h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So the week turns and one bunch of conservative Americans are replaced by another. Both sides wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming that God has blessed them and their country.

Will it make any difference whatsoever, overall I doubt it. The damage in the Middle East is done, and it will be a generation before another chance to solve that sad region's problems comes around again. America has secured its oil supply for the next twenty years by setting off a cycle of civil wars that will keep the arabs from having a common cause.

Cynical? Maybe, but tell me I was wrong when I said five years ago that 911 was allowed to happen to create a cause for war and the limitation of civil liberties in the countries that supported it.

Fear is a tool of government as old as time. The Sun Tzu promoted it, so did Macchiavelli in The Prince. More recently George Orwell mapped out the method in graphic detail in 1984, and methinks our leaders have learnt at his feet, though missed his point completely.

Since fear of the Soviet has faded a new fear had to be found, an enemy created, trained, armed and provoked. The men who threaten us now were trained by the CIA in Afghanistan. The arab dictatorships that the West put in place in the post-war years, and have propped up ever since, were their breeding ground. Oppression is such a good incubator for the fanatic, the man with nothing left to lose.

I live in the mother of democracy. A state with the highest level of surveillance of the public in the world. A state with the highest number of innocent people whose personal details, including DNA, are held by the government. We are promoted as a model of the 'Western Ideal', and wonder how less able states get it so wrong.

So where do we go from here? Any ideas?

Matholwch .

*sigh* And I was so elated to see the results come in.

As ridiculous as both parties are these days, I think the Democrats really are better than the Republicans. It's domestic policy, and social issues like money for schools, stem-cell research, that sort of thing, that will, I hope, make the difference.

It's a bit like the Cold War days again - if you don't support the war, you're a terrorist.

Sorry if this post made no sense. I just woke up.

I so agree with you, Matholwch... What depresses me most of all, is that people are just so accepting of it all!

What's done is done, might is right etc..

What you say is Matholwch is basically what Orwell says in his book 1984 (the book so-called because he thought that a book titled 2025(?) - I think that was about the date of original title - wouldn't sell).

He reckoned that by that 2025(?) date Newspeak would be perfected to the point that people will no longer be able to think other than in government approved soundbites.

In the book 1984 of course there are 3 power groups, Oceania and so on, and it is found by all of them to be advantageous always to keep their own populous on the edge by raising and lowering the threat of attack status and never to relax the populous to what may be termed code green or no threat.

I some places it's the law that all dogs must be computer chipped to aid identification. Goods vehicles must carry a chip which plots their route. This will soon be expanded to include what used to be known as the private car.

I will predict that many of us are 20 years or less away from being computer chipped citizens. Control will then be complete for, the reasoning will go, if you are not chipped you cannot be a patriot and if you are not a patriot you must be an enemy.

There's already a drinking club in Holland whose members are computer chipped. And they all did it voluntarily! I shudder when I think how shortsighted we all are.

Hi Lucky

There is an american warehousing company that has chipped its shopfloor staff 'so they can be found in an emergency'. it has begun...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe in the infinite stupidity of educated men (and their greed).

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Those poor sods. No more quick drags in the toilets or cosy cuddles in the stockroom.
Ach, the world is but a commedia dell'arte.