Curtailing Democracy

I found this pic here.

They Used To Deter It Elsewhere
We're told this implementation of anti-terror laws as a kind of necessary sacrifice of our civil liberties in order to exercise prejudice legitimately. i.e. Grab a Muslim without charge and interrogate him until they get something on him, then charge him for having a contrary opinion. If that's not state fascism in action, I don't know what is.

Here's a link sent in from Pleiades. It's an OpEd piece about Terror Laws as enacted in the United Kingdom:

Contrary to popular myth, the democratic process, the universal franchise, habeas corpus, the ‘inalienable rights’ and so on and so forth that the pundits spout on about, far from being an ‘inalienable right’ extending back to the Magna Carta some eight hundred years ago, our extremely limited democracy is barely one hundred years old and is something that is by no means ‘taken for granted’ as events in Northern Ireland revealed nor the raft of laws such as the infamous ‘D’ notice which is no more than an ‘agreement’ between the owners and managers of the media not to print or broadcast stories that might be embarrassing to the state, under the guise of ‘state security’.

With literally hundreds of laws that collectively the state paradoxically likes to call our ‘unwritten constitution’ and without recourse to a clearly defined set of rules that sets limits on what powers the state possesses over its citizens, until the UK — reluctantly and with all kinds of provisos — signed the European Union’s Human Rights Act, the state could pretty well do whatever it pleases. And now, under the guise of fighting the ‘war on terror’, it wants to opt out of key sections of the Act.

In fact, the UK is probably the most regulated, controlled and surveilled of any of the so-called democracies. With an estimated 6 million video cameras installed across the country over which there is no oversight, indeed, no controls whatsoever as to what happens to the footage, who sees it or who ends up possessing it, the state’s control over its citizens is almost complete.

And if anyone has any doubts about the perilous state of our ‘democracy’, the vote on ID cards on 18/10/05 had only 20 Labour MPs voting against it, and most of those on the grounds of cost of the project. Public debate on the issue is virtually non-existent. The government has consistently misled the public on the real nature of the ID card, hiding entirely the real reason, namely the creation of a national database on its citizens, an allegation it of course, strenuously denies. The vast cost of creating a national database on 60 million people, a database that will contain information of all kinds, not merely the kind that will allegedly stop ‘identity theft’ or allegedly identify ‘terrorists’, ‘benefit cheats’ and those participating in ‘organised crime’ but to add insult to injury, one that we will be forced to pay for.

So the Poms are getting along without a Constitution that vets the rights of UK citizenry. I guess I knew that, but I failed to realise the ramification of that AND these Terror Laws they've put into play. I'd be more than uncomfortable with that arrangement.
The article gets 'Bolshier' when it crashes into the bounds of Democracy as practiced in the UK:

What is revealed here is something a lot more fundamental and a lot more insidious, for these self-same people who now talk of a “drift toward a police state” have seen the writing on the wall for at least past eight years, yet said nothing and indeed were quite content to accept the ‘drift’ so long as it didn’t affect them.

Moreover, it reveals the incestuous relationship between our so-called intelligentsia and the state, why else do they continue to peddle the line that what is happening is some kind of encroachment on these mythical ‘rights’ that we are supposed to have had for centuries?

The uncomfortable truth is that democracy, even the limited form we currently have, exists for only as long as it’s convenient to keep it. And it’s a ‘democracy’ that is extremely narrowly defined, namely a two-party system that exists within a structure defined by an inherited and entrenched state bureaucracy that is, we are told, neutral and independent of the political process.

Yet the ‘Establishment’ as it is referred to, is a recognised institution composed of people who control the organs of the state; the judicial system, the civil service, the police and security services, education, the armed forces, and through their connections, the media and big business. These are people who are connected via the schools and universities they attended; the clubs they belong to and via family and business relationships.

However, the ‘Establishment’ is rarely, if ever referred to as being central to the maintenance of the State’s power. Instead, it is presented to us as an amorphous and inherited set of relationships that are intrinsically ‘English’. The illusion is complete and reinforced by the assumptions made about its ‘inevitable’ nature, hence the statement “freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries” flows logically from such assumptions.

