The Mark of the Beast

Vorsprung durch Technik

We all got familiar with the German punch line Vorsprung durch Technik in the Audi adverts of the early nineties – whilst it means Progress Through Technology, it has also become representative of German efficiency.

This weekend, I witnessed two perspectives of this generalisation that has been contestable and can be easily debunked by views of other people, but I stand my ground.

Yesterday afternoon in the Kreuzberg district, there was a whole parade of floats representing all countries contesting in the World Cup.

Sweep them away

Even cynics have to agree that the German do have a word for fun – spass – and they do have fun, flag waving, load chants, friendliness and camaraderie.

Unfortunately, this about to be destroyed by another poorer sight of Germany – adherents of National Socialism who in their quest for racial purity, take civilisation and civility out of humanity and send the human race back to Gorillas in the midst. Regrettable!

Anyway, I walked up the road towards the tail-end of this procession and there, people were sweeping, cleaning as road sweepers moved in tandem clearing up after the procession.

Basically, behind those trucks it was like nothing had ever happened before. I had seen this activity once before as I watched a pride procession of floats disappear towards the East, now, I know that it is all part of the arrangements for street parades. That is efficient.

Leaving on a train again

So, on my way back from Berlin, I got to my seat just in time, which was occupied by a couple who should have been in an entirely different part of the train, but as the doors had closed, and there was no interconnecting link between the joined-up trains, they had to wait till the next stop.

I tried as much as I could to find them alternative seating arrangements, but in the end, they walked the length of this end of the train to bring them into proximity of the other to be able switch trains at the next stop.

There are probably 8 or so stops between Berlin and my change-over station Duisburg. However, in a journey of the duration of just about 4 hours, it is reasonable to have ones tickets checked twice.

But just as we approached Duisburg and we were quite close, because announcements for the station had been made and everyone stopping off had already moved towards the exits, along comes a third conductor.

Miffed with Jobsworthy

I remonstrated, I have already shown my ticket twice from Berlin, but he insisted on seeing them regardless, I could have just refused and had him get off with me at Duisburg, but I could not be bothered anymore, so I opened my bag retrieved my ticket and had it stamped again by Conductor Jobsworthy.

Suffice it to say, I was quite miffed, but this not my idea of efficiency nor is it the right way to go about massaging employment figures. Well that is another side of German efficiency.

Convenience is what I need

However, it then struck me that I would prefer to have a situation when my ticket was checked once and soon after that, any subsequent conductor just knows it has been done.

The convenience of not being bothered by anyone and ensuring everything is just so, like, walk into a shop, purchase whatever you want, the till is your exit with the tags on your goods charged to the account read from the chip embedded in you.

Instant identification for the ultimate convenience and computers churn away in global data warehouses linking your whereabouts to your lifestyle, your purchases to your purchasing capability and your life risk ratio is computed against your health data to ascertain your comprehensive insurance premium automatically charged at the computer’s discretion.

The global Patriot Act

Who you meet; what you say and wherever you do is private; until you hit an inconvenience threshold. That brings on the scrutiny of eyes bigger than Jupiter.

The product is complete convenience driven by unsurpassed efficiency, everyone wants it, not knowing that the Mark of the Beast it the hallmark of convenience – we are not far from that day.

The dog or the wild lioness

What patriotism?

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

Pause and think – this is the purportedly the reverse acronym or backronym for the USA Patriot Act 2001.  Methinks we have been sold a Trojan Horse.

When the news first broke out that the Presidency of the United States of America had authorised the surveillance of American citizens, one let that frustration of due process pass on.

However, the commentary that has developed since that revelation to that which now includes the secret scanning of radiation around the premises of American Muslims.

Patriotism is supposedly the love of ones fatherland, but at what cost to freedom, liberty and safety? This is a very concerning issue.

Latitude and abuse

I am of the view that the US Congress did offer great latitude to the President to fight the war on terror which is explicit in that it affords the President everything in his power to prosecute that war.

However, the extent of that power should only be exercised to include undefined and unspecified situations; meaning, where a due process and an existing explicit law exists which has not be superseded, then that take precedent.

