Breaking Bread With Crusties.
PC Mark Kennedy is scarcely the first police officer to include sex in his repertoire of policing skills. Nor is he the first officer to emerge from a period âundercoverâ psychologically damaged. WPC âLizzie Jamesâ as she was known publicly, received £135,000 in damages on the basis that the police authorities were negligent in letting her participate in the sexual honey pot operation. Will we now see a similar claim from Mark Kennedy?
It is difficult to see how he could have remained undercover for seven years without espousing some sort of sex life â he already had to overcome his reluctance to give up eating meat, and his access to money to hire vehicles, both attributes being âout of the ordinaryâ amongst the common herd of âCrustiesâ. Could he really have got away with portraying himself as âasexualâ and been accepted by the group?
What of âOfficer Aâ, living with a group of activists in Leeds for four years? Did she have to lay down her body for the public good?
The £2,000,000 cost of keeping Kennedy living amongst this group becomes ridiculous when you compare it to the stated aim of the Domestic Extremism Unit â which police insist is only to monitor the minority on the far left and right who might commit crimes such as âdamaging property or trespassâ to promote their political aims. Who could have imagined that humble trespass was so high on the list of police priorities?
If trespass and cutting the odd wire fence down is that important, can we doubt that even as we speak there are undercover officers living amongst the student anarchists plotting further street riots, monitoring the position of fire extinguishers, training in the art of swinging from flags, and paint splattering royal cars? Presumably they also have the unenviable task of bedding a series of nubile undergraduates of either sex to maintain their cover.
Are some of the twisted Machiavellian faces we see holding placards demanding Sharia law in fact serving police officers?
There is, after all, a further £7,000,000 of Detective Chief Superintendant Tudwayâs budget to account for.
What of the political arena? Are some of the unpaid interns patrolling Westminsterâs corridors reporting back to ACPO on their suspicions regarding MPs and the other interns? The unmasking of Katia Zatulieveter, aide to MP Mike Hancock comes to mind.
It would be unwise to assume that this surveillance only extends to the physical arena â many of these groups first make contact with each other via the Internet. Web sites and forums exchange Private Messages; friendships are formed; e-mail addresses exchanged, meetings arranged. The Internet, with its âwild westâ aura has been a prime breeding ground for budding anarchists; it would be a strange omission on the part of ACPO to have forgotten to put some âTwitsâ and âPostersâ in position to build relationships amongst the on-line crowd.
We know that Alex Smith is busy building up a network of bloggers, twits, and posters to bolster the presence of the left on the Internet â he is currently trying to âherd catsâ and organise the far left rabble into something approaching a disciplined force â apparently this will counter the success of the disorganised but highly effective right wing blogosphere. Course it will, Malcolm. I am in regular contact with a former member of Labourâs ârapid rebuttalâ unit, (now happily in recovery and doing something useful with his life!) and the stories he tells me make my hair curl. Nothing much has changed in the tactics employed by the left.
Is ACPO also doing the same thing? ACPO, a private company that answers to no one except the odd toothless Select Committee?
No wonder we donât see police officers pounding the beat any longer, they are all in someoneâs bed, on under-the-covers workâ¦â¦
Who is in charge of the runaway train?
January 14, 2011 at 17:21
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Serpico or Donnie Brasco it ainât but good gig if you can get it. This Pc
Kennedy fellaâs set up for life. His pensionâs gonna be fine, heâll have shed
loads of overtime and the boy probably smoked loads of pot too. The not eating
sausages or bacon butties is stetching infiltration a bit too far, really;
what would you do with all the brown sauce? They havenât thought this
through.
January 14, 2011 at 15:34
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My mate Feaxede the fox once posed as a pooch in a bid to get the job of
guarding the Abbess Hildaâs poultry. Needless to say, it didnât work; the
chickens saw through the pretence and gave him the brush-offâ¦
January 14, 2011 at 15:19
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There was a period of my life when I was working deep undercover, and
screwing anything that wore a skirt, though obviously only as part of my
duties, distasteful though I found it. It can be a hard, dirty job at times â
but someone has to do it.
