By Roland Michel Tremblay
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
Sept 19, 2008
Where do we need to move now to escape Big Brother, and would the North Pole suffice? I wonder. I came back from work tonight to find a new CCTV camera right outside my door, this is as close as it can be before they install one in the apartment I live in. I live on a lone street in the suburbs of London, there is absolutely no reason to put a camera there.
We can no longer deny that our governments are control freaks, they will not stop until they know everything we all do and say at any given time. This is called paranoia. Why the need for such a police state? What are the authorities really fearing? Great questions.
Let’s study the consequences of such a Big Brother policy on all of us, and if really this is something we want in any self-proclaimed democracy. And if we don’t want it, why is it still imposed on all of us? Crucial questions.
As soon as you get your birth certificate, we have established your identity. We know your name, your date of birth and where you were born. After that, to get your first identity card or passport, what is required, is simply generally your birth certificate.
Imagine a world without birth certificate, none of us would have an identity. Imagine if none of us had a name and didn’t know where we were born and on what day. Sounds weird, but it is a fact for all animals on this planet, except of course our cherish pets which we now microchip and follow online. Only humans have this obsession with identity, identifying, and eventually to track down anything about anyone anywhere on this planet. You will never witness that anywhere in the animal kingdom.
If it were to stop there, it would be easy enough and it would be nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, your birth certificate is simply a login and password to your true identity, who you really are. That identity being every single thing you will ever do in your entire life, be it getting married, divorced, switching country, getting a loan or a mortgage. And if you do anything wrong at any time, this is when your identity becomes quite important to every single authority on this planet. Be it a great crime or something as simple as a little white lie in order to get something. That’s it, your identity might prevent you from achieving anything you ever dreamt of.
Identity is what drives every single government wild, in truth, they will not stop until they can have a quick and easy access scheme to everything you have ever done in your life from the moment you came into this world. Whatever you might want to do to protect your privacy, it is useless.
Up until now we have been lucky, the technology was simply not there, and we could still hope to get away with a little lie or two to get a job, a loan, some other benefits. Now you can forget it. Multiple central databases have been put together, I have already given my thumb print last year in order to pay with my own credit card, I had my eye scanned when I entered the United States a year ago. This is as good as my DNA, as with those, they can establish the login which is the door to my true identity, everything I ever thought of.
From now on, everything is tracked down, to the beers I bought in a Seven Eleven a few months ago where they had to scan my Californian driving licence. I was quite shocked actually, I shouted that I didn’t want the President of the United States to know that I was buying beers tonight, just in case one day, somehow, this could be used against me in a Court of Law.
I can already see it: that man has been buying 24 bottle of beers every single week he spent in Los Angeles, how can we trust an alcoholic? That man has been buying violent video games in Hounslow for over a decade, how can he be stable enough to be a manager? That man has left the UK for more than 100 days, how can we give him a British citizenship now, it is obvious he does not deserve it, or does not live here or intend to live here forever. And what difference does it really make when I have now spent more time in London than anywhere else in the world?
That guy has travelled to this country, visited this city, the very same one where some terrorist attacks took place. He has been visiting this and that website and read for 20 minutes and 30 seconds all about these conspiracy theories concerning the so called governments cover up. What credibility has he got?
Today there are good reasons for you to wish to keep your anonymity, keep some privacy about your identity, because you never know how the government laws and policies will turn against you, and these changes come fast.
In the last few years, since the destruction of the twin towers in New York, most Western countries have lost their rights and liberties. Another serious terrorist attack at this point will definitely bring about everything you most feared about the importance of your privacy when it comes to your identity. And since governments have always dreamt and worked toward being able to know everything about you since your birth, it is just a question of time before you lose your identity completely.
There must come a time when you no longer own your identity, when you are no longer free to build that identity, move about and do what you wish. This has not yet happened globally, but a large percentage of the population has already lost its identity, or the freedom to build one. For example, the unemployed, whether they are retired or simply incapable of finding a job, and people who simply run out of money.
The government and the financial institutions don’t ask much from you, until that is you run out of cash. If you need anything from the government or banks, they will want to know everything about you in return, up to where and what you spend your money on. At this point they control your destiny.
You are no longer free to move to another place, change job, or play video games all day. You have to look for work, you have to repay somehow your debts, you need to report on everything you do to get yourself out of your situation, you have to report your expenses and justify them. Any change in your life will need to be declared.
