| Subject: Obscure Palladium facts? |
| In 1971 the Pentagon proposed to Nixon that a special gadget be fitted to everyone's telly, whereby the President could turn on every set in the country in a time of emergency. |
As the phone, small computer and telly increasingly merge into a unified commodity (Davis and Davidson, pp.33-36), the design details of the coming phoneputervision will undoubtedly be partly determined by the needs of the State. (One can predict that within a few years it may well be hard to buy a TV without a built-in modem). But it won't even matter if you haven't got one, since the same will also be true of what you plug everything else into.
An Overview
Faced with these aggressive moves on so many fronts, what's the bottom line? Well first, just because they really are out to get you doesn't mean you should be paranoid... Or at least not yet. The NSA base at Menwith Hill near Harrogate, as is well known in some circles, may have the capability of tapping into all UK phone lines - but people who are worried just don't use the phone. For the time being, much the same applies as regards electrical circuits: if you want to keep something quiet, say it outside, get your own generator, or go leccy-free. (For all I know, it may be enough just to turn off your mains. Anyhow, my focus here isn't on the problems of either bank?robbers or 'revolutionary combatants.')
Along with surveillance - first of some people, then, by computer, of everyone - the other side of the pincer movement is direct influence. The more hi-tech and widespread the surveillance, the more hi-tech and widespread the control and influence. Massification's over: what's happening now is control's informatisation, digitalisation. Domination isn't dependent on marketing, but it does follow similar lines of development. It's just more 'universal.' Just as magazines can be printed nowadays in different editions for each target market - or even, like one issue of Time in 1990, for each individual subscriber - the trend is towards technological control being computer-customised according to the rulers' precise needs in relation to each population, neighbourhood, household, and ultimately, each individual. The necessary infrastructure is being built up now.
The main point is that a pervasive infrastructure of surveillance and control is being built in a way that cannot be resisted. (Its construction, that is). It's not about a few men in black suits, or the Post Office Investigation Department, or Gerry Gable. Nor's it about, say, someone looking at your file, or the now primitive idea of ID cards, or cameras in Marks and Spencer's zooming in when cheques get written for between �42 and �50. They're out to get everyone. The rulers' main enemy is always within - but the issue's not 'preventive civil war.' A wholly new terrain is in formation, as a preliminary.
It's definitely worth noting that the scum who pioneered electroshock (Castelli), lobotomy (Moniz), and radio-controlled electrical implants (Delgado) were all trained in fascist countries: Italy, Portugal, and Spain respectively. See Thomas 1988 and Cannon 1992.
http://slash.autonomedia.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/30/200250
