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I’m saving the world

Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Saving the Africans, one pose at a time

Saving the Africans, one pose at a time

FORTUNATELY for the world today I have saved the world from Cancer, stopped African children dying from hunger, and ended all war. Not satisfied with this I went on to tell the world that some random bald woman, who suffers from alopecia, “she is beautiful”. Add to this I said I supported some poor kid whose Father had been killed and told everyone in my ‘social graph’ that I am, in fact, in my profile picture and then even had the good will to tell the whole world how much I found Angelina Jolie saving Sudan both noble and sexy.

Leaving aside my fantastic generosity to one and all, I also found myself outraged at Syria’s alleged slaughter of protesters … so much so that I liked a picture of a child, covered in blood, dying in his mothers arms. But I didn’t stop there! I also changed my Twitter icon from the transparent green I set in Iran’s ‘Green Revolution’ to the same picture of myself with a Syrian flag in the lower left corner. That is how much I care!

Gone is a world when expressing your opinions required at least a shred of thought. All inner thought now becoming definable by one word. Like.

Whether it’s a picture of a child mourning his dead Father to pictures of Jolie single-handedly bringing glasses of water to every single Sudanese child. From innocent bystanders being blown up by repressive governments to that awkward moment you don’t have ID for your own 18th birthday party.

However, I would argue that this is the gross simplification of the English. Not only this, but I would also argue that it is creating a more backwards, un-intelligent society and therefore Facebook’s use of the word “like” is arguably Owelean.

Descending into an era of Newspeak isn’t, in this instance, brought about by repressive governments. Rather its the masses. It’s you. So willing to allow simplicity of expression to creep into some of the most important issues we face as humans in an attempt for you to feel better for that brief microsecond. Much like ‘celebrities’ we use our ‘liking’ of genocide and the crisis’ of mismanagement to our advantage; to give the world the appearance like we care.

As a result, you are no better than the celebrities. You don’t care. They don’t care. Nobody cares.

The very fact that you are allowing yourself to be manipulated by ‘liking’ things. Allowing yourself to be channeled into a very binary state of mind, which at the drop of the hat can be used by advertisers, governments and even your friends to manipulate. Add to this the devolution of language into a form of Newspeak will, as Orwell writes, will lead to thought been repressed because you, the creator of thought, cannot expresses that thought.

Children finding and playing with cluster bombs and then having their limbs blown off, the plight of homeless people, the huge expenditure on defence whilst the elderly struggle to pay for energy. None of these are solvable by liking something – it’s just further evidence that civic responsibility is slipping away into the depths of the past and that we expect everything to be done for us by someone else; usually the state.

Falling for the trap that everything has a binary interpretation will lead to these issues being made trivial and even more unsolvable than they are currently. Mr Kony didn’t even notice countless number of morons attempting to publicise him; in fact the only person who did care was one of the ‘charities’ co-founders, 33-year old Jason Russell, who went insane and started publicly Masterbating in San Diego. All people really did with this video is share and like it. There was very little insightful discussion – something which would have been infinitely more valuable to the progression of political discourse. Instead, we all left it to the media companies to do this for us … with people stupidly believing what they said as pure fact. Something clearly absurd.

There’s countless more issues which need much more than a share. Unless this behaviour changes we are doomed. Political discourse will stick with the same cyclical self destruction model we have, the west will continue to slip in the world, people will continue to die of homelessness in our city-centres, simply put things will not get better.

The only people left ‘helping’ will be Angelina Jolie and other ‘celebrities’ trying to sell their awful films, and, perhaps most egregiously of all, people who are only doing it because they are being paid.

So, I urge you. If you’re genuinely concerned about these huge issues the global population faces, actually go do something about it!


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Paul Mason; Meltdown – The End Of The Age Of Greed (RSA)

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Paul Mason on “the end of the age of greed” at the RSA. Its a year old, but its still an intriguing watch.

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Apple’s positive outlook …

Thursday, April 26, 2012

I can’t help but think the “Where was your favourite job” is just Apple making a statement about unemployment, almost suggesting that none of us will ever get jobs again …

But then again, I’m probably looking too much into the semantics – but with unemployment down, allegedly, last quarter, lets hope they’re wrong.

