Information Landmine

"The Americans keep telling us how successful their system is. Then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night." - An un-named EU trade representative quoted during international trade talks in Denver, Colorado, 1997.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Grover Norquist's dream comes true?

When the public sector has apparently been laid low to the point where it cannot even carry out its core function within the social contract, i.e. providing security for its citizens/subjects, and has to defer to corporations instead, it truly is in a position where it can be "drowned in the bathtub".

Key quote:

"We would question who is in a financially better position to police the likes of YouTube - those in the private sector, who are earning huge amounts of money, or police forces which are currently having to stretch budgets."


Great idea, because it's about as desirable for unaccountable corporations to be responsible for policing crime in the virtual world as it is for them to be responsible for policing crime in the physical one. Hmmm...

Of course, it may just be that the police actually do have the resources to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour but have other priorities instead. How much did hosting the G8 a couple of years ago cost the British taxpayer again? Or George Bush's pub lunch in Sedgefield? Or maintaining the massive surveillance state?

Information Landmine says that the real problem with the likes of the police, the security services and the military is that they don't exist to "serve and protect" the country but to defend wealth and privilege above all else. The fact that much of this remit is now being outsourced to private corporations, unaccountable to any nominally democratic processes, is merely a natural development given the Capitalism Gone Wild times in which we live.

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