April Fools! Yeah, I only wish…
I wish I could say this post was an April Fools Day joke … but alas, no. It would seem, even with the US and UK getting new heads of state since 9/11, the un-fucking-believably asinine paranoia campaigns against "terrorism" aren't letting up. Now, over on this side of the Atlantic, at least we're not hearing much for panic-mongering out of Washington any more. But over in jolly ol' England? If anything, the push for constant fear and paranoia as a way of life seems to be rolling along full-steam ahead … and I can only imagine the panic mavens in London's Metropolitan Police are just beside themselves this week with all the G20 nonsense going on.
Of course, for a while, the authorities in the UK were under the faulty assumption that they had it all under control. This comforting poster informed busy Londoners that the police had things covered:
The Metropolitan Police are watching YOU!
But apparently the CCTV cameras just aren't sufficient in the face of TERROR. Should you find yourself on that side of the pond any time soon, they have some helpful new advice for you, plastered on posters about town. If anyone gives you the creeps, for any reason, CALL THE POLICE NOW!!! Yup. In fact, if you see someone taking pictures of a CCTV camera, CALL THE POLICE NOW, because evidently the CCTV monitoring staff won't pay enough attention to notice:
The Metropolitan Police need your help to stop photography!
Have you seen any dark-skinned folk taking photos lately?
Just think … all you have to do is CALL THE FUCKING POLICE if you see anyone even gazing absentmindedly in the direction of a CCTV camera, and you could be the anonymous hero celebrated in this poster:
Is that guy daydreaming, or PLANNING TERROR?!
And really, just meddling in the affairs of random strangers isn't enough. I mean, we're talking about bloodthirsty fucking lunatics here! They want to TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS!!! This is not the time to Keep Calm and Carry On, people! This is the time to start snooping on your neighbors!
No. 37 never trims the shrubbery? Phone the Terror Squad!
Does the new neighbor have a lot of brown friends?
Mind you, if you're really concerned about the safety of your nation, you can't stop at just peering out the curtains all day long. Indeed, any truly patriotic and vigilant English citizen would never be content with such minimal efforts. Just ask the nosy pensioner at the end of the road how much you can learn about people just by snooping in their trash!
Nobody could possibly use that many household cleaners.
And, little did you know, you even have to keep an eye on other people's cell phones. You know as well as I do that no normal human being has more than one phone, right? (I know, I know … how could it possibly get any stupider? Oh, but it can!)
One phone for "personal" use, one for "work", one for "Skype" … my ass.
And it's always the brown people running the pay-as-you-go shops…
By now, you're no doubt planning to move to the UK, as they're plainly more on top of the whole "War on Terror" than your own home country. Bush may have started wiretapping everyone the Feds thought looked a little shifty, or had the "wrong sort" of friends … but no centralized domestic spying program can compete with a massive public awareness-cum-snitching campaign!
Lucky you though, if you live in the US … you can just move to Chicago instead. Especially around the holidays, the Chicago PD is not only more on the ball than the Metropolitan Police (although they're definitely lacking a decent graphic design staff…), they realized how dangerous tourism terrorism could be way back in 2007!
Yes indeed, not only are Chicagoans advised to watch for the suspicious cellphones and cameras … local patriots are advised to look out for holiday revelers doing such dodgy things as using maps, writing things down in public, asking odd questions of the wrong people, and damn near everything else that doesn't include shopping. (But of course, maybe Chicago needs a little more citizen vigilance, seeing as how they don't have as many CCTV cameras to keep a Watchful Eye on the helpless peasants in the streets.)
Fuck your Christmas cheer, there's TERRORISM afoot!
Really, if I could stand living in big cities without eventually wanting to blow something up getting a little claustrophobic after a while, the safe havens that are London and Chicago would be at the top of my list. I suppose as it is though, I'll just have to take comfort in the fact that I have enough Visqueen & duct tape laying around to be safe from a chemical attack.
*looks over shoulder* George Orwell would be so proud…
I do not, however, recommend moving to New York City. It is apparently perfectly legally acceptable for their subway employees to stand around and watch, while you're being raped.
Makes the whole "Watchful Eyes" poster actually seem a little reassuring.
2nd April 2009 at 4:03 pm | permalink |We've had a similar campaign here in Australia for some time. The fact that the government seems to think the best response to terrorism is to ask its citizens to report anything "suspicious" is not exactly a comfort.
The funniest thing about the Aussie campaign is that, as an example of "suspicious activity" they had a picture of someone surfing to a website that has information on how to make bombs. It was (is) a real website and the address was *clearly visible* on the poster.