Due process

In the case of the surveillance of American citizens, explicit due process exists, hence, it cannot first be ignored by the President nor does it fall under the remit of the great latitude.

One of the reasons for due process is the prevention of abuse; it forces the executive to work with the judiciary even in expedited situations with all evidence properly documented.

Where this process is overruled or ignored, those checks and balances are lost, because the continual review of the activities is done only within the executive without legislative or judicial oversight. It violates the rule of law and blunts the democratic principle of the separation of powers.

More so, without oversight, it means people wrongly targeted or abuse of process cannot be properly prosecuted. This is a democratic aberration and for this to happen in the , well, one wonders how strong their democratic credentials are.

The arguments

• The President has said, what he has done is within the law and the Attorney General has waded in to extrapolate on the latitude given the President – the jury is out regarding the legality of that standpoint.
• The President called the revelation of those facts shameful; they might be, but if due process had been followed there would be no need for the revelation to create that much commentary. One does not recall the President calling the revelation of Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent shameful.
• The President has said the revelation of this information helps the enemy, however, I think the enemy is within. First the argument about due process prevails over this, then as a democracy you cannot apply the “end justifies the means” principle for the abuse of process.
• The President says this is saving people’s lives; maybe it is, but that is beside the point, the executive cannot become a law onto itself. Principle and integrity should not be supplanted by the histrionics that prevent the objective debate of issues.

Patriot Act revisited

Now that the “fog of war” is clearing, the Congress is having another good look at the Patriot Act and they have decided that the provisions cannot be extended indefinitely.

The blanket passage of flawed legislation on the flood of patriotic support for the President in a time of crisis is now thankfully receiving better and due scrutiny.

Also, we see that senators have been able to persuade the Presidency to accept the need to have a law that explicitly instructs against the practise of torture by all American personnel after a rather bruising few months.

The principle

The fundamental principle at stake here is that even in the time of war, the President still cannot exercise untrammelled powers without due process and oversight.

This leads on to the concept that this is still a democracy, they have a president not a king, and it is neither an absolute monarchy nor a theocracy. The congress and judiciary are there to turn that Texan swagger into a stiff match, hopefully.

The guard dog or the lioness

The Patriot Act is supposed to be like a guard dog, protecting the owner and attacking the enemy. The more we look at the dog the more it looks like a wild and angry lioness that has just lost a cub; meaning it either needs to be caged to protect us from its savagery and is of no use in attacking the enemy or we have to be in cages and have the lioness roam seeking out and eating the enemy.

Do we need a guard dog or a wild lioness?

Essential liberty or temporary safety

One commentator did say that the American Muslims should be enlisted in the war against terror not blacklisted in it; they had no part in the activities of September 2001.

Furthermore, Americans must decide if they are really deserving of both their safety and liberty as the words of Benjamin Franklin ring true today as they did over 200 years ago. “They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

At this time of seasonal goodwill, one hopes that a New Years resolution is brewing in the Presidency to go beyond upholding the letter but also the spirit of the democratic principles raised by all concerned citizens.

Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Of Tsunamis and people

The Chain of years

Finally, one has gotten to that point where it is impossible to not realise that the New Year has come and gone and there are new things on the horizon.

In the time before Christmas 2004 and now, there have been such world changing events it has been impossible not to be affected, concerned or involved, but how much of the response to all this is genuine, reflective and the impetus to do better at working for a just and free world?

Tsunami of water

Starting with the tsunami which made a devastating visitation to the Indian Ocean wiping out almost 200,000 souls, it appears from all analysis that whilst the tsunami was not preventable preventative measures could have been taken to prevent that magnitude of loss of life if people who observed that earthquake had been more imaginative in their understanding of that event.

An earthquake of that magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale with its epicentre in the middle of an ocean would almost always result in a tsunami on its surrounding shores. In some cases people had up to 3 hours to evacuate before being overwhelmed with such damaging force.

