Party Vibe

Absolutely inspirational mate!!!

thank you fRiJ, you’re words have helped solve a personal crisis. I know nothing of the Babylonian Brotherhood, would you be kind enough to tell me more?

the paranoia that there is “The Man” controlling us from above is a myth and that we actually do have the power to change things if people are prepared to work towards it.

I think this is totally true but I know so many people who have just got so apathetic about anything political they won’t even bother voting. We really do have the ability to change things for the better but as I see it the biggest problem is in motivating people to do something about it.

Things like the national ID cards that are going to be introduced here in the UK are an intrinsically bad idea, the government will be able to keep constant tabs on people but a lot of my friends think either nothing can be done about it or they are a good idea because they help ‘combat terrorism’ :oh_god:

And yet the ones who don’t vote etc are the first to complain about how terrible it all is….Anybody who doesn’t vote has no right to compain IMO (apathy, and “it’ll never change anything” are not a reason to stop trying, and can only be a self fulfilling prophecy). I always vote, even though I know my local area is very unlikely to get the person I vote for, and the country is likely to end up with the same shower of useless tossers who can’t find their own butts with a map, but will tell any lie to pretend that they can…:rant::rant::rant:

oh, and btw – yes Mr Blair, that means you… :

“we won’t go to war without a second UN resolution, unless there is an unreasonable veto from one of the permanent members” was it? You forgot to add “or it looks like we will lose a second vote with no veto required, in which case we will avoid any vote and pretend it was vetoed (which fiction will be helped along by the fact that the French and Russians have said they will automatically veto any resolution for force)…Oh yes, and then because everybody will be so astonished at the brass neck required to lie like that, we can throw in a vote to get rid of that

[mad]pesky manifesto pledge about student tuition fees.[/mad]

People will be so busy goggling at the first huge lie that the second huge one will go relatively unnoticed…
👿 👿 :toxic: :toxic: :toxic:

Sorry, carried away ranting… again…
:rant: :rant: :rant:

Aha, and as if by magic, something else to rant about. ID cards are obviously essential: They help combat terrorism in the same way the new laws that give the government the right to jail you without charge do. And the laws that let branches of government look into your private life at will because you might be planning a Guy Fawkes return match do.

And always someone can be heard uttering that splendidly reasonable sounding phrase “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear…”

For those of you who didn’t pay attention in history class lets analyse this: – Supposing you have nothing to hide (unrealistic, as most human beings like to have parts of themselves nicely hidden away from others…even real extroverts wear public faces, and not everybody is an extrovert).
But lets for the sake of argument take the sense in which it is presented – you’re not a sociopathic terrorist seeking to blow up anybody you can for some cause or other.
Well then, you have nothing to fear when we raid your house in the middle of the night, and take you and your family away for “questioning”. You have nothing to fear from being locked away for months without any trial, or any kind of hearing. You have nothing to fear from, the questions we ask you because anybody whose skin is a funny colour must be up to something…You have nothing to fear because you have nothing to hide from us
:good_evil :good_evil :good_evil :rolleyes: :good_evil :get_you: :ar15: :devil_wag: :toxic:…

Those of you who did pay attention in history will know this phrase has been used many times before, and in fact with monotonous regularity over the past hundred years…For instance:

1) The friendly lads down at the Gestapo, circa 1932-1945 used the phrase in a sincere and kind hearted attempt to protect the citizens of Europe from the evils of certain undesirables in their midst – you know the sort – Jewish people, Gay people, Polish people, Czechoslovakians, Communists, People who enjoy Dancing, People who disagree with us, or who laugh at our glorious leader’s very silly moustache….

2) The equally friendly lads who were the backbone of Uncle Joe Stalin’s fine NKVD (The Soviet Union’s internal security apparatus – you know, the one that made the KGB look like teddy bears). They used the phrase, although it sounded like this: “Если вы не имеете ничего спрятать, то вы не имеете ничего опасаться”, because they were doing it to their own (uncle Joe being a relatively honest thug didn’t see the need to pretend he did it for their own good…

3) And at around the same time, across the pond this time when our friendly American neighbours were in the grip of one Senator Joe McCarthy…. “Are ya a communist son? You’re wearing red trousers…”….”are ya sure?”….”Well, if you’re not a Communist, are ya a faggot? Ya look like one…Bend over so I can check. Got to keep the mother country pure now.”…