2nd April 2009 at 9:22 pm | permalink |Hi Alphabitch,
Unfortunately, the insanity is spreading outside our capital. I work in a town called Gateshead in the North of England, and one of the posters you showed above (the dustbin one) has appeared on my bus-route to work.
It reminds me of the episode of Red Dwarf where there were posters in the background "Be a government informer. Betray your family & friends. Fabulous prizes to be won."
This place is going quite, quite mad.
Best wishes,
2nd April 2009 at 9:48 pm | permalink |Charis.
I…
…
…
…wow.
Did someone not think "you know, maybe a bunch of creepy looking eyes hovering in the sky might make people think of Oceania?"
Why not just go the whole hog and put all the text in newspeak?
2nd April 2009 at 10:44 pm | permalink |Looks like George Orwell got everything right except for the year.
3rd April 2009 at 2:32 am | permalink |So this raises the question: why don't people revolt?
3rd April 2009 at 10:44 am | permalink |Holy shit, the first one is creepy…
3rd April 2009 at 10:51 am | permalink |@yakboy: That's great! I wonder how much of a traffic boost the bomb site got from that?
@Lady Charis: There was another UK police website with ridiculous posters, for some non-London area, but sadly they used Quark Xpress's buggy PDF export function, and I couldn't open either of the posters to include them in the post.
But yes, the whole paranoia craze does seem to be sweeping the nation. Which is odd, given that it's just finally seeming to die down over here.
@grimbles & Phil: Yeah, you'd think someone might have mentioned something before the first one went to print. "Hey, this looks like bad Orwellian/Soviet propaganda piece," maybe?
@Jojo: Yeah, as soon as those giant flat-screen TVs everyone's buying these days develop two-way transmission capabilities … yeeha!
@Kavan: Because the majority of humanity are chickenshit sheep? Just a random guess.
3rd April 2009 at 3:46 pm | permalink |"No. 37 never trims the shrubbery"
I didn't know you had to trim Shrubbery! I never open the curtains either which has to be doubly suspicious.
I was in London yesterday evening and saw the CCTV one in a tube station – I really didn't believe this stuff was true before then.
Now for the big question – has anyone in government actually questioned the amount of money being spent on anti-terrorism? Have they done a net benefit analysis perhaps, compared to spending the same amount of money on health services?
For example lets say:
There is currently a 10% chance of a terrorist attack killing 100 people during a year (so loss of life from terrorism is 10 per year) – if a £1million campaign reduces that to 5% then effectively you save 5 lives per year (with an average lifespan of 70 years that is a net gain of 350 years of life for the British public)
Now if that $1million was spent on drugs to treat a terminal disease such as AIDS and the cost of treatment is £1000 per patient per year, we could treat 1000 people. So if the treatment added 4 months to the lifespan of each of the patients it would result in the same net gain of 350 years of life for the British public.
In the first case the government is seen as oppressive and stalinistic, in the second it seen as benificent.
Now which of these are you likely to reelect?
Similar analyses could be done for the war in Afghanistan, are we perchance swapping the deaths of a few dozen heroin addicts per year for a few dozen soldiers per year by spending Billions of pounds.
Now I'm not the most ardent fan of soldiers but I would say that they at least haven't done anything to bring it upon themselves (the majority actually join up to better themselves and stay out of trouble), whereas the heroin addicts actually end up increasing the crime rate and causing more problems for ordinary citizens.
Now I'd say we could probably treat every heroin addict in the country in purpose built treatment centres for a fraction of the cost of prosecuting a war in Afghanistan. Oh and as a consequence you get a significant lowering of the crime rate.
Now if our government can come up with some figures to justify what they are doing it would be interesting!!
Personally I think its just that they don't actually like people with a different religion and skin colour.
4th April 2009 at 1:03 pm | permalink |I suspect that the Metropolitan Police is trying to terrorize Great Britain by turning the country into a negative utopia. Does that mean that I should report them to the Confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline?
11th April 2009 at 7:59 am | permalink |YOU MUST BE A FUCKING "MUSLIM"…. MUSLIMS WANT US TO THINK WERE SAFE ! MUSLIMS WANT US TO FEEL SECURE ! MUSLIMS WANT TO KILL US (OR CONVERT US, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST ) SO IF YOU FEEL SO DAMN SAFE GO LIVE WITH THE CAMEL JOCKEYS IN IRAQUE WHERE YOU BELONG DUMBFUCK !
13th November 2009 at 6:14 pm | permalink |Dear fucking gawd, Eradicator. I hope that was a joke.
13th November 2009 at 7:21 pm | permalink |