I am not surprised at the naivete(accute accent on the last e) and
ignorance of most of the commenters and of journalists on the issue of
the 'surveillance state'. Very few are ready and willing to call a
spade a spade and most are unable to recognize or admit to themselves
that the state - in each of the 'former democracies' the entire
government aparatus, from the elected self-servers, through the
bureaucracy, the military, the legal apparatus, and the host of others
wielding some aspect of power - is, in the main, a totalitarian, and
often stupid, lying, cheating, theiving and power-hungry collection.
One should not be willing to avoid placing the above in the context of
fascism. This phenomenon, although it's most infamous examples being
NAZI Germany and Mussolini's Italy, is revealing itself today in the
so-called 'democracies'. By definition, the merging of state and
corporate power into a single functioning system is called fascism,
which is where we are at the moment in the so-called 'democracies'. As
a telling example, it is interesting to note that the term - 'department
of homeland security' - is a reasonable translation of the name of one
of the most feared branches of the NAZI SS in Germany during WW2.
Proof of this merging abounds. It has just been revealed in a Guardian
article that major U.S. corporations, such as Microsoft, Google,
Facebook, Yahoo and others, worked for and were paid by the U.S.
National Security Administration to create the comprehensive spy system,
PRISM. In an entirely different area, U.S. laws were not applied to
large corporations (example: financial corporations) because 'they are
too important to the economy') when government policies and corporate
greed combined to severely damage the world economy and decimate small
investors savings. Rewards for such fraud by those in positions of
trust are huge, and if they are too 'structurally important' to
prosecute, then even if the actions will ultimately destroy the
business, country or world economy, they have to be followed.
The business behaviour of large internet-related corporations is another
example. Corporations like Facebook, Google, GMail, and others, amass
huge data banks of information about their individual users. This data
is sold to their corporate customers, ostensibly for use in targeted
advertising. It is an easy and natural step to sell this data to
government agencies which will use tha data to enhance the goal of
surveillance and control.
Of course, many people will, at the least, roundly criticize me for my
'intemperate' language, and concoct a myriad of excuses for the
totalitarian state, calling its members' behaviour 'misguided' or
'excessive' or 'mistaken' or stemming from 'an honest desire to do good'
or 'justifiable business practices'.
Such excuses merely forgive the evil behaviour of the aforesaid bunch
and fail to acknowledge that the state and its partners have, throughout
most states' known histories throughout the millennia, consistently
sought more power, more control and more wealth for its members and
friends through the direct and indirect exploitation of the vast mass of
humanity who have little or no access to power, no control and no
wealth. Rebellions, civil wars, insurrections, protests (both mass and
by less widespread interests), sabotage, emigration and other forms of
escape, and other anti-state or anti-wealth actions have spontaneously
risen or occurred from time to time throughout history. Sometimes these
have resulted in 'reforms' or reductions in the unfettered exercise of
state power and control. The creation of nominally democratic forms of
government in some sectors of the world has resulted from these
actions. Nevertheless, the state constantly strives, albeit sometimes
without the minds of its participants explicitly or specifically
directing their thoughts towards it, to maximize its power and control
over the masses of humanity.
The fact that this apparent increase in state surveillance and the
totalitarian laws and apparatus which support it and the striving for
control it reveals is so widespread across the spectrum of what I call
the 'former democracies' makes it clear to me that my analysis is
correct. The U.S.A., the UK, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, and many other countries, are examples of the 'surveillance
state' and varying degrees of totalitarianism.
The recent increase in terrorism on a world-wide basis is being used as
the pretext or excuse for the current apparent increase in totalitarian
behaviour by the state. And the wishy-washy, cowardly, excuse-making by
so many people today also has its counter-parts in past behaviour,
particularly during the rise of fascism after the First World War.
So I call upon the populace to recognize this totaliarianism for what it
is and take appropriate action to fight against it.