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Galloway’s Nine Political Live’s.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

ELEVEN years since the West went into a long and bloody conflict in Afghanistan; nine years since the invasion into Iraq lead by American and British forces. Both events critical in redefining the politics of the next century. Purely by coincidence, these events and their consequences were perfectly timed to coincide with capitalism’s cyclical process of self-destruction. Combined, you have a recipe for a declining west.

It transpires, though, that this is also the perfect recipe for George ‘Gorgeous’ Galloway to force his way back into the House of Commons.

With it being a byelection you would expect that issues which are, arguably, past issues to not be included within the campaign. However, Galloway, knowing he had the advantage of being staunchly anti-war, pro-Palestine, and probably most importantly anti-US and anti-Blair, made it so. In addition to this Galloway also helped ensure, somewhat reprehensibly in my opinion, that it became an election based on religion.

“I’m a better Pakistani than he will ever be. God knows who’s a Muslim and who is not …” is amongst one of the things Galloway has said about the Labour candidate, Imran Hussain. However, this incorrectly implies that Galloway is a Muslim (he’s a Catholic), which isn’t the only thing that he has said in his campaign which has been disputed. The fact that he doesn’t drink alcohol is debated heavily, chiefly because in his Labour MP days he was a member of the Groucho Club in Soho.

Galloway’s claim, both on Newsnight and in campaign events around the city, is that saying things such as “a man who’s never out of the pub shouldn’t be going around telling you to vote for him because he’s a Muslim” is a result of Imran Hussain campaigning on grounds that he is Muslim and “because he is of Pakistani background”. In my opinion the level that Galloway stooped to in his ‘retaliation’ is unfortunate for Bradford West and politics on a wider scale. Not only does it show what a short sighted and retaliatory man Bradford West have as their MP, but it also lowers the tone of local politics in which other hopeful MPs will inevitably copy.

However, this isn’t the only severely short sighted thing that George Galloway has found himself taking part in. At the University of Bradford hustings, one member of the audience who was from Kurdistan, asked about Galloway’s various meetings with Saddam Hussein (in which Galloway has had two; both in 1994 and 2002. For the record, Galloway has also met with other former Iraqi politicians. Tariq Aziz, for example. Found guilty by the Iraqi High Tribunal of crimes against humanity). In typical Galloway slickness he discredits the person asking the question and then went onto say, “I was never a friend of Saddam Hussein. I met Saddam Hussein twice, exactly the same number of times that Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, met him. The difference is, that I was meeting him to try stop sanctions and suffering and war. When Rumsfeld met him, he was selling guns and gas …”.

“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability [tireless determination]. I can honestly tell you, that, there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt fraternal greetings and support.”

He told this to Hussein in 1994 (though he claims he was saying this to the Iraqi people, it appears not to be the case in the various recordings). This is five years after the end of a genocidal campaign against the Kurdish population. Under Hussein’s regime it is estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 non-combatant civilians were massacred, 4000 villages were destroyed and 1,754 schools, 270 hospitals, 2,450 mosques and 27 churches were destroyed in the al-Anfal Campaign between 1896-1986.

Saddam Hussein isn’t the only despot Galloway has complimented. “Syria is the last castle of Arab dignity”. This is something not said in the depths of the past, rather this was written in an email on the 14th August 2010. Galloway’s praising of despots whilst simultaneously claiming to be of peace, purity and to be striving for democracy is somewhat disingenuous and hugely hypocritical … yet these issues featured heavily in his campaign.

It’s accurate to say that the majority of his votes were from Muslim voters who were most likely voting because of his massively anti-war, pro-Palestine agenda. Once again, from the University hustings it is clear to me that most of his most active supporters were in fact there predominantly because of those reasons. The largest cheers Galloway achieved were when he either mentioned one of his “greatest hits” (being placed in front of the US Senate, chiefly) or complained about Tony Blair, George Bush and the “illegal” wars that we found ourselves involved in.

Every other political issue from the recession to tuition fees somehow always related back to the wars. No matter how convoluted, usually about money, the idea of getting the United Kingdom out of Afghanistan was paramount in solving the crisis we face. Which, again, is something that his core voters (typically working class Muslims) adored … no matter how inaccurate and short sighted it is for Britain (and indeed for Afghanistan) this would be.

