Posted on 07/30/2012 12:31:02 PM PDT by IbJensen
“As London prepares to throw the world a $14 billion party, it seems fair to ask the question: What does it get out of the bargain?” asks the Christian Science Monitor in a recent story on the 2012 Summer Olympics. “Salt Lake got to show that its Mormon community was open to the world,” observes journalist Mark Sappenfield. “Turin got to show that it was not the Detroit of Europe. China got to give the world a glimpse of the superpower-to-be. And Vancouver got to show the world that Canadians are not, in fact, Americans.”
And what is London showing the world? Sappenfield suggests that London is showing off its new ultramodern and efficient infrastructure, but if the security for the 2012 Olympics is anything to go by, it would seem that London is really showing the world how easy it is to make the move to a police state without much opposition from the populace.
It’s what the Romans used to refer to as “bread and circuses” – the idea that the key to controlling the masses is by satiating their carnal appetites and entertaining them with mindless distraction. Thus, while the world loses itself in the pomp and circumstance of a thoroughly British Olympics, complete with Sir Paul McCartney rocking the opening ceremony, celebrity sightings galore and a fair share of athletic feats and inspirational victories to keep us glued to our TV sets, a more sinister drama will be unfolding.
Under cover of the glitz and glamour of these time-honored Games, a chilling military operation is underway, masterminded by a merger of the corporate, military and security industrial complexes and staffed by more than 40,000 civilian police, British military and security personnel, as well as FBI, CIA, and TSA agents, and private security contractors. Appropriately enough, this year’s Olympic mascot, Wenlock – a strange, futuristic blob with an all-seeing eye to “record everything” in the games – is being sold in Olympic stores dressed in a policeman’s uniform. “As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark,” writes Stephen Graham for the Guardian. “For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most expensive security operation in recent British history packaged as tourist commodity.”
In addition to the usual tourist sights such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Big Ben, visitors to London may find themselves goggling at the military aircraft carrier floating in the Thames, the Typhoon fighter jets taking to the skies, ready to shoot down unauthorized aircraft, aerial drones hovering overhead to track residents and tourists, snipers perched in helicopters, an 18-km high, 11-mile long, 5,000-volt electric stun fence surrounding Olympic Park, and 55 dog teams patrolling the perimeter. Several locations throughout London will also feature surface-to-air missiles, including some residential areas in East London that will have them perched on top of apartment buildings. All these and more are supposedly part of the new security apparatus required to maintain security in an age of terror.
Roughly 13,000 private security guards provided by G4S, the world’s second largest private employer, will be patrolling the streets of London, under a $439 million contract with the British government. Due to some last minute trouble recruiting and training guards, 3,500 additional British military troops will be called in, making a total of 17,000 troops scheduled to police the Olympics.
More than 500 American federal agents, trained in the methods of security theater, will be on hand to assist Britain’s security forces. In fact, the CIA, State Department, and FBI have all been working closely with British authorities for well over a year in preparation for the Olympic games. TSA agents – infamous for stealing large sums of money from passengers’ luggage, patting down children and the elderly and handicapped, and, among other things, breaking diabetic passengers’ insulin pumps – will also be on loan to the British to assist with airport passenger screening during the Games, which will include fast-track fingerprinting for Olympic athletes.
There’s even a security patrol tasked with making sure that local businesses observe the government ban on symbols and words relating to the Olympics lest they cause economic harm to the “official” corporate sponsors, including Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and BP. These purple-capped government officials are authorized to enter businesses to look for violations, and can impose fines up to 20,000 pounds ($31,000). Included on the banned list are such words as games, 2012, gold, silver, bronze, summer, sponsors, and London. As Slate reports, “So far a London café has been forced to remove five offending bagels from its windows, as has a butcher who had the temerity to do the same with sausage links. Spectators have been warned that to risk wearing a garment adorned with the Pepsi logo may result in being banished from game venues and that nobody but McDonald’s can sell French fries at any Olympic concession stand. An old lady got tagged for sewing the five rings onto a mini doll sweater.”
And then there’s the surveillance. With one government-operated outdoor surveillance camera for every 14 citizens in the UK, Great Britain is already widely recognized as a surveillance society. However, in preparation for the Olympics, London has also been “wired up with a new range of scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking systems, new police control centres and checkpoints. These will intensify the sense of lockdown in a city which is already a byword across the world for remarkably intensive surveillance,” reports journalist Stephen Graham. Even neighborhoods beyond Olympic park have been embedded with biometric scanners and surveillance cameras with automatic facial and behavior recognition technologies.
Unfortunately for the people of London and beyond, the UK’s willingness to host the 2012 Summer Olympics has turned this exercise in solidarity, teamwork and nationalism into a $17 billion exercise in militarism, corporatism, surveillance and oppression.
Are these the cadre of Obama's shock troops?
Dress rehersal for the upcoming political conventions?
In this day and age of hyper-terrorist threat, what did he expect Britain to do? Did he fail to understand that the Olympics is a great big huge target? Evidently so.
I don’t see the heightened defense measures to be something inappropriate. We don’t want a Munich repeat.
Now this may mean that I am a mindless dreg willing to give up all liberty to be safe. Or it may make me someone who realizes the age we live in, where there are serious threats that need to be eliminated.
