I wrote this in 2005. It was published in 2014. I have read it many times at poetry open mics and slams. The point is that what we are seeing in 2025, particularly the persecution of migrants, has been in production for more than 20 years. I knew. “We all” had the means by which to know.
There are Footnotes below.
For: Jao Charles de Menezes
I met Jim Breyer (the WalMart guy), he said, I have a deal for you.
It won’t cost very much: just a couple of friends.
Not Jennifer, Annibel, Alison, too, but Anita, Jim and Pete
Beside them Murdoch’s Rupert Bear in cuddly tiger feet.
When I think it can’t get bigger it gets squared and squared again,
raised to its own power multiplied by ten.
Alan Turing’s paranoid and my tin-foil hat’s screwed on,
to stop the voices in my head: but I don’t think we’re wrong.
Anita Jones beside you, Condie’s in a first communion veil;
America’s virgin diplomat never forked a tale.
Sweet venture angel flutter cash with golden strings attached:
Pete Thiel made his wedge from PayPal then funded Vanguard PAC:
Silicon Valley’s successful conservatives empower regular guys:
Blackwater, Bush, the unborn evangelicals rise.
Aging, liberal, hippie – me(-dia), takes all their passing flak,
expecting cyborg rapture or the martyr’s track,
While Yusuf Saladin’s children fall before the Crusader gates;
in Islamic chatrooms – XML standard – wired up by the state.
If cities are our organs and roads our life-blood veins
now we’ve grown a nervous system but we still don’t have a brain.
If I said the CIA owned FaceBook, would you be surprised?
TIA’s not a Spanish auntie but a military enterprise.
Total Information Awareness, who you are and are you well?
Get on board with your new friends BBN, Accel, and In-q-tel,.
Twenty-first century soldiers march in bits and Toyota cars;
blacked out Hummers on Cowley Road: guns and drugs and tarts.
Do you believe in climate change, do you understand art?
Do you think the only innocent dead is a young Brazilian spark?
When I think it can’t get bigger it gets squared and squared again,
raised to its own power, multiplied by ten.
Alan Turing’s paranoid, and my tin-foil hat’s screwed on,
to stop the voices in my head: but I don’t think we’re wrong.
[1] There are footnotes: sadly many links have degraded
[2] http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978491 “Introduction to the human”: lecture by Greg Niemeyer; Greg recounted the FaceBook story.
[3] News International’s ownership of mySpace appears benign
[4] http://my-world.typepad.com/rworld/2006/08/with_my_tin_foi.html; Charlene Croft wonders if she is sounding like a “conspiraloon” http://charlenecroft.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/facebooks-new-advertising-strategy/; need more? http://simulacram.vox.com/library/post/facebook-a-cia-front.html; http://qwstnevrythg.blog-city.com/was_facebook_started_by_the_cia.htm
[5] she may be the strange glue that holds this together: http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2007050415441157.
[6] … makes Condoleza Rice look like a babe in the woods?
[7] Peter Thiel (http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=456). Note his literary endeavours: http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=38. Peter founded PayPal. He believes money should be issued privately and commerce transacted without interference (or democratic oversight?) from states (http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail380.html)..
[8] Vanguard PAC, “Founded by some of Silicon Valley’s most successful conservatives, TheVanguard.Org is here to take the battle to the enemy.” http://valleywag.com/tech/jerome-corsi/two-degrees-of-peter-thiel-232180.php http://valleywag.com/tech/clans/peter-thiels-misfits-230588.php Rod Martin, Head of the Vanguard and Co-founder, with Pete, of PayPal wrote this: Thank You, President Bush: Reflections on the War on Terror, Defense of the Family, and Revival of the Economy (find it on Amazon if you can be arsed)
[9] “Aging, liberal hippie, media…” is the full quote: the bete noir of the Vanguard PAC
[10] So what else interests Pete? The “singularity” http://sss.stanford.edu/overview/whatisthesingularity/. Here’s his bio, again http://sss.stanford.edu/speakers/thiel/ Oh, look! With Nick Bostrom http://sss.stanford.edu/speakers/bostrom/ Where have we heard that name before?
[11] http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0223nj1.htm
[12] http://www.accel.com/news/news_one_up.php?news_id=129 Note who is on the committee deciding the “grants”: Jim and Pete; here’s Jim, http://www.accel.com/people/bio.php?person_id=4&group_id=1
[13] Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): US R&D agency: developed the Internet
[14] Anita Jones was the head of R&D for the US Dept of Defence at the time that the Information Awareness Office (http://infowar.net/tia/www.darpa.mil/iao/) was being established. See: http://www.bbn.com/about/board_of_directors/anita_jones
[15] http://www.bbn.com/ ok, What do they do? They built the Internet for one thing. http://www.bbn.com/solutions_and_technologies/ And, check out the Board: http://www.bbn.com/about/board_of_directors/. Oh, there’s Jim Breyer and Anita Jones
[16] http://www.accel.com/ invested $13 million in Facebook
[17] In-q-tel? http://www.inqtel.org/ now it gets interesting. Anita’s on the board. (http://www.inqtel.org/team/bot.html) of the CIA’s investment arm after serving as Head of R&D for the Defence Dept. In-q-tel is a “government contractor operating as an independent nonprofit corporation, In-Q-Tel receives regular oversight from the CIA, which keeps Congress informed of the company’s activities.” I feel so reassured. Look at this: http://www.inqtel.org/invest/bbn.html BBN is one of In-q-tel’s big investments. They are not a technology start-up, they’ve been a very big information technology contractor to the government for years
[18] Jim and Anita are on the Boards of BBN and Accel. Jim and Anita were On the board of the American Venture Capital Association. Jim and Pete are on the FaceBook board.
[19] Jao Charles de Menezes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes shot by British police, mistaken for a suicide bomber
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