As all of you people are aware I don't tend to write many blogs. However, since reading about the recent local election poll results in the UK I have been moved to include a piece that was put together by a good friend of mine that was inspired by a number of conversations we've had regarding the somewhat apathetic nature of the British public concerning politics.
It goes as follows:
The following is an opinion. If you want facts, please turn off every electrical device within 20 feet your of person
Lets get this straight right? Chips in. Cards on the table, sleeves rolled up and no hidden aces. Honestly now. We're an art collective. Not even that. We're a loose group of individuals who enjoy music and occaisionally self-publish and promote what we like to call art.
Straight up.
This might need to change
We're currently living in the worst recession of a generation. A generation that now grows up with mobile phones and wireless laptops. A generation hopelessly addicted to inter-connected super-toys we can no longer afford the credit to buy but are told constantly are a requirement for a normal functioning life. The same ways designer clothes and expensive haircuts are also pre-requisites for being socially accepted. A significant fraction of our lives is spent either asleep or for those of us lucky enough at work obliged to do that which we would prefer not to. This in turns enable us to pay the burden of a mortgage, buy the designer sunglasses and fake tans we don't need, or get an expensive haircut so we can go out on a Friday night. We work so we can upgrade the super-toy gadgets that grow out of date faster than we can imagine their replacements. New ways for us to continually 'kill' what little precious free hours we are granted cataloging every waking second of our lives on a rapidly growing globally networked public database of human trivia. We quanitify every thought and feeling and experience into meaningless statistic. Meanwhile CCTV footage, police records, every email ever sent fills our government databases, impossible volumes of human life data quantified again into statistic. Networked private database of human trivia. We scream and shout about privacy and a government wasting millions on ID cards, the physical equivalent of a Facebook profile in your pocket, while posting twitter updates of our daily lives right down to the beer we drink and the meals we eat and the stroke and breath of our every physical activity. We carry web enabled smart phones so the information never ceases. Our trivia, the clutter of our social lives becomes viral and airborne and infects all who are willing to pay for it. All this, in the middle of the worst recession of a generation.
The irony of this bitter joke seems lost on us.
There are real tangible concerns, such as feeding the family, our children's futures, lack of job security (or lack of job), home repossesions, spiralling debt. Then there are the more general concerns, will we recover from the recession? Do we really need the nuclear weapons the government claims we do? Will our loved ones come back from the war? Is it too late to do anything about climate change?
Our stage is set, the cards are dealt. The audience is fed up with cheap party tricks. We are the impatient generation and we have been abandoned by the political party traditionally supposed to represent us and we want our answers clear and straight and streamed in real-time now. This is the grim backdrop to elections 2009.
So election results. UKIP surprised most rational beings and came second, the xenophobic euro-skeptics parading the grotesque caricature of Winston Churchill as a declaration of war on Europe and immigration. Not far from the BNP propaganda depicting a WW2 spitfire, a more overtly violent historical war image. Clearly there is a deep seated and dangerously misguided sentiment amongst both parties that Europe will invade our sacred little island, an irrational fear that we'll wake up one day all speaking nadsat. Don't be fooled, the propaganda published by both of these parties is an obscene and offensive declaration of war.
The Conservatives thundered in first despite being as embroiled in the precision timed expenses media scandal as the Labour party. The pervading political ignorance and anti-intellectualism of our current culture are perhaps partially to blame, the general anti-Labour opinion seemingly being based on "they've been in power too long" and "it's time for a change". Like an election should be about everything that's wrong and not what's right. Stereotypical British attitude focussing on the negative and barely acknowledging the positive, the possibility. Not to say that people are wrong, but in light of the socialist reforms put forward and campaigned for by the Green Party we have to ask ourselves why in the face of rising unemployment and poverty have people voted for the tories who have proved time and again they are purely self-interested. Reducing taxes for the rich and decreasing public spending are surely counter-intuitive attitudes considering the current financial climate. Don't be fooled, if a protest vote is required to watch Labour collapse into themselves there are alternatives to Fascist xenophobic paramilitary groups with a history of home-made explosives and ultra-violence. Alternatives which bring politics back to grass-roots social reforms and role of government as catering for the people. The Greens faired as well as the BNP, which is sad considering the sanity of their policies in the face of the grim realities of climate change and an increasing rich / poor divide. The prevailing attitude of course is that they are a non-mainstream party and will never have a chance of getting into power, which is nonsensical in light of the UKIP result (despite folded ballot papers*) and the fact that we live in a democracy where the power of our voice entitles us to choose who we want in power. We are however a far too cynical a generation to seriously consider independent thought and choice.
