What are we afraid of?

Yesterday an anti-aviation group called Plane Crazy has set a demonstration on the rooftop of the British Parliament. Of course it is fair to rise questions about the security of the building, but come on! England is a democracy, the parliament is the house of the people, for the people, it was not a violent action. Again as I mentionned before because of a bench of terrorists we are now afraid of everything. A small group reaches the rooftop to protest against a third runway at Heathrow's airport and the media react as if the security of the Kingdom was under threat.
Gordon Brown said" The message should go out today very cleary that decisions in this country should be made in the chamber of this House and not on the roof of this House". Of course, but I don't think that they intended to make a decision and come on Prime Minister this is a democracy, and if you don't listen to the people this kind of action will increase.

A good method

The German secret service (BND) has paid a Lichtenstein’s bank employee to give the data of 163 German tax dodgers. Around 91 have admitted to the allegations and have already paid €27.8 million in back taxes. For Der Spiegel the Public prosecutors of Bochum, Germany, said on Tuesday they had found more than €200 million in funds hidden in Liechtenstein-based foundations. For The Times of London, Germany estimates that about €4 billion untaxed income are hidden in Liechtenstein.
I do think it is good thing and I don’t see why rich people should be exempted for paying their taxes. Of course one can consider that taxes in Sweden, Germany or France are too high, but even when taxes are lower like in England, some rich people find ways to pay less taxes. For the Times of London, the Inland Revenue is investigating about 100 Britons for tax evasion. For the same newspaper, Germany is bullying countries such as Switzerland or Lichtenstein and it is counter-productive;
” It will be better to persuade them that interdependence is a two way street, and that change is the best guarantee of good relations with their larger neighbours”.
Really? So how long should we wait that these tax havens help tax agencies of bigger states or the justice of Third World looted countries?

I do not know what rich people’s reasons are but they must know that a modern state needs those taxes to work. And how could you enjoy your money in a country where the state can’t provide basic education and healthcare to the people? How could you enjoy your money when it is not safe to go outside your luxurious house? As a matter of fact police forces would be either corrupt or under equipped. How could you enjoy your money when the needy do not have a minimum to live on?

Big Brother

Last week it was revealed that an MP has been bugged when visiting a constituent in jail (it was in 2005 and 2006.Good.Pretty soon we will know the truth about the death of JFK).

The constituent is a terrorist suspect and the US are asking for his extradition. The problems here are the fact that tapes cannot be used in court and of course an MP, a guardian of the British democracy, was twice bugged. But one can consider that it is OK to bug a terrorist suspect. If the police can prevent a terrorist attack, everybody is going to be happy. Of course they have to count on the stupidity of the suspect to give critical information from a jail. I think he can figure out that he is under tight surveillance.

This brings me to my second point.

According to the Times (of London, 6/02/08) they are 4, 2 million CCTV in Britain (reported by Liberty a human rights group). I think the UK is the world leader, by the way Australia is not bad either.

" Convert surveillance, once the stuff of John Le Carré novels and the business of the Stasi in Germany, is a constant reality in 21st-century in Britain."

For the Times many of the CCTV cameras are unregulated. And government agencies are spying on their users;

"You can be followed on your daily activities by men or women from the Office of Fair Trading, the Health and Safety Executive and the Rural Payments Agency"

Pretty soon I think everybody will watch everybody. Another example of the bizarre atmosphere is this case; yesterday a court awarded the five members of a band, the Caribbean Steel International, because they have been wrongly removed from the airplane they boarded en route to London. The reason is that a fellow passenger went to see the captain and said that they looked like terrorists. The five musicians are black and one of them is blind. So they appeared suspect because in the waiting lounge they were together but not in the plane. By the way the company is Ryanair and the plane was full so they could not sit wherever they wanted...

What a strange society we are living in, democratic, but... . The government and/or the parliament give powers to some agencies to investigate their consumers. Why? Because we want more profits, more profitability and more productivity. And in the same time as citizens we become paranoids. We are scared of a bench of crazy terrorists. Our freedom is reduced day by day and the sad thing is that we participate proudly and with enthusiasm.