And the one thread that ties all these uses together? FEAR. A population that is scared, through design or through circumstance.
In Nazi Germany the fear came from years of hardship following the first world war. Fear that tomorrow your family might not eat because all the jobs and money and food have been taken by Jews, fear that was played on mercilessly by Hitler and the Nazi movement.
In the USSR it was the fear that had replaced the glorious revolution, the comedown after the high. Lenin was dead after years of post revolution paranoia had caused him to commitwhat became known as the “Reign of terror” in Russia. Trotsky had been murdered abroad with an ice axe by an agent of the new ruler Joseph Stalin. The world had been locked in an arms race developing weapons of unimaginable power (weapons that caused one of their inventors – J. Robert Oppenheimer to say “I am become death. The destroyer of worlds”. He later committed suicide. One of his co developers, project supervisor Ken Bainbridge is quoted as saying “Now we’re all sons of bitches.”) And for the USSR, these weapons were in the hands of an enemy (or so Stalin’s propaganda insisted), one who hated the very ideology of the glorious revolution, and would stop at nothing to grind it’s achievements into dust. Again, the fear was played mercilessly by an expert on a population already terrified.
In the USA, the detonation of Russia’s first nuke (29th August 1949 they tested their first device made from research recovered from a laboratory in Berlin at the end of WW2) caused fear. At the same time, China had come through it’s revolution and was now run by communists who then helped North Korea in their bid to retake the South in 1950 by sending 180,000 troops to help. At home, Senator Jospeh McCarthyhad been playing on the fear, filling the imagination of America with the terrors of the “Red Peril”, and it’s subversives who were everywhere. Cue witch hunt, and 5 years of paranoia (which McCarthy used to great effect taking down his political rivals.) The usual suspects were victimised (homosexuals were a particular target, ironic considering the campaign organiser against them, Roy Cohn was a closet homosexual, and McCarthy himself was accused of having homosexual relations…) But the Korean war, and the reality of America’s sons coming home in bodybags made fertile ground, and McCarthy used it for his own ends for 4 more years. The term “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” was again used liberally as an excuse to create laws, and investigate people in a way that would be strongly resisted were the population free of the grip of fear.
McCarthy’s power eventually waned around 1954, but not before the coining of the term “McCarthyism” which is still used to describe irrational fear and paranoia causing systematic or institutionalized action to be taken against any perceived scapegoat group.

The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Any of this sound familiar? Population in fear from some nebulous enemy that we must be protected from…Leaders who will tell any lie to further their own ends…Laws being passed that would be unconscionable to the populace under any other conditions, but have to be allowed now because we need protecting…hmmmm.
The trouble is the history is removed from our here and now. People seem to have some idea that our ancestors were somehow less intelligent than we are, less able to spot a con, and that were we there, we would spot it straight away, never be taken in by it. Trouble is, what we see in our history is with something called hindsight, and hindsight is, as ever, perfect.
These cons are far more difficult to spot when history hasn’t proven you right yet.
So ID cards? Resist them. Because they are wrong (ask your grandpa, or Grandma what they did with their ID cards when they were withdrawn after the war. The phrase “burnt it” seems to be a common one.)
We don’t need them, because (boss eyed Texan talking monkeys should not be listened to here), we are not in a war. The “war on terror” is not a war, and we are in no more danger now (in fact, in the UK probably less danger since the IRA finally evolved into real humans, and stopped bombing the shit out of mainland Britain) than we were 20 years ago.
The Al Quaeda threat, while real, is no more real than the threat posed by any other bunch of crazies (and the human race has always had crazies). Yes they could do something horrible, and stupid, and ignorant, and you may die from what they do, but the threat is no more elevated now (ask the residents of Oaklahoma from 20 years ago, or the residents of Brighton, or Lockerbie, or the Basque regions of Spain and France, or a hundred other towns).

Because that is what terrorists do – create terror (hence the name).

And they know when to use it to best effect. And while you may die from a terrorist bomb, you could also die in a car accident tomorrow, or drown in the bath. You won’t stop travelling in cars, or having baths (hopefully…:-D)

I remember thinking on 9/11 “why is this being done now? what purpose do the instigators have in mind?” The answer is fairly obvious. They did it now (on 9/11) when a new president was on Capitol Hill, and the leadership of the US had gone from a reasoned and objective (if slightly randy) president, to one who asked his people if they realised most of their imports came from abroad. One who was figurhead for a group of people that even George Bush Senior’s people referred to as “the crazies”. A president who could be relied upon to lash out with little thought, but with the full might of the US military.
And the purpose? To cause instability in the world, and to cause fear in the countries from which the perpetrators came. How many converts to the cause of his corrupted Jihad did the mind behind 9/11 garner when first Afghanistan, and then Iraq were invaded? How much more terror was created for him to use to his own ends?

The threat that is more dangerous than any terrorist, or bomb, is our own fear, and the people who would prey on it, and use it to their own ends. Our own fear will shut us off, isolate us from each other, and cause us to become more like them – less human. Because of all the atrocities evil commits, it’s most heinous crime is to make you more like it each time you encounter it and it touches you.
So.
Repeat after me: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Whoohaa. Got well out of hand there. Serious rant. 💡 :bounce_ci :bounce_ci :bounce_ci

So when your mates are apathetic (is that word really pathetic with an “a” in front? one too many letters methinks), or they try to tell you it’s for our own good, and the good guys are in charge really, point them here so I can at the very least offend them with my ranting :bigsmile: :biggreen: :biggreen: :bigsmile: :lol_crash …

And to the first poster (fRiJ), rock on…good post. I will finish my rant with someone else’s – the words of Uncle Bill:
“Life is a ride at an amusement arcade. It goes up and down, and round and round, there are thrills and spills, and it’s very brightly coloured, and it’s fun…for a while.
Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question – ‘is this real, or is it just a ride?’
Other people have remembered, and come back to the ones questioning, and say – ‘Hey, don’t be afraid, don’t worry, ever, because – “
“It’s just a ride”
“and we….Kill those people…”

Gonna stop now, cos that is one seriously long wibble.

Peace.