Saturday 26 October 2002

THE ENEMY WITHIN

1: A senior officer in the Republic of Ireland's police knew the Real IRA was planning a car bomb attack in the north three weeks before the Omagh blast, but decided against passing the information to RUC colleagues for fear of exposing a valuable informer, a detective has claimed.


2: Joe Gormley, the miners' leader who presided over two successful strikes against the government in the early 1970s, was named yesterday as a police special branch informer.

Ray Buckton, the long-term leader of Aslef, the train drivers' union widely derided as militant, was also a special branch informant, it was claimed yesterday.


3: According to ex-MI5 officer turned whistleblower David Shayler's account of MI5's 'infiltration' of Class War, He described the debriefing of a particular agent who bragged about beating up uniformed police officers as part of his cover

4: "21st century warfare is about becoming the enemy, recognising no fundamental differences in your ideologies, seeing only the crinkly edges of complexity.."
(the invisibles)
"The posthuman extends his/her possibilities through conscious design."
(--Henry W.Targowski)

Friday 25 October 2002

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

over the past 7 days i heard from 3 individual friends that i hadn't seen or heard from for quite awhile:

a txt mssg from friend 1 : "please don't let any secrets slip out. thanks, you're a pal. hope to see u soon. xxx"

an ansafone mssg from friend 2: "i'm really unhappy and the worlds a horrible place."

a txt mssg from friend 3: "i'm so depressed i could die...just needed 2 tell someone. trouble is wherever i go i take myself with me. i wish i was different."

last night i visited my aunt, who'll be 80 in a few weeks time. she's my mum's only remaining sibling, the 2 brothers are dead. we don't really know one another as adult people. the one and only previous time i remember going to her house was around 1971. after a few hours together she began to tell me about her childhood. more acurately she considers that she didn't have a childhood.

she said that when she was 6 she was taken to a train station, without any previous explanation, put on a train with a name label around her neck and was met by someone the other end. she discovered she had been sent to a boarding school, where she used to wet the bed, and she didn't come home again for six years. one day, when she was 12, she was taken aside and told to put on some different clothes, it was then she was told she was going home.

at home she discovered she had a new baby sister, my mum.

at home she says she became like a servant, made to clean the whole house by herself. this was the 1930s without modern cleaning conveniences. and she said that her step-father, my nan's 2nd of 3 husbands, used to abuse her.
on this day 1983

US troops invade Grenada

United States marines and army rangers invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada, seized the country's two airports and took Cuban and Soviet prisoners.

Tuesday 22 October 2002

on this day 1966

Double-agent breaks out of jail

One of Britain's most notorious double-agents, George Blake, has escaped from prison in a daring break-out believed to have been masterminded by the Soviet Union.

Blake was charged under the Official Secrets Act in May 1961. During his trial, part of which was held in camera, he pleaded guilty to five counts of passing on secrets to the Soviet authorities.

He was sentenced to the maximum of 14 years on each of three counts, to run consecutively - a total of 42 years. It was the longest jail term any British court had handed down to an individual to date.

During his time as an agent, he is believed to have betrayed the names of more than 40 British agents to the Soviets. Many disappeared, and were thought to have been executed.

His actions devastated British secret service operations in the Middle East. He is believed to have passed on the names of almost every British agent working in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut.

After escaping from Wormwood Scrubs, George Blake made his way to Moscow, where he has lived ever since in a state-owned flat.

In a television interview broadcast by the state television channel in 2002 to celebrate his 80th birthday, he described the years he has spent in Russia as "the happiest of my life".

Sunday 20 October 2002

NAKED TRIAL

Steve Gough's Southampton Magistrates' Court (U.K.) trial on the 18th October was adjourned because he turned up to court naked and was then arrested and charged with 'indecent exposure' (a sexual offence despite his behaviour being non-sexual). Information about trial dates, with regard to the previous charge of 'disorderly behaviour' and this new charge of 'indecent exposure', will be posted here as soon as such information is available.

"Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live."
(Henry Van Dyke)
MINDKIND

"in thinking about thinking we should remember that not all thoughts are memes.

in principle, our immediate perceptions and emotions are not memes because they are ours alone, and we may never pass them on.

however, in practice, because we use memes so much, most of our thinking is coloured by them in one way or another. Memes have become the tools with which we think."
susan blackmore/the meme machine

"meaning is not in things
but in between them."
'norman brown'/velvet goldmine

"with world war one, a new phenomenon appeared. Avant-garde movements committed themselves en bloc to political parties as enthusiastically as they espoused particular theories of art and, at least in the 20th century, art and politics have been inseperable."
helena lewis/ the politics of surrealism
Fear Controls Knowledge. Knowledge Controls Fear.
on this day 1988

New law erodes right to silence

"The British Government has announced plans to change the law regarding a suspect's right to remain silent so that remaining silent could incriminate rather than protect a suspect."

The ability for a judge to consider the meaning of a suspect's silence became law the following November as part of the Criminal Evidence (NI) Order 1988.

In 1994 the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act came into force and included a section outlining the fact that a person's reason for remaining silent could be interpreted by a judge and jury.

Saturday 19 October 2002

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM

by
Emmanuel Goldstein


"the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand

The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.


They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.


The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories,

In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense."
TRANSHUMAN MANIFESTO

"Humans are too stupid for anarchy. We become gods first, then anarchists."
(Mike Price.)
on this day 1989

Guildford Four released after 15 years

The Guildford Four have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal following an extensive inquiry into the original police investigation.

As he emerged from the court, one of the four, Gerard Conlon, announced to the waiting crowds: "I have been in prison for something I did not do. I am totally innocent."

"The Maguire seven are innocent. Let's hope the Birmingham six are freed" he added.

The investigation into the case, considered to be the biggest ever miscarriage of justice in Britain, was carried out by Avon and Somerset Police. They found serious flaws in the way Surrey police noted the confessions of the four.

Friday 18 October 2002

"It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.  If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders."  ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

Wednesday 16 October 2002

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me.  If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.  I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."  (~Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)
la guerra es la paz

"There has been a spectacular surge in support among British voters for military action against Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack in Bali,.......support for a military attack on Iraq has risen 10 points in the last week from 32% to 42% of voters."

International Federation of Journalists Report Confirms Fear for Journalism After September 11
"The declaration of a "war on terrorism" by the United States and its international coalition has created a dangerous situation in which journalists have become victims as well as key actors in reporting events." writes Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary, in the final report on the aftermath of September 11 and the implications for journalism and civil liberties.

Shortly after the September 11 th 2001 attacks on the United States, the IFJ carried out a brief survey with its member organisations seeking information about the immediate impact of the terrorist attacks. The report, to which journalists’ groups in 20 countries responded, was published in October 2001 and revealed fears of a fast-developing crisis for journalism and civil liberties. Some eight months later, these fears have been confirmed. The recently published final version of the report is based on information from IFJ members and press freedom groups. It reviews developments up until the beginning of  June 2002. Full-text of IFJ Report: Report (pdf, 450k) IFJ: www.ifj.org

the Security Services (MI5 and MI6) have been lying to ministers, failing to stop known terrorist bombs and even committing terrorist acts themselves.

There is a fundamental problem that any act of terrorism can be and is used to justify the continued massive public spending on the secret state.

Meanwhile, a fiercely libertarian nation subordinates itself willingly to a world of checkpoints, patrol boats, long delays due to security at airports and stations and the closure of public places. Security and surveillance measures, and draconian detention powers, which at any other time would cause outcry, gallop on to the statute book with no more than an unheard whisper from right- and left-wing libertarians and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Bush's sunny demeanour in the Florida school at which he heard the news was apparently undaunted by reports of the first plane attack. Once his face had dropped and he was scrambling aboard Air Force One, he managed to mumble: 'This is a difficult time for America' and promised that the 'folks' who had killed 4,700 people would be caught.

