why we should all become internal security threats

[Ed Jewett]

Novelist, activist, journalist, internal security threat? Arundhati Roy joins us for a special conversation about her journey into the forest in the heart of India to talk to Maoist revolutionaries.

Roy talks with Laura about resistance and struggle, war and colonialism, how you can't fire bullets at an ideology, and why we should all become internal security threats.

Embedded video here: http://www.truthout.org/arundhati-roy-be...reats58077

[Ed Jewett]

The comments at the bottom of the link are of interest too.

[Peter Presland]

Roy talks with Laura about ...... why we should all become internal security threats.

Seems to me that, in large measure, that is exactly how the general population of the UK/US - and probably elsewhere are already viewed by the 'National Security State' - and especially so if you have the temerity to get involved with something like DPF.

I make strenuous efforts to avoid paranoia but two things have happened to me over the past couple of years that give me pause.

1. I applied for one of 5 vacancies on a County Police Authority. That's a body charged with a small measure of public oversight of a police force - in reality they tend to behave more like the PR divisions of their respective forces and I would certainly have had something to contribute on that score. I had served on one some 20 years ago in my orthodox establishment apologist days; I gained considerable experience liaising with the police at senior level during the campaign against the UK Hunting Act (I was a Regional Chairman) and coordinated face to face visits to all 48 Chief Constables from 2001-2004; I had the time needed and I live in a Division with with no current representation. An FOI request reveals that I did not make it to first interview because I did not pass initial security vetting - hey ho - I'm a security risk it seems.
2. About 6 months ago my telephone started behaving differently. It is a digital cordless with 3 handsets and a base station. About 3-5 times daily the base station emits a brief, barely audible warble - never done that before in over 5 years of continuous use. I've done a lot of internet digging but nothing concrete. However that, together with what have become fairly regular 'International' and 'number withheld' calls that are either silent or have odd echoey inchoate background noises to them but otherwise nobody there, leads me to suspect that the line is being monitored. I complained to BT about the calls, since I am ex-directory. Their explanation was that auto-diallers in India and elsewhere deliberately dial too many numbers so that tele-sales operators remain fully occupied - offered me a new number, otherwise nothing they could do - ho hum - plausible I suppose since 'official explanations' always are, but how come I get far more of those than properly connected sales calls, especially when I'm also registered with the tele-sales preference service as not wishing to receive ANY unsolicited calls?

Actually I don't much care if it IS being monitored. I can't prove it and 'They' know it. And I've got better things to do with my time than waste it on what - shock horror - I've come to regard as relative trivia. Different matter if I COULD prove it and stood any chance of causing some serious official embarrassment over it but I'm afraid pigs are not about to start flying. I just work on the assumption that anything and everything I say - including pm's etc on DPF are susceptible to 'official' eavesdropping.

What I do know is that anyone who gets close to understanding how things are really run - and behaves in a fashion that risks effectively spreading such understanding - let alone organising to CHANGE the way things are run, is by definition, a 'Security Risk' in the eyes of 'The National Security State.

[Magda Hassan]

Welcome to my world Peter! :dancing:
And I couldn't agree more with your take on it all. Though I see that Roy has a point. It's a bit like cat herding. Very difficult to do so stuffs up the system of compliance is no one is complying.

[Ed Jewett]

Well said, Peter. I get a lot of strange "warbling" on my -- serially-- TV, alarm clock radio, iPod speaker, computer speakers. I chalk it up to five possibilities: wandering momentary interference from the ubiquitous expanding spectrum of limited-range radios (as in trucks) (I live on the Northern boundary of the dense Bos-Wash megalopolis); spectrum expansion within the dense "forest" {they are designed to look like trees) of microwave transmitters for cross-country telephone; garage door openers and the like (chirping silently in the background); the presence of a broadcasting tower atop the hill across the river (complaints to the FCC allowed us not to have to listen to that station whether we wanted to or not); or the state security organizations whose operational bands include most of the commercial ones. I'm not paranoid. Just informed and realistic. (If they are listening, I trust they like Dave Brubeck.)

We and others like us are the necessary counter-balance, morally, intellectually, spiritually... We don't even need to organize so much as to stay informed and keep moving forward in informing and educating others. [I will report on Howard Gardner's "Five Minds for the Future" within the week, and his "Changing Minds" later.]

We are the guards who watch the guards who watch everyone.

A good read is Vladimir Bukovsky's "To Build a Castle" or James Douglass' "Resistance and Contemplation"; the latter really helped me to be at peace with what is going down and what my role is.

And I think Arundhati Roy, like Douglass, is a gift to us. There ought to be a special squad to alert others to her videos, articles, lectures... Wouldn't it be nice if these two and people like them could join us here at DPF? Well, they are busy being who they are being, so we must be their presence for them... to be the mirrors reflecting their light.