BODEMLOSE BRITSE BOOSHEID/ETERNAL ENGLISH EVIL

unpeople: author’s introduction

Mark Curtis

This book is an attempt to uncover the reality of British foreign policy since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It also analyses several major episodes in Britain’s past foreign policy, exploring in detail formerly secret government files which have been ignored by mainstream commentators. They expose the truth behind British governments’ supposed commitment to grand principles such as human rights, democracy, peace and overseas development.

British foreign policy is guided by a tiny elite – not just the handful of ministers in successive governments, but the civil servants, ambassadors, advisers and other unaccountable Whitehall mandarins around them, who set the country’s agenda and priorities, and define its role within the world.

Britain is bogged down in an unpopular occupation in the Middle East, the state has become widely distrusted by the public, accusations of spying on the UN have further undermined its international role, while Britain has effectively been marginalised in the EU. Seen from within the establishment, Tony Blair has become the greatest public liability since Anthony Eden, whose mistake was not his invasion of a foreign country (normal British practice) but his defeat, in the Suez crisis of 1956.

Massive public opposition to the invasion of Iraq has troubled the government and may prove to have deterred it from other ventures. Yet the course of New Labour’s foreign policy since the invasion has been disastrous in terms of human rights, and is continuing to occur outside any meaningful democratic scrutiny.

British foreign policy is guided by a tiny elite – not just the handful of ministers in successive governments, but the civil servants, ambassadors, advisers and other unaccountable Whitehall mandarins around them, who set the country’s agenda and priorities, and define its role within the world.

Since March 2003, these decision-makers have been implementing a series of remarkable steps: first, Britain is deepening its support for state terrorism in a number of countries; second, unprecedented plans are being developed to increase Britain’s ability to intervene militarily around the world; third, the government is increasing its state propaganda operations, directed towards the British public; and fourth, Whitehall planners have in effect announced they are no longer bound by international law.

The principal victims of British policies are Unpeople – those whose lives are deemed worthless, expendable in the pursuit of power and commercial gain. They are the modern equivalent of the ‘savages’ of colonial days, who could be mown down by British guns in virtual secrecy, or else in circumstances where the perpetrators were hailed as the upholders of civilisation.

The concept of Unpeople is central to each of the past and current British policies considered in this book. Through its own intervention, and its support of key allies such as the United States and various repressive regimes, Britain has been, and continues to be, a systematic and serious abuser of human rights. I have calculated that Britain bears significant responsibility for around 10 million deaths since 1945 (see table), including Nigerians, Indonesians, Arabians, Ugandans, Chileans, Vietnamese and many others. Often, the policies responsible are unknown to the public and remain unresearched by journalists and academics.

In this book, I aim to document for the first time the secret record of certain episodes in government planning. The declassified files to which I refer are instructive not only for the light they throw on the past. They are also directly relevant to current British foreign policy surrounding Iraq, military intervention and the ‘war against terror’. British interests and priorities have changed very little over time; essentially, the only variation has been in the tactics used to achieve them.

Of the basic principles that guided the decisions taken in these files, there are three which seem particularly apposite when considering current events.

The culture of lying to and misleading the electorate is deeply embedded in British policy-making.

The first is that British ministers’ lying to the public is systematic and normal. Many people were shocked at the extent to which Tony Blair lied over Iraq; some might still be unable to believe that he did. But in every case I have ever researched on past British foreign policy, the files show that ministers and officials have systematically misled the public. The culture of lying to and misleading the electorate is deeply embedded in British policy-making.

A second, related principle is that policy-makers are usually frank about their real goals in the secret record. This makes declassified files a good basis on which to understand their actual objectives. This gap between private goals and public claims is not usually the result, in my view, of a conscious conspiracy. Certainly, planned state propaganda has been a key element in British foreign policy; yet the underlying strategy of misleading the public springs from a less conscious, endemic contempt for the general population. The foreign-policy decision-making system is so secretive, elitist and unaccountable that policy-makers know they can get away with almost anything, and they will deploy whatever arguments are needed to do this.

The third basic principle is that humanitarian concerns do not figure at all in the rationale behind British foreign policy. In the thousands of government files I have looked through for this and other books, I have barely seen any reference to human rights at all. Where such concerns are invoked, they are only for public-relations purposes.