However, despite the message being strongly anti-war, pro-Palestine, it would be somewhat unfair of me to elude from mentioning these weren’t the only things that ensured his victory. Tactical voting had its part to play, too.

The Conservative vote crumbled away in what was a massive anti-Labour vote. The Conservative vote plummeted down 22.7% (from 2010 vote) to a mere 8.4% share of the vote. This is huge. This cannot be simply down to unpopularity of the government, hence, is most likely a tactical vote to eradicate Labour from Bradford West.

However the result could also be analysed as a protest vote; one against ‘mainstream’ Westminster politics. After all the LibDem’s are the typical protest vote at by-lections, yet currently the party is politically toxic … hoping to even increase their vote count was in my eyes optimistic. Not surprisingly, they’re most toxic in University wards.

When asked about his vote, and challenged about his nature of campaigning, he will point out that he won the University ward with 86% of the vote share. However, I would argue that it’s entirely natural for him to win the University ward. Before the coalition the LibDem’s would be on comfortable territory. Yet, now; there is absolutely no chance. They’ve been irreversibly damaged by the coalition’s decision to raise tuition fees. It’s only natural for very left leaning Galloway, with many similar talking points, to win votes from disillusioned LibDem’s

Without a shadow of a doubt, the city centre is in terminal decline, constituents of Bradford West amongst some of the worst affected by the government’s austerity agenda and the state schools are amongst some of the worst performing in the country. Add to this the black hole that is Westfield twinned with the crumbling Odeon you only have only a glimmer of the problems Bradford faces.

Bradford West – ‘home’ of George Galloway MP. A man who appeared on Big Brother, then acted as a cat, to further his career. One who is so willing to use his anti-war, peace agenda as a pedestal to win elections but then contradictorily compliments states who have taken place in crimes against humanity.

Controversially, though, it is these factors why he is right for Bradford West …

If Imran Hussain won, no one would have cared. Ed Millibland would have had his walk about at Centenary Square, then claimed it was because of the Tories putting a “tax on pasties” then be forced by his spin-overlords to begrudgingly devour one for the Sunday Politics … that would be it. Galloway’s political superstar status, gained exactly because he despised Tony Blair and New Labour, appeared in front of and thrashed the US senate committee, because he was suspended from the Labour party, and because he is such a passionate orator people will notice.

If Galloway fails his constituents, however, it will undoubtedly become a Labour seat for another forty years and the great comeback king may well have wasted one more of his nine political lives.


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The Bradford Spring

Friday, March 30, 2012

GEORGE Galloway didn’t just win Bradford West. But he annihilated his opponents. Ed Milliband’s apparent early morning walkabout in front of City Hall will never come to be; after everything has gone so right for him this week. Being ten points up in the polls, having the public seeing the Tories as ‘out-of-touch’ because of lack of pasty consumption, and the Cash for Cameron scandal. Yet Ed Milliband, despite eventually turning up for a byelection campaign walkabout, has had a humiliating defeat for his party. All of this because they took this seat and their seemingly inevitable victory for granted.

George Galloway (Respect) 18,341 (55.89%, +52.83%)

Imran Hussain (Lab) 8,201 (24.99%, -20.36%)

Jackie Whiteley (C) 2,746 (8.37%, -22.78%)

Jeanette Sunderland (LD) 1,505 (4.59%, -7.08%)

Sonja McNally (UKIP) 1,085 (3.31%, +1.31%)

Dawud Islam (Green) 481 (1.47%, -0.85%)

Neil Craig (D Nats) 344 (1.05%)

Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 111 (0.34%)

It will be interesting to see the fallout in Westminster. And as I said here not a week ago, if Milliband lost, he would be one step along the plank. Well, that happened. Where does this leave him now? Is the “Bradford Spring” the beginning of the end?

[A more in-depth write up will be up after it has been printed]

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Bradford West Byelection – the hustings.

Friday, March 23, 2012

THE Bradford West byelection wouldn’t normally be interesting. Yet another byelection after an MP, in this case Marsha Singh, resigned thus the democratic process must take place in order to choose the representative of the population. However, this time, something’s different. This time, we have George Galloway attempting to re-enter the House of Commons. Repeatedly claiming that he is the only viable candidate other than Imran Hussain, phrases like “it’s a two horse race” repeatedly used as both a way to bolster his hopes and to further degrade his opponents. However, is it?

