrorists cells. The Inquisition duck boarded witches to prove their innocence, we water-board our suspects to prove they are not terrorists. The Inquisition had to protect society from the evil spells cast by witches, the Security Services have to protect us from being radicalised. The Inquisition required everyman to denounce his neighbour, the Security Service listen in to all our gossip and speculations. The Inquisition looked for trademark features of witches, the Security Services check suspects against their radicalised muslim profile. The Inquisition and our Security Services justify their actions for the safety and peace of the State. We are degraded by their actions in our name. We are intimidated into giving up precious freedoms and rights for fear of the dire consequences that otherwise will arise, or so we are told. The terrorist wins the long game when we close down every day actions in anticipation, when we abandon cherished high ideals because of what they might do. When fear enters the mind and displaces rational thought, the terrorists have won.