Wednesday, October 14, 2009

They will stop degrading us

I’ve been pondering on what the consequences of the surveillance society means for everyday life, what we will do, how we will act. I’m sorry to say that very few, probably no one, will do what should be done. At least not in time.

Instead we will start to adapt to our new situation. It’s a couple of new laws many will try to avoid, some don’t care about, but most will just go ahead living as nothing have happen.

I have myself been thinking how this changes things for me and what I come to realize is that I might be changing some of the things I’ve taken for granted for many years now. The very notion of how to stay away from the thought police is right now being pondered upon by many citizens, and what is that really? Its self-censorship! Already here our enemies have reached their goal because out of fear and self-preservation we will need to learn new skills, learn to avoid certain words, certain sites or how to get information without triggering any alarm among those set to watch us. This is the very essence of the control-grid; make us change our habits to suit those in charge.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I can and cannot do, because the laws isn’t completely clear either which is another intentional ruse – if we don’t know what’s really illegal and we don’t know the consequences i.e. the punishment isn’t clearly lined out, it makes the situation more stressful, more fuzzy. Which torrent can I use? What can I put up on YouTube? Which search-word will trigger the alarm? Can I chat with friends in China or Russia without the government reading and listening in? What information can I find, read and use without the government spying on me? How many songs can I download before they bust down my door and steal my computer? Can I still watch an old movie from the 70’s online?

This entire mind-process is carried out right now by thousands of people, and those people aren’t criminals or hardened terrorists. This isn’t paedophiles or smugglers; these are ordinary men and women not wanting to be caught by the Thought Police. Even those "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" –people need to acknowledge this fact, and this is bad enough. Already with this in mind, things have gone too far. When our every action can be monitored, can be scrutinized, can be subject to prosecution, we have a very uncomfortable society of totalitarian intent. And the key-word here is “can”. Internet isn’t limited to a certain country, and the information flow isn’t staying within borders, it’s all travelling around everywhere.

Take this blog as an example. Not only am I writing pretty challenging and provocative posts, I have written posts within the borders of 5 different countries, I have visitors from all over the world, people send me email and follow my links to other sites. The information on this blog, the very content has travelled all over the world and back again millions of times already, crossing borders and passing through thousands of computers. And since you can be very sure that I’ve covered most of the search-words and key-phrases the Thought Police are scanning for, I already know that I’ve been picked up by the control-grid several times over.

It doesn’t matter if the Thought Police themselves are being monitored, if they need court-rulings to search my computer, or if they are not supposed to do this or that, they still can do all that and then some. And besides, who are stupid enough to believe that things stop now? Who among you are such idiots that you think there will be no more laws? No more exceptions? I started saying years ago that this was just the beginning, and it is. No one in their right mind can think different.

And because they can, and many times will, it means that journalist’s sources, confessions to priests, business secrets and much more will get swooped up once in a while. It’s a built in consequence. They say they won’t read or save such information if they happen to get hold of it, but who are that stupid to believe in such lies?

After pondering a while, and gotten pretty far in changing my habits, I come to realize something, why do I bother? I have no money, they can sue me until judgment day, no money will ever come from me anyway. I have no family of my own that can get hurt by the process. I have no fear of the police or the justice system. And going to jail, in particular to a Swedish prison, is like going to a retreat. So why bother?

But even so, this entire post, the very process of thinking that I and many more are doing right now, is enough. This is what they really want, to keep us distracted, keep us occupied with worries, make us contemplate punishment versus downloading porn. Having us looking over the shoulder keeping us constantly watchful for cameras is a great way of making us feeling that uneasy tension.

The good news, however, is that an entire generation of people has grown tired of this, there is a lot of fuck you’s being issued and I’m not the only one wanting and smelling that revolution. People have seen how the elitists work, how they fix the system to suit their needs. Bias judges, bought politicians and the chase after lawful citizens have been brought to many people’s attention. So many have taken that step over to the dark side mistrusting everything the government says or does, that there is a small glimmer of hope. An increasing number of people want to stop the degrading of us, stop the imposing fascism. The only questions are if we will rebel in time? Or will we wait until it’s too late? Will there be bloodshed and politicians dangling from lamp-posts or not?

It’s just a matter of time, and until that day, may I offer you some listening to Muse?



The fascist mediocrity

The world isn’t only moving towards a fascist and totalitarian structure where the power and money is allocated in fewer hands and where governments sleep with banksters. We are not only conforming countries into a mainstream river wherein soon a world currency and possible a world government will come into shape. We are also making people more conventional. In essence, the world is getting boring, but in a fun way since people dies on the road.

