[p2p-research] Fwd: Blackout Europe: Telecoms Package dangers to open EU internet lähetti sinulle viestin Facebookissa.....

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Andy,

do you have any energy to expand on your RFID comments, for publication in
our blog,

I'm very thankful for all your interventions, always resulting from a very
thoughtful mind at work,

If you want to contribute more to our blog, James can provide you with a
pw/id at any time,

Michel

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think it's France as a country - it's Sarkozy in particular, and
> the grouping of social forces he represents (i.e. the domestic insertion of
> transnational capital, + the "deep state).  The French right has
> traditionally been dominated by the Gaullists - nationalist conservatives on
> a paternalistic Christian-democrat model.  Sarkozy, "The American" as he is
> known, has the backing of the Gaullist coalition but is not a Gaullist and
> does not belong to the Gaullist parties - he is a hard-core neoliberal.
>
> I was pretty shocked at his election actually, as he stands for everything
> the French (including the right-wing French) hate about the state of the
> world.  Apparently his election victory was largely because, unlike previous
> Gaullist candidates, he was able to pull in the far-right Le Pen vote in the
> second round, because of his vicious racist and authoritarian views (it has
> been traditional in France for Le Pen's voters, whatever Le Pen's wishes, to
> transfer their votes to the Socialists in the second round because of their
> hostility to globalisation).  Not surprisingly, once in power his popularity
> has slumped - this was happening even before the credit crunch which has
> hurt him further.  The unrest at the Strasbourg summit was described in one
> of the media outlets as "the third credit crunch riot in France this year";
> before this he faced a massive strike wave in November 2007 and student
> occupations last year.  He has had to do a U-turn on his plans to crack down
> on the banlieues and delay (possibly abandon) his education "reforms".
>
> Like most neoliberals, he's very attracted to the "control society" model -
> he lobbies constantly in the EU for this kind of thing.  The "three strikes"
> policy was initially a domestic proposal.  He has introduced plans for an ID
> card along the proposed British model (France currently has a basic low-tech
> ID card) but seems to be waiting on how the British scheme pans out; he
> apparently went along with EU proposals introduced by the British regime, to
> insist that all existing ID cards add biometrics.  He was also behind an
> ASBO-style "delinquency" law during his time as Interior Minister, expansion
> of the French DNA database, use of "terror" laws against anarchists last
> winter, threatened very cruel responses to strikers in 2007 and pushed a ban
> on underage drinking (formerly rather tolerated in France).  When he got in,
> I had him down as France's Thatcher - someone who was going to try to
> destroy social resistance and impose a neoliberal model across society.  But
> he seems to have realised his limits somewhat, and is now doing this kind of
> thing by sneaky means.
>
> It seems to be a growing pattern actually, that sneaky governments are
> using the EU to push through things that would be harder to do domestically
> - first they propose, support, or don't lobby against a proposal at
> intergovernmental meetings carried out between leaders; then they come back
> with an EU policy and say, sorry, we've got no choice, the EU are making us
> do it.  The worst thing they have on the books at the moment is EU-wide
> RFID-equipped biometric passports by 2019, containing fingerprints.  These
> are already being implemented in countries which would likely never have
> passed them domestically (e.g. Germany, Greece, Sweden, Romania).  I'm
> hoping this falls apart before 2019 - apparently it is completely unsafe -
> RFIDs have been cracked and edited, fingerprint scanners have been shown to
> be easily foolable with £20 of basic resources and the whole scheme is
> vastly expensive.
>
> I would not be at all surprised if it turns out that Sarkozy has vested
> interests in the recording industry and ID-tech, the same way it eventually
> emerged that Blunkett had a job set up with an ID card company.
>
> bw
> Andy
>
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>


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