The role therefore of the intelligentisa is to maintain the illusion of a society ruled by people who have some kind of ‘natural right’ to rule, benignly you understand, to suggest otherwise is to be ‘un-English’ and it goes by the name of a ‘meritocracy’, those who rule through ability alone, at least that’s what we are told. The Establishment is so powerful that it easily absorbs even those who ‘rise through the ranks’ and end up belonging to it, such as those who head up the current ‘Labour’ government, regardless that they come from working class backgrounds.

I don't know if I count as the Intelligentzia. I do feel that somehow I'm not doing my entire part, as I am not currently organising a grassroots movement against the Forces of Stupidity unleashed by those blurring the lines between Church and State, and running off to the 5th Crusade. In the near future, wanting to fight this dystopia will inevitably make you the terrorist. Get ready for the stoush. These assholes know not what horrors they unleash.

It can be seen therefore, that there is a direct and organic relationship between repression abroad and repression at home; they are two sides of the same coin and result from the same process, the crisis of capital. Without once more entering into and engaging with the political process, I think it’s safe to assume that failing an organised and coherent opposition to the current Labour government-led regime, and one that’s not led by a posse of self-serving ‘liberals’, whose position of privilege is only now recognised as being threatened, the omens are seriously bad. And, if you’ll forgive me for repeating myself, it’s up to you to break free from the illusion, so cleverly constructed, that the attacks on our rights only apply to ‘extremists’, as they’ll come knocking on your door in the morning, of that you can be sure, history has taught us that, over and over again.

So this is where we're left. It is time to organise, get motivated and let the power fall.

Mal Fraser's Speech
Here's the entire text, sent in by Pleiades.

The courts have ruled that people in Guantanamo Bay must have their day in court. Unfortunately it has not yet taken the step of confirming that the Tribunals are unconstitutional.

Australia has supported the military tribunals. The Government has said that Hicks will get justice, but the majority of opinion is against the Government which unlike the British Government has abandoned its own citizen. We have, by implication, supported the Rendition Programme and therefore have not opposed torture.

The ASIO legislation of 2002 underlines Australia's official indifference to "due process" and to what until recently would have been regarded as universally accepted Rule of Law.

We are the only democratic country, I am advised, to legislate for the detention of people whom the authorities do not suspect of any wrong doing or even of any wrong thought.

In Australia, any of us can be detained merely because authorities believe we might know something that we don't even know we know. The authorities do not have to believe we are guilty of any crime, or are planning any crime, or have consorted with any suspicious persons. How could such a law be drafted by the Government and supported by the Labor opposition? You can be detained for one week but then on a new warrant, another and another and another week. Unless it is approved in the original warrant, and why would ASIO do that? - you are not allowed to contact your wife, your husband, your child, your mother, your father and of course not a lawyer.

If you don't answer ASIO's questions satisfactorily, you can be charged and subject to 5 years in jail. But the law is reasonable, it goes on to say that if you don't know anything, then it's not an offence not to tell ASIO anything!!! But you have to prove you didn't know anything and so the "onus of proof" is reversed.

You can be asked to produce a paper and if you don't, you also go to jail on prosecution for 5 years but the law goes on to say, being fair-minded again, if you don't have such a paper, it's not an offence not to produce it but you have to prove that you didn't have it. How do you prove that you do not have something that you do not even know exists!!! Again, the "onus of proof" is reversed.

If a journalist heard that you had been detained and sought to report it, he would go to jail for 5 years. If a detained person were released and talked to anyone about his or her experiences, he could go to jail for five years.

This seems to be a law for secret behaviour by authorities, for making somebody disappear. It is a law that one would expect in tyrannical countries and not in Australia. Do we do nothing about it because we believe it will not apply to ourselves? Do we believe it is only going to apply to people of a different religion who look a bit different?

There's a lot more from the mouth of Old-Time Conservative Patriarch himself; the manner in which he expresses himself is a bit *yuck*, but content-wise he's saying what's right. So props to you Mr. Fraser for speaking out.

And by the way, where're Gough and Bob and Paul in all of this mess? You'd think there would be a wide-spread public volatility, and an army of public figures weighing into this topic.