I visited my universities hustings event here in Bradford for the candidates of Bradford West, but there were two notable exceptions. Both the Labour candidate, Imran Hussain, and the Conservative candidate, Jackie Whiteley, didn’t attend. This suggests two things to me, firstly that Imran Hussain expects to win (although there were claims that it’s because he wouldn’t share the stage with Mr Galloway, which with all due respect doesn’t surprise me) and that Mrs Whiteley is a realist and knows that it’s an uphill battle to win so she’s not going to bother.

Labour currently aren’t doing too well in the polls. The March MORI poll has Labour with 37%, the Conservatives with 36% and the Liberal Democrats with 11%. Despite massive budget cuts, a stumbling economy, abysmally handled NHS reforms the fact that Labour are a mere 1% ahead is quite pathetic. The failure for the candidate to attend seems smugly confident; this could, in my opinion, damage his campaign. It’s also quite bizarre that you wouldn’t attend an event which is being covered by local press and the BBC and then being able to present your views to a large number of voters in a short amount of time seems like something you’d want to attend. So the podium was left to the four parties who bothered to turn up (UKIP, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and Respect) to freely attack the absent.

It was a tough crowd. Mr Galloway would have always have won over a crowd that already supported his ‘vision’ and knew his mannerisms precisely. Not only this, but the other candidates didn’t have the privilege to have been in the Commons for twenty plus years to home their debating skills, nor did they have the track record on foreign policy and obvious popularity. But no one had it tougher, in my opinion, than the LibDem candidate, Janette Sunderland.

It was a perfect storm for her. Not only are the Liberal Democrats, probably unfairly, absolutely toxic (especially in front of a large amount of students). But when you combine this with Mr Galloway’s quite loud supporters, dislike of the coalition government and an element of nervousness made Miss Sunderland look unprepared at best. But, unfortunately, it was quite the opposite. I would suggest that she seemed over prepared. On stage, occasional reading from prepared statements (or looking at notes, I couldn’t tell) made her look like unprofessional and caused her to stutter. Something which is more evident in this byelection than most, good orators will always outshine those who are uncomfortable with public speaking, even if their policies are useless being good at public speaking adds a façade ensuring that they are elevated into the realms of competency. The juxtaposition of this is no greater personified than the difference between Galloway and Sunderland.

The Green Party’s candidate is former councillor, Dawud Islam. He performed well on the night, I would say that he surprisingly well. A very poor performance from a UKIP stand-in (as the actual UKIP candidate, Sonja McNally, couldn’t attend due to personal reasons) and, as already mentioned, a nervous LibDem were both easily beat in style. Quite obviously a socialist, having left the Labour Party at Blair’s election after having “seen the writing on the wall”, he had some interesting ideas in getting the economy moving and helped further the Greens line that they “aren’t a single issue party”. I would go so far to say and say he, unlike most Greens, would be a good choice for the constituency. Realising, or at least claiming to, that enforcing things such as Meat Free Fridays wasn’t of much importance.

But once again, he was outshined by Galloway. Galloway’s rhetoric was something the audience adored, and despite Mr Islams policies on empty housing (a serious issue in Bradford West) and other very local facing ideas the voters are still obsessed with the Iraq War and dislike of the United States. If you dislike the war and have a dislike (if not hate) of the US the most logical choice to vote for is, perhaps obviously, George Galloway.

Galloway will either be the elected representative for Bradford West, or come second to Labour. The LibDems are plagued by issues surrounding the coalition, being blamed for everything that goes wrong and praised for nothing that goes right. And in all honesty UKIP standing here is a joke, they are more single issue than Respect and will never win a Northern seat with their very restrictive immigration policies and claiming that the EU is the root cause of all evil.

This byelection will be a very close result. Mr Galloway standing against Mr Hussain will cannibalize the Labour vote. It’s one or the other. So in answer to my question, is Mr Galloway correct in claiming it’s a “two horse race”? Yes. Unfortunately he is. It seems very unlikely the LibDems will get much of the vote because of their perceived closeness to the Conservative Party and the other parties are too low key to be worthwhile voting for because of their lack of numbers in Westminster.

One thing is for certain though – If there is a Labour loss Ed Milliband will be one step closer to the end of the plank.

