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Big Brother Is Inside You Once upon a time the world may have been a decent place to live for those who don't want the government -- or anyone else -- watching every move a citizen makes, keeping tabs on people like the Gestapo did. Those who wrote the American Bill Of Rights found privacy such a key to establishing their new nation that they guaranteed it in the fourth amendment to the constitution.
Now, Big Brother is not only watching. His latest eavesdropping device, the size of a grain of rice, is being implanted under the skin to track of peoples' every move and every breath. It was dreadful enough before this development. They already know where you live, what you do, what movies you watch, what food you eat, who you talk to and much of what you say. They know what web pages you look at, what your e-mails say, what illnesses you have had and what you take to treat them. They mine the countless pieces of data you provide them, willingly or not, via credit cards, electronic cash registers, doctors' records, data from the pharmacy, recordings of phone calls, transcripts of e-mail and data from bank accounts. They rape individual privacy by tapping in to information on everything you do. If you lose weight, they are able to find out in just a second or two by noting that your recent clothing purchases have been for a smaller size. Each time you buy a new book they know the title, author and ISBN number. Yet all this is apparently not enough. So now they are burrowing beneath your skin. A Florida firm's rice kernel size device gives you a built-in bar code, nearly identical to the one on a can of peas from the supermarket. Just swipe the human and you find out who he or she is. Increase the device size only slightly and you've got humans equipped with a built-in GPS tracking device. With it, each move you make -- even a visit next door -- is tracked, logged and the data kept forever. The device also keeps them informed of your body temperature, pulse rate and an array of data linked to those credit card records, bank records, medical records and internet usage records. An article in the Los Angeles Times is effusive about this diabolical development, touting its claimed benefits for Alzheimer patients and wandering kids. People in every nation and every state should demand that these devices
and anything like them be forbidden by law. To do less is the voluntary
capitulation to a Big Brother with fewer scruples than Stalin and much
greater control than Hitler ever dreamed of.
- 10 May 2002 The assassination of Pim Fortuyn will worsen an already critical atmosphere in The Netherlands and throughout Europe. Fortuyn was a very clever, learned individualist who became a dangerous man when he chose to make adherents of Islam scapegoats to win backing from racists and hate mongers in the Dutch election campaign. Because mainstream parties were not winning hearts in The Netherlands, Fortuyn probably did not need the anti-foreigner vote. Yet in a recent BBC interview a reporter suggested that people who planned to vote for him were racists. "So what?" came Fortuyn's reply. "Why they vote for me is irrelevant, but if they do they're in safe hands." The candidate had a flair and charisma that had been unknown in Dutch election campaigns. He was described as a "dandy" because of his chic Saville Row suits, wild ties, and the flaunting of his gay lifestyle. Fortuyn was as vain as a politician gets, but was refreshingly open about it. But around six in the evening yesterday, after a radio interview, a 33-year-old white Dutch man is alleged to have shot Fortuyn repeatedly, hitting him in the head, the neck and the chest. He was declared dead at the scene. Now the extremist rightwing has a martyr instead of a candidate. They also have a new excuse to decry the existing mainline political leadership, since Fortuyn was given no police security. Alienation with traditional political parties combined with fear of immigrants had already produced incendiary effects during Fortuyn's campaign. Now, in view of this awful assassination, the disenchantment may turn to outright hostility toward anyone considered part of the "establishment." If dismay spreads, the assassination of Pim Fortuyn may lead to a situation even worse than would have come had he won the Dutch election. - 7 May 2002 Fortuyn Assassinated; Dutch Man, 33, Arrested HILVERSUM, THE NETHERLANDS -- Pim Fortuyn, the extreme rightwing candidate who many feared would tally the largest vote in next week's elections in The Netherlands, has been assassinated. Fortuyn was in Hilversum for a radio interview when he was shot around 6pm local time. Eyewitnesses said at least six shots were fired at Fortuyn, who was walking toward his car when the assassin struck. Media reports said he was not accompanyeied by security guards. Police said a suspect has been arrested and is being held for questioning. The suspect was described as a white Dutch man. Prime Minister Wim Kok and other political leaders expressed shock and horror at the killing. Angry crowds gathered near government buildings in The Hague this evening, many of them carrying photos of Fortuyn. Security at government buildings in The Hague was dramatically increased
after the shooting.
