16 March 2009


All travel plans to be tracked by Government

Well done, Britain.

That's the way to clog the arteries.

Making 100% sure you don't ever see me again, right?

Spiffing.

1 comment :

sibadd said...

In the 19th century belligerents started set piece battles at an agreed time - but for a few ungentlemanly guerillas and mutineers. Spies were beyond the pale - though used. The 20th century ushered in 'total war' with no civilians, futile attempts to make rules and no need for 'declarations'. Now we have assymetric wars - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare
- in which a terrorists can be called a bomber without a plane. Insert cyberspace into the 'battlefield' and there's a ghastly logic to this business of finger and eye printing the lot of us - and don;t be so sure it'll clog the system with the exponential rate of data storage. Chatting to the CO of a Fire & Rescue Service a few years ago he remarked that all his staff have been placed by the government on what amounts to a 'war footing' and of course that applies seamlessly to the police and military (fuzzy boundaries). As for the intrusion of technologies, did you notice my blog last year on that unnapproachable freighter anchored off the town? http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=red+dots
Le Carre and now Alan Furst are the writers I enjoy on the moral confusions (tho' Furst uses the 1940s for context). David Mamet's good on the same thing - Q & A? I just watched Scorcese's 'The Departed' - screen play William Monahan "When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"
It's all about identity and conscience and confusion as to who is 'them' and who is 'us'. A priest in the Inquisition returning here would be on familiar territory. In this hall of mirrors just hope your luck holds and you don't stumble into this, or it into you.