Currently, many mainstream commentators would have us believe that there is a ‘Blair doctrine’, based on military intervention for humanitarian purposes. This is an act of faith on the part of those commentators, a good example of how the public proclamations of leaders are used unquestioningly to set the framework of analysis within the liberal political culture. If there is a Blair doctrine, it does indeed involve an unprecedented degree of military intervention – but to achieve some very traditional goals. The actual impact of foreign policies on foreign people is as irrelevant now as it ever has been.

Back to: Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses

One Response to “Unpeople: Author’s Introduction”

Alphonsus okafor-mefor on May 2, 2007 said:

It is axiomatic to say that Biafrans—–the people of the Eastern Region of Nigeria are in fact and indeed one the most endangered human races in the world, whose precarious situation started way back in the early 60’s and continuing unchallenged till date.

For the purposes of historical relevance, the Biafra/Nigeria civil war of between 1967-1970 did register one of the world’s most atrocious war crimes ever and till date, the international community still relegate it to the basement and routinely appear too busy to listen to the cries and the plight of the Biafran people. The many and varied instances of war crime charges being prosecuted around the world today are in no way comparable to what happened to the Igbos and the other ethnic nationalities that made up the Eastern Region.The Nigerian government with the support of their allies effectively used the instrument of starvation (brocaded the Eastern Region by air, land and sea); massacred children and pregnant women in their large numbers. Over 1.5 million people (including women and children) lost their lives during the remote and the immediate causes of the War. 

It is worthy to note that while these atrocities were being committed, the international community (Britain, U.S.A, USSR, the commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations) looked the other way, supporting the Nigerian government for both economic and political reasons at the expense of the hapless Biafran people. The death toll on the side of the Biafrans nothwithstanding, the International observer team from Canada, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom in their reports exonerated the Nigerian forces from charges of genocide against the Biafran people, but instead accusing the Biafran leadership of deliberately exposing the Biafran population to danger in order to attract international attention. Here, justice was denied the Biafrans by the international community.

Energised by this over-whelming support from the international community, the successive oppressive Nigerian leaders, both military and civilian (while spending billions of dollars on fixing and embarking on image laundering of Nigeria to the outside) have continued unabated to unleash mayhem on any dissenting voice(s) from the Eastern region for exercising their rights of self-determination.

Though the people of the Eastern Region were reabsorbed into the Nigerian federation in principle, the Igbos and other ethnic nationalities in thie Eastern Region are still being treated today as second-class citizens. There is the unwritten policy of systemic exclusion, marginalisation, punitive political and economic sanctions against the Biafrans and the overt/covert massacring of the Biafran youths and anybody associated with Biafra Actualisation. This oppressive and vicious attacks on and the occupation of the Biafraland by the Nigerian government without any meaningful development, or the upliftment of the living conditions of the people of the Eastern Region has led to the resurgence of the Biafran consciousness and the need for the Biafrans to demand for their right of self-Determination through non-violent means. 

The MOVEMENT FOR THE ACTUALISATION OF THE SOVERIGN UNITED STATES OF BIAFRA (MASSOB) came into being in 1999 to demand for these civil and political rights of the Biafran people under the United Nations Civil and Political Rights. Other pro-Biafran organisations (from different parts of the world) working closely with MASSOB have also been demanding for the self-determination of the Biafran people.

Between 1999 and/till date, many members of this organisation have been massacred or extra judicially murded. Others are buried in mass graves. The leaders of MASSOB have been in detention by the Nigerian government under constant torture and inhuman conditions and without trial and access to proper medical attention. The vicious attacks by the Nigerian government (using armoured tankers, helicopter gun ships and other heavy fire artilleries) against members of MASSOB and the Biafran people have continued unchallenged till date.The incessant but blatant destruction of the environment as result of oil spillages which has posed serious danger to both aquatic and human lives in the Niger Delta of the Eastern Region remains a thorn in the conscience of the International Community.The British and American government has been suppressing exploiting the people of this Region through the multinational oil companies like SHELL and EXXON MOBIL with the assistance of the corrupt Nigerian leaders from the Northerns and Western regions.Since the civil war,they have been supplying the Nigerian government with weapons to suppress further the already suppressed people of the Eastern region.These are issues difficult to narrate, yet too serious and compelling to ignore.

