My island person

I had always understood that my one inviolate sanctuary, where I had to account to no one, were the thoughts in my mind. It seems that just because they can our Government have decreed that our personal thoughts are too important and must be monitored. Not just monitored of course, but reacted to should they imply what they consider to be inappropriate. Over any period a gamut of thoughts surge through my mind, shape shifting, getting stronger, weaker, changing focus, convolving to tangent ideas, narrowing down to a focus then off again. To manage my thoughts, to challenge them to see whether there is any substance in them, to consolidate them so they can be subjected to review, I need to try to set the more important ones down. Many people need to share ideas, to test the air, to see where the consensus lies, to confirm a mutual concurrence, to reassure a commonality of experience. Whatever, people chatter, nowadays they bounce words around, just a flux of ideas bouncing around responding to or creating stimuli for other ideas or tired old just going round doing the rounds. Our Government have given themselves the tools and taken the right to monitor all this electronic chatter, shifting for data trends, hotspots and of course making judgements on inappropriate ideas, who might be making them and jumping to (informed?) guesses on possible outcomes.

It is crystal clear to me that there are three key distinct stages, the initial thought which then translates into an intention and finally becomes an idea that is implemented. That tip over point, no longer an abstract thought but an actual observable committed deed that can be held up, scrutinised and the perpetrators of it held to account, for good or bad. So amongst the medley of thoughts that rummage around in my head are the concern about the homeless, hankering for expensive kit and annoyance at a prominent role model so shamefully brushing aside any self-restraint. These shapeless thoughts morph into ill-defined intentions; to donate 10% of my income to charity; to become a millionaire and to proactively promote a Republic State when Prince Charles gets to succeed. 

With their routine surveillance of all us, our government monitors may well pick up on all these intentions of mine and flag me as a person who needs to closely watched. Pre-emptively, so they can get their water cannon in place before any protest kicks off, for the security of the greater good, of course. But intentions can be all, or more often, nothing, anything from empty boasts, still born at inception all the way to imminent implementation over a timescale of immediate to never in a million lifetimes. Logistically how are our government monitors to evaluate me, along with all the other huge number of daily potential targets? No matter how sophisticated their data mining is in identifying hotspot, fluxes of interest there is no algorithm to convert an averaged potential into an actual tipping point of action. Knowing with statistical certainty what the median of that personality profile may do, does not translate to the actual behaviour of any one individual in that sample. Whilst we may all conform to some stereotype or other we are each unique individuals with our own unique set of reactions and triggers. We are not interchangeable, I may be similar to you in shared interests but my responses will produce a different outcome to yours. 

Now my ill-defined intentions may spark off a search for information to firm up my intentions into plausible courses of action. Still no commitment, still on the fence, open minded just looking around to see what options are out there. My wish to donate to charity might take me from the usual frontline providers to looking into the politics of poverty, how it arises and how others think Society needs to change to minimise poverty. My intention to become a millionaire may take me quickly from evaluating all the free-ride tickets games of chance, to assessing the distribution of wealth and who controls access to it, to spending a lot of time in my local Banks getting to know all the front office staff on familiar terms. As only a tepid monarchist I will easily find all the other dissent groups who oppose the monarchy and very easily become familiar with all the alternate society models together with all various routes, tacit to active dissent, as ways of changing the status quo. With such an array of potentially highly suspect contacts and potential alliances with groups out to thwart government authority I must surely pose a security risk? With all those alarm bells ringing how is any risk analyst going to know with any credence whether I have become radicalised or remain aloof to counter cultures? A presumption of guilt unless proven otherwise can only have one outcome, a ballooning of potential targets followed by a ever burgeoning security monitoring service increasingly hyper-active and hyper-sensitive. 

The only reliable safety valve we have, is the community we live within. That community has a past knowledge, a current expectation and a fairly robust future prediction of where I am and what I might be capable of at any period of time. No amount of data trawling can get anywhere near close to that level of community introspection. There is a catch, of course, as being one of us, part of their community, the community will cut me slack and make allowances for me, if challenged by Them (the Them of an outside of the community authority), for some transgression. A level of latitude that would not have been offered had I transgressed against the Us of the Community. An insider Us is protective of the outsider Them, (think again about a Locally Based Policemen being one of us as versus a visiting Policemen coming in from Them of the outside).