- 6 May 2002 PARIS -- Jacques Chirac pulled about 80 percent of the votes in the second-round president election, defeating rightwing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen. Yet the overwhelming margin was only achieved by a national crusade to overcome France's shame two weeks ago, when Le Pen got more votes than even outgoing prime minister Lionel Jospin to qualify for the second round. Socialists and communists voted for Chirac in droves. Some observers said that nearly one vote in five being cast for Le Pen was a black day for France's democracy. Others called the result a cure for the bad conscience of voters who stayed home in the first round, thus denying Jospin of enough votes to qualify. There is no question but that the huge vote for Chirac was half-hearted. A common second round election slogan was, "Vote for the crook over the fascist." Now France moves from trying to overcome its "national disgrace" toward a
new period of uncertainty, as polls show voters unconvinced by leaders of
the mainstream political parties. - 5 May 2002 MUNICH -- German neo-Nazis have desecrated the former concentration camp at Dachau and attacked a Jewish cemetery near Munich, authorities said today. Toppled memorial stones and empty beer bottles were discovered last Saturday at Dachau. Gravestones were kicked over and damaged at a Jewish cemetery in Landsberg am Lech, 50 km west of Munich. Officials did not say why it took them nearly a week to report the incidents. - 3 May 2002 London Synagogue Attacked LONDON -- A synagogue in north London was vandalized and desecrated early today, and the attack has shocked British Jews. Most windows in the synagogue were smashed and paint was strewn over chairs and walls, police said. Rising anti-Semitism in Europe was blamed for the attack. - 30 April 2002
Message on the Walls Residents of Rome awoke today to find posters of former fascist dictator Mussolini plastered on building walls, monuments and sign posts throughout the city. There were hundreds of them, everywhere. Beneath a glaring photograph of Mussolini was the text, "The world, without me, still needs my ideals." The action by unnamed Italian fascists is the latest provocation in an increasingly strident wave of hate sweeping Europe. This evening in Berlin, a petrol bomb was thrown at a synagogue in the Kreuzberg district. Only days earlier, Berlin police warned orthodox Jews not to wear outward signs of their faith to avoid being targeted by German neo-Nazi attack squads. It was in Germany that the phenomenon of neo-fascism took root and spread just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In fact, on the night that the Wall opened, dozens upon dozens of uniformed West German neo-Nazis, swastika flags held high, entered East Berlin and scouted for recruitment headquarters. A year later Germany experienced the first of what was to become thousands of fascist gang attacks on asylum seeking foreigners, Jews, communists and gays. Immigrant housing was a prime target for fire bombings and Jewish cemetery gravestones were frequently toppled and defaced with Nazi slogans. In 1995 the U.S. felt the weight of rightwing extremism in a horrific bombing that brought down the Oklahoma City federal building. Although the government and media concentrated on a single terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, a string of militia organizations and neo-Nazi groups were tied to events leading up to the blast. Last year Italians elected Berlusconi, an extreme rightwing billionaire who owns much of the country's media and who has aligned himself with the Northern League, an extremist some say neo-fascist party. In France, Le Pen was already a presence, although mistakenly thought to be a minor until recently. It was not until one week ago today, when Le Pen pulled more votes than even the prime minister, that French citizens acknowledged the extremist right's spiraling success among ordinary people. Meanwhile the tentacles of hate have spread even to Belgium, Denmark and The Netherlands. Much of the crisis is blamed on the influx of dark skinned immigrants in western Europe over the past decade. Antipathy turned to hate after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, stoked by provocative sloganeering and dire warnings from Bush and Cheney that stir fears and heighten the belief that a clash of civilizations -- the Christian-Jewish world against the Islamic world -- is underway. European leaders have done precious little to prevent the rise of hate. Some have actually adopted policies co-opted from neo-Nazis in hope of winning their support. Worse still has been the pan-European push for a single European currency and vastly expanded powers for an ill-defined European Union that is out of touch with citizens. Added to growing dismay about the EU is European leaders' broad support for U.S. style globalization, even though hundreds of thousands of Europeans have lost their jobs as a result. The posters on Rome's walls today are another sign that Europe is in critical condition. The tired, empty words of mainstream politicians will no longer suffice to turn back the terrifying resurgence of mass fascist popularity on the continent. - 28 April 2002 Seeds of Hate Twelve years ago Le Pen tried to cross through Checkpoint Charlie to enter East Berlin but was turned back by GDR border soldiers who said he was a messenger of hate and declared him persona non grata. But since the fall of the Wall and annexation of East Germany, messengers of hate have encountered few further obstacles to their growth in Europe. Neo-Nazi gangs throughout Germany began attacking and murdering foreigners with impunity back in 1990. They were egged on by Kohl's rightwing government, which found it politically advantageous to adopt and adapt many of the extremists' demands as restrictive new laws instead of