Consequently, we of the Biafra Liberation League in the Uk (a functional extension of MASSOB in the United Kingdom) hereby make bold to call on you, the international community and all men and women of goodwill:

Ø To support the upholding of the rights of Self-Determination of the indigenous people of the Eastern Region of Nigeria

Ø Prevail on the Nigerian government to release the leaders of MASSOB (Chief Raph Uwazurike, Mazi Uchenna Madu); the Leader of NDVF (Alhaji Asari Dokubo) and all other Biafrans and prisoners of conscience languishing in secret cells across the Nigerian federation

Ø To call on the Nigerian government to engage with the Biafran people without further delays and commence dialogue on the self-determination of people of the Eastern Region

Ø To Constitute an International Commission of Inquiry into the unlawful killings of the MASSOB members and other Biafrans especially between 1999 till date (2006) by the Obasanjo regime and to push for the stiffest penalties against, and bring to trial all offenders.

Ø To press for International sanction against the Nigerian government disregards for the rule of law and the encroachment and violation of the civil and political rights of all Biafrans.

Ø To press for the toughest sanctions possible against the Nigerian government’s non-compliance of any or all the above.

Ø To demystify and condemn the Nigerian government’s use of the resources and the wealth of the Biafran people to do image laundering and face-lift abroad.

Alphonsus Uche Okafor-Mefor

Human Rights Activist

And theDirector of CommunicationsFor:Biafra Liberation League

07886171427

'N WEERLEGBARE VERMOEDE?

Predictive Programming: Captain America 

Blockbuster scripts attack on Norway before it 

happens?

July 24, 2011 by Jack Blood  
Filed under Featured

6 Comments

Jack Blood
DeadlineLive.info
7.24.11

We have seen it before… Movies, and pop culture eerily “predicting” world events BEFORE they actually happen. This is generally regarded with a wary eye, and chalked up as “coincidence” – BUT what if something more sinister were occurring? Could billion dollar film, record, or book companies be preparing us for a designated ‘reaction’ before being faced by an actual “problem” – OR… Is there some weird algorithm that finds its way subconsciously through these mediums?

Inquiring minds want to know…

I have not yet gone to see “Captain America”, but the film has already raked in over 100 million bucks, while incidentally being hailed by God, and Country U.S. patriots as, well… Unpatriotic. (The name change for foreign release is particularly bothersome to many, as the ‘America’ was dropped in some countries who don’t see the USA in quite the same loving light as those promoting her valiance. Also – as I mention below… The film is not as America Rah Rah as some would have hoped)

Though I have not seen it, my webmistress Kristin has, and she called it to my attention. (we have heard that the movie opens to an attack on Norway by “Nazi sympathizers”.) Its tough not to notice the Aryan appearance and political leanings of alleged shooter/bomber Anders Behring Breivik.

This is a note from one review posted online:

Eviler-than-thou Johann Schmidt aka “The Red Skull” (alter egos abound!) is Captain America’s nemesis. In a fresh antagonist-twist, Schmidt decides he’s greater than Hitler and quests after his own world domination. Schmidt is played to the teeth (he has great teeth) by Hugo Weaving (remember creepy Agent Smith in “The Matrix”? He’s also “V”–whose face we never see–in “V is for Vendetta,” AND the voice of Megatron in “Transformers”!)

For all the red, white, and blue splattered everywhere, and the moniker “Captain America,” the “rah, rah, USA!” factor is played way down. The war effort is clearly an international affair with Brits and Frenchmen (ya know, Like in Libya now), and the Americans include various nationalities, with a special nod to Japanese-Americans.

-Norway is the fitting locale for the secret hiding place of a powerful force (riffing off nuclear power, no doubt). In reality, during WWII, the Nazis were trying to develop an atomic bomb in Norway. Of course, it takes time, and they were at the heavy water stage or something, but it was foiled by some heroic Norwegians, several of whom lost their lives in the process, first by breaking into Nazi labs, and then by sinking a ferry containing important bomb-making components, forcing the Nazis to scrap the whole program as their fortunes turned in the War.

I will leave it to you to add your OWN reviews here.

So… What IS predictive Programming?

