When I saw the NZ Herald headline, “France foils plot to blow up Eiffel Tower” I was immediately suspicious. It is now standard for police and intelligence services to come up with a terrorist scare when they are promoting legislation further restricting people’s rights. Sure enough, further down the Herald article we were told that France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, had just “unveiled tougher anti-terror laws” to force internet providers to block Islamic “hate” propaganda and stop French citizens who might be “jihadists” from leaving the country. Governments like China already politically censor the internet. Now “democratic” governments like France are going down the same dangerous path.
What disturbs me is the way the Western media (the NZ media included) throw their journalistic standards out the window when these terror scare stories hit. It wasn’t only the Herald that bought this silly story about Eiffel Tower. RNZ News highlighted it and a Stuff website headline read: “Al Qaeda targets Eiffel Tower”.
The story itself, even if true, was laughable. It amounted to a 29-year-old butcher suggesting targets including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum, and then being relieved he had been captured (before anything was planned) claiming he’d been “brainwashed”. No terror plot, only one mentally unbalanced individual.
It was good to see Colin Espiner in the Sunday Star-Times yesterday having a go at “the latest incarnation of [US] security paranoia” – that is, requiring people to power up their cellphones at airport security to prove they’re not a bomb.
What was the available evidence used by most NZ media in their prominent stories about this new “cell-phone danger”? Precisely nothing. We are just supposed to take the US authorities on faith that somewhere out in the Yemeni desert nasty people are putting together “undetectable” cell-phone bombs.
What about a few stories in the New Zealand media explaining how most of these scares lack genuine evidence and are part of campaign to keep the “war on terror” ramped up so that people are less worried about the erosion of their civil liberties.
Totally agree Keith, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ doco explains how crises are used to subvert democracy whether natural or in this case manufactured. ChCh is a good example of this.
The dirrection of the U.S. and our current govt. sycophantic desire to follow is the only reason I need to vote Green this year.
Roosevelt’s famous “nothing to fear but fear itself ” takes on a new meaning when it’s the U.S. Government itself that’s trying to keep us scared for its own nefarious ends.
The only thing we need to fear today seems to be the biggest, most powerful rogue state in history – the US. And, like all declining empires, we have no need to fear even that.
I concur about the American Empire in decline. (Hence why they need the TPPA, to try to lock in their hegemonic influence, and keep China out.)
If you want to see American Imperialism in a real panic, wait till China puts a permanent base on the moon. You’ll hear our American cuzzies squeal like stuck pigs…
Does the same apply to exagerrations about global warming, for example those which were the subject of the British High Court in An Inconvenient Truth?
Or is the latter really a case of the ends justifyng the means?
Global Warming is real. 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and is man caused.
He Liar Him
Citation needed. Also that’s just way of topic (the kind of diversion tactic one might expect from one who dwells under a bridge).
Alias Pup,
Apt anagram… a slap I up, sail pa up, a pail pus, a as pupil, alas pi up, pal pa I us…
I really need to get a life!
Go By Aire
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
Recent scaremongering from the Nats that I can recall of the top of my head…..
Our refugee rules being changed supposedly because John Key and the Nats told us that the Australian ‘boat people’ were going to add another 4000 odd Kilometers to their already dangerous trip and sail to New Zealand.
Threats of terrorist muslims being used to pass our surveillance state law’s ……….
In fact openness, fairness and true democracy are seen as a threat by the Nats who prefer secret deals and abuse of power.
It’s John Key and the transNationals following the diktats of their foreign masters.
Don’t know if you saw the recent study published here:
It describes in detail numerous scenarios which are startlingly similar to the one in France, where the ‘foiled terrorist plot’ meme are trumpeted in the media as justification for an increased surveillance state/your tax dollars at work.
Short summary: “Nearly 95 per cent of terrorist arrests have been the result of FBI foiling its own entrapment plots as a part of the so-called post-9/11 War on Terror, a new study revealed”:
“What about a few stories in the New Zealand media explaining how most of these scares lack genuine evidence and are part of campaign to keep the “war on terror” ramped up so that people are less worried about the erosion of their civil liberties.”
Wouldn’t that be good! And a bit of healthy scepticism on the part of the general public is well overdue, too, regardless of the pap repeated by the media.
We are about to travel overseas. The security measures currently enforced at airports infuriate me; and now this ridiculous requirement regarding mobile phones and devices is being added to torment us. What infuriates me further is that people meekly submit to it. I don’t see these measures as in any way adding to our security, and I’m insulted that they’re applied to me and other inoffensive citizens, as if we’re about to blow up the planes on which we’re travelling with our families. Gimme a break, for chrissakes!
If we the travelling public collectively said: enough! – as the American public did over the short-lived full body scans and pat-downs – we could force authorities to stop harassing us.
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