Intentions are ephemeral, to chase the ephemera of electronic chatter is as mindless as the Inquisitors chasing down Witches. Instead of yesterdays Witches we have the now current bogey of the Terrorist. Prove to me you a not a Terrorist is just as inane as proving I not a Witch! Only tangible discrete actions can be examined, challenging intentions leads to only to the morass. Anything that distracts or diffuses from that key transition point when an intention morphs into an action is to be deplored. When my charity intention is translated into actual action, dropping a 50p coin into a tin; hoisting a republican flag in my garden or strapping on a pretend body bomb to hold a Bank hostage, then you need to stay alert, to be on your marks. Not wasting resources chasing fantasy ghosts of your own creation. What we do all have to fear and remain ever vigilant to is the maverick loner. The loner living beyond reach of the community he lives within. Rather than expend wasted resources monitoring all electronic chatter, far, far better by miles is to trust in the local community. For the community to know and police their members. Do everything conceivable to reinforce, encourage and dissipating culture barriers so the connections within any community between its members, can flourish. 

In the end, this is the only reliable safety net we have. Meanwhile I must have the freedom to think the unthinkable, so I can arrive independently at my own moral judgements, yet safe, with the knowledge that the community I live amongst will keep me rooted in what is acceptable. No amount of electronic eavesdropping while ever provide a better secure safety net.

Justifiable Ends

It is not a frequent event when you stare at the TV, jaw dropped, in utter disbelief. It happened recently during the Andrew Marr Sunday interview with Condoleezza Rice. Without a blink, any hesitation, the least demur she said, stony faced to the camera, the US of A government used all possible legitimate and lawful means to 'treat' suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. Not a moments hesitation contemplating the paradox that as the US of A makes up its own rules, does not allow anyone else to hold it to account, it can make whatever rules it likes and therefore legitimatise any conceivable action. Clearly for the US of A government this readily included the indefinite incarceration of suspects (conceivably innocent) whilst subjecting them to a sustained, deliberate, destructive, dehumanisation programme. A programme specifically designed and calculated, in its use of sensory and social deprivation, denial of cause or hope of relief, with the intention to rob that individual of any sense of self-worth and identity. Rendering these objects, held under their jurisdiction, to the base animal form, stripped of any sense of human normality. In contrast a casual indifferent bullet to the back of the neck would seem, in comparison, almost humane.

A chink just to indicate, looking back, there was, in the full heat of that moment, an over-reaction, a lapse from the normal standards, then she might of saved the day for her and for the US of A, that she put herself out to represent. But no, she was defiant, there was no wrong doing! Just another proof that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts completely. Why our leaders lose all moral and ethical sensibilities as they reach the peaks of authority, I have no idea. What is clear is that by resorting to the tactics and the justifications of your enemy, you give up on your right to judge and inevitably subject yourself to others judgement. When our government subscribes to deception, entrapment, if not outright support and encouragement, in order to infiltrate political activists, as recently seen on Confessions of an Undercover Cop, then they too give up the moral high ground. They are no better than the 'extremists' they seek to control and contain. There are no shall I, shan't I positions, no middling degrees, either you stand by the moral standards you choose to run your life by or you don't. Our government is supposed to reflect the higher standards we all aspire to, not the gutter. They, our representatives, presumably were chosen because of their high moral viewpoints, viewpoints we can all share and applaud. Nothing ever justifies the abandonment of those standards, not by individuals filling out expense forms and certainly not by our government acting on our behalf. Okay, technically the police, but obviously working within the framework prescribed by government and of course, budget cuts will reflect on their ardour in achieving stated government goals, that is, the limiting of political activists freedom to stage events. It amounts really to the same thing.

When terrorist are in the gun sights then all ethical standards fly out of the window. The tight rope walk, when dealing with political activists, of keeping close to the line of public goodwill and support can be totally ignored. Our government, inquisitors in modern robes, loses all reason and see it right and fitting for middle of the night raids. Tearing 'suspects' from home, family support, shattering any career hopes and incarcerating them beyond contact for upto fourteen days at some one else's pleasure. Giving free reign to institutionalised racism, because who ever heard of a white middle-class englishman as a radical terrorists? These raids to root out and discover 'suspects' are based on no more than 'intelligence' which can be gossip, innuendo, grudges or simply mischance, wrong face at wrong time or place. These, our latter day witches hunts, places, as it ever has, the onus on the radical 'terrorists suspect'  to prove the impossible that they are not as named and shamed.

Amongst the hundreds of witches that were burnt, or drowned or worse, for the sake of society at large, no doubt there were one or two that actually tinkered in the black arts. Not every radical is a terrorist, not every terrorist carries out an act of terrorism. By descending into the gutter, demonising all terrorists, (see also my post, War on Terrorists ) and treating them with less than the respect due to any human, no matter what contrary creed, race, beliefs or professed objectives, we ourselves become terrorists against civilised society.

What, as a civilised society, we know full well is that in the end you have to sit down with your sworn enemy and make pragmatic arrangements to live alongside each other. It is so much easier to reach that concord when you have not vilified each other nor have not radicalised their followers by inhumane treatment under your hand. In the end we all have to talk to each other, so keep to your high morals and you have less to repent at your leisure.