Predictive programming is a subtle form of psychological conditioning provided by the media to acquaint the public with planned societal changes to be implemented by TPTB (The Powers That Be). If and when these changes are put through, the public will already be familiarized with them and will accept them as ‘natural progressions’, as Alan Watt(*) calls it; thus lessening any possible public resistance and commotion. Predictive programming therefore may be considered as a veiled form of preemptive mass manipulation or mind control, courtesy of our puppet masters.

I know, I know… Real tin foil hat stuff right? I guess if you are close minded its best to just quit reading here. But, if you are looking for potential explanations for why the public at large seem so “predictable” and so easily manipulated to follow the leader right off a cliff… Then you must consider the effect the media can have on the psyches of the men, women, and children who consume it.

Past instances of potential “predictive programming”

FILM and TV

1) X – Files Lone Gunman (Pilot debut) FOX: First aired on March 4, 2001. The plot envisioned the US Government hijacking a plane and crashing it into the World Trade Center.

2) The Matrix – Neo (the One) is born on 9.11 (subtle we know

For the sake of time here is a list and links to many more instances of “predictive programming” that has either come true after the fact or is projected into the future:

This is a list of the seminal thought experiments put to film which have been instrumental in offering an apparently dystopian world where one’s first, human, reaction is “no one would accept that.” After the concept has been introduced, politicians and media-spin work in concert to say, “It won’t be like science fiction; it will benefit mankind.” Look at the following movie themes, then look around at what has already been accepted as “normal.”

THX 1138 (mandatory mind altering drugs to control a slave population -1971)
Soylent Green (overpopulation and Elite control -1973)
Wicker Man (Elite control over the population -1974)
Logan’s Run (population control via computer – 1975)
Network (Corporate Media control – 1976)
Brainstorm (transmitting the mind across a computer network – 1983)
Robocop (militarization of police – 1987)
They Live (mind control and data collection – 1988)
Johnny Mnemonic (data as a commodity – 1995)
Gattaca (genetic code as a commodity – 1997)
Devil’s Advocate (legislative control over society – 1997)
Eyes Wide Shut (rituals of the Elite – 1999)
Swordfish (government sanctioned crime to combat terrorism – 2001)
24 (good guys use torture to get information from terrorists – 2001)
Minority Report (high-tech police state using biometrics and “pre-crime” – 2002)
The Experiment (dynamic of prison abuse – 2002)
Control Factor (mind control through scientific dictatorship – 2003)
Jericho (factions within U.S. government set of a nuke false flag – 2006)
I Am Legend (benevolence of scientific intentions, martial law, and vaccines as the cure – 2007)

See more Here

We have a massive thread at www.jackbloodforum.com Here

Literature

1) Nineteen Eighty-Four (mostly written 1984) is a 1948 dystopian fiction written by George Orwell about a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship.

The Oceanian (See UN territories to discover that these terms are now being used for real) province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. Oceania is ruled by a political party called simply The Party. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is in part this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity. In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party’s propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meager existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother.

2) Brave New World is Aldous Huxley’s fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. –

The vast majority of the population is unified under The World State, an eternally peaceful, stable global society in which goods and resources are plentiful (because the population is permanently limited to no more than two billion people) and everyone is happy. Natural reproduction has been done away with and children are created, ‘decanted’ and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres, where they are divided into five castes (which are further split into ‘Plus’ and ‘Minus’ members) and designed to fulfill predetermined positions within the social and economic strata of the World State.

To maintain the World State’s Command Economy for the indefinite future, all citizens are conditioned from birth to value consumption with such platitudes as “spending is better than mending,” i.e., buy a new one instead of fixing the old one, because constant consumption, and near-universal employment to meet society’s material demands, is the bedrock of economic and social stability for the World State. Beyond providing social engagement and distraction in the material realm of work or play, the need for transcendence, solitude and spiritual communion is addressed with the ubiquitous availability and universally endorsed consumption of the drug soma. Soma is an allusion to a mythical drink of the same name consumed by ancient Indo-Aryans. In the book, soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free “holidays”, developed by the World State to provide such inner-directed personal experiences within the socially managed context of State-run ‘religious’ organizations, social clubs, and the hypnopaedically inculcated affinity to the State-produced drug as a self-medicating comfort mechanism in the face of stress or discomfort, thereby eliminating the need for religion or other personal allegiances outside or beyond the World State.