And believe me, they already know the truth about you. Do not dare lie to them, you will pay highly for the consequences. And from all that data which form your identity, decisions will be made, things might or might not be granted, you could be penalised or punished in ways you can’t even imagine right now.
If you are thinking about taking any risk, forget it, banish it from your thoughts. The Big Brother State is here, they know everything, it is always used against you in a Court of Law. I know, I work in a Crown Court. I am more amazed every day by what the Prosecution can now use in Court. It is like infinite power, and there is no end in sight to this abuse of power which does not respect the most basic human rights of privacy and freedom.
It is like, the government own us all. And don’t you ever forget it, because I do know what I am talking about. You can no longer get away with anything, you can only be, perfect citizens, conforming to the max, and be more conformist than most. Your only way out, I’m afraid. So go on pretending to some sort of existence, and explode at some point, no doubt, as such things can’t really be helped. So much repression, can only lead to explosion now and then, and again.
Financial institutions tried to prevent me from moving to the United States, they almost seized my meagre assets and declared me bankrupt when I did. That would have seriously handicapped me for many years, perhaps for life, even though I am seriously already handicapped when it comes to money and where I can spend it. Lucky me, I used my charms, and my salary was higher than previously, and of course I moved before they could say no.
It is not hard to imagine how these schemes, procedures and other protocols could become global in a few years, where everyone will be in the same boat. In a way, the tax man already checks up on everything you do and spend your money on, how you acquire it and how much of it they will get. The tax man is not yet at the point where it can dictate what your life will be, like with people who have no money, like in my case, but we’re getting there, especially now that we are facing a crash that will make the one of 1929 pale in comparison.
They will only be satisfied when they will have your complete identity on record, when they will control your life to the second. Which, by the way, sounds very much like the communist socialist countries, like for example China, where you cannot have a child or buy a house without first being on a long waiting list. Waiting a few years, giving up your identity, waiting for the authority to tell you yes or no, you can do something with your life, for a change.
Might as well be dead then, as this is no way to live, not by our own so called definition of what it is to be living in a so called free world. There is no more free world to talk about here, we have all become desperate to even breathe!
So called democracies give the impression of being different, that you have more freedom. However, I found it not to be the case, and we are much closer to this state of affair than one would like to admit.
Thankfully, I can’t have children, and I will never have the money to buy a house, so I don’t want one. I might still wish to move about though, and now I find that I can’t even do that. I am but a prisoner on probation, and I feel that globally we are all moving towards that social status.
Where it starts to look like a real prison, is in the corporate world. Let’s leave the financial institutions for a moment, to concentrate on employers, even though this is again a financial question. An employer is ready to give you money as long as you provide your identity in full, who you are, where you come from, what you have done in your past up until that very moment. This information will be verified, they need reference letters, forms to be filled out by previous employers sometimes reaching 20 pages. They need to have your whole life planned out in front of their eyes before they can make a decision. No chance for a fresh start anymore in this life.
You then have to go to work everyday, do what has been established as your job, and report anything that might change in your life. Do you need time off for some reason? Why, what happened, what has changed in your life? Are you sick, are you having a baby? Are you going through a divorce, has someone close to you died? We need to know everything. If you are to be late for five minutes tomorrow, we need an explanation, we need you to call in to let us know, we need to establish if being five minutes late was justified. If it turns out that it was not justified, or that you are late a bit too often, disciplinary actions will be taken against you and eventually will lead to your dismissal.
If it was just dismissal, it would be all right, however all the mind games they use via their HR or Personnel department are most likely to make you physically and mentally sick before any action is actually taken against you.
There is not even the smallest freedom left in this world, that you cannot go to the bathroom for fifteen minutes without having to justify it in great detail, filling out forms, and it being reported to all corners of the world to the authorities within the hour. You think I am joking? I am not. This is the world in which you are living in now. This is how anal they have become.
By all means, test it, go to the toilet for thirty minutes tomorrow at work, and see what happens, see the consequences. You will live to regret it. If not, try it again the next day. It won’t go unnoticed twice in a row, I can assure you. As it will not go unnoticed the first time around, and you will have to justify yourself. I hope you are a good liar, whilst it has become now useless in this world, they always know the truth.
