(no subject)

[tinyjo]

"There is more than one kind of freedom...Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it."
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

"It is up to each and all of us to ask the questions: what price our security? What price our freedoms? At what cost can we preserve our freedoms?"
John Reid (Quoted here)

I am also disturbed by the fact that John Reid reminds me more every day of Adam Sutler. Yes, the Tories were greedy, hypocritical and often uncaring while in office but on the other hand they didn't always make me think of fascist dystopian futures either...

Comments

[fba.livejournal.com]

It is quite scarey that the majority of New Labour Home Secetaries have been considerably more right wing and hand line than any of the Conservative counterparts....

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Scary, indeed, but not at all surprising.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If you'd told me that in 1997 I would have laughed so hard...

[fba.livejournal.com]

Is strange isn't it? 1997 felt like it was going to be a huge change for the better - and while there has been quite a lot of progressive legislation passed I can't help but boggle at how authoritarian Blair and his cronies have got :(

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I think the left-right axis is probably irrelevant these days, and we should be worrying about the authoritarian-libertarian one instead. The more I watch films like 1984 and Brazil, the more terrified I become, because (especially in Brazil) the things which happen due to bureaucracy which the film presents as farcical are happening in real life. Never mind the fact that New Labour press statements increasingly sound like NewSpeak...

[leora.livejournal.com]

I'm bad with remembering exact quotes, but it goes something like:

Those who would sacrifice liberty for some temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

And as history has shown, will get neither.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I saw that somewhere. I think it's Franklin, isn't it?

[leora.livejournal.com]

Yes. He can be quite quotable, now and then.

[twic.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Reidy boy recently said that "we are probably in the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of World War Two". Either he's forgotten about the small matter of THE COLD WAR and its CONSTANT THREAT OF GLOBAL NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE, or he's a lying, scaremongering authoritarian fear-peddler.

So, yes, i too am mindboggled and shit scared by the rapid creep towards police-statehood in the UK. The worst bit is that i don't see an end to it - the Brown regime won't be any different, any tory government wouldn't be any different, the liberals won't form a government but could throw a spanner in the works, but won't because of what the tabloids will say, and the press love the nice, simple government-vs-terror story. My one hope is that the judges will start striking down the worst excesses, but that's tricky, because the government is working by making laws rather than policy, which means the human rights act is the only weapon, and that's got security get-outs you could drive a black maria through.

Did you know John Reid was also the Lone Ranger's name? FACT!

-- tom

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I harbour a faint hope that the Tories will back off a little so they can cozy up to Middle East oil barons ala Iran-Contra but that's my only one at the moment. Or, I suppose, hung parliament leads to PR getting through leads to representation for those being stomped on - also highly unlikely :(

Labour/Tory

[(Anonymous)]

that's because you're too young to remember. Don't you just hate it when your mother says that?


.

Re: Labour/Tory

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Don't you just hate it when your mother says that?

Yup :)