So, the Supreme Court says that Wal Mart was alright to have shut down one of their Quebec locations in 2005 right as the store was trying to unionize.

A Wal-Mart, in case you didn't know what one looked like...

Good on ‘em. I would have been all for the power of unions…..100 years ago.

Now I’ve never worked for Wal-Mart, so I couldn’t say,  but as to my knowledge the corporate philosophy is to treat the employees well above par. So why would they want to unionize?

The bigger question is, why should Wal-Mart stand for it? Call me crazy, but hey, the Supreme Court agrees with me.

And for the record, if anyone’s wondering where my hostility towards unions comes from, I happen to be a York strike survivor. Let’s just say I’m not joining anything CUPE as long as I can avoid it.

It was really heartwarming when winter set in and they were still outside

“Trinity College staff picketed the College on November 24 in the national day of protest for the public service sector. The College was severely disrupted by the one day work stoppage. All lectures and labs were cancelled on the day due to an ‘unacceptably high’ risk to health and safety. The College said that it carried out an assessment of risk to health and safety and the professional advice was that lectures and labs should be cancelled …” (more)

[Carl Doherty, University Times, 25 November]

At least four people have been injured in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources say…. From BBC News. Full story

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by Joe Thorne

More than 40 pickets were stood at the gates of the Hackney Community Transport (HCT) bus depot this morning.  Playing football, waving flags and milling about on Ash Grove, off Mare St, the strikers are amongst the worst treated workers on London buses.

Union members try to persuade a fellow worker not to scab

Contrary to what some may assume, not all London bus drivers are on the same terms and conditions.  HCT drivers are on £11.52 an hour, lower than most bus drivers.  And they get no extra pay for overtime or unsociable hours.  The company is offering a derisory 2.25%, while union members want to see wages and conditions brought more into line with those of other bus drivers in the capital.

Roger Dillon, a Unite official, spoke to the workers.  He told them that striking meant they had a right to respect from themselves, from the company – and from bus drivers across London.  He said that many had seen what was going on, and had phoned into the Unite offices asking to be balloted for action themselves.  He talked about how some members had defied intimidation from the company to go on strike.  Dillon also talked revealing about how frequently bus drivers get abuse from a minority of members of the public: it clearly made drivers uncertain of public solidarity.  We need to show bus drivers that they do have solidarity!

Pickets were very aware of the need to build coordinated action across London, to equalise terms and conditions.  This strike narrowly avoided coordinating with action at First Centre West and First Capital East, who were on strike last weekend.  Laws around ballot timings and notice periods had apparently made coordination difficult.  But this only strengthens the need for workers to push for a common approach; a single agreement covering all London bus companies – of the sort that was achieved to a limited extent in the union’s Justice for Cleaners campaign.  While workers are on different conditions they will always remain divided.

The tube workers are another group with whom action should be coordinated: a united bus and tube strike would clearly be incredibly powerful.   An example of the sort of solidarity we need was given as a CWU member from the local Emma St delivery office refused to cross the picket line and deliver mail.  Stewards and other workers in transport should meet to discuss building joint action.  As for HCT workers, if the company does not provide a better offer, new dates for action will be set.

Extraordinary stories are slowly emerging through various media sources regarding how some public sector workers spent their time away from the picket line on Tuesday. Many extraordinary instances of how these workers were choosing to spend their day of action as a ‘day off’ have dominated the front pages and radio airwaves. One such instance involved a number of civil servants partaking in a ‘point and make fun of those working’ blitz in Dublin City centre. Many radio programmes were overrun with calls from individuals working in the IFSC complaining that public sector workers were openly mocking them as they worked in their offices. Some individuals were seen to wearing placards with the message ‘I can’t be fired’ printed on them.

Elsewhere Joe Duffy’s Liveline programme received a high number of complaints regarding underage teenagers drinking excessive amounts of alcohol in the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire. With their teachers on strike it seemed many pupils had decided to forgo studying in favour of an all day booze-up. However, Not the News Ireland has shockingly learned that it was in fact a large group of hooded teachers causing public disorder in the public park. Upon being arrested by local Gardaí, the ringleader of the raucously behaved teachers was overheard pleading his case. “The kids in school keep telling us how much of a laugh they have drinking vodka straight and sniffing glue, we just thought we’d try it seen as we had the day off “, the naive, emotional and sheep like teachers were later released without charge but would each be assigned a junior liaison officer in the next few days. Their parents issued a statement in which they said they were “ashamed, mortified and disappointed”.