On 6 and 7 September 2001, there was a huge surge in trading on options in airline and insurance sectors. In particular, insurance companies such as Swiss Re and Munich Re, which face massive liabilities from the destroyed World Trade Centre in New York, experienced heavy trading. British Airways saw huge volumes of 'put' contracts on Liffe, the London futures and options market. In Amsterdam, traders were 'astonished' to see huge rises in put options in KLM, the Dutch airline. Buyers of put options try to make money from an anticipated fall in a company's share price.

Conspiracy theory proponents have heavyweight backing. Last weekend Ernst Welteke, the president of the German Bundesbank, said there were unusual movements in equities, oil and gold on the Thursday and Friday before the terror attacks.

la guerra es la paz
Once there was a time when all people believed in God and the Church ruled. This time is called the Dark Ages.
Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots

Sixteen essays make a contribution to "cyborg anthropology" and "cyborg feminism." Volume considers human reproduction through the lens of an interrogation of the cyborg metaphor, its power, pleasure, promise, and threat. Exceptional introduction by David-Floyd and Dumit provides historical/theoretical overview of cyborg metaphor as quintessential postmodern myth and tool.

Section one essays discuss medico-technological interventions in conception and contraception including production of "technosemen."

Section two includes essays by Emily Martin, Rayna Rapp and others, examining gestation and the use of medical imaging (ultrasound) and screening (amniocentesis) technologies to produce "normal" and "healthy" fetuses.

Section three essays consider technobirth, focusing on the medical monitoring and management of the mothers body.

Section four considers childrearing in a digital culture, including essay by Sherry Turkle on cyborg babies in a culture of "simulation."

Tuesday 15 October 2002

posthuman manifesto
on this day 1999

Police award Silcott damages

The Metropolitan Police Force (the Met) has announced a £50,000 out-of-court settlement to Winston Silcott, wrongly convicted of leading the murderous attack on Pc Keith Blakelock during the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot.

The policeman was beaten and hacked to death with a machete by a mob after he became separated from colleagues on Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, north London.

In 1987 Silcott, along with Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip, was convicted of the Pc's murder but all three were cleared in 1991 when their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal. At the time, Silcott received £17,000 in compensation.

Silcott, who is still in prison serving life for the murder of boxer Anthony Smith, was in the process of suing the Met for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution when the award was announced.

Forensic tests suggested evidence against Silcott may have been fabricated by police officers.
DREAM

the queen was enjoying hanging out with me. i was affectionate and tactile with her. we laughed about things. she helped me paint a wall and didn't mind that she got paint on her jacket.

Monday 14 October 2002

on this day 1973

Thai army shoots anti-junta protesters

Numerous testimonies indicate the regime opened fire on unarmed civilians. The official death toll was 77, over 800 were wounded, in the Thai capital of Bangkok in street battles between government troops and demonstrators.

Most of the victims were students from Thammasat University, who had gathered in large numbers for a second day of protests against the Thai military regime.

"Bangkok is now under a state of emergency. Newspaper censorship and curfews have been imposed, and schools in the capital will remain closed until the situation calms down."

Sunday 13 October 2002

Cyborgasms

Cybersex Amongst Multiple-Selves and Cyborgs in the Narrow-Bandwidth Space of America Online Chat Rooms. an MA Dissertation by Robin B. Hamman 30 September, 1996
on this day 1988

Government loses Spycatcher battle

The British Government has lost its long-running battle to stop the publication of the controversial book Spycatcher, written by a former secret service agent.

Law Lords ruled the media can publish extracts from former MI5 officer Peter Wright's memoirs, because any damage to national security has already been done by its publication abroad.

But they agreed Mr Wright's book had indeed constituted a serious breach of confidentiality, the principle at the heart of the government's case against him for the last three years.

In his memoirs as an MI5 officer Mr Wright alleges the security service operated beyond the law.

Some of his more controversial revelations include the claim that Prime Minister Harold Wilson was the target of an MI5 conspiracy and that ex-chief of MI5, Roger Hollis, was a Soviet mole in the 1960s.
Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool. (...John J. Miller, And Hope to Die)