Having eaten an Indian meal the previous night is no excuse, as nothing is no longer an excuse to justify anything. You are transparent, you are always lying, and so you shall pay for the consequences, no matter if you are telling the truth or not.
Guilty until proven innocent, is the world we are now living in, as perhaps it always was. It is better to bypass the toilet, shit all over your trousers and show them proudly, without shame, as it is your only way out. And burst into tears, god knows, that might work. Maybe there is still a part of them which is human, and not 100% corporate management training brainwashing, making them more like reporting machines than humans.
Through these fears they control your mind completely. You are chained to your desk, and cannot leave it for too long, and will also need to justify anywhere you go and why you left your desk unattended for so long. You better have a good excuse, constipation and having to spend hours on the toilet bowl might work once or twice, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. This is your corporate nightmare.
We are all prisoners and slaves to our employers, the financial institutions and the government. They want to establish our identity, they want to control it, they want to tell us what we need to do. And so far, they have been highly successful. One more step and it will suddenly become clearer to everyone. And all that is left for us then, is to be depressed before our incapacity to lead the life we always wanted to lead, cry due to our lack of freedom. And it all starts with your birth certificate, the day you gain your very own identity. As after that, they can track you down from the day you were born.
In a perfect world, in utopia, we would not have an identity. We would not have a past, a timeline of all our actions recorded for posterity and for authority to probe and decide if we deserve this and that or not. What they would see at the interview, would be what they would get. And if somehow you’re not wearing a suit with a tie with shiny shoes, but decided to go there in jeans and T-Shirt, that would already be giving away too much about your identity, they would make an instant judgement, and you wouldn’t get what you should get by right.
Your appearance is also a big give away as to your identity, who you really are, what you think, what you are all about. Dear me, never could I stand this idea of wearing a suit and a tie, I wish I could kill the bastard who invented those. I think of it every day. I bet he was French, bastard!
You might not be racist at all, but if for one second of inattention in your lifetime you say a racist word, lucky you if you were in your own house and you can trust your family not to tell anyone of what you said. Say it in the work environment, or anywhere on the street where there are witnesses, and watch your entire career go, your whole identity changing overnight, you are now a racist and do not deserve anything for as long as you live.
Your identity is everything. If you were born in Africa and you were black, trying to die somewhere else from where you were born might prove difficult if not impossible. Immigration will be closed to you unless you can become a refugee and there is danger for you in your own country, as long as you can justify all this to the government of the country you wish to move to. Unfortunately for you, it is unlikely that there is a civil war every year in your country, it would have helped you immigrate.
If you have committed any crime, even just being arrested at some sort of manifestation or campaign against the government, you might not be able to immigrate that easily to another country either, you might find it impossible. Every single action you do every day defines your identity.
And now in the UK, there are thousands and thousands of cameras watching your every move at all time, and so you can no longer get away with anything. Not even letting go of a cigarette butt on the sidewalk, that is an instant £100 fine. They will find you through face recognition software, you will be prosecuted for anything you do, even just walking in the park without a child or a dog, because then, certainly you are a paedophile. It made headline news recently, you can no longer walk alone in any park in England.
The only solution would be for you to remain at home, alone, shut all the doors, get rid of your computer, your phone, and any other gadget that could be used for communication and monitoring. Then, you can only hope the government has not yet bugged your place in order to monitor everything you do and say. That is the next step, and most government believes that it is no longer necessary, because with your phone and your internet connection, they know already everything they need to know, anything they need to successfully prosecute you in any Court.
A few years ago a man fell asleep at the wheel of his van, and somehow found himself on a train track. The ensuing accident killed a lot of people, and it was just that, an accident. The British government went out of its way to find anything to incriminate the man. They found out that he was chatting in a chat room with some lady at 2 am the night before. That was enough to inculpate him without doubt, this was no longer an accident, it was multiple murders. Had it not been that he was chatting on the Internet at 2 am the night before, I wonder what else they could have come up with to justify his culpability. Perhaps something to do with insurance companies? They are all going bankrupt now, thank God!
Anything will do at this point, there is no denying that. If you were spotted walking the dog at 1 am by a CCTV camera just out of your doorstep, or just opening your front door to get a bit of fresh air at 4 in the morning, that could be used against you to justify any criminal activity, or why you lost that big contract for your company (of course you were too tired), or why you missed the train the next day, and therefore, you should lose your job and find it impossible to find another. Since being sacked is now your new identity, gross misconduct is your new identity, and any future employer will most assuredly get to know about it. Your career is gone.
