16 July 2016

The Dystopian Moment

Newt Gingrich wants to curtail free speech and expand government surveillance. The implications of his statements are staggering. He's advocating religious tests. The government will judge the nuances of your belief system. If the Christian Right and their Right-wing allies every gained absolute power, how long before 'heretics' like me would face their wrath and reading websites like this one would be illegal?

There's no one the Christian Right hates more than other Christians challenging them on Biblical grounds. They become apoplectic. Mormons and Catholics are fine, anti-Sacralists, we have to be silenced.

Fools that they are, they don't realise that in pursuing these policies for decades they have created social polarity and generated government structures that in the end will come crashing down upon them.


Meanwhile the police are arresting people for Facebook posts.


While we cannot agree with the content of what people are posting, the social implications of this move are more than a little troubling. There's a bad precedent here that's being ignored by the mainstream. On a similar note the mainstream has paid little attention to the massive shift in law enforcement that took place in Dallas. While indeed the Dallas shooter needed to be stopped, robots wielding bombs is something new.

But what's more... it was siege situation. He was cornered and his movements restricted. The conflict had moved to the point of negotiation. To decide to employ hi-tech deadly force at that point was an interesting move to say the least. What's the next chapter of this story?

Meanwhile thousands of buffoons chase graphics imposed on a video screen, allowing the Corporatocracy to data mine everything about their lives.

Alvin Toffler the author of 'Future Shock' recently died... could he or his readers in 1970 have even begun to fathom the state of our society today? The Internet has changed the world but a friend of mine recently argued the Smartphone is perhaps even more revolutionary. Certainly in terms of technology they go together, but the Smartphone has in just one decade completely and radically changed our society. Anyone getting out of prison feels this most acutely. Or in my case... those who have refused to go along and sit back and watch. It is nothing less than stunning. I refuse to get one and yet I also know that before long it will mean I will not have access to some of the basic structures of society.

In the UK, another Conservative PM pledges compassion for the masses in something of a repeat of Thatcher's 1979 bizarre if not twisted appeal to Francis of Assisi as she prepared to make war on the UK's middle and working classes. What will the May administration hold for the United Kingdom? My guess would be austerity and more of the security state. She has a long record in this regard.

And of course just as France was ready to lift the state of emergency, the brutal attack in Nice, along with the attempted coup in Turkey, has all but ensured an increase in power for the military-intelligence apparatus.

And as all these things take place the US mainstream media continues to focus on rubbish, entertainment and the latest analysis of Donald Trump or deflated footballs.

1 comment:

  1. Someone suggested that I left out the heart of the dystopic moment... the trajectory toward race war and the reality of routine mass shootings.

    Very true, however these things have been part of America's history from the beginning. America has a long history of racism and violence. That's basic to what America is.

    That said, as these things worsen, they will contribute to the general social turmoil and create a cloud of chaotic fear. I guess the reason I didn't immediately include race and violence is due to the fact that these things have actually been worse in the past. The 1960s and 1970s were much more volatile and violent than today.

    That said, there are indications we are once more moving toward such period.

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