A 24-hour bus strike begins in east London, affecting four routes and travel services including transport across the 2012 Olympic Park site…. From BBC News. Full story

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Southland Times journalists are on strike to protest stalled collective contract talks. (story updated here)

Sources say the Times’ editorial floor is this morning staffed by non-unionised managers, a junior reporter and an intern.

Journalists’ union delegate Evan Harding told Southern Squall his members wanted a 2% wage increase but that the Australian-owned newspaper wouldn’t budge on a 0% wage freeze offer.

Union hardman: Southland Times EPMU delegate Evan Harding (Squall photo)

“And then, two weeks ago we read that Fairfax had given failed chief executive David Kirk a AU$4m golden handshake,” Mr Harding said.

“[Some in] Fairfax had publicly said this man had failed, and here it was effectively saying that someone who failed was worth more than the workers at the coalface.

“It’s been deflating, to say the least, for staff.”

Mr Harding said the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union had 31 members at the Southland Times. He understood 30 had not turned up to work today.

The strike couldn’t have come at a worse time for the newspaper which will now have to stretch scarce resources to cover some of the biggest stories of the year.

The Burt Munro Challenge has started and Deputy Prime Minister Bill English is due to open the long-awaited Gore Events Centre.

It appears the strike has also left Queenstown – a daily news battleground – open for the Otago Daily Times.

Mr Harding said Fairfax would struggle to attract journalists to Invercargill as long as pay and conditions lagged behind other mastheads.

The newspaper was the only Fairfax daily not to offer weekend or overtime rates: Fairfax needed to “get real”, if only to demonstrate it was committed to encouraging quality journalism.

“It’s worth noting that Fairfax has made another strong profit, admittedly not as strong as other years, and our own newspaper keeps running stories with economists saying we’re coming out of the recession.

“Why should we roll over and over and accept a wage freeze.”

 We’ll update this story as it develops: afternoon update here.

Fairfactor: Striking journalists make their point outside the Southland Times building this afternoon (Squall photo)

Oh, and by now you’re probably wondering why we care about a strike at a newspaper. We’ll drip-feed our reasons as they occur to us, but here’s some for a start:

Quality journalism needs quality journalists. We think that’s a hard, high ideal when journalists (that’s low-glamour, print journalists)  are treated shabbily.

Read this (the Big New Zealand Journalism Survey) about what journalists think about their job and – crucially – declining resources. It’s a real issue for New Zealand journalism and the quality of work we read.

A well-supported media is in all our interests. Our media shouldn’t simply be a cash cow for faceless investors.

(We also reckon a journalists strike must be the loneliest industrial action you can have: if a tree falls and there’s no one to write about it, did it make a sound…?)

Bus drivers in Leeds vote for strike action in the run-up to Christmas in protest over a pay freeze…. From BBC News. Full story

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“Were you one of those verbally abused, physically blocked from entering, herded from your bus at the entrances to UCD today, had people sitting on the bonnet of your car? Democratic right to protest? What about democratic right to cross a picket? …” (discussion thread)

[Boards.ie, 25 November]

“So yesterday, most of the Irish civil service, including professors at this university, went on a one-day strike in protest of their expected pay cut … What it amounted to for me was that all my classes yesterday were cancelled. On the last week of class before finals …” (more)

[Mike Warren, Vandy Right, 25 November]

We know that our blog has had a lot of posts about the BC Paramedics lately, but we’re very interested in seeing how this all turns out.

Paramedics are asking colleagues from around the country not to come to work during the Olympics until the labour disputes are settled between the government CUPE:

BC paramedics warn ongoing labour dispute could impact service during Olympics

Ambulance workers in British Columbia are asking their colleagues across North America not to come work at the Olympics until their labour dispute with the province is resolved, a request the union says could jeopardize service levels at the big event.

“People obviously need to be worried about whether or not an ambulance is going to be there,” John Strohmaier, president of the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., said Monday.

“It’s not our intention to put patients in the middle of this dispute … We are certainly going to try, to the best of our ability, to be there for patients when they need us. We are asking those same people to be there for us.”

