Written by Peter Rogers

The Monsters in the wreckage of Magna Carta

400 years ago a good man wrote:

Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee.

It means that whilst we may not know each other, or anything about each other we are the same – essentially- and to save ourselves from arbitrary power it is for us to guarantee each other in our liberties or those men of power will cancel them as might be expedient to them if we are meek and accepting of their say-so.

It should be understood at this point; so that you can see how language is hijacked by facile politicians: that the OED describes Terrorism as it was correctly seen from the beginning as “Government by intimidation” and that is where we are, or heading back to fast – depending who we are – back to where we had all been since the beginning up until relatively recently, to the governance of tyrants.

Well, the Bell is tolling loudly now both within our own nations and without and societies will fall back even further into this pre-Magna Carta pit of arbitrary and violent rule unless the cause of the tolling is stopped which means we must cease to sit and watch harm being done saying little or nothing about it and washing our hands of it thinking it is somehow dealt with by a media standing up to power; not the one we actually now have which through following its own interests has morphed into one that works out how not to upset any big apple-carts except those of State opposition –as that is what is best for it. Even habeas corpus has given way to detention without charge if the State says we are in peril.

That’s all it needs and the media goes along – that’s how you know freedom is over if the press is supposed to be its guarantor unless some other parties step in. This is the point of the Mannings and Wikileaks of this world, they and their ilk are the last hope to get us to stand up now that the press has found its destination and moved on into the power structure in this way and now accedes covertly instead to play their part as a subtle organ of rule over us, being a silent inversion of its declaredly high-minded purpose.

We must next consider; without their help it seems: that the rights we have been supposed to have, albeit for so short an historical time, will slip away through intimidation if we do not declare against the threat; or reality: that any law be used to intimidate or punish those who report serious crime whereby to discourage and thus prevent the performance of a duty indispensable to the public good.

It is that which; albeit indirectly: in the end induces the Guerrilla Warfare to who’s lesser, though undoubtedly ghastly, consequences the name “Terrorism” has been adroitly transferred; taking it away from its true; and morally deteriorating: home where it belongs with the more greatly violent aggressive invader and not so much to the similarly psychopathic defender against violent assault.

Tom Paine; perhaps the greatest of all Englishmen in History – certainly according to many in America – inferred that whilst the making of War was the most vile depth that humankind could descend to, fighting back to defeat the invader was the greatest height. So polarised is this that it is necessary for the psychopath to convince you of the perverted notion that invasion is actually a pre-emptive form of defence. We have only the “Department of Defence” never the more honest “Department of Attack” and now we need wonder no longer why this language is used. It dupes an unwitting public into handing over vast sums to fund aggression.

The question of integrity therefore to be faced; hidden from us by the State and alas the Media: is “How should we react to a power which drops bombs sends troops and fires rockets at us?” and whilst you, the readers, are thinking about that, remember that whatever your answer it must hold true for all others in a similar situation and that this is upon your honour as a matter of integrity.

Integrity – an adhesive that binds decency into society – requires that we have the strength of character and common sense to measure our adversary with the same yardstick that we use to measure ourselves, and though we are tempted to resort to bigotry; whereby our murderers of their innocent are essentially declared more worthy than theirs and not similarly reviled: to gain the approval of; and therefore safety from: power and its conformists. There is no alternative than to turn your back on that temptation for decency to continue to abide amongst us.

Without the presence of this ethical character in our thinking we lose ourselves in self-deception so that impartiality – the soul of justice – dies away and we will in its absence do anything for self-justification instead, plunging us back into the world of “If they do it they are pure evil, but if we do it it is because we are defending ourselves.”.

A hundred years ago Max Weber correctly defined The State as
“the human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given nation.”

I hope you can see the danger here, being that the State itself; if greatly powerful: is the well-spring for military ambition, as ever before, if left unconstrained and remains in containment only as long as loud and firm voices can be heard across the land in opposition to the commission of the worst evils. This involves a strong rights-based constitution and access to mass media for distribution of information concerning this, amongst other things, something so compromised now as not to exist – even condemning those who bring criminal activity to our attention; how they are fallen.

Before populations fought to establish limits to his power the Autocrat was either the head of a criminal enterprise; usually declared Holy: whose purpose was to subject others by violent conquest or at the other end of the scale as heroic defender; but alas then to convert himself into a similarly criminal actor when having defeated the aggressor usually made the choice of taking over and carrying on where the vanquished enemy left off.

Ambitious military power both opposes and hides from the products of public constitutional freedoms because it does not like interference; above all from the lower orders: in its plans. No General allows his rank and file to oppose his will, so just as with any military leader contrary views are an irritation to be dealt with by the ambitious State that stands over us completely if the constitution is weakened – which is normal because of our individually justified fear of being got at for trying to uphold it. Look at what they are doing to Manning and Assange and ask yourself what you would have the courage to do if you found evidence of crimes being committed by the State.

The military is opposed to anything that obstructs its path, particularly the awkward presence of powerful rights to be relied upon and strong enough to stop them. The right to inform our fellows when we know of crime that society has been unaware of is the most basic necessity in this case, but you will see that this kind of transparency is the most hated concept of rulers even now so it is a problem they seek to overcome by intimidation of the individual naively expecting to be able to rely upon them.

Accordingly please consider that it must be repellent to the fundamental notion of Justice at all; and therefore made illegal and meanwhile treated as such: that a law can ever be employed to prevent a crime from being revealed.

You are told that secrecy is necessary for our defence to be safely maintained, but then the people who are telling you this use the argument thus won to hide crime as you can see from Wikileaks revelations; and so cause your oblivion concerning all sorts of other things that you might find deplorable if they too became known as they should, and indeed must for good constitutional and democratic reasons.

Since our democracy depends on your – and everybody else’s – opinions it is necessary that you be informed of everything; except, perhaps, true military secrets: but since the Media decided – we know not how or why – that Assange should be the one on trial, and your mind should not be detained so to consider and compare the reported actions of murderers that have been revealed to us.

Perhaps on reflection you can see the democratic and constitutional crisis we are surprisingly in; without our really noticing: maintained by the studied evasion of the media towards the things that should easily take priority when it comes to its duty of fair discovery concerning the reasonable locus of the public good on our behalf.
If we are not required; every one of us: by all our fellows; every other one of us: to ignore the clutches of any law that is being used to punish; and so prevent: revelation of crime then where is our guarantee that the State be not run, in part or wholly, by people of criminal intent?

I must repeat that and let it drop with a thud.

If crimes can be hidden by the State there is no guarantee that we will not be ruled by criminals and we must prevent; or perhaps reverse: that loophole created by false secrecy at all costs

Speak up ladies and gentlemen – speak up – about how rancid is the very idea that laws can be enforced so as to discourage and punish, let alone prevent, those who bring crimes to public attention.