NO2ID

I see that I have the misfortune to live in a city that is "relaunching" the "citizen's smart-card". Link here. http://www.southampton.gov.uk/news/articles/1-30605.asp

Essentially, they are "relaunching" the thing because it was miserable failure here. Hardly anyone wanted the wretched things, and the card-readers had huge rates of failure (when they were mechancially functional, which wasn't often).

Here are some comments:

Does anyone note how kids are being prepared for the card-driven society? Get them used to "authorities" demanding "Your Papers!" from an early age...

What on earth does an ELEVEN YEAR OLD child need a proof of age card for?

Look how it's presented as a cuddly, fluffy "little friend" that gives you access to all sorts of things. Things you should have access to anyway.

It's the "must have" accessory, apparently. If you want to use a leisure facility, or take a book from the library...get used to it. No doubt all these "smart cards" will be compatible with the ID card. In other words, all the infrastructure to make your ID card the only way you can live will be put in place. Under "local council" expenditure.

Notice the function creep: the card is being linked to the Organ Donor Register. Nice way to get card-readers installed at all local casualty departments, ready for the day when the first question in Casualty is not "what is wrong with you?" but "where's your ID card?"

It is by no means a coincidence that both my local MP's are staunch ID fanatics. My one even put it on his publicity stuff. So I told him that anyone party to such had lost my vote. Permanently.

I love the smiling face, the 'makelifesimple' and 'Smartcities - at the cutting edge' slogans, so much better than 'arbeit macht frei'

The joke is that the scheme was a flop before because (1) hardly anyone wanted the things and (2) they didn't work.

The City's own review of the scheme admitted that there was "little enthusiasm" for the cards and that the card readers were in a more or less "permanent state of disrepair" because people jammed rubbish into the slots.

But do note how every city will soon have it's "Citizen's Smart Card". In preparation for what I wonder.

You can bet your vote that this all ties in with Clarke's vision of "local authorities will be able to choose whether to make the ID card the reference of choice for access to local services". The "local cards" will be compatible witht he national ID card, and once that's launched, the locals cards will vanish and the card-readers will already be in place in libraries, schools, museums, leisure and health centres etc etc etc. All at "no cost" to the ID card scheme of course.

How does "softening up start"? It starts with persuading an 11 year old child (or younger) to surrender a copy of his fingerprints so that he can have access to library books and essential text books for school.

The comment, "what would an 11 year old need a 'proof of age card' for". Perhaps to persuade his school (I guess it is irrelevant that that must know already) that he is old enough to do "road patrol duty", or to walk younger kids home.

It starts by persuading kids that an "id card" is the latest fashion accessory and they must have it and be proud of it by wearing it on their jacket like very young kids like to wear a toy sherrifs' badge, and Just like a cell phone (or even the latest CD) you "must have it, can't do anything without it, and will be a social outcast if you don't have one" and "will not have any friends" if you don't have one (cellphone, id card, what ever).

Remember Stalin's (I think it was Stalin, but I stand to be corrected) statement of: "give me a child before the age of five ..........."

And remember Adolf Hitlers many comments about "convert the children and you have the adults as well...", or "it doesn't matter about the adults, get the children on side and the battle is won....." And Adolf Hitler's many actions to do with youth, exploiting the "passion of youth". From reading about it I take it that the younger Nazi followers were the more fanatical they were. The fact that so many of them were prepared to "lay down their lives for the cause" and they were so young, must tell us that a lot of potential for fanatasism exists in youth culture.

Where Hitler's Jugend succeeded was it allowed the children to exert power over their parents and there were thousands of people denounced by their little darlings on such little matters such as not liking their punishment to evil little kids who enjoyed the maliciousness that was being encouraged throughout the reich.

Under Section 91.b of the Reich's criminal code, it became the fastest growing crime in Nazi germany and that it being a crime against the state to utter defeatist talk, defame or ridicule the Reich, the Fuehrer etc and unless there were mitigating cirumstance, it always required the state penalty of decapitation, it could be mitigated to hanging or firing squad if the "criminal" was a person of good military service etc...