The province’s 3,500 paramedics were forced back to work through legislation earlier this month, ending a seven-month-old job action. Paramedics worked at reduced levels during the strike, since ambulance services are designated an essential service in the province.

Despite the legislation, paramedics continue to pressure the government for a better deal.

On Monday, about 200 paramedics and supporters showed up to protest outside a speech by Health Minister Kevin Falcon and earlier this month more than 80 called in sick over two days, idling dozens of ambulances.

And Strohmaier said union members are reluctant to volunteer to work overtime as a result of the legislation, and are requesting other paramedics stay away in support.

“As long as this labour dispute exists in British Columbia they shouldn’t be thinking about coming to B.C. and volunteering during the Olympics either,” he said.

Strohmaier said the union is not only unhappy with the back-to-work legislation, but by the province’s appointment last week of a former deputy minister, Chris Trumpy, as head of a commission set up to try to resolve the labour dispute.

“It’s a pretty simple fix. Appoint an independent third party to conduct the review and this dispute is over,” Strohmaier said in an interview.

As head of the commission, Trumpy is charged with reviewing issues such as salary, staffing levels, workload and health and safety. The commission is expected to report back to government Jan. 15.

Labour minister Murray Coell said Trumpy has worked under both NDP and Liberal governments and is “very independent.”

Coell also said he thinks “cooler heads will prevail” and the labour dispute will be resolved before the Games.

The back-to-work legislation was passed weeks after the Olympics organizing committee, known as VANOC, wrote a letter to the government asking for a guarantee of paramedic services.

“Without full emergency services on site at the competition venues, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games may not proceed,” the committee’s medical services director, Dr. Mike Wilkinson, wrote in a memo dated Sept. 14.

Wilkinson has said they’ve lined up volunteer medical staff in case of a shortage during the event, but will rely on the expertise of the province’s ambulance system and its staff.

As part of its bid for the Games, the Vancouver organizing committee promised that every venue will have paramedics and ambulances on site at all times.

Strohmaier said there aren’t enough staff to handle the ambulance needs in B.C. on a regular day, let alone during the Games.

He said the province will need “several hundred” more paramedics and ambulances to handle the thousands of visitors coming during the Olympics. But Strohmaier said he isn’t aware of any plans to add staff during the Games.

Despite criticism from the paramedics’ union, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said the back-to-work legislation was not passed because of the pending Olympics.

“I know lots of paramedics, and I think the paramedics are professionals, they care about people, they want to provide the public with service,” Campbell told reporters after an Olympic event Monday.

“It was unfortunate for all of us that we had to legislate people back to work, but it was about the H1N1, it was the pressure that was on the system, we spent literally millions of dollars trying to find a resolution to this. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible.”

The ambulance workers, who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 873, say they went on strike seeking better staffing levels that would result in faster ambulance response times, wage parity with other emergency responders and a multi-year contract.

They argue they’re being stretched to the limit by the ambulance service’s dependence on part-time workers, unpaid travel time and chronic overtime.

Comment about this post

“Dublin City University was one of the few public service workplaces unaffected by yesterday’s strike. About 700 staff at the northside campus are represented by SIPTU and voted against participating in the strike or in taking industrial action in relation to the threat of pay cuts …” (more)

[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 25 November]

“The one-day strike by more than 50,000 teachers yesterday closed almost 4,000 schools. There was also widespread disruption to the higher education sector, with lectures cancelled across the institute of technology sector and many universities …” (more)

[Sean Flynn and Sasjkia Otto, Irish Times, 25 November]

“Trade union leaders have acknowledged for the first time that temporary measures which would reduce public sector earnings next year are necessary if across-the board pay cuts are to be avoided. The admission follows a day that saw 250,000 public sector workers take part in what unions described as the State’s largest-ever strike …” (more)

[Martin Wall and Stephen Collins, Irish Times, 25 November]

“At universities across Ireland (such as NUIM, UCD and NUIG) students took time today to offer solidarity to education workers in a real,practical way- by joining them on picket lines. The failure of the NUI Maynooth Student Union to support the one day strike did not deter a group of over 60 students from joining workers on various pickets at the University over the course of the day …” (more, pictures)

[Free Education for Everyone, 25 November]

“lots of people were at work in TCD today.” (tweet)

[John Whelan, Twitter, 24 November]

“Passed by TCD today and saw really dense picket lines I wouldn’t have wanted to be someone trying to enter!” (tweet)

[vonprond, Twitter, 24 November]

Amidst of  all the fuss over USA involvement in Pakistani affairs and the presence of their security agencies in Pakistan we see denials from Pakistani officials for any such presence and interference but still people are not satisfied with government lies.