If security was not elevated and something happened, this same writer would be out there with an article slamming the careless British government.
You can’t really win these days.
Were there not as large of a Muslim population as there is today in London, I doubt the security would be quite as stringent. As Ann Coulter once stated: every Muslim may not be a terrorist but to date, just about every terrorist has been a Muslim. England is just being vigilant, not oppressive. That could change but I don't see it happening...yet.
They opened the floodgates to Muslims, now they have to protect themselves from them. And if riot control over natives emerges from it, all the better. Owebama wants to do the same here.
I do heartily agree that seems to be the model for what is taking place here too.
Let people in from terrorist nations, and then strip your decent citizens just trying to visit family or go on vacation.
With an event like this one though, it does seem like it’s reasoned to elevate security. I don’t know what else you can do, once you’ve let the fox within the hen house.
Both nations need to do a hell of a lot of revoking visiting visas. Some folks are entrenched in our society, and are harder to evict. With one problematic incident, that should be remedied.
Those guys who got up on that flight and made an outlandish prayer service to Allah scaring the hell out of the other passengers, should have been deported. And frankly, I don’t even care if they were citizens.
The last I heard, G4S is having problems getting close to that number. The pay is too low, the contract sucks, and a lot of security professionals see it for what it's worth.
‘However, with the U.K now having a large Muslim population’
Really, because I could swear that we dont. In fact 96% of the population is NOT Muslim. And some of the 4% who are are white converts, black Afro-Caribbean converts, white Muslims from Eastern Europe (Kosovo for example), and Muslims from Asia (Malaysia, Singapore).
Why do Americans think Britain is overrun with Muslims?.
‘As Ann Coulter once stated: every Muslim may not be a terrorist but to date, just about every terrorist has been a Muslim.’
If she said that, then that has to be one of the stupidest comments ever uttered.
Don’t forget the drones and manpower donated by the Central Socialist Government of The United States.
Islam will NEVER be compatible with Christianity and Judaism. NEVER. So they need to be deported to an arab nation of their choosing.
We fight in Afghanistan, Iraq building airports, embassies, training their people to take care of themselves. America is incapable under the non-standards of the current evil regime to take care of our own nation! We spend billions on foreign countries but can’t defend our own nation. DHS, TSA is a laugh.
Perhaps the Olympic games should be suspended until the muslims are ALL contained in their desert empires. They have no business here unless we are hell bent on suicide.
Yes indeedy!
There’s several articles floating around the website that cover that. One claims that the million or so rounds of hollow-point ammo were ordered by the federales for use by their special units. These troops are also to be used during the election process and afterwards in case the unwashed hordes of the uneducated riot in the event that this Bozo loses.
I would have put a freeze on immigration from terrorist states. Unfortunately that means almost all Middle-Eastern nations. You could also include much of Southern Asia in that group.
Until these cultures decide to live in peace with others, I would not include them in my list of guests. As you said, unless we’re hell bent on suicide.
It’s not our fault that they are spoon fed doses of hate the U. S. and Western culture in their mosques. It is what it is and we’re stuck with dealing with it like we would a stick of dynamite.
As for the games, we’ve got the camel’s nose inside the tent. It’s too late now to do much of anything other than increase security.
Over time, I’d reduce the amount of people from the regions I mentioned. You can do so if they get out of line at all. Revoke their visas. If they are at all connected to any enterprises that might threaten your populace, deport them anyway.
The onus is on them. It isn’t our fault if they hate us. We don’t have to lay down and die, just because we wish the world was a peaceful place.
If she said that, then that has to be one of the stupidest comments ever uttered.
Why? Terrorism - essentially the wanton murder en masse of innocents is inherent in the Muslim concept of jihad. Islam is the only religion extant that makes the murder of 'infidels' (non-Muslims) and especially Jews a solemn part of it's doctrine, thus justifying the killing of innocents that, in many cases, are also Muslims. It is a barbaric religion and it's victims corpses from around the world are piled up to the heavens while the murderers continue to terrorize the world with shouts of "Allahu Akbar" yet Ann Coulter's comment is 'stupid'? I don't think so.
If Ann Coulter thinks that every terrorist has been a Muslim, the women is an idiot.
How long has terrorism existed?. Answer: a century, give or take. How many terrorists have been Muslim?. Answer: some.
There have been thousands of terrorists, dozens of groups, thousands killed and maimed, all by terrorists whose ideology is not Muslim. In many cases not even religious.
So how can anyone with ANY knowledge of terrorism, of history, of the modern world, say that most terrorists have been Muslim?.
Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707,[1] though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.[2][3] Between 2001 and 2009, Islam was the fastest growing religion in the UK, with the Muslim population increasing roughly 10 times faster than for the rest of society.[4]
Yes?. And?.
The fact remains that 96% of the UK is NOT Muslim. Immigration has been and will be reduced over the coming years. And Scotland, Wales, NI and the north of England have small or tiny Muslim populations. Most British Muslims live in the Midlands or SE of England.
They havent conquered us, they dont run us.
Much as some people would like to believe the hysteria.
Do muslims exert any influence on Great Britain?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.