Jim Redden

It's pretty much a no-brainer that if most criminals are given the chance to snitch on somebody else to get themselves off they'll do it. & it sure as shit ain't going to matter if the snitch is a lie or not. Essentially, snitch culture is just the more desperate mirror image of cowardice at any level of society. If yr middle class nieghbors felt the slightest pressure against them from the Police State that cd be relieved by making up some outlandish story about you to assist in the Police State's getting you out of the way because of yr political activities most of them wd do it in a blink. Sad but true. Most people just want to lead their lives & have very little strength otherwise. I'd like to think that I'm stronger than that & that there are still millions of us in that category.… (altro)

From a review I had published in issue 82 of Class War:

Snitch Culture - How Citizens Are Turned Into The Eyes And Ears Of The State

Jim Reddon (Feral House, £12.95)

Although written by an American for a US audience, there is, sadly, much in this book relevant to British readers. The desire of governments to catalogue and inspect their citizens is universal, and whilst America may have a slight head start in technological monitoring, you can bet Europe is not far behind. We may not have gone as far as the US school system, which encourages children to report their parents for taking drugs in the home, but British citizens are now continuously encouraged to phone hotlines grassing up neighbours, friends and family. The Stasi society is here.

A crucial element in any snitch society is the media. Redden gives examples of quite outrageous falsehoods being pushed by the American police into the laps of willing journalists about political activists. This has a direct echo with the coverage of May Day 2000 and May Day 2001 here. Exaggerated media stories are then used to justify continued police harassment and arrests of demonstrators. The British police appear well versed in the tactics of their American cousins.

The spying of the supposed anti-racist groups the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Centre on political activists of the right and left has clear echoes of the British "anti-fascist" magazine Searchlight. The ADL was discovered by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office to be holding files on four categories of protestor - "Arab" "Pinko" "Right" and "Skin".

Where civil rights legislation prevents the authorities from monitoring political activists they just pay an advocacy group to do it for them. When the anti-capitalist movement took off in America the ADL was on hand to advise local police departments on how they could ban protestors from wearing masks, under laws designed to disrupt Ku Klux Klan activity. By 2000, the SPLC had begun reporting on the anti-globalisation movement eager to find 'evidence' of its links to the far-right.

If there is one criticism of Redden's book it is of the ultimately depressing tone. He tells us much of what is being done to us, but little of what we can do about it.… (altro)