I have decided tonight that the dog no longer needs to pee before I go to bed. That camera outside my door, the government, the prosecution, the police, don’t need to know when our dog goes for a pee. Of course, our dog shitting on our own bit of green, even if we pick it up the very next day, is another £100 fine, 20% of my monthly salary, so out of proportions those fines are.
Of course, none of you worry about all of this, most of you are not even aware yet of all of this. Because most of you have not yet been in a bad situation where suddenly every single action you have done can be used against you to incriminate you, whatever the gravity of the crime or negligence.
You are all, however, about to find out very soon, because sooner or later, with so many new laws being passed every day, you are bound to break a few laws without even noticing it. And suddenly they will all jump on you like a ton of bricks. And then you will be in awe, you will wonder, puzzled, how this came to be, how did you and everyone else let this all happened without even a blink.
You can have a taste of it right now, take your car, go at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, and meet on the same bit of road, all within less than a mile, three speed cameras. A minister recently in England experienced that for himself, and became an instant criminal, lost his driving licence, had to go to Court to justify himself, when there was not much to justify in the first place. And God knows what could then be used against you in that Court of Law, if you were not a Minister.
However, maybe this is not frightening enough, how likely would you be to be flashed three times within 10 minutes, even though most of us are now collecting points on our licences and collecting parking tickets for 30 seconds of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just throw a bit of paper on the sidewalk, perhaps even unintentionally, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, your identity can now be established quickly with just a shot of your face and the databases. You’re an instant criminal with a huge fine to pay. So many people have been fined hugely in England recently for chucking their cigarette butt on the sidewalk, and yet, no one blinked an eye to this state of affair.
Because it has not happened to you yet, and when it does, you will feel powerless to stop it, you wouldn’t know what to do, and so, you will do nothing but accept that you’re a criminal and that you have to be punished. Abuse of power, this is what will be on your mind. And the lack of power to redress the situation. We are so powerless, we could never hope to be heard, to change anything, even, to warn others. Well, I am doing it right now, and so you can find a way to do it too.
Any government or other authority wishing to create a perfect orderly society, cannot bypass the fact that we need some privacy, rights and liberties. Every day, bit by bit, they blur the line between your rights and liberties, they justify it in such a way that the chart of rights and liberties, or the constitution, written or not, no longer apply. The key is to establish your true identity, and control it somehow, be it by fears of some horrible consequence if you do not comply in any way. No doubt, no one could possibly comply 100%, and so we are all criminals now, if not terrorists, in such an extreme world.
There is not much anyone can do about it, or is there? There are many organisations out there fighting against the Big Brother State, and yet, they have met their goal with little success. Millions of people walked to Westminster and Trafalgar Square to denounce unpopular policies of the government, and yet, nothing has prevented the government from passing these anti-terrorist laws and go to war.
A civil war at this point is the only solution left to reverse our lost of identity and freedom. This requires good justification, convincing, whilst taken individually, all the little decisions of the government never seem that threatening, especially when it all seemed justified at the time for whatever reason.
Civil wars are bloody things, many people would die, and in this day and age, it almost sounds unthinkable. Until at the very least the government goes global on all its policies and it affects everyone, and alienate everyone at once. Something they will be careful not to do, to cross that unacceptable threshold. So for now, even a civil war seems impossible, and we will have lost everything before the idea seems right.
So what is there left to do? Nothing? Do we have to simply sit back and watch our identity being changed and eroded, witnessing losing all our rights and liberties, becoming drones to any authority out there? Maybe making everyone more aware here and there, bits and bobs in newspapers, chapters like this one in books, articles in magazines, will eventually slow down governments, who knows. You might enjoy a few more years of partial privacy and partial freedom before it all disappear completely before your eyes.
So I’ve done my bit, what are you going to do about it? And it all begins with safeguarding your identity. No one needs to know who you are, what you do, what you have done, where you were born and the very second you came into this world. Together let’s work at erasing our identity so nothing can be used against us at some future occurrence. Sounds like the beginning of an underground movement working in the shadows. Well, I guess authorities pushed it too far, and they will do much worse before this is all over.
