Two out of three Britons back community service 'conscription' for young people
Two out of three Britons back the idea of compulsory community service for young people, a poll has found.
A civic programme would find useful work for millions who would otherwise face mass unemployment in a deepening recession, many believe.
The survey also uncovered widespread fears that the energies and talents of jobless teenagers and twenty-somethings need to be harnessed to avoid the danger of rioting and unrest. A poll found two out of three Britons back the idea of compulsory community service for young people (file picture) A senior police chief has already admitted that officers are preparing for a 'summer of rage' as victims of the credit crunch take to the streets to demonstrate against banks.
Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads Scotland Yard's public order unit, said bonus-paying banks had become 'viable targets'. He added: 'Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.'
The poll was conducted by Prospect magazine to gauge support for a plan backed by influential Labour MP Frank Field for a 'national citizenship programme'.
Under the scheme, everyone would have to spend a year between the ages of 16 and 25 in low-paid community work, either in schools, children's centres and residential homes or on housing or parks projects.
The poll, carried out by YouGov among 2,270 people, found 64 per cent supported the compulsory citizenship work idea.
Among those aged between 18 and 30, the scheme still had the support of 52 per cent.
More than a third feared riots similar to those experienced by Greece in December.
And nearly three quarters agreed with the statement that there will be mass unemployment 'for many years to come'.
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 ID Cards Create Second-class Citizens
'Last Saturday marked the day in 1952 when the wartime ID card was abandoned by the British State after Harry Willcock, a dry cleaner from North London, was stopped for a traffic offence and asked by a policeman for his card. He refused on the grounds that it was an affront to his personal liberty.
The case went to appeal where Lord Chief Justice Goddard said: "From what we have been told it is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of a national registration card whenever they stop or interrogate a motorist for whatever cause. This act was passed for security purposes: it was never intended for the purposes for which it is now being used".
It is time to resist David Omand's national security strategy report shows us we have a very short time to save society from tyranny
"Once an individual has been assigned a unique index number, it is possible to accurately retrieve data across numerous databases and build a picture of that individual's life that was not authorised in the original consent for data collection," says Sir David Omand in a report for the Institute for Public Policy research.
This is not some wild fantasy. It is the world that we are about to move into and which Jack Straw's coroners and justice bill, the ID Cards Act, RIPA laws and the EBorders scheme have patiently constructed while we have been living in an idiots' paradise of easy money.
We have a choice: either we can believe that the British state is peculiarly immune to tyrannical instincts that are beginning to show in this government or we can now start to oppose what is going on. We have a very short time to save our society from this nightmare, as has been made clear by Sir Ken Macdonald, the former DPP, Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, and the House of Lord constitutional committee.
Omand is not the first civil servant to describe this world to us. In 2006 Sir David Varney, the head of Transformational Government predicted that the state would know "a deep truth about the citizen based on their behaviour, experience, beliefs, needs or desires". The report from the IPPR merely fills in the gaps of this statement and shows us how it will be done.
Omand is a "securicrat" par excellence. He is the former intelligence and security adviser to Tony Blair; he speaks from the heart of the surveillance bureaucracy; and his views are those of GCHQ, which has lobbied for the measures in the coroners and justice bill. His paper is presented by some as a warning – which it is to all of us – but having met the man and debated him, I am pretty sure that this represents his heart's desire. Either way, the important point is that we now have a very clear picture of what is about to happen, and it is for us to respond by fashioning a society where the powers that technology grants our rulers are controlled.
You may wonder why parliament has not alerted us to these dangers. That is because it is because part of the project, and Labour ministers continue to shelter behind the Human Rights Act, which offers no protection to the British public whatsoever. What we need is entrenched legislation that controls the executive and makes sure that no British citizen will ever be assigned a number so that the state may conveniently watch his or her every move.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to resist for we cannot rely, as Omand asks us, on the "essential reasonableness of the UK police, security and intelligence agency activity".
COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU!!40,000 jobs threatened as recession hits town halls.
At least 40,000 council jobs are expected to be lost this year, with two thirds of local authorities admitting that they are cutting posts to cope with the recession.
A survey of 106 town halls conducted by The Times this week shows that 65 councils are planning to cut 12,144 jobs to cope with a tight financial settlement and a sharp drop in revenue. Extrapolated across the 442 councils in Britain, this would amount to more than 40,000 losses.
Councils say they face a “perfect storm” of declining revenues and increasing demand for services at a time when they are under pressure to keep council tax rises to a minimum. Jobs are going across the board, from management to frontline departments.
SO THEY CAN GIVE JOBS TO INVADERS!!
