Fortress Britain
In Sunday’s Observer, Henry Porter wrote: “Welcome to Fortress Britain, a fortress that will keep people in as well as out. Welcome to a state that requires you to answer 53 questions before you’re allowed to take a day trip to Calais. Welcome to a country where you will be stopped, scanned and searched at any of 250 railways stations, filmed at every turn, barked at by a police force whose behaviour has given rise to a doubling in complaints concerning abuse and assaults.”
“How have we allowed this rolling putsch against our freedom?” he went on to say. “Where are the principled voices from left and right, the outrage of playwrights and novelists, the sit-ins, the marches, the swelling public anger? We have become a nation that tolerates a diabetic patient collapsed in a coma being tasered by police, the jailing of a silly young woman for writing her jihadist fantasies in verse and an illegal killing by police that was prosecuted under health and safety laws.”
Henry Porter asks good questions. Lets investigate.
In 1990, a quarter of a million people protested against the Poll Tax, a system of local government taxation which Margaret Thatcher attempted to foist on the British people. Although the Poll Tax contributed to her downfall, the Conservative government, led my John Major, stuck their fingers up at the British people and introduced the Council Tax in 1993. “Oh, alright then,” the British people said.
In 2003, I watched a million people protest against the Iraq war. I continued to watch as a month or so later, Tony Bliar stuck two fingers up at a million people and went to war in Iraq. “Oh, alright then,” the British people said.
At the last general election, the Labour government made, as a manifesto promise, the guarantee that there would be a referendum on the European Constitution. Now that the constitution has been abandoned, they have decided to call it a treaty instead. People are complaining bitterly that Labour are not keeping their promise for a referendum, but they have learned their lesson, and aren’t putting up much of a fight. Nonetheless, Gordon Brown is sticking his fingers up at the British people and will push the treaty through Parliament. “Oh, alright then,” the British people will say.
In 1951, Bertrand Russell wrote a book called “The Impact Of Science On Society” which may go some way to explaining our behaviour.
“I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology,” he wrote. “Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called ‘education.’ Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part … It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.”
“The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
“Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
Russell’s predictions are uncannily correct. Its almost as if he was outlining a strategy. It should be noted though, that although he predicted the use of “education” as a conditioning mechanism, the destruction of the family unit, and the mind numbing effect of modern music, he could not foresee the effects of “celebrity,” of “social networking,” or of computer games.
These days, people are spending all their time living in a fantasy world, scared to look out at the real world in case they notice just how shit it is. For a while there, it looked like we were wakening up to the scams our “ruling class” pull on us, but along came MySpace and Facebook to send us all straight back to sleep.
We really are living in The Matrix.