I have always been interested in seeing what goes on behind the scenes, at the things that I deny about myself and what others deny about themselves. Over the last 50 years or so it has led me to some interesting places, people and ideas. i wonder how many of you have read the Pencourt Files, The book is a study of the Intelligence Services attempts to destabilise the Wilson Government of 1974 to 1976. When I was involved in a previous incarnation of political activity, I read the magazine "Borderlands" which looked at the role the same services role in their infiltration of the Radical, the Left and the Green movement. As we approach the dying days of a right wing government my thoughts go back to these issues. When a savage is wounded it is at its most dangerous.
There is an area where the secret state intersects with our paranoia and our fears. The Left and all critical views tends to attract to it a higher proportion of people who are suspicious, egotistical and obsessive. Of course this proportion is small but nevertheless there. Just recently I read a psychotherapy article about that if you compare 100 political activists with 100 non political activists the non activists are significantly less neurotic. Anthony Storr`s book the Political Psyche is a rich read indeed......tut still there is no harm in a speculative flow of
consciousness.......
There is however something I have observed over the years...wherever I have been involved in politics and campaigning I always encountered individuals who have a military or police background underwent an epiphany and turned to the Left........perhaps innocent I know, but then again......I often wonder that with the growth of the anti fracking movement, for example, would reveal about police or military backgrounds of a few key activists. I have charted how some activists reappear and disappear over a number of years. They usually appear when the Green party or a left wing Labour party is gaining in strength and power and are always involved in controversy and dispute. Some disputes in anti globalisation or animal rights groups camps and actions can be most instructive particularly when they coincide with police raids on these groups..
The psychological view of Freud is that individuals project and displace their fears and loathings on to others One individual in particular has created a web site suspecting that prominent Greens are or have been members of the Israeli Secret Service and spends much of their time researching mine and others wicked pasts. The sadness is that where the secret state meets the psychotic and the intersections are many and varied and defeats speculation. . Knowing the difference is crucial and essential. But then again, which quadrant of the Venn diagram have I wandered into in the silly season in the dog days of rationality that is July?. I leave you to mull it over.......
Jeremy
Corbyn’s party now has an eight-point lead over Theresa May’s
Conservatives, according to a poll appearing to show Labour enjoying a…
independent.co.uk
I am amazed that this article associates the secret state and security service mindset with surveillance of socially minded people and movements which are generally very open, even honest in their views, albeit laced with a helping here and there of underhand in-fighting as the Labour Party tries to rid itself of undemocratic and non-socialist members.
ReplyDeleteLittle is said of Deep or Dark State, associated with senior wealthy and in particular banking interests, the Davos Set, Corporate International promoting ISDS contracts the world over, running roughshod over weak political regimes, in connivance with dishonest regimes, polluting water catchments and supplies, Republican/Tory preference for greed and questionable/unsafe practices and products over environment, health and safety, public wellbeing generally, community spirit.
Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders stand out as beacons of openness, clarity and straightforwardness. They promote open policies and manifestos, costed for transparency and acceptance/discussion.
In contrast right wing organisations gesture vaguely with indefinite policies which develop to bills with much specific devilment in the detail, presented with careful timing to limit analysis and discussion. Unpalatable new regulation slid out behind more newsworthy issues, on last day of session etc. Spendthrift contracts with political sponsors signed behind closed doors, undermining public welfare structures and financing, depriving swaithes of public just desserts. Sweeping under the carpet or “losing” information associated with legal inquiries implicating right wing members or associates. The agreement to “do the right thing” when public/political pressure or threat of vote loss necessitates, then backtracking and partial delivery when due date arrives. The promotion of open, apparently honest ethos when it suits, but voting against when such concepts threaten the wealthy pocket. Almost invariably actions proposed by right wingers are delivered in an underhand way both to achieve unfair advantage and because they are generally tainted with shame and embarrassment, often indefensible on moral grounds and socially abhorent. Promotion of laws providing covert surveillance, secret arrest, detention, courts, conviction without representation or defence. Even socially responsible whistleblowing is to be outlawed! Promotion of the stripping of every imaginable public asset, outside the central governmental bubble, which have been provided by the public to serve the long term public interest, only to be wastefully fed into revenue to hide faulty economic policy and enable feeding of the greedy.
The essential reasons are clear – right wing politicians and their wealthy accomplices are driven by excessive greed and the need for maintenance of the system of self service, regardless of world, wildlife or public interest, or at best some lip service when convenient.
So shouldn’t Secret State be paying more attention to the Right?
I am amazed that this article associates the secret state and security service mindset with surveillance of socially minded people and movements which are generally very open, even honest in their views, albeit laced with a helping here and there of underhand in-fighting as the Labour Party tries to rid itself of undemocratic and non-socialist members.
ReplyDeleteLittle is said of Deep or Dark State, associated with senior wealthy and in particular banking interests, the Davos Set, Corporate International promoting ISDS contracts the world over, running roughshod over weak political regimes, in connivance with dishonest regimes, polluting water catchments and supplies, Republican/Tory preference for greed and questionable/unsafe practices and products over environment, health and safety, public wellbeing generally, community spirit.
Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders stand out as beacons of openness, clarity and straightforwardness. They promote open policies and manifestos, costed for transparency and acceptance/discussion.
In contrast right wing organisations gesture vaguely with indefinite policies which develop to bills with much specific devilment in the detail, presented with careful timing to limit analysis and discussion. Unpalatable new regulation slid out behind more newsworthy issues, on last day of session etc. Spendthrift contracts with political sponsors signed behind closed doors, undermining public welfare structures and financing, depriving swaithes of public just desserts. Sweeping under the carpet or “losing” information associated with legal inquiries implicating right wing members or associates. The agreement to “do the right thing” when public/political pressure or threat of vote loss necessitates, then backtracking and partial delivery when due date arrives. The promotion of open, apparently honest ethos when it suits, but voting against when such concepts threaten the wealthy pocket. Almost invariably actions proposed by right wingers are delivered in an underhand way both to achieve unfair advantage and because they are generally tainted with shame and embarrassment, often indefensible on moral grounds and socially abhorent. Promotion of laws providing covert surveillance, secret arrest, detention, courts, conviction without representation or defence. Even socially responsible whistleblowing is to be outlawed! Promotion of the stripping of every imaginable public asset, outside the central governmental bubble, which have been provided by the public to serve the long term public interest, only to be wastefully fed into revenue to hide faulty economic policy and enable feeding of the greedy.
The essential reasons are clear – right wing politicians and their wealthy accomplices are driven by excessive greed and the need for maintenance of the system of self service, regardless of world, wildlife or public interest, or at best some lip service when convenient.
So shouldn’t Secret State be paying more attention to the Right?