I worked under the pseudonym of Banned â James Banned.
Thatâs my story, anyway.
January 14, 2011 at 14:01
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Iâm still scratching my head a bit about the idea of Anarchists organising
themselves, and whatâs more, using the benefits of a highly organised society
(widely distributed electricity, computers, internet service providers etc.)
to do it.
Oh well, I suppose theyâll grow up eventuallyâ¦.
January 14, 2011 at 23:15
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just to further embarrass myself as a proponent of an idea with such
unavoidable adolescent connotationsâ¦
anarchy does not mean soloist or disorder. it is usually taken to mean
without rule. it is individualism followed to a logical conclusion. leftists
seem to consider this precludes any form of hierarchy or authority even if
it be entered into voluntarily â which has become accepted as the common
interpretation and gives rise to this image of soloist disorganised
chaos.
i would argue any libertarian or opponent of collectivism or the
overbearing state should reexamine arguments for voluntary
organisation.
individuals can voluntarily organise. all the anarchist
theory ive read agrees on the proviso that so long as there has been no
coercion and everything has been entered into voluntarily (this includes
exchanges for payment) then all is well.
electricity, computers, internet
service providers etc. can all be provided and consumed without the need for
a coercive state. in fact these are some of the easiest examples. at least
you didnt ask about collective defence!
as an illustration Somalia now
has developed the most advanced cell phone networks in the whole of east
africa since the collapse of the Somali state.
January 15, 2011 at 18:40
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when i invented the term soloist what i should have said was
autarchy.
January 14, 2011 at 13:54
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Personally I donât have too much of a problem â in theory â with a security
force using undercover operatives. But with the huge condition that it is run
by people of principle, decency and honour and as transparently as possible
solely and exclusively for the public good to protect against terrorism and
violence.
ACPO, in the way it was set up, gives the lie to any thought of
such honour and transparency. Clearly they were created as a private company
to avoid transparency, and allowed to sell the data (that we paid for) from
the police National computer at such an enormous profit because it provides
them with what is essentially a lucrative, hidden and unnaccountable source of
income, they are equally clearly using their resources against social âcrimesâ
and for further revenue generation.
As for undercover students I believe
the police used at one time to send some police trainees to university to do
degrees as part of their police training, I have no idea if this still
happens.
January 14, 2011 at 13:42
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Pedantsâ corner: nubile only applies to women, meaning âof marriageable
age/sexually mature enough to bear childrenâ
January 14, 2011 at 13:27
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I may post almost exclusively about anarchist solutions to libertarian
problems here and elsewhere but I can assure you noone is paying me anything
(sob).
Very few leftist anarchists realise that without a coercive state
they wonât be able to subsidise any socialism with taxes extorted from
believers in property rights. They will of course be free to voluntarily
collectivise into whatever syndicates, and cooperatives they like but these
will be akin to kibbutz with no coercive power over the rest of society.
January 14, 2011 at 12:54
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Who is in charge of the runaway train?
Likeliest answer: no one. Or rather; there are various people with big hats
and shiny brass buttons who are certain they are in charge, but theyâre
nowhere near the levers. And there are other people who have their hands on
the levers, but no conception of what theyâre doing when they push and pull at
them. Of course, the various people pulling the levers are all convinced that
_theyâre_ in charge and that all the other lever pullers are heedless idiots.
Meanwhile there are a bunch of eejits determined to rebuild the train
mid-journey to make it faster, better and more efficient, all according to
their individual, wildly contradictory and untested plans. Oh, and thereâs
some poor, disregarded schmuck whoâs just broken in from Second Class
screaming about a massive fallen tree on the line ahead.
Sorry, that metaphor rather got away from me there. :-/
On a related note, I remember a short story about a totalitarian state
where the clerks kept issuing recycled orders and directives with amended
dates long after the big man had simply⦠disappeared. The clerks were too
scared for their careers and lives to say anything, while the functionaries
outside the bubble were too scared to question the insane orders being handed
down. I *thought* it was fiction.
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