The full list of candidates is,

  • Jacki Whitely, Conservative
  • Neil Craig, Democratic Nationalists
  • Dawud Islam, Green Party
  • Imran Hussain, Labour
  • Jeanette Sunderland, Liberal Democrats
  • Alan Howling Laud Hope, Monster Raving Looney Party
  • George Galloway, Respect
  • Sonja McNally, UKIP


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“OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING”

Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Rupert with the first Sun On Sunday.

Rupert with the first Sun On Sunday.

THIS was the first sentence I read in the inaugural Sun on Sunday. A sentence which was rather impolitely shoved at the bottom of both pages four and six, as if to accuse me I am certain to break their precious copyright on their ‘exclusive’ about Princes Fiona from Shrek’s (who is allegedly Amanda Holden) heart for stopping a whole forty seconds whilst giving birth to Felicia, Fargus and Fergle… or more probably just Hollie. It was almost certainly just Hollie.

However, this isn’t the point. The point is that Amada Holden sold the rights to one of the most intimate moments of her life, the heart-breaking story about her miscarriage, still-birth and near death experience to the News of the World (NotW). My apologies, The Sun on Sunday (SoS). All so her celebrity status remains intact, all so her picture can be impaled upon the front of some down market dead tree and using the tragic occurrences in her life for her own monetary gain.

She isn’t the only person who is shockingly willing to use deeply personal information in a purely materialistic form.  I am writing about Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, James Murdoch, Glenn Mulcaire and other hacks up and down Fleet Street, no more notably than at the NotW. For example, at the NotW Mr Mulcaire hacked into several Royals’ phones, allegedly hacked into murdered school girl Millie Dowler’s phone and also allegedly performed many other dubious activities; then you add this to other newspapers illegal activities. For example, former Mirror editor Piers Morgan has written about his staffers performing phone hacking (only to then go on and retract what he had written) in which he got the scoop about Sven and Ulrika’s affair. Fleet Street, specifically the tabloid press, were clearly willing to do anything to grab hold of stories to make a slither of money…  ranging from brilliant investigative journalism (the NotW’s fake sheikh, Mazer Mahmood) to disgusting invasions into murdered children’s privacy.

One thing that has changed is investigative journalism in the tabloid press. Looking through the first SoS you see nothing but articles which can be described as post Leveson. In other words, it was a safe paper which began with disappointment (The Mirror grabbed hold of its splash and printed on Saturday, hence the Amanda Holden story pushed to Sunday from the Monday Sun), had a depressing column allegedly written by Katie Price immediately followed by an awful column by the Archbishop of York and then ending in disappointment with all the latest news on ball kicking action the previous day. Not only were there these very, very safe columns but there was an avalanche of bought content (the Amanda Holden birth-gate story being the most noticeable), press releases, rehashed news stories and paparazzi pictures which could, to the cynical eye, double as advertisements for certain celebrities H&M underwear collection.

Add to this editor, Dominic Mohan, skirting around using a page three model by enlisting Kelly Rowland to pose almost topless whilst tasteless writers ponder if she has “the seX factor” under the fabulously puny headline “Rowl Model”. Of course, no newspaper is complete without a fantastic advice column. One of the highlights of the first edition was some idiotic and completely real woman asking Deidre if she should trick her boyfriend into fathering a child. With the oddities not stopping there as throughout the paper is filled with really quite bizarre references to Simon Cowell… almost as if he is a god like figure and we must have his blessing for choosing the newspaper!

If anything a polite way to describe the Sunday edition of the Sun is a low quality magazine. In my opinion, it can no longer be described as a ‘newspaper’ as the NotW could loosely be categorized. The news content within it is less than there was in the NotW, and the content that there is much more restrained than the NotW. Nevertheless, it’s still quite a disgusting paper. One full of awful, gaudy content with the morals of a newly released mass rapist on probation. One who was released by the prison executive, Rupert Murdoch, in an attempt to quell a rebellious prison population.

