It is so true that we live in an age where the population is both politically and economically un-engaged...and the most disturbing fact about the X factor is that with it's 10m votes on saturday's Final, more people voted in the final than voted for this present govt to be in power...
Are the one world govt /illuminati conspiracy theorists right,? are the public being hoodwinked into being this un-engaged by the barrage of media and entertainment that is far easier for most to stay engaged with than the more thought provoking subjects that matter and will affect everyone's lives.
Conspiracy theories never die, (or do they?)
Good post by thread starter.
I'm often reminded of Prim Levi at times such as this. He actually felt more liberated in ways when imprisoned in death camps because bizarrely he had the 'freedom' to think and recognise the clarity of his situation. The focus of his anger (although terrifying) gave him the clearest reason for survival and rebellion against an unstopable force. Together with the ability to recognise the simple phenomena of right or wrong, at its most naked manifestation, must have been quite an experience..
I've often mused on whether our 'thinking' freedom has (en masse) been terminally damaged in recent times...The finger is pointed at, for example, China and N.Korea for their treatment of their 'citizens' with their frightening and brutal regimes exercising all manners of control. But are the masses really 'free' in our society given the constant bombardment of messages we're subjected to on a daily basis? Are we really free in our debt slave/politically obsessed culture where, for example, the liberalisation of home ownership has caused millions to fear against raging versus the political machine for fear of losing out finanically? "Fuel £1:15 a litre? Pffttt...got to get to work after dropping the kids off at pre-school and the wife at her second job..."
I'm watching the carefully choreographed treatment by the mainstream media of the BA cabin staff strike. Similar to the Royal Mail dispute there's no explanation of the grievances, the message is united and immediate; striking is wrong, bad, you must take one for the team, you must suffer with the rest of the UK as we all pull together to get us out of 'this mess' (which is always airbrushed off the agenda in favour of fluff in the news...). A mess most have been innocently contributing towards and have only indirectly caused by the levels of ignorance created..
Phew...that was a mind dump...thankfully my pairs are still in the right directions....Anyhow, someone please get this back on thread before Lightning Mc Queen 'Kerpows' cattle prods me and edits it back on message..hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to....
Primo Levi quotes
"Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions."
"the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head..."
"Logic and morality made it impossible to accept an illogical and immoral reality; they engendered a rejection of reality which as a rule led the cultivated man rapidly to despair. But the varieties of the man-animal are innumerable, and I saw and have described men of refined culture, especially if young, throw all this overboard, simplify and barbarize themselves, and survive. A simple man, accustomed not to ask questions of himself, was beyond the reach of the useless torment of asking himself why."
"The harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness, with all its infinite nuances and motivations, to collaborate: terror, ideological seduction, servile imitation of the victor, myopic desire for any power whatsoever… Certainly, the greatest responsibility lies with the system, the very structure of the totalitarian state; the concurrent guilt on the part of individual big and small collaborators is always difficult to evaluate… they are the vectors and instruments of the system’s guilt… the room for choices (especially moral choices) was reduced to zero…"
"A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful."
"“Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.”"
