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Civil Rights At Risk

Comment by Larry Ross, January 25, 2007

 

The finding by The National Centre for Social Research that "An overwhelming majority of people in Britain are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism" shows a dangerous shift in social attitudes.

The survey does not take into account that much of the so-called terrorist threat has been greatly magnified, some believe created, by politicians such as Tony Blair, to prepare his public and legislators to support his illegal wars based on a series of lies. People have believed his lies, as the Germans believed Hitler's lies. They have uncritically accepted Blair's definitions of a terrorist threat based on his and Bush's lies. For people to question, even openly doubt Blair's or Bush's definitions and the actually use their civil liberties, becomes equivalent to a subversive or pro-terrorist act. So most people won't demonstrate their opposition to Bush-Blair wars. Out of fear of social ostracism or official persecution, or out of a false sense of patriotism, or belief in the reality of the terrorist threats as portrayed by politicians, they suppress any impulses to use their civil liberties to question or doubt.

Politicians want acquiescence and acceptance of their lies, in order to can lead their people into war. With repetition of the lie, people will come to accept it as truth, as Hitler taught in his book Mien Kamp. Hitler's big lie technique is more acceptable if dressed up and presented as "psychological warfare techniques". 

It did not take long before people, even anti-war demonstrators adjusted to the illegal Iraq  war based on lies and couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. People become more willing to forfeit their civil liberties to question or oppose their war leaders, as the survey indicated. 

The same psychology works for Bush with the US public. Due to corporate media ownership of NZ and Australian media, the Bush/Blair pro-war psychology is carried to the NZ and Australian publics.

Conor Gearty, professor of human rights law at the London School of Economics and joint author of the civil rights chapter said:
"The very mention of something being a counter-terrorism measure makes people more willing to contemplate the giving up of their freedoms. It is as though society is in the process of forgetting why past generations thought these freedoms to be so very important."

It is very important for leaders, who plan to lie in order to make war to acquire land and/or assets such as oil, to convince their people of the rightness and morality of this conquest. They have to appear, very moral and Godley and very sincere in their lies, because their crimes involve the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. That requires gaining the support of their own people to kill and be killed and be willing to sacrifice enormous sums of taxpayer revenue for this purpose. It's no mean feat in our 21st century of universal literacy, ease of acquiring knowledge and civil liberties. But Tony Blair, George Bush and their regimes are very good liars. Both have large departments devoted to psychological warfare and designing war propaganda and covert operations such as 'False Flag' operations to further their leaders illegal war plans. They have done their job very, very skilfully.

Joseph Goebbels has summed it up very well in the following quote:
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.": Joseph Goebbels was born in 1897 and died in 1945. Goebbels was Hitler's Minister of Propaganda.

Another quote by a famous US gulf war No 1 general is:
"If we do go to war, psychological operations are going to be absolutely a critical, part of any campaign that we must get involved in." :General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

People are only vaguely aware of the extent of Bush and Blair lies which have been repeated endlessly by most of their mass media. Even when the lies are exposed, the media never apologise to their readers for feeding them lies  Most people although beginning to doubt and question, still accept very basic lies such as the so-called "wars on terror" and most of the sub-lies that flow from it. Neither the people or most politicians, express doubts about this.

They follow the media and will not question Bush's lies.

Pro-illegal Iraq war politicians and their co-operating mass media know that what Goebbels said is absolutely true - that the truth becomes their "mortal enemy" when they are selling their people on the need for war.

The Godfather of all politicians and media embarking on illegal wars of aggression is Adolph Hitler. He taught in his book Mien Kamp: "The bigger the lie the more people will believe it".

Politicians tend to embrace the big, repeated lies. It is politically expedient to accept the biggest lies and make them their own.

During war, or preparing for war, the truth is whatever lies their leaders give them. 

Fellow politicians including those in other parties, embrace the lies Blair and Bush give to them, repeating them endlessly, incorporating them in their speeches and writings, until some have persuaded themselves that the lies are true. This phenomenon is demonstrated widely in the US and UK today. Even Presidential front runner Hillary Clinton accepts Bush's basic lies and has been a supporter of his illegal lie-based war on Iraq. Only a handful of US politicians will confront Bush lies directly. Before Clinton, John Kerry accepted Bush lies. He campaigned to become President on the basis of using more military support to win the Iraq war on terrorism. No questions from him. The media suppress, downgrade or belittle the views of the few dissenting politicians, so few Americans know about them.

A recent example of a statement that punctures Bush's past lies and likely future lies was Congressman Ron Paul who said Jan 14, 2007 in The House of Representatives on the record:
"A contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type of incident may well occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran".  The lap dog mass media would not cover this vitally important and explosive story. They could have at least reported it, realised it's importance and perhaps explored the details with Congressman Paul.

Their coverage could have warned the American people of the tricks Bush might use to 'justify' a big attack on Iran . But not in the America that has become Bush's police state where media have become lie factories and propaganda departments. They know that "the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie" as Joseph Goebbels said and they are determined to keep Americans in a bubble of ignorance for Bush, so they can more easily be fooled again.

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Huge Majority Say Civil Liberty Curbs
a 'Price Worth Paying' to Fight Terror

Research finds most support compulsory ID cards, with phone tapping, curfews and tagging for suspects

by John Carvel and Lucy Ward,Guardian, January 24, 2007

An overwhelming majority of people in Britain are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism, the nation's leading social research institute will disclose today.

The survey found seven in every 10 people think compulsory identity cards for all adults would be "a price worth paying" to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in 10 say the authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, open their mail and impose electronic tagging or home curfews.

The findings come from the annual British Social Attitudes survey, based on interviews with a sample of 3,000 adults by the National Centre for Social Research.

It found a declining sense of Britishness, particularly among English people who are becoming more inclined to assert their "Englishness";

It also found greater stress at work and a yearning among working parents to spend more time with their children, as well as overwhelming public support for euthanasia, allowing a doctor to end the life of a patient with an incurable or painful illness who asks to be helped to die.

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