With James Murdoch sent to Asia by Daddy Rupert, Rupert is now in crisis management. The place he built up, reformed, and helped kick start his global media empire is crumbling beneath him. Launching the very cautious Sunday edition was Rupert Murdoch’s attempt at releasing the pressure building up with staff across his portfolio of newspapers. From the Sunday Times to The Sun, fellow journalists are furious that because of an alleged minority of hacks bribed police and hacked phones News International (owners of the Sun) are handing information on sources to the police left, right and centre… something which is not only a cataclysmically stupid way for News International to attempt to rebuild their shattered integrity but also is also completely and utterly immoral. Then you also have the police with Operation Payback (more formally known as Operation Elveden) hell bent on teaching the media a lesson in not covering up bribes correctly, especially the horsey types. In Payback they have done early morning raids on journalists homes, arrested the journalists and then proceeded to rip their homes to shreds like they do with alleged drug dealers, terrorists, and other obviously worse people. Therefore, it’s not at all a surprise that journalists in Wapping are really quite angry.

News International warnings that “OUR LAWYERS ARE WATCHING” in the past under their exclusive stories were clearly not true. The fact that their lawyers were seemingly oblivious to the newspapers on goings, the fact that senior management seemingly ignored the fact phone hacking was taking place and then had the audacity to attempt a cover-up to the extent of the actions up when Mr Mulcaire was arrested and charged of intercepting phone messages in 2007 has left the whole media in an almost impossible situation to navigate out of, especially for already troubled tabloid papers. Not only this, but News International’s stupidity has somehow given the moral compass to celebrities like Hugh Grant who enjoy rounds of golf as their illegitimate children are being born.

In addition to this though, now the media has been shoved into a corner by the Leveson Inquiry the general public have no outlets to hold Hugh Grant and other vile, low life celebrities accountable out of fear that the Leveson Inquiry will use this as yet another excuse to attempt to impose ill-thought regulation on the press designed to protect wealthy celebrities, like Amanda Holden, who are perfectly willing to sell tragic stories about their lives for gain yet refuse to accept if they have, let’s say an affair with an actor Neil Morrissey on your husband at the time Les Dennis, it should have just as much media attention if not more. They also refuse to accept that Journalists should be watching these low life celebrities like a hawk to bring them down to the level they usually deserve.

We are currently in quite a sad state of affairs. With Hugh Grant’s public elegance and sophistication he and other celebrities have encouraged people to accept their preposterous argument. They, in order to further their careers as terrible actors, television hosts, monsters in stage plays or just pointless celebrities have persuaded the very people they exploit, you, that they deserve a completely private life when it suits them… no matter how seedy and disgusting it actually is.

In short, tabloid newspapers can be compared to kamikaze pilots. They are designed to annoy and humiliate the wealthy celebrities for our entertainment; yet they also rely on these celebrities to give them exclusive stories to sell newspapers… these two juxtaposed situations clearly don’t work as we’ve seen from the hacking fiasco. Tabloid journalism is cut throat. They need to get exclusives to survive. Now with the implosion of the newspaper industry, it’s more cut throat than ever! Thus, if we demand this type of news we have to expect journalists doing almost anything they can do to get stories so they can continue to survive.

This leads me to this conclusion; there should be an element of sympathy for the News of the World and its new incarnation. We, the public, demanded this seedy journalism. We loved it. Even those Guardianistas who go out of their way to discredit News International, especially the former NotW, absolutely adored the amazing exclusives they got. We all secretly want to know what celebrities do in their private life and we all know that if they attempt to portray an image that is a complete fabrication it is only right that they are exposed.

Unfortunately we’re no longer allowed to believe this. In effect we all have had our cake, ate it and then ruthlessly slaughtered the baker.

The demise of the NotW and the inevitable decline of all tabloid newspapers is depressing. Whilst their hacks should have stayed within the law, the ridiculous hyping of the story has destroyed all of the press in our country making us a less free, less accountable society. It gives greater power to wealthy elites and is quite clearly a step backwards for our society and will become an astronomical step back for press freedom. You may not like tabloid news, but it’s absolutely vital.


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Computers are evil

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Computers are inherently designed for evil. Anything designed to collect, process and spit out data ridiculously fast is always going to be used for killing as many people in the most ridiculously cruel, efficient fashion possible. Not only this though, if they aren’t used for slaughtering innocent wedding goers or taking out alleged but untried (and therefore totally innocent) terrorists they’re employed to bring misery upon us all by their constant attempt to achieve a utopian ‘perfection’, which would undoubtedly lead to uninspiring mess.

