Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Next Step
In case you've ever wondered why there was no anti-war movement in England during the thirty years (1966-1996) its army and intelligence services attacked the Northern Ireland civil rights movement--supplying bombs and weaponry to Loyalist paramilitaries throughout the Irish island--it isn't only because of the IRA bombings in Belfast and London.
According to Tim Pat Coogan (author of The Troubles), due to the legal right of the British government to censor absolutely anything on TV, radio, or in print, the only way the English people could find out about the paramilitary death squads, massive internments without trial, official practices of torture and forced confessions, and the assassinations carried out by undercover SAS operatives, was to somehow get ahold of an Irish newspaper.
Unlike in the US, where we at least retain a nominally free press, in England, papers and stations can literally be closed down, taken off the air, and personnel jailed when the government feels threatened by exposure of its misdeeds. I imagine that now Alito has been confirmed, the White House will seek even broader dictatorial powers to control what Americans are allowed to know. It's the logical next step toward a totalitarian police state.
According to Tim Pat Coogan (author of The Troubles), due to the legal right of the British government to censor absolutely anything on TV, radio, or in print, the only way the English people could find out about the paramilitary death squads, massive internments without trial, official practices of torture and forced confessions, and the assassinations carried out by undercover SAS operatives, was to somehow get ahold of an Irish newspaper.
Unlike in the US, where we at least retain a nominally free press, in England, papers and stations can literally be closed down, taken off the air, and personnel jailed when the government feels threatened by exposure of its misdeeds. I imagine that now Alito has been confirmed, the White House will seek even broader dictatorial powers to control what Americans are allowed to know. It's the logical next step toward a totalitarian police state.
