"If you want a picture of the future,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever".
Richard Burton - The (true) Interrogator -

1984

   A man named George Orwell wrote in 1948 a book called 1984. A very important book, about times to come. About a world where virtually all personal freedom is vanquished, where video surveillance cameras are everywhere, where there’s no hiding from Big Brother (or Sister) and everything is turned upside down. White is black, up is down, and ever more vile acts are hailed as meritorious services to mankind.

That time is today.

  

Newcastle Surveillance Center
The police station - Newcastle Surveillance Center

  

   By the turning of the actual 1984, the signs Orwell had seen in his own time, had already increased and manifested and multiplied far beyond even his «expectations».
   Since then further developments have made his accurate prediction not only a possibility, but a certainty. All over the world, we’re seeing the same thing... the noose is tightening.

   Newcastle was the first city in Europe introducing video surveillance throughout the inner city streets. Since then countless other cities in Britain and Europe have done the same. Newcastle was the testing ground, the stepping stone, the measure of people's reactions to this technological breakthrough. And the tyrants got their answer. There were very few or no protests to it all. The Superintendant of the Newcastle police even made it quite a public issue, making it his job to tell everyone. Another stroke of genius. It was a huge success, repeated in virtually every European city since. The video surveillance is well known, but not spoken of much anymore.
   Police officers are sitting in front of monitors, following every move, every turn, people in the city are making. They can zoom in on known criminals or quite simply anybody they so choose, follow them from camera to camera, throughout the entire city. One person is leaving one street, entering another. A shift of angle, camera perspective and the copper with the huge stomach, got it covered. Pick your nose, dig in your arse, they're watching. And snickering, behind their thick walls.

   - I know this guy, the operator says.- He's an old, reoccuring customer.

   When you step out of your tenant building or apartment, they have you in their sight. And they are taping, recording, everything.
   There’s a new war coming, another version of the same old one. «Security» cameras are deployed everywhere to make us all feel more secure. That’s the ploy anyway. They tell us we’ll feel safe, be safe. As always the lord and ladies are using circumventing arguments, diversionary tactics. Most people are fooled. They don’t realize that it’s not we who’ll be safer, but the lords and ladies. We? We’ll merely be easier to manage, to control...

  

Burning Cross

Burning Cross

   The bid for controlling us starts early, very early, practically in the cradle, but what our amateur parents put in motion, are refined in earnest in kindergarten and school and during adolescence. Through propaganda (who would have made Joseph Goebbels red with envy) and «guidance» from patient «teachers», we’re subjected to all kinds of insidious brainwashing techniques. Through the stick and carrot scenario we’re encouraged to become and stay well behaved, productive citizens...

  

   The currency is conformity. Conform to whatever common denominator the majority or the current popular trend, is preaching... and you will be a happy camper. Some of us know this is bullshit, of course. We know in our bones, that this society is destroying everything that makes Life worth living. This is making us even more targets than most people. We’re constantly, constantly, reminded of how wrong we are, how wrong everybody must be, who are crazy enough to rebel against the Common Good. Big Brother is watching and her or/and his eyes, are becoming increasingly sharp and pointed. Rebellion is quelled, even thoughts are subdued. And the slaves are made to watch out for potential subversives. And they do, eager to please their masters.

   We are taught to obey and to deny any attempt of independent thinking and action, from an early age. And now with the development of better surveillance and control technology, the oppression is turning blatant, obvious, and we’ve yet to voice any loud objection. We’ve fallen asleep, and the tyrants, never sated, now want our dreams, too. Big Brother/Sister are not merely watching. They’re in our heads, our heart, our very bones. Doublespeak is thriving. We’re told that what’s bad for us, really are good, that truth is a lie, and up is down and down is up. And we believe them, because we’re no longer Human Beings, but ants, taking orders from a central position. We want to believe. It’s right for us, and it’s healthy. Speaking generally, we may have our own little spot in peace, as long as we don’t step off the assembly line, as long as we obey and behave. We’re taught to assist in the destruction of our own Life, our Humanity. Creatures without dreams, or with governed dreams, are easy to manage.
   Slowly, slowly people’s abilities to resist the present and gathering tyranny, are being leeched away, making the obvious and actual initiation merely a formality.

  

   Since this article was first written and uploaded the further development has proceeded in one direction only - to the worse. More videocameraes have been put to work. The noose is tightening everywhere. Critical statements and words towards private and public government are met with ever-harderf counter measures, both with Velvet Glove Dictatorship and more direct methods.
   USA and the rest of the world is conquered in the same manner that Great Britain and Europe was conquered. Take one city, play on peoples fear, alleviate it to a point by introducing another "miracle drug". Expand from there.
   More and more excuses are invented to make people pliable and pliable to the new, technical solutions of tyranny. Fear is the key. Hold the key of fear in your hand and everything is possible.

  

   And btw, in case you believe anything truly significant changed after the incident referred to as 9/11 2001 or 7/7 2005 you would be wrong. The establishment, the people in power merely used this is an excuse, they don't really need, to implement more overt tyranny sooner than intended. The process present long before Orwell's time, and speeded up since Newcastle in 1994 continues unabated.

   See also

  

Newcastle Central Station
Newcastle Central Station - Luggage searched by the police (1995).

  

We would appreciate any information and anecdotes you have on surveillance and indoctrination in your area.
Mail address on civilization main page.

Counting beyond none 1999-05-27:

   Most recent update 2005-07-29

  

The end result: MEGA CITY

Why? Read TUMOR the story of CIVILIZATION (main page) and find out.