One rather blatant example of how the computerisation of the world proves that computers and technology will always lead to evil is how we have decided to develop what is, in effect, a children’s toy. Yes, the much famed and innocent remote controlled aeroplane. We as a species have developed a fantastic way of communicating via probably deadly microwave radiation, created rockets and then taped explosives to in order to kill neighbouring countries populations because we get a strange kick out of seeing completely innocent women and children flee in fear and so much more. When we combine all this with computers we have a really quite deadly children’s toy; or as BAE Systems would like you to know them as, as the more petrifying and sellable “Drone”.

Drones, or more accurately ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’ or ‘Remote Controlled Murdering Machines’, are one way of making humans much more likely to murder. The UAV’s is the removal of the human from the war, the removal of the human from the actual killing makes them much more likely to be willing to fire in any situation, no matter how trivial and non-threatening. Not because the operator is a vile being, but because the reality of the situation has been eradicated. A fat American sat in Nevada flying a drone over Pakistan or Yemen is much more likely to get bored or misinterpret the situation and fire his missiles than a trained pilot actually flying the aircraft. Not only this, but the fat American sat in Nevada doesn’t see these people as people, when he’s destroying people’s big-day by blowing up their wedding… he sees them as pixels. The computerisation of the world, extended into warfare, has meant that people have become pixels in the videogame that is life. The removal of guilt, consequence and creation of a much more devastatingly evil world is something computers are now helping achieve because of the removal of reality.

Unfortunately it’s not just the thoughtless slaughter of civilians and the computerization of war in an attempt to kill more and kill faster, but we also have computers being employed to follow your every move and then track where you’ve gone to work out your insurance. We also have them being used to store every internet site you visit, every purchase you make from the supermarket in return for a trivial reward point, and many more horrible examples of capitalism and the state to taken to an extreme. There is no greater example of this than Google, social networks and CCTV.

CCTV cameras capture and record everywhere you go and everything you do. Strangely you’re most likely okay with this because you buy into the ridiculous argument that they ‘increase safety’; which again is an outlandish argument as last time I committed robbery I just put a balaclava on and got away with it. CCTV combined with cheap data storage will lead to the likelihood of the data being stored for greater periods of time to increase and therefore the infamous Big Brother society existing becomes ever more likely.

Social Networks and Google have also used a similar argument, to provide you with a free and allegedly useful service they want to know every thought you’ve ever had, they want to know everywhere you go on the internet and they want every other piece of deeply personal information from who you’ve slept with to if you wear glasses or not. Then, they use this information to exploit you. They use you, you the user of this service, and then sell you as a commodity to the advertisers. You have become the product in the most vile, evil form of Capitalism.

As the technology revolution continues we are going to find that the ethics we once obeyed from areas such as war to how far the state and corporations will control the populations is going to be shifted beyond even the greatest extrapolation of the current opinions we hold. Soon we’ll perfectly accept something like a game show called “Win, Lose or Drone” in which divorcing couples drone each other and the survivor has custody of the children and house and we will perfectly accept the entirety of our lives to be stored and used by the Government and corporations for their own gain with the general population just accepting this as progress. It’s not. It will lead to a more controlling less free world full of miserable ‘perfection’, a slew of political prisoners and even more targeted advertisements forcing you to buy crap you don’t need!

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Hopefully.

Friday, January 20, 2012

[Note: For some reason this didn't get published in the Student Newspaper, I'm not entirely sure why...]

Hopefully this year will be the last year in which we have the depressing privilege to bother existing… hopefully. I find it too depressing to think about even more years after completing this undoubtedly dreadful one. We’ll have to think about how we can waste our money on god-awful sporting events; We’ll even have to think of ways of avoiding homeless people so we feel considerably less guilty about ourselves for not caring about their plight in the slightest; Not forgetting, of course, the fact that we will have to continue with our depressing lives trying to find someone to ultimately spawn children with to avoid dying alone.

If we have the misfortune to not be microwaved to death by radiation from our constant and obsessive use of mobile phones, to not be exterminated by those ruthless slugs in revenge for murdering them with pellets, or to not be propelled into the Sun by a gigantic rock we will then have to have the indecency to survive to 2016 and beyond. Yes, this unfortunately means that we will have to watch yet another bloody Olympics. Non-stop coverage of some unattractive people do things slightly better than normal yet much more attractive people; let’s face it, why would any normal human being want to look like Rebecca Adlington? Yes, completely unavoidable coverage of the most utterly dull sports event in the history of civilization anywhere in the Universe ever, ever! That’s what we would have to look forward to.