Below is an article written by Jeremy Scahill of The Nation on the issue of Blackwater presence in Pakistan.

————————————————————————————————————————
Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan
By Jeremy Scahill

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

Click here to read the whole article

(more photos from UCB by Andrew Stern)

From Student Activism:
Tomorrow is the one-week anniversary of the first University of California protests (and arrests) against the regents’ decision to impose huge new fees on the students of the system, and UC’s activists show no signs of letting up.

Today saw a rally and march on the main administration building at UC Irvine, and the first arrest of the week at that campus. It also saw a candlelight vigil — still ongoing — at UC Berkeley, in the wake of the news that the university will be investigating charges of excessive police force at protests there last week.

And at UC Davis, where 52 protesters were arrested in an occupation of administration building Mrak Hall last Thursday, students are hunkering down for the night at Mrak again. The Davis activists’ blog reports that between sixty and seventy students are in Mrak now, and they’ve “made a commitment to stay the night.” They’re dancing, they’ve ordered pizza, and they’re settling in to chat about demands.

Follow the Davis occupation on twitter.

From Democracy Now:

As UC Berkeley Investigates Police Brutality Against Students Protesting Fee Hikes, a Report From Inside the Takeover of Wheeler Hall

The University of California, Berkeley is investigating allegations of police brutality against students and workers protesting fee hikes and budget cuts last week. 40 students were arrested Friday night after campus police entered Wheeler Hall, which the students had taken over earlier in the day. The students were part of a statewide movement protesting the UC Board of Regents decision to raise tuition by 32 percent. Independent journalist Brandon Jourdan, who was embedded with the students inside the occupied building on Friday, files a report for Democracy Now!

Well, today was a national strike day here. Apparently. It involved a strike taking place in the centre of Rennes. Click here to see Rennes in the regional paper. Some kind of reform, as per. France does not like change. Anyway, I knew for certain that the library was on strike, but apparently all the eating establishments on campus were shut today. I mean seriously, what do they expect students to do? Starve? Inconsiderate bastards. Anyway, this explains why there was a large queue for Subway and for the foodery next to it, and inside Carrefour. It’s just not cricket, France.

In other news, Ann-Charlotte and I had to contribute to a lesson today. It was awful. We had to read what we had put for the translations, not only in our français-anglais class, but in our anglais-français class. It was so awful. I never want to do it again. Or, perhaps for future reference, I should do my homework. Maybe.

Keeping with the theme of people making a stand, which we have seen today in Ireland, with the public sector workers, I dug out an old essay I had written on V For Vendetta, a wonderful comic book and very good film based on the idea of what happens when a government pushes a people too far.

Let me make it clear that I am not airing my views, opinions or support for or against the striking public sector, I’m simply sticking with the theme that’s in the air at the moment, to blog this essay. It’s quite long, so get a cup of tea!

Examining Michel Foucault and Power and Surveillance in the Wachowski Brothers’ “V For Vendetta” (2006)

In this essay, I will examine some of Michel Foucault’s main theories and teachings regarding Power, Surveillance and Resistance, and apply to them to the 2006 movie, “V For Vendetta”.

V For Vendetta was originally written by Alan Moore as a comic book series in the 80’s. Interestingly, the comic book was set in a Thatcher-like state and was very much seen as a criticism of the British government at that time. The 2006 film leans more towards a criticism of the present Bush administration in the USA, which has expanded across the world, especially to Britain.

Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 and reigned for 11 years. Her government was most notably memorable for: reductions in tax; manipulations in money supply to reduce inflation; privatisation of public industry; reduction of trade union power; reduction of governments role in economy; and encouragement of people to save, work and buy property. She also oversaw the reduction of the Welfare state. Sir Charles Powell, the Foreign Affairs Private Secretary to the Prime Minister (1984-91, 96) described her style thus, “I’ve always thought there was something Leninist about Mrs. Thatcher […] there’s no doubt that in the 1980s, No.10 could beat the bushes of Whitehall pretty violently. They could go out and really confront people, lay down the law, bully a bit”[1] However, it was argued that Thatcher’s monetary policies sacrificed Britain’s Social well-being, in favour of her economic policies. In 1983, Britain saw the worst unemployment numbers since 1923, due to Thatcher’s anti-inflationary policies. One of the worst examples of Thatcher’s governemt was an accusation made regarding the Miner’s Strike of 1984-1985, in which the power of Trade Union’s was severly weakened. There was an accusation by a former MI5 Chief Stella Rimington that Union Leaders phones had been tapped during the Miner’s strike. Similar situations and practices have also been recorded during the Reagan years in America.

V For Vendetta was released on the 17^th of March 2006. The film was originally due for a July release in 2005 but the terrorists bombings in London forced the film-makers to delay the films release as it contains scenes of a terrorist nature that would have been far too relevant at the original time of release. The film is a dystopian story about a society ruled by its totalitarian government rather than the government being the voice of the people. The film draws large comparison’s with Orwell’s 1984 in the sense that the movie encompasses aspects of surveillance, discipline and power. The film was seen as being an Anti-Fascist and Anti-Holocaust story. The story revolves around the characters of Evey and V. Evey is a young media worker paralysed by her fear of the world around her until she meets V. V is the freedom fighter/terrorist and protagonist of the piece, whose plan is to blow up the Houses of Parliament on the 5^th of November as a symbol depicting the state of the country. The rest of the film centres on the police investigation into V; the relationship between Evey and V; and Evey’s eventual abjection of the fear that has thus far crippled her life. As one of the main actors states, the film is, “A meditation on what happens when a government pushes people too far.”[2]

Firstly, I will briefly examine Foucault’s views on Power and Knowledge, and Resistance. Traditional ideas of power began with Francis Bacon who quoted, “Knowledge is Power.” Foucault however, linked Power and Knowledge as being one and the same, and believed that power was achieved through discourse. “In a society such as ours…there are manifold relations of power that permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse.”[3] Foucault argues that power is achieved through discourse, and through social structures. “Without knowing it, we group distinguishable objects into unities and thus constitute our objects.”[4] In the most basic terms, discourse works through repetition of a statement, which said often enough, becomes true. “Discourse is not just a way of speaking or writing, but the whole “mental set” and ideology which encloses the thinking of all members of a given society.”[5] There are numerous elements of discourse in V For Vendetta, most notably through the character of Lewis Prothero, the “Voice of London”. Prothero preaches one phrase above all, “Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith”. He suggests that the present government is on a par with God, and “godlessness” will destroy the country. “The word “power” has a two fold meaning. One is the possession of power over somebody, the ability to dominate him; the other meaning is the possession of power to do something, to be able, to be potent. The latter has nothing to do with domination; it expresses mastery in the sense of ability.”[6] This is seen very clearly in V For Vendetta. The government has a dominating power over its people, but V and the rest of the people have the power to stop this. They have the power to resist.

However, Foucault also argues that one of the most important aspects of power is Resistance. According to Foucault, there are no relations of power without the existence of resistance. He believed that power was far more complex, and insidious than the power of ideology or brute economic oppression and that without resistance, all instances of power fade. V believes that there is something very wrong with the country and appeals to the people to join him a year later for the blowing up of parliament. As V states: “People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.”  “We must make allowance for the concept’s complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.”[7] This is seen in the film as we see V read his “manifesto” to the people, when he appeals to their sense of morality not to allow the misdeeds of the government to go unnoticed or unpunished. “His (Guy Fawkes) hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked.” It is in this instance that we see discourse working as a hindrance to its original perpetrator. V speaks in the language of the people. He appeals to their sense of morality and rather than order them to act, causes them to question themselves. In his work “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison” Foucault identified how there had been a shift in the use of power from pre-modern to post-modern societies. There was a new reliance on self-discipline as opposed to punishment as a means of social control. The citizens of the film have slipped into a system of self-discipline as a manner of control.

