Orwell's 1984 was a picnic in comparison to 2009.
I was born into a working class community, raised to vote Labour but I will never ever vote Labour ever again. They've turned this country into a police state - I've never committed a crime in my life. well apart from the odd parking violation, and yet I'm on the DNA database and can't get myself removed despite the fact that the European Courts, an organisation we are supposed to adhere to, have said I should be removed. And I'm not alone - a massive proportion of the UK DNA database, the biggest in the world, is made up of innocent people. Check this OUT.
If you've got nothing t
o hide you've got nothing to fear...that argument doesn't hold water, though. In a perfect world this may be true but the world we live in is far from perfect. And now the country is in such a state, people so fed up, that extreme right wing parties like the BNP are gaining support. Now I'm not a supporter of the BNP myself but that fact that the authorities have temporarily banned them from taking on new members shows how undemocratic the state has become. Freedom of speech - we may not like what everyone says but we should defend their right to say it. Recently the BNP leader appeared on the flagship BBC show Question Time and instead of putting sensible politcal questions to him and allowing his party to be revealed for what they are, the show was a witch-hunt. The public could see this and to many it gave them sympathy from the BNP who came across as the people's party being bullied by the all too powerful establishment.In the meantime the country grows scarier by the second. That's it for now - I've got to hide from the thought police.
What's happening with the G20 inquest?
What really happened to David Kelly?
1 comment:
Like you, Gary, I was born into a working class community with socialist leanings in politics.
I haven't lived in the UK since 1967, so I'm not qualified to add to others' comments on the present situation, apart from saying that what I read here and elsewhere -- and hear from relatives -- is depressing.
I would add, though, that the writing was on the wall in the mid 1960s and did play a small part in my decision to emigrate. I am a great believer in the exercise of non-criminal personal freedoms that don't endanger other people's safety or infringe on their rights.
One small, probably forgotten incident from the '60s is the Harold Wilson Labour Government's crackdown on the offshore private radio stations that had been set up to challenge the BBC's position as the then sole provider of radio programming and propaganda to the British population.
Sensible people suggested the "pirate" stations should be licensed and brought on to dry land. The Labour government wouldn't have a bar of it. Instead, they put out the lie that no radio frequencies were available and suggested with no proof that pirates' broadcasts jammed emergency signals. It was made illegal for Britons to work for, supply, assist or advertise on the stations.
It seems freedoms have been steadily eroded ever since. I'm told readers of westerns in the UK can now borrow from the public libraries only those books deemed acceptable to morally conservative librarians!
Post a Comment