Whilst there is no sophisticated tsunami warning system and outlying areas were inhabited by rural folk who live in standards of poverty unseen in the West, but also with dazzling amounts of contentment not seen in the West either, it is debatable that every house does not have a wireless and probably a town-crier.

A wireless, one must say is a radio, the news of impending danger could have gone out on the primitive communication device and been much help.

However, at the cost of probably billions of dollars an early warning system would be implemented for the sophisticated and hopefully, not to the exclusion of the less technologically savvy.

It simply goes without saying that the quantity of scientific brains lacking common sense is increasing alarmingly, the inability to use imagination in the useful salvation of life when pigeon-holed in the scientific laboratories and research centres without thinking of cost and profit is becoming unforgivable.

It is that same misguided notion that makes September the eleventh 2001 most poignant, America was not attacked with bombs, missiles or military weapons rather, it was 4 fully laden airplanes - passengers and fuel - that flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon - the advent of Mr George W. Bush's interesting presidency.

Basically, security, freedom, democracy, safety are in the hands of the citizens of the world, not the tools that we use to bring them about. What would seismologists have done if the earthquake were closer to home?

The exhortation rings along once again - always think globally, no matter what is happening locally. [1]

The Tsunami of aid

Yesterday at a benefit concert in the United Kingdom, GBP 1,25 million was raised for the victims of the tsunami disaster just at the same time that it was making the news that tetanus is becoming the biggest threat to survivors and the relief volunteers.

Pledges close to $2 billion have been made with so much noise made of the generosity of the West and the miserliness of the Arab states.

It comes to might that teaching of Jesus where He exhorts that works of charity should be such that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

For once, I have distanced myself from the hysteria of donations whilst trying to see where if the pledges would be fulfilled first, and then if all that would really be used for the affected.

The Tsunami of democracies

First with Ukraine, who have finally been able to inaugurate their chosen president because one principle was about the people and the other was about methods and tools.

Democracy should always be about people, and if any lesson can be learnt from the trial of democracy in Ukraine; the will of the people should and must prevail.

The Palestinians had an opportunity to elect someone after the death of the man who kept the Palestinian cause in the public eye. Mr Yasser Arafat did not lead his people to the chosen land, he was no Moses.

What he saw from the mountain top was not pleasing to him nor could he persuade his people of that in 2000. It was an opportunity missed, but he hoped he would get better. No matter how Mr Arafat is castigated, he remains the true spirit of the Palestinian cause any successor would be dwarfed in his shoes, but a new beginning beckons.

Next change? Israel.

An inauguration costing $40 million; and this for a re-election that nobody but Americans wanted. The tendency for a leader of a constituency of just under 300 million people of a global population close to 6.3 billion to intend and imply that that election leads to world presidency needs to be nipped at the bud.

The slanted American democratic practices which I have covered in many ways in my blogs do not have the kudos to be extrapolated to mean global leadership.

One could be forgiven for thinking the inauguration speech was a Sunday morning TV evangelist sermon on freedom and liberty, but then for someone who has such strong moral values, determination and convictions, I am at loss in seeing the difference between Mr George W. Bush and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – the former leading a democracy masquerading as a theocracy in the US and the latter having lead a theocracy masquerading as a democracy in Iran.

Basically, the government of the people cannot move back to a theocracy in the earth that we live in today, because the concepts of God, authority, leadership and attendant interpretation of those issues impact of the citizenry in different ways.

The agreement of purpose cannot only be imposed by accepted tyranny as in Iran or the Patriot Act in the States exemplified in the so vividly in Guantanamo Bay.

Next on the democratic list is Iraq, where the candidature is hardly known to the electorate and chaos reigns as if the birthplace of chaos is Babylon, it is unlikely Nostradamus foresaw that amazing genius that has used the force of freedom to sacrifice life, peace, sovereignty and common sense in one blow.

If there is any change, it cannot be the increase of peace for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, it appears the year 2005 would be ever so interesting – how you read interesting would depend on if you are a native English speaker from Britain or from elsewhere.

References

[1] The Asian Tsunami: Think Globally, Locally, Journalistically
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=76241