Media, our creepy surveillance society and mainstream pundits are thrusting conformity into our lives in a way that makes everything so tediously boring. Just think about it for a moment.

Anyone criticizing what goes on is considered to be radical fringe individual or, my favorite, a racist. The only difference between organizations and political parties these days is how politically correct they are. If they happen to be a bit less PC, they get attacked by media and the rest of the bunch until they conform to the conventional opinion. Everyone must think of the environment, have enough females and black people in high positions and argue for equality. Well, not the socialistic full-on equality, we need some form of market economy at the same time, so a mish mash of center politics are formed around a mixture of socialism, corporatism and political correctness that pretty much everyone follow as the mainstream God.

Get in line, conform, sit straight up and listen to what the great leaders tell you.

This way of forming useless drones starts early on. In school we are taught that it’s good to follow the rules, it’s good to be as everyone else and how great it is to help others to be as mediocre as you are. Throughout our lives things that is fun, gives you pleasure or helps you feel good about yourself is banned, outlawed or highly restricted. Get out of line and you are a deviant pervert, a drug addict that is dangerous for others or just a crazy person in one way or the other. Video games, movies and even papers come with age-restrictions. Some of those completely harmless things are totally banned such as playing games for money. And everything that may be remotely unsafe i.e. you can hurt a toe, is outlawed. Examples of this are boxing, cannabis, driving without a seat-belt and walking against a red light. Some countries have even outlawed suicide. Imagine that. “Oh, you didn’t die from that jump, sorry, but we need to lock you up now. You can try again in a year from now when we let you out”.

This is also the way they are selling the concept of mass-control and total surveillance of people who own computers. One don’t need to have tin-foil hat on to feel very uneasy about the 1984-society most countries are building right now. Worse still is that this hinder the technology and inventions and new companies that otherwise would have started. “We need to protect you” they say with a smug smile while we have no way of knowing whether we were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police is plugged in on any individual wire is guesswork. No matter how they sell it, we now haft to live with the assumption that every sound we make, every site we visit is being watched, controlled and that every movement can be scrutinized. It doesn’t matter how many courts or how many assurances they give us, the possibility exists, and sooner or later they will use it.

The people that deviate from this decree of middle-of-the-road living are described with sentences like “He goes his own way” or something like “She thinks she is something more than the rest of us”.

It’s all designed to push us into conformity.

To social democrats, liberals and many other groups fighting over the mainstream vein this is probably great news - they have most of the people and most of the institutions right where they want them, but the ones that really should be jumping with joy are the fascists. Fascism is pretty much just this, a general conformity around a version of center politics with a large portion of society socialized and a kept illusion of continued competition and market economy while big business, government and the elitists rule with impunity. With the current laws comes to Internet there is really only the central figures of elitism among the elitists that is missing, a leader to conform the last pieces of our lives into a true totalitarian home of madness.

Some might argue I take this analysis too far, but have I really? Take a look around. Anyone true to themselves and the facts will draw the same conclusions.

The main problem with this isn’t really the conformity or how controlled we are, rather its how society treat those that don’t conform. If it was only bullying or condescending sentences thrown at such individuals, it wouldn’t be so bad, but things have gone way beyond that. In fact people die each year because of these written or unwritten rules. People who use recreational drugs, refuse conscription or don’t want to pay taxes get locked up or killed each year. If you want to make your own beer, build your own sort of car, start broadcasting radio or pretty much anything else, you need permission that is not always granted and if you refuse to follow such ruling, the thought police will come and shut you down, if you resists, you go to jail or get killed.

And everyone is following this unadventurous and mind-numbing orthodoxy. Take a look at the news as example. How far apart are the political views, the way of reporting or the content of the news? Not that much. Mostly you need to really stretch the imagination to find any kind dissimilarity. And since you can hardly do anything without breaking a law, we are very well kept. Like puppy dogs we lick the hands of our masters, get feed by them and sometimes they spank us when we’ve been bad.

The really fun part of this is that most of you love it. You want to be kept, you love being mistreated, lied to and another law is just another reason for you to be a good little citizen. No wonder people like Hitler and Mao didn’t have any problem finding loyal disciples. If you ever want to find out why the German people allowed the holocaust, why hundreds of millions are starving in the world or how Pol Pot could murder ¼ of the population, you need only to look in a mirror.