The power of our voice. Worse of course is voter apathy. How surprised would we really be if more people voted on premium rate hotlines for the thick ugly one on Celebrity Big Brothers Got Talent from the comfort of their couch? Rather than walk five minutes to a polling station and make an important decision on how their country is run and how it should impact their lives.
*Our ballot papers here in Reading were approx. three feet in length
So the BNP have apparently had their tiny win, from an apparently insignificant proportion of the body politic who bothered. Lets face it, this is a democracy and everyone should be granted the freedom to speak an opinion no matter how crazed and irrational it may be. At least then we can compare them to something sane and in turn ridicule them. Lets not marginalise them in turn adding fuel to their fire and amplifying their voice. Lets invite them to prove to us all just how ridiculous they actually are. In case of emergencies the following guidelines have been suggested...
1. The BNP winning European parliament seats means they have a budget to employ staff and various sub-contractors.
2. These budgets and staff positions are subject to anti-discrimination laws, as they come from public funds.
3. Watch out for when these positions are advertised. If anyone sees them advertised, chuck the ads about on as many social networks, blogs etc as possible.
4. Man the Harpoons - If you fall outside of the BNP's discriminatory membership criteria, due to being black, Jewish, whatever, apply. If you are white British and want to help out this plan anyway, just spread the idea about.
5. When you/they don't get the job, take it to an employment tribunal.
6. ????
7. Profit.
All is not doom and gloom. All is not lost. Approx 7% of the Swedish population are forward thinking sane people and know that as well as the political and economic challenges we face we also face cultural challenges.The Pirate Party (not to be confused with The infamous Pirate Bay) seek to reform antiquated and conservative cultural ideologies which are still a hindrance to the wide spread distribution and development of cultural norms beyond the all-invasive trivia we are happy to pollute our own minds with. Next general election though, I'm going to cast a different vote for a new kind of merciless leader. Policies that are tested on a truly galactic scale. A fictional perosnality everyone can buy into.
Vote MING!
If you have any opinions on the above go to the forums on http://www.pixadelica.org and get involved.
It goes as follows:
The following is an opinion. If you want facts, please turn off every electrical device within 20 feet your of person
Lets get this straight right? Chips in. Cards on the table, sleeves rolled up and no hidden aces. Honestly now. We're an art collective. Not even that. We're a loose group of individuals who enjoy music and occaisionally self-publish and promote what we like to call art.
Straight up.
This might need to change
We're currently living in the worst recession of a generation. A generation that now grows up with mobile phones and wireless laptops. A generation hopelessly addicted to inter-connected super-toys we can no longer afford the credit to buy but are told constantly are a requirement for a normal functioning life. The same ways designer clothes and expensive haircuts are also pre-requisites for being socially accepted. A significant fraction of our lives is spent either asleep or for those of us lucky enough at work obliged to do that which we would prefer not to. This in turns enable us to pay the burden of a mortgage, buy the designer sunglasses and fake tans we don't need, or get an expensive haircut so we can go out on a Friday night. We work so we can upgrade the super-toy gadgets that grow out of date faster than we can imagine their replacements. New ways for us to continually 'kill' what little precious free hours we are granted cataloging every waking second of our lives on a rapidly growing globally networked public database of human trivia. We quanitify every thought and feeling and experience into meaningless statistic. Meanwhile CCTV footage, police records, every email ever sent fills our government databases, impossible volumes of human life data quantified again into statistic. Networked private database of human trivia. We scream and shout about privacy and a government wasting millions on ID cards, the physical equivalent of a Facebook profile in your pocket, while posting twitter updates of our daily lives right down to the beer we drink and the meals we eat and the stroke and breath of our every physical activity. We carry web enabled smart phones so the information never ceases. Our trivia, the clutter of our social lives becomes viral and airborne and infects all who are willing to pay for it. All this, in the middle of the worst recession of a generation.
The irony of this bitter joke seems lost on us.
There are real tangible concerns, such as feeding the family, our children's futures, lack of job security (or lack of job), home repossesions, spiralling debt. Then there are the more general concerns, will we recover from the recession? Do we really need the nuclear weapons the government claims we do? Will our loved ones come back from the war? Is it too late to do anything about climate change?