All a German child had to do was state to a teacher that he heard his father making jokes about Hitler, six weeks later that father would have been executed, to decry the war as being foolish carried the death penalty as the logic was any person that instigated the "foolish" war was to be considered a fool also but the sheer pressure on schools to indoctrinate the children with Nazi ideals bore much fruit as children only do what they were taught and they were taught to report anything at all, a lot were tricked into doing it but most did it because of the fervour running through the country at that time.

Today in the UK however, children being able to denounce their parents already exists to an extent and was made far far worse when schools and social services merged this year, a child can maliciously if they wish make an allegation against their parents or an adult and not evidence it nor will eveidence in the family courts ever be sought as the social worker will present the case and their opinion is as weighty as fact.

The government is aware of this and there is a little known database of serial accusers already full of names but it doesn't account for the one timers or the ones that regret it afterwards.

One of the best areas to catch people will be unexplained marks on children, as social services now are in charge of schools, a teacher remarks on a bruise on the childs arm, a bruise caught on the football field maybe, regardless of anything, it will become a child protection investigation and teachers will find out also what happens to them that do not cooperate, however the family of that child will go through the private hell of a major investigation and unless they are very lucky and regardless of the child stating that it got that bruise on the football field, the family is at the whim of the system.

Interestingly, the first social workers as we know it were indeed under the Nazi regime, they were attached to the courts of family divisions and were responsible for placing suitable "Aryan" children into good homes, also the SS had a few of these women who were responsible for taking the best of them and sending them to a SS sponsored school, more often or not though most of these workers were also tools for the Gestapo who they also called upon to deal with particulary hard cases and would denounce the parents also for non cooperation after Hitler decreed that all children belonged to the state.

Of further interest is a quote from former childrens Minister Margaret Hodge which in an interview to the Times, she let something slip...

"For too long, the early years of a child's life have been seen as the private concern of the parents..."

Its a point to be looked at that after she set the Every Child Matters database in motion she has been moved to the DWP and has been seen lurking around the child benefit centre in Washington, the ECM database needs the cooperation of the DWP's Child Benefit operation to fulfill its purpose for building its foundations.

Both David Blunkett and Margaret Hodge are unrepentant "Statist's", their politics is Marxism, their hero is Ol' Joe Stalin and anyone from Islington can recall what Hodge's tenure there was like, draconian, sexist and dangerous.

SS

Hence Secretary of State for Indoctrination Ruth Kelly's proposed 'Kelly Hours'. What a horrid, dangerous idea from a horrid, dangerous woman.

Sadly, the government maintains an extremely tight grip on education - even home-schooled children will have to learn controversial aspects of the National Curriculum if they are to pass their GCSEs and other state-issued exams that are essential for university admission and most jobs.

Stephen

When I first read about the "childrens' data base" I thought that Tony Blair must have DECREED THAT ALL CHILDREN BELONGED TO THE STATE AS ADOLF HITLER DID MORE THAN 60 YEARS AGO!

We don't learn from history, do we?

I guess that will mean that "all children are automatically 'entitled' to be entered on the NIR (as well as the specific "childrens' database" of course) and anybody who - good luck finding out, government won't tell you - objects, or tries in any way to intervene in the process, will be charged with "endangering the child" (or some such thing). I can't put my finger on the details at the moment but I think the legislation for the childrens' database provides for this.

This adds more evidence to my "government will automatically fingerprint/scan iris/photograph and enter on the NIR all kids at birth" theory. After all, what could be more of a "major event" in life than birth? It is far more "major" than getting a passport, drivers' licence, marriage cert. etc. And the legislation does provide for "automatic registration on 'major events'".

"Give me a child until the age of five, and I will have him forever" was Stalin. However Ol' Joe seems to have corrupted it from St Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) who said "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" some 400 years earlier.

Yes it is all about 'softening up' and taking control away from individuals and families and placing it increasingly in the hands of the state. In effect, the first steps towards a totalitarian state-run regime. It is unethical that state agencies cultivate in very young people the notion that ID cards are acceptable part of life! If it was any other private company pushing anything to young people, we would all be up in arms and the government would have to step in, but who will protect us from the government?

N.

It all has echoes of the "the State is mother, the State is father..." doctrine.

It is clear that New Labour see the citizen's primary duty to conform.

The idea of forcing people to vote is simply the latest manifestation of this.