It is interesting… As noted in Huxley’s sequel ‘Brave New World Order Revisited’ – That Adlous’ brother was one Julian Huxley, the first head of the UN social / education arm UNESCO. Aldous called this a full on eugenics dept of world government! – Also The grandfather of Aldous and Julian was the father of ‘social Darwinism’ – Adrian Desmond Huxley (also called the Devil’s disciple, and Evolution’s high Priest!)

Aldous Huxley coincidentally died on November 22nd 1963 (JFK’s death day) For obvious reasons it went unnoticed.

3) General Works of William S. Burroughs:

Most of this founding beat writer’s quotes are now 40 – 50 years old. William’s Grandfather invented the adding machine, and the family had access to many elites and their “philosophies”

Here are a few of my favorite Burrough’s isms:

“A functioning police state needs no police.”

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

“Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.”

“Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”

“The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.”

“There is simply no room left for ‘freedom from the tyranny of government’ since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare.”

“The end result of complete cellular respiration is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on opposite principles of inventing needs to justify its existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action to the complete parasitism of a virus. (It is thought that the virus is a degeneration from more complex life-form. It may at one time have been capable of independent life. Now has fallen to the borderline between living and dead matter. It can exhibit living qualities only in a host, by using the life of another — the renunciation of life itself, a falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter.) Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapse. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existence as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that has killed the host.”

Whether one likes Burroughs himself, his work and books and public image, and whatever messages he conveyed in so many different mediums, if you read his work closely and understand the point of view behind it it’s hard to not come to the conclusion that William S. Burroughs knew things that most other humans didn’t, was aware of the repeating patterns behind mass movements and human nature and was way ahead of his time. What was (and probably still is) viewed as paranoid, misanthropic, far-fetched and deeply depressing can now be seen as prescient, visionary, and uncomfortably dead on. His beliefs about group think/mass psychology, the insidiousness of the mass media, the terrors of technology gone wild, the destruction of the natural world and the native people in it and any number of things that touched on science, medicine, psychology, literature, history, man/machine interface and human nature have often proven to be distressingly true. We are not only still catching up with Burroughs, but we may well do ourselves in from sheer neglect, denial and stubbornness before we ever really do catch up with him. Which, if course, he could have (and probably did) predict, anyway.

The other side of this coin can be dubbed: Confirmation Programming – which instead of predicting events, it confirms them.

Best example of this might be ‘Long Kiss Goodnight’ – in which the bad guy justifies bombing the WTC in 93, blaming it on Muslims, to get funding for future ops. This film was produced just a few years after the actual event, which was indeed an FBI sting op (set up) gone “wrong".

So – all of this begs the question… Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? Ahhh... The age old question.

As for me, I will be keeping my 3rd eye open along with my mind, looking for clues that will lead us out of this evolving global dystopian gulag system.

HY SÊ DIT KORT-EN-KRAGTIG

Losing in Libya

by craig on Jul 27th in Uncategorized

Gaddafi now controls 20% more territory than he did before we started this odious bombing campaign. He has been able to hold more and better attended rallies of more genuine supporters in recent days than he ever could before we started bombing. Exactly as I predicted, the effect of NATO bombing has been to rally nationalist support around Gaddafi, whom we have stupidly put in a much stronger position than he was when he only faced genuine internal rebellion.

The French and British have now backed down, and both have agreed that Gaddafi will be able to remain in Libya as part of any transition deal. That amounts to an acceptance that he will be the power behind the throne. The problem is, of course, that it is Gaddafi who is growing stronger and NATO which is growing weaker, with political will to keep killing crumbling as surely as NATO economies and currencies.

Hague and Cameron have moved, from abject weakness, to a position of allowing Gaddafi to remain in Libya, which they adamantly rejected three months ago. Then, there was some hope Gaddafi might have accepted it. Now, he has no need to accept a face-saving deal for NATO. He can just sit and watch them dwindle.

It is, moreover, a facesaving proposal that mocks the International Criminal Court, revealing it starkly as a tool to be brought out and used against the enemies of the western alliance, but simply shoved back in its box if they change their minds.

Obama made a shrewd political move to distract from the abject failure of the Afghan occupation to achieve any of its stated goals, by assassinating Osama Bin Laden. Expect now a similar ploy in Libya, with attempts to assassinate Gadaffi by bombing – and possibly by other means – being radically stepped up in an attempt to rescue some “victory” from this humiliation.