And yet identity could be something entirely different, and it was for a while. We could be proud of our identity. This is who I am, this is where I was born, this is all I have achieved, I am proud of being who I am. Let it be known to everyone what my identity is, as for it I will fight wars to defend my identity, my country, what we stand for, what I stand for. This is my sports’ team, they have to win, because they are who I represent, where I come from, they are who I am.
In fact, as long as you only get a fine here and there, never had trouble with money, never wished to live in a different country, are quite successful at work and collect awards from your old days in school, your identity is not only safe, but it is something to take pride in. If you love your country, even better, that gives you another collective identity, altogether you are working towards something great, building the future, evolving with times. In reality, we should be proud of our identity, and certainly not try to erase it.
The problem is, when you are no longer in control of that identity or the collective identity of your country, and when everything is now used against you to turn you, to turn us all, into criminals, this is when identity can no longer be celebrated, or can be something to be proud of.
We have reached that threshold, when no one can now recognise themselves in what the government says, when what you read in the mainstream media sounds like a distorted lie coming right out from the horse’s mouth. When you live in fear of saying one little word which could irretrievably destroy your career, make you lose your car and your house overnight, and worst of all, your credibility and your reputation… does honour still mean anything?
Don’t even think that word in your mind. One racist comment, and you’re finished. One little trip in your car, one little accident, you’re finished. Don’t show at work one day without calling your boss or justifying yourself afterwards, and you’re finished. Throw one bit of paper on the sidewalk, and you’re finished. Be born in an “undesirable” country, and you will never have a chance. Did you take a day off recently, because if you didn’t you would have gone mad and kill your manager? I know, mental wellbeing means nothing, unless you are physically dying. Whatever you do, do not breathe! Sounds extreme, sounds like reality to me.
And at that point, I no longer want an identity. I don’t care if I am being blown up by a terrorist attack, better that than having a policeman or a camera on every corner, which only seem to be there against my protection, to most assuredly turn me into a criminal, and ultimately making me lose my freedom.
There are again five police cars in front of my flat today. There were ten last week. I have no clue about what is going on, and I will never know until the day they come for me. All I know is that everyone we spoke with about it, felt that the police was there for them, as if somehow they were all guilty of something. And there we are, we’re all fit for prison because they could always find or invent something to use against us. We are all now criminals by default. We are all guilty, and there is no way to be proven innocent, not against such lies.
You must think I am one of those lunatics who have been speaking against authority all their existence, but it is not true. England has really changed in the last 15 years. The last ten times that I have gone to Central London, I got a fine of over 100 pounds each time without fail, I never had a fine in my entire life before that. There are policemen everywhere, and they don’t inspire safety, quite the contrary, they inspire fear.
I never thought I would be writing this kind of stuff, but if you live in London and have been blind to all the changes, you’re lucky indeed. I feel Hitler is in power, and I found living in Los Angeles last year even less inspiring. I have no doubt it is now as bad in Canada, as these three countries are all doing the same damn thing and following the exact same policies, no matter who is in power.
I’m not sure if I like what we have become, because of a few terrorist attacks. We had plenty of those in the past, virtually nothing changed after that, and we were happy for it. I don’t know where all this is leading, I am not going to prophesise here, but I don’t like it.
I tend to avoid Central London now, of course, the astronomical Congestion Charge doesn’t help. I don’t know who can now afford to go to Central London, but not me. Terrorists perhaps, I bet they’re all living in Westminster, immune to everything, whilst we suffer so miserably and have lost the wish to even live, in such a world.
This article is an excerpt of the book “Destructivism, The Path to Self-Destruction”, written by Roland Michel Tremblay. It is available online for free on his website, it also contains all his previous political articles:
http://www.themarginal.com/destructivism.htm
Roland Michel Tremblay is an author with six books published in France. He is a French-Canadian born in 1972 who has been living in London UK for 15 years. He can be contacted at this e-mail address: rm@themarginal.com
see
Nader: Restoring the Rule of Law
RoboCops: Professional Policing of Political Protest – An Insider’s Viewpoint
Britain: Labour government proposes huge increase in state surveillance
Detainee alleges torture in Ramsey County jail + Protester arrested for “falling” off his bike
RNC in Twin Cities: Eight protesters charged with terrorism under Patriot Act
Dandelion Salad 