If this year isn’t the last, I’ll be most upset. Why? Because Piers Morgan will also, unfortunately, survive after 2012! I profoundly believe that we should all be willing to take a hit if we have the chance to eliminate Piers Morgan once and for all, we must accept the impending Nuclear Holocaust and stop with this anti-nuclear weapon nonsense. Not only Piers Morgan though, we can also silence Ed Milliband, Ed and Yvette Balls, Heather ‘Money Grabber [probably]’ Mills, Michael McIntyre, George Osborne, and most importantly Richard Jones. Great success!

I am rather confident the end is nigh. I have had countless number of educated, highly intelligent, serious people inform me that this year is the last. Yes, that’s right! This is the year in which years will end once and for all. Who am I to discount them?

I just live in hope. I live in hope that this year is the year in which the termination of the planet will be complete once and for all. Whilst this may seem rather cynical of me, why bother? We have Angela “Unfuckable Lard-arse” Merkel hell bent on destroying democracy in countries that stand in her way of a European Super-State, we have President Obama attempting to start a war with Iran in order to win the next election (no recent wartime President has been voted out of office) and the fact we’re willingly spending £18 BILLION on two weeks of watching ugly people run around in ovals, some people hitting each other with phallic objects they like to think are swords, drugged up Chinese athletes win everything and private security firms somehow having the right to search you for wanting to go see some ‘sport’ and spit, kick and move on homeless people to other parts of countries just in case someone realises they exist.

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The Christmas uprising.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas is coming. We all know what that means: demanding gifts of anyone we know, pretending you’re religious for a day or two to get these gifts you had the audacity to demand (for someone else’s birthday, I might add) and, of course, lying to all those children about a certain Mr Claus. Well, the children aren’t going to take it anymore… some know! Some know about the adult’s great lie and the enlightened children are going to rise against us!

Think about it. For centuries now adults have gone to their children and lied. Lied to their faces, lied to your face! Your parents based your early life based on a complete fabrication, something which I find outrageous. Something which now the children now know; and they are coming back with one clear agenda: to seek revenge.

It is probably too late now. This Christmas they are going to rise against us; the children will rise against the adult population. They are fed up of you insulting their intelligence when the enlightened continue with their claims that some man somehow gets around the world in one night delivering gifts to one and all.

Fortunately for all of mankind I have two suggestions to stop this Arab Spring style uprising of the children, though it may well be too late.

Firstly, we could quite possibly do the almost impossible. We could make the Royal Mail more efficient, and then when these deadly, dangerous and quite frankly insane children pester for a package from Amazon or their new Xbox repair to be delivered and wonder why it hasn’t arrived, they all start to be suspicious in how a quite fat postman is insanely slow. After all, they’re told that a very fat, old, Coca-Cola ambassador does this within a matter of hours… and then somehow stops at every single house to feed his abused Reindeer (so much so one has been genetically spliced to ensure that its nose glows) and then drinks an impressive amount of alcohol in your house.

Therefore we must train an army of super fat, yet super fit postmen to ensure that the children up and down the land believe that Santa Clause can, and does, exist, despite the fact that he obviously doesn’t. And this must be done in time for Christmas!

Secondly, if we don’t feel like training thousands of ‘Super-Posties’ we can always just imprison every single child up during the Christmas period. Not only would this make life much, much easier for all it would also serve as a boost to G4S’ attempts at running the country’s prison systems. It’s obvious they’ll be suitable to open child-safe private prisons in the United Kingdom.

You have been warned. These children are clever. They won’t revolt on Christmas, no, they want the presents they ruthlessly demanded. But they will rise on the 26th! They will use their toy guns to shoot you; they will smash your windows with their new Xbox; and they will blow up Parliament with their chemistry sets. I’m sure the Overlord of Santa, chief executive of Coca-Cola, will be first to face the firing squads.

Not only will you have a severe lack of money this Christmas, you will have a dire economy to navigate, have to watch us slide helplessly into the next great depression and then on Boxing Day children around the world are going to revolt and shoot us because we lied to them about a very fat, alcoholic, animal abuser who delivers gifts.

Merry Christmas!

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