UNIVERSEEL TOEPASLIK

Let's stop assuming the police are on our side

From mass arrests to surveillance, confidence in the Metropolitan police is at an all-time low

• Comments (283)

• 
• • Nina Power
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 July 2011 21.30 BST
  • Article history

Police at the G20 protests in London in April 2009, during which Ian Tomlinson died. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Can confidence in the Metropolitan police sink any lower? Even before the past few weeks revealed the possibility of their complicity in the News of the World hacking scandal, and the past few months their brutal attitude towards the policing of students and other protesters, there were many who already had reason to mistrust those who claim to be "working together for a safer London".

Take Ann Roberts, a special needs assistant, who was recently given the go-ahead in the high court to challenge the allegedly racist way in which stop-and–search powers are used: her lawyers claim statistics indicate that a black person is more than nine times more likely to be searched than a white person.

Or take the family of Smiley Culture, still waiting for answers after the reggae singer died in a police raid on his home in March this year. They are campaigning on behalf of all those who've died in police custody. Inquest, a charity which deals with contentious death, particularly in police custody, reports that more than 400 people from black and ethnic minority communities have died in prison, police custody and secure training centres in England and Wales since 1990.

Ian Tomlinson's family may finally be able to see some justice when PC Simon Harwood comes to court in October on manslaughter charges, but if the story had not been tenaciously pursued by journalists (particularly the Guardian's Paul Lewis) the police would no doubt be sticking to their line that a man had merely collapsed at the G20 protests and that missiles had been thrown at medics when they tried to help him.

The appointment of Cressida Dick as head of counter-terrorism following John Yates's resignation is similarly unlikely to inspire confidence in anyone who remembers her role in authorising the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, mistaken for a terror suspect because an officer decided he had "distinctive Mongolian eyes".

One of the positive effects of "citizen journalism" is how much harder it makes it for the authorities to disseminate disinformation, such as the stories put out by the Met concerning Tomlinson's death. More recently, in the case of the arrests of UK Uncut protesters in Fortnum & Mason, video footage of chief inspector Claire Clark deceiving the group into a mass arrest has proved highly embarrassing to the police, who nevertheless freely admit that arrests at protests are part of an ongoing intelligence-gathering operation. The use of undercover police officers, such as Mark Kennedy, recently found to have unlawfully spied on environmental activists, has further increased suspicions regarding the motivations for police spying, not to mention the fact that its illegalitymakes it wholly ineffective against those it would seek to prosecute. It is cheering to see those targeted fighting back against such criminalisation of legitimate protest, particularly among those too young to vote, such asAdam Castle, who is taking the police to court over kettling at a student protest last November.

But given the many allegations of police corruption, racism, spying and death in their supposed care, why does anyone feel safe when the police are around? Robert Reiner, professor of criminology at LSE and author of The Politics of the Police, describes the phenomenon of "police fetishism" in the following way: "the ideological assumption that the police are a functional prerequisite of social order so that without a police force chaos would ensue". In fact, as Reiner points out, many societies have existed without an official police force or with very different models of policing in place. While it may be hard to imagine Britain without a police force of some kind, it is increasingly clear that those who "protect" its largest city are far from doing any such thing.

In the runup to the 2012 Olympics, we should be deeply concerned about the Met's policies and actions, particularly when they congratulate themselves on things that appear to be utterly in contrast to the way everyone else experienced them, such as the supposed "restraint"shown by police on recent demonstrations. Before the royal wedding, many were arrested on what have been described as "pre-crime" charges, with the effect that many were banned from the city for several days for doing precisely nothing. In parliament, David Cameron described the royal wedding as a "dry run" for the Olympics. If by this he means simply a large spectacular event watched by many around the world, then that's one thing. If, on the other hand, he means it to be yet another opportunity to pre-emptively criminalise, to increase surveillance, to restrict the movement of individuals and to condemn protesters, then we have a serious problem.

The resignation of those at the top of the police, and waning public trust in police policy in general, give us a perfect opportunity to question the Met's organisation and tactics. It may be difficult to shake off the idea that the police are "a condition of existence of social order", as Reiner puts it, but to stop imagining they are automatically on our side might be a good place to start.