Geschrieben am 24. März 2012 von für Bücher, Crimemag

Christopher G. Moore: Views from Bangkok

Nicht sehr beliebt ist bei Kriminellen (staatlichen, organisierten und sonstigen) die Redefreiheit. Man kann dagegen etwas tun, bis dass der Redner kotzt …

Christopher G. Moore über einen neuen Wahsinn:

 

Forcing people to shut up or throw up …

It’s not only you who’s looking to high-tech to solve all of your problems. Repressive and not-to-date-so-repressive governments are taking notice of new weapon technology.

If you are a protester or demonstrator your future will likely include being made mute or stuttering uncontrollably and throwing up. These weapons are currently in development and in some cases are operationally ready. Welcome to the Brave New World of high-tech equipped security forces. Controlling people is something governments have traditionally sought to achieve.

There is a long history of political demonstrations and most of it is violent, repressive and bloody. Power instinctively seeks to stamp out challengers. Thumbs screws, the rack, beheadings, chopping off hands, arms, legs, and burning at the stake often drew large crowds who found that sort of thing highly entertaining.

Except for a few places, we don’t live in that world any more. Our world is one of modern technology that has rapidly added new weapons to the arsenal of governments. CCTV surveillance cameras, monitoring phone, computers and emails are already in place. The newest technology makes the life of demonstrators move in the range between difficult and miserable.

We’ve entered an age of mass demonstrations with news reports from many countries around the world. The powerful would like a neat way to cause people in such crowds and their speakers to be either unable to speak or to vomit and feel dizzy. Speech may be free but those who insist on exercising their right can be made to pay a high fee.

Demonstration Freiheit statt Angst 2007 in Berlin (Quelle: wikipedia)

Police forces in America and many other countries have become militarized. Fighting crimes is more warlike than ever before. The new weapons on the ground and those patrolling the skies such as predators, give the cop/soldier hybrids better information, firepower, and protection against return fire. It is better to think of the cops and soldiers as one unified security force which share weapons, intelligence and tactics to marginalize common enemies. That includes demonstrators.

A number of the new high tech toys fall in the category of ‘shock and awe’ firepower, stealth capability, and protective gear for the cop/soldier. That means the bank robber, car thief, and mugger will find it increasingly more dangerous to carry out their self-employment. They won’t be missed.

What governments wish us to believe is that dangerous, violent criminals when they aren’t robbing banks, stealing cars or handbags are attending political rallies and demonstrations. The cops/soldiers (the security forces) are finding the general public is less inclined to support their decision to order their security forces to shoot demonstrators in the streets. Even repressive governments have come to understand that slaughtering demonstrators is bad public relations. And it invites charges of crimes against humanity and genocide and a public trial in Geneva.

The Chinese label demonstrators in Tibet as ‘outcasts, criminals and mentally ill’ people. This description of demonstrators, with a few local variations, pops up on the lips of politicians in many countries once activists and protesters accumulate in crowds, and demonstrators challenge the central authority. How best to stop demonstrators has been the work of some creative scientific minds. The first goal is to disperse a crowd. Second, weapons are needed to discourage, demoralize or disable people who demonstrate against the government. These are government goals in many places.

In the bad old days the security forces used rubber bullets, tear gas and water canons. These low-tech responses to demonstrations only partially worked. In a large political demonstration of 50,000 people a high tech response is needed. What’s the latest way for the political class to mess with the rest of us?

LRAD

One answer is the LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device). This little baby will blast 95 plus decibels of sound—heavy metal music or a cat in heat—at the crowd. That’s loud, and later models will likely burst eardrums. Though at this stage of development, I am not certain a crowd in Thailand would notice 95 decibels of sound as anything other than normal. But that is another matter.

Scientists are working to increase the range of the LRAD and combine it with other features. Like scent. These good scientists have done research on what smells induce uncontrolled vomiting, inability to maintain balance, and reduced sensory capability. The political demonstration starts to look like an alliance of binge eaters, acidheads, and disabled lap dancers with everyone bumping into each other on their rubbery legs. Some of the Bangkok klong water will at last find a market, as it could be bottled and sold to the manufacturers of the new LRAD for ammo. The slogan will be along the lines: ‘KlongBomb: Smells worse than shit’, and ‘Knocks out a skunk’. Politicians will claim that Bangkok is a LRAD ammo ‘hub.’

SPEECH JAMMERS

The problem for the security forces are the leaders who hold their ground and the smell of shit only seems to fire them up. For these people, the scientists have come up with a speech jammer. The Japanese came up with this wonderful idea. Who wouldn’t want their own jammer for use against the loud, rude talkers who always manage to get a table next to yours at a restaurant, the seat next to you on the subway, cinema or lecture?

But do you want your government using them on you when you beg to disagree?

Here’s how the speech jammer works. It delays a speaker’s words for a couple hundred milliseconds and blast the words back at the speaker. The technical term is ‘auditory feedback.’ What this means is the device messes with out brain’s cognitive processes. In non-technical terms it makes you stutter. Apparently these jammers were originally developed to help people who stutter to overcome this disability. Of course the security forces of the world often see a golden lining in such developments and wondered if it cures stuttering, can we tweak it to make people stutter. The answer is, “yes, general, you can turn this baby on the speaker on the stage and turn him or her into an incoherent, jabbering fool.” And when you label the leader of the demonstration an incoherent, jabbering fool, you can replay the words from his or her latest speech as Exhibit A.

Shut up or I’ll jam you into a stuttering retard. That is an improvement on stop or I’ll shoot you. This is only the beta model. Ten, twenty years down the road, the implant versions will be ready and demonstration leaders will have sentences handed down that include insertion of such devices.

We have eight more years left in this decade. By the time 2020 rolls around, the security forces will have effectively curtailed public demonstrations as they will have their squares and streets ringed with high-tech weapons that make such protest impossible. We are just at the start of the civilian repression that lies ahead. It’s not just a pre-Enlightenment dark age that threats all of us, it is that cone of silence when we are left to our own thoughts and those too are on the high-tech drawing board for the post-2020 world.

 

Christopher G. Moore
Dieser Text erschien am 8.3. 2012 auf unserer Partnerseite.

 

 

The Wisdom of Beer

Der Untreue-Index beim Unionsverlag. Bangkok Noir. The Cultural Detective. Kindle/Amazon. UK and Kindle/Amazon USA.His latest Vincent Calvino novel, 12th in the series, is titled 9 Gold Bullets and is available as an ebook on Kindle. Moores Podcast. Die Vincent Calvino-Romane. Der Autor beim Unionsverlag hier. Zu Christopher G. Moores Website und zu Tobias Gohlis’ Rezension des Untreue Index bei arte.tv