The biggest aspect of Foucault’s theories that we see in V For Vendetta is the Surveillance and Control. Surveillance, in Foucault’s thinking is an important means of controlling people and practices. The “gaze” is an expression of power, and the idea has been reiterated in many different areas, for example, George Orwell’s “1984”, from which the iconic phrase “Big Brother is watching” originated from. This idea is reiterated in V For Vendetta. The Chancellor (a term we would most commonly associate with Adolf Hitler.) Adam Sutler is seen only on a large TV screen as a powerful, forceful individual, until the end of the film when we meet him for the first and last time in the flesh, as a terrified, weeping little man. One of the main questions regarding surveillance is the line between safety and privacy. What are security CCTV camera’s intended to achieve? The answer to this question is control. Foucault viewed the body as a centre point for social control. In V For Vendetta, the Government is run in sections, with different names assigned to different aspects of policing. The Finger consists of a Gestapo like force that polices the streets, and issues immoral punishments as we see at the beginning when the two men attempt to rape Evey. The other sections are made up of the Ear, which is sound surveillance; the Eye, visual surveillance; and the mouth, which is the TV Company that partakes in pro-government propaganda. Foucault views institutions such as prisons, armies, schools, hospitals, etc, as institutions through which control can be implemented.  The aim of these institutions is the production of Docile and Useful bodies. These institutions therefore, acted as tools for shaping the identity of a person. There was a shift from bodily domination and control to patterns of self-regulation and discipline. In the film we learn of testing that is taking place on the patients. This is where the vendetta story begins. We learn that the patient in Cell Number Five, i.e. – V in Roman numerals, is not responding to any of the tests, while many others have died. From V’s blood, a virus is extracted, and a cure developed. This virus is later used by the government to inflict fear in the people of the country. The cure is “miraculously” discovered after the Norsefire government comes into power.

One of the most interesting aspects of this film is the interpretation of identity. Evey begins the film as a media worker trying to live beneath the radar, not drawing attention to herself. We learn that her parents were killed during riots before Norsefire and she believes that her parents chose their political activism over her. She is afraid to speak out because she claims that every time she has seen the world change it has always been for the worse. We could go as far as to say that Evey is abjecting the idea of freedom at the beginning of the film. Evey’s “self” is one of fear, and the “other” is the idea of freedom. This is an interesting idea because we can also see aspects of Orientalism in the film, as we look at the people who are imprisoned in the detention/concentration camps. It is only after Evey meets V and faces her death that she loses her fear, and becomes free. It is a role reversal from the beginning of the film. When Evey pulls the lever at the end of the film, she is abjecting fear and embracing freedom.

As previously mentioned, the comic book was very much a critique of the 1980’s Thatcher England. The movie adaptation moves towards a critique of the present Bush administration in America. While the original comic book was written during the era just before the end of the Cold War, the movie is released while the “War on Terrorism” is very much in full swing. The context of the story has changed since the 1980’s. While the comic book critiqued the Thatcher government in the 80’s, the 2006 film version very much solidifies the present political structures and issues that we, in the present day are affected by. It is interesting also then, to note, that the writer of the original comic book, Alan Moore demanded that his name would not be associated with the film adaptation. His comic book dealt with the happenings of the 80’s, whereas the film is very much an Americanisation of that story, even though it is set in Britain. By many, the film is seen as a critique on the Bush government, using an already constructed template. The theme of terrorism plays a huge part in the film, with V being described as a terrorist by the authorities. Also, the elements of surveillance seen in the film very much mirror the American psyche since 9/11. An intense feeling of paranoia surrounds the detective in the film, as; indeed it surrounds American society, and even the rest of the world. The fact of the film is, that even though it is fictional, the scariest fact is, that none of the incidents are terribly far from reality. None of the hideous crimes of the government in the film are so hideous, that they couldn’t possibly happen in present times.

All in all, V For Vendetta shows a bleak outlook of a totalitarian future that is not too distant. Some may suggest that it is already upon us. Indeed when we look at how the comic book framed its view on the society and the context it was set in, it is almost scary to think that the film adaptation is doing the same thing, for the present day.

[2] Stephen Rea; Freedom! Forever! Making V For Vendetta.

[3] http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory54.htm

[4] http://www.california.com/~rathbone/foucau10.htm

[5] Barry, Peter; Beginning Theory

[6] Fromm, Erich; The Fear of Freedom, pp 139.

[7] http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory54.htm