Our stage is set, the cards are dealt. The audience is fed up with cheap party tricks. We are the impatient generation and we have been abandoned by the political party traditionally supposed to represent us and we want our answers clear and straight and streamed in real-time now. This is the grim backdrop to elections 2009.
So election results. UKIP surprised most rational beings and came second, the xenophobic euro-skeptics parading the grotesque caricature of Winston Churchill as a declaration of war on Europe and immigration. Not far from the BNP propaganda depicting a WW2 spitfire, a more overtly violent historical war image. Clearly there is a deep seated and dangerously misguided sentiment amongst both parties that Europe will invade our sacred little island, an irrational fear that we'll wake up one day all speaking nadsat. Don't be fooled, the propaganda published by both of these parties is an obscene and offensive declaration of war.
The Conservatives thundered in first despite being as embroiled in the precision timed expenses media scandal as the Labour party. The pervading political ignorance and anti-intellectualism of our current culture are perhaps partially to blame, the general anti-Labour opinion seemingly being based on "they've been in power too long" and "it's time for a change". Like an election should be about everything that's wrong and not what's right. Stereotypical British attitude focussing on the negative and barely acknowledging the positive, the possibility. Not to say that people are wrong, but in light of the socialist reforms put forward and campaigned for by the Green Party we have to ask ourselves why in the face of rising unemployment and poverty have people voted for the tories who have proved time and again they are purely self-interested. Reducing taxes for the rich and decreasing public spending are surely counter-intuitive attitudes considering the current financial climate. Don't be fooled, if a protest vote is required to watch Labour collapse into themselves there are alternatives to Fascist xenophobic paramilitary groups with a history of home-made explosives and ultra-violence. Alternatives which bring politics back to grass-roots social reforms and role of government as catering for the people. The Greens faired as well as the BNP, which is sad considering the sanity of their policies in the face of the grim realities of climate change and an increasing rich / poor divide. The prevailing attitude of course is that they are a non-mainstream party and will never have a chance of getting into power, which is nonsensical in light of the UKIP result (despite folded ballot papers*) and the fact that we live in a democracy where the power of our voice entitles us to choose who we want in power. We are however a far too cynical a generation to seriously consider independent thought and choice.
The power of our voice. Worse of course is voter apathy. How surprised would we really be if more people voted on premium rate hotlines for the thick ugly one on Celebrity Big Brothers Got Talent from the comfort of their couch? Rather than walk five minutes to a polling station and make an important decision on how their country is run and how it should impact their lives.
*Our ballot papers here in Reading were approx. three feet in length
So the BNP have apparently had their tiny win, from an apparently insignificant proportion of the body politic who bothered. Lets face it, this is a democracy and everyone should be granted the freedom to speak an opinion no matter how crazed and irrational it may be. At least then we can compare them to something sane and in turn ridicule them. Lets not marginalise them in turn adding fuel to their fire and amplifying their voice. Lets invite them to prove to us all just how ridiculous they actually are. In case of emergencies the following guidelines have been suggested...
1. The BNP winning European parliament seats means they have a budget to employ staff and various sub-contractors.
2. These budgets and staff positions are subject to anti-discrimination laws, as they come from public funds.
3. Watch out for when these positions are advertised. If anyone sees them advertised, chuck the ads about on as many social networks, blogs etc as possible.
4. Man the Harpoons - If you fall outside of the BNP's discriminatory membership criteria, due to being black, Jewish, whatever, apply. If you are white British and want to help out this plan anyway, just spread the idea about.
5. When you/they don't get the job, take it to an employment tribunal.
6. ????
7. Profit.
All is not doom and gloom. All is not lost. Approx 7% of the Swedish population are forward thinking sane people and know that as well as the political and economic challenges we face we also face cultural challenges.The Pirate Party (not to be confused with The infamous Pirate Bay) seek to reform antiquated and conservative cultural ideologies which are still a hindrance to the wide spread distribution and development of cultural norms beyond the all-invasive trivia we are happy to pollute our own minds with. Next general election though, I'm going to cast a different vote for a new kind of merciless leader. Policies that are tested on a truly galactic scale. A fictional perosnality everyone can buy into.
Vote MING!
If you have any opinions on the above go to the forums on http://www.pixadelica.org and get involved.