condemning the hate. And look at where we are now. Haider in Austria. The Vlaams Block in Belgium. Stoiber in Germany. Berlusconi and the Northern League in Italy. Fortuyn in The Netherlands. Party of the People in Denmark. Le Pen and Mιgret in France. The jackboots are in motion, foreigners are living in fear, the brown stench of neo-fascism is spreading fast. Those at fault are mainly in the mainstream political parties, who condemn the haters out of one side of their mouths as they emulate their policies out the other. The main political parties have failed. They have failed utterly to halt surging crime. They have allowed immigrants in but then created separate Bantustan-like areas for them to live, instead of instituting policies of true integration and assimilation. They shoved an unwanted Euro, an undesired European Union and despised globalization down the throats of a balking citizenry. They have killed off hundreds of thousands of jobs because business not the people wanted it that way. They have licked the boots of globalization's emissaries while turning their backs on the voters. It was little different in Germany seventy years ago. Mainstream parties, fighting each other because of a bankruptcy of ideas and will, made Hitler's career. Why should it be any different now? - 23 April 2002 France: A Hideous Unraveling The catastrophe of France's first round presidential election does not signify the failure of multiculturalism. Rather, it shows how miserably France has failed at integrating its immigrants into French society. Governments of the left and right financed and built separate housing, separate schools, separate health facilities in short, a separate society of immigrants within its borders. The results are well known and not at all unique to France. Disenchanted youths with little economic future whether they be poor children of immigrants or the sons and daughters of Jeanne d'Arc whites frequently turn to drugs and crime. A second-rate education and little prospect for the future leaves few alternatives for young people in any consumer-based society. The 'liberal' policy of financing Islamic and other religious schools with taxpayer money has been incendiary. Assimilation can not succeed when the real goal of policy is to encourage division. It is futile to argue that immigrants should not have been allowed to live in France. They are there. Several million have French nationality. Yet they are not integrated into the mainstream. The tasks at hand are clear and urgent. Full assimilation of all persons into French society must become government's highest priority. Better teachers must be recruited for public schools and state finance for religious schools must cease. Dramatically improved training of the police cannot wait, nor can the addition of more law enforcement officers. Judges must mete out real punishment to violent criminals. French prisons must become institutions for rehabilitation, not American-style schools of advanced crime. Le Pen succeeded in the first round because successive French governments erected hideous walls of division that prevent integration of immigrants into the country's mainstream. Many of France's mistakes have also been made in other European nations like The Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Austria. On the fifteenth of May, Dutch voters will choose a new government. One of their options will be to vote for a man named Fortuyn, whose politics are as xenophobic as those of Le Pen. It is no wonder that Fortuyn is doing well in the polls, for the Dutch have also created a separate society for their immigrants, with the same disastrous results as in France. Europe now stands at the precipice. It can fall into the abyss of neo-fascist hate, or it can move quickly to dismantle the walls of division that prevent humanity from blooming.
France: Denial On Europe
Even as exit polls revealed the depth of French voters' antipathy toward the European Union, toward the Euro and toward globalization, the media zeroed in on Le Pen's anti-foreigner stance and ignored the spiraling anti-Europe factor. In declaring victory Sunday night Le Pen stressed his anti-European message in a plea for support of his campaign "to restore France's independence." Le Pen told cheering backers, "Don't be afraid to dream, you the little people, the foot soldiers, the excluded ... you the miners, the steelworkers, workers of all those industries ruined by the Euro-globalization of Maastricht." Sachsen-Anhalt: Concern Sachsen-Anhalt voters made it clear that they were no longer supporting the social democrat (SPD) government. The party won only 20% of the votes in Sunday's election, compared to nearly 36% four years ago. But the victory for christian democrats (CDU), who jumped from 22% in the last regional election to 37.3% this time, is reason enough to worry that Stoiber, the rightwing Bavarian (CSU), may indeed topple Schroeder in the national elections. The conservative-liberal FDP came back from oblivion and scored an impressive 13.3% of the vote, while the socialists (PDS) edged forward only marginally with their 20.4%. Germany's tendency to vote out incumbents may cause the PDS to do some thinking about their situation in Berlin, where they are minority partners in a coalition with SPD. If, next election, voters show that they are disenchanted with the Berlin government, they could deliver a telling blow to the socialists, who are unable to fulfill promises to voters because of a severe lack of finance in the city. Hungary: Hope The sole election to gave much hope for sanity in Europe was in Hungary, where rightwing populist Viktor Orban, prime minister since 1998, was voted out of power. A moderate socialist, Peter Medgyessy of the MSZP, will replace Orban. Nationalist adventurism by Orban had caused increasing concern in eastern Europe. - 22 April 2001 |