ReplyDeleteTwo out of three Britons back community service 'conscription' for young people
Two out of three Britons back the idea of compulsory community service for young people, a poll has found.
A civic programme would find useful work for millions who would otherwise face mass unemployment in a deepening recession, many believe.
The survey also uncovered widespread fears that the energies and talents of jobless teenagers and twenty-somethings need to be harnessed to avoid the danger of rioting and unrest.
A poll found two out of three Britons back the idea of compulsory community service for young people (file picture)
A senior police chief has already admitted that officers are preparing for a 'summer of rage' as victims of the credit crunch take to the streets to demonstrate against banks.
Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads Scotland Yard's public order unit, said bonus-paying banks had become 'viable targets'. He added: 'Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.'
The poll was conducted by Prospect magazine to gauge support for a plan backed by influential Labour MP Frank Field for a 'national citizenship programme'.
Under the scheme, everyone would have to spend a year between the ages of 16 and 25 in low-paid community work, either in schools, children's centres and residential homes or on housing or parks projects.
The poll, carried out by YouGov among 2,270 people, found 64 per cent supported the compulsory citizenship work idea.
Among those aged between 18 and 30, the scheme still had the support of 52 per cent.
More than a third feared riots similar to those experienced by Greece in December.
And nearly three quarters agreed with the statement that there will be mass unemployment 'for many years to come'.
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
ReplyDelete- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
ReplyDeleteID Cards Create Second-class Citizens
'Last Saturday marked the day in 1952 when the wartime ID card was abandoned by the British State after Harry Willcock, a dry cleaner from North London, was stopped for a traffic offence and asked by a policeman for his card. He refused on the grounds that it was an affront to his personal liberty.
The case went to appeal where Lord Chief Justice Goddard said: "From what we have been told it is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of a national registration card whenever they stop or interrogate a motorist for whatever cause. This act was passed for security purposes: it was never intended for the purposes for which it is now being used".
MAD MEN IN CHARGE!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is time to resist David Omand's national security strategy report shows us we have a very short time to save society from tyranny
"Once an individual has been assigned a unique index number, it is possible to accurately retrieve data across numerous databases and build a picture of that individual's life that was not authorised in the original consent for data collection," says Sir David Omand in a report for the Institute for Public Policy research.
This is not some wild fantasy. It is the world that we are about to move into and which Jack Straw's coroners and justice bill, the ID Cards Act, RIPA laws and the EBorders scheme have patiently constructed while we have been living in an idiots' paradise of easy money.
We have a choice: either we can believe that the British state is peculiarly immune to tyrannical instincts that are beginning to show in this government or we can now start to oppose what is going on. We have a very short time to save our society from this nightmare, as has been made clear by Sir Ken Macdonald, the former DPP, Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, and the House of Lord constitutional committee.
Omand is not the first civil servant to describe this world to us. In 2006 Sir David Varney, the head of Transformational Government predicted that the state would know "a deep truth about the citizen based on their behaviour, experience, beliefs, needs or desires". The report from the IPPR merely fills in the gaps of this statement and shows us how it will be done.
Omand is a "securicrat" par excellence. He is the former intelligence and security adviser to Tony Blair; he speaks from the heart of the surveillance bureaucracy; and his views are those of GCHQ, which has lobbied for the measures in the coroners and justice bill. His paper is presented by some as a warning – which it is to all of us – but having met the man and debated him, I am pretty sure that this represents his heart's desire. Either way, the important point is that we now have a very clear picture of what is about to happen, and it is for us to respond by fashioning a society where the powers that technology grants our rulers are controlled.
You may wonder why parliament has not alerted us to these dangers. That is because it is because part of the project, and Labour ministers continue to shelter behind the Human Rights Act, which offers no protection to the British public whatsoever. What we need is entrenched legislation that controls the executive and makes sure that no British citizen will ever be assigned a number so that the state may conveniently watch his or her every move.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to resist for we cannot rely, as Omand asks us, on the "essential reasonableness of the UK police, security and intelligence agency activity".
COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU!!40,000
ReplyDeletejobs threatened as recession hits town halls.
At least 40,000 council jobs are expected to be lost this year, with two thirds of local authorities admitting that they are cutting posts to cope with the recession.
A survey of 106 town halls conducted by The Times this week shows that 65 councils are planning to cut 12,144 jobs to cope with a tight financial settlement and a sharp drop in revenue. Extrapolated across the 442 councils in Britain, this would amount to more than 40,000 losses.
Councils say they face a “perfect storm” of declining revenues and increasing demand for services at a time when they are under pressure to keep council tax rises to a minimum. Jobs are going across the board, from management to frontline departments.