UG#728 - Globalizing The Occupation (Israel & UK's Fusion-Intelligence Complex)
Robin Upton | 16.01.2016 13:35 | Palestine | Policing | Terror War | Sheffield | World
We hear an impromptu recording made at SOAS in London on 8 October 2015, to launch his new book the "Global War Against The People". This focuses on the special role of Israel in the endgame of global capitalism, as a leader in the business of "security". He suggests that Israel can be seen as a microcosm of the capitalist global system, in which a tiny elite are busy developing ever more complex technology to try to keep control of an ever more exploited and impoverished underclass. I have slightly cleaned up his talk, which runs to just less than 1 hour, followed by questions which we hear in the second hour.
Our second contributor is Ben Harbisher, a lecturer at an English University. I found his paper, Unthinking extremism - Radicalising narratives that legitimize surveillance while researching for the Wikispooks article on extremism. Written for an academic audience in the journal Surveillance & Society, this is a demanding but detailed look at what Harbisher refers to as the "Fusion Intelligence Complex". Although usually set up with money from central government, he explains that "Fusion Centers" are comprised of both public and private local "stakeholders" and are relatively autonomous. As Harbisher demonstrates, they have a clear conflict of interest and he presents a number of examples when economic interests have usurped legal mandates, and these groups have been used for political and/or economic gain to stifle democratic dissent. His focus is on the UK, where, for example, the Occupy London encampment in front of St. Paul's cathedral was deemed a great threat to British society. The paper examines observes a quite deliberate blurring of the lines between terrorism and dissent which was formerly acknowledged as legitimate by the introduction of a new set of frames such as those referred to by Jeff Halper in the first hour.
Thanks to Michael Gilligan for making and supplying the recording of Jeff Halper.
Robin Upton
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