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andrewlovely · 14 days ago

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Art

As I can sense the spectre of censorship looming on the horizon once again-- I don’t know why, I can just smell it… I wanted to say a few things about art. The less we say about art, often the better, lest we become critics – but sometimes when confronted with that universal outcropping of front-facing human stupidity, which is infinite but nonetheless has its various forms and barely restrained flailings, even clownish and ridiculous outbursts at its peaks-- anyway, right before that insipid stupor’s scarlet fever finally breaks, it can be important to clarify a few things, so that not only the voices of the unbearable simpletons among us can be heard, but that maybe someone with a little more nerve and experience can weigh in as well, especially in response to those who say, “Art has limits.” That’s their favorite phrase! Oh my dear Lord, how they love repeating that platitude. Well, I’m here to tell you that no, art does not have any limits. And if it has limits, then it’s not art. It’s P.R.

But to return to censorship for a moment, it’s important to note that censorship doesn’t necessarily have to be direct or overt; it can also be subtle and indirect, through the constant and pervasive surveillance which the modern artist is subjected to in the postmodern world, for example. Whether it’s plainclothes police coming in to the guitar store where you work, and asking you with a wink and a smile if they can buy “an 8th guitar string” (guitars only have six strings) or a “tone pot” with emphasis on the pot (also known as a potentiometer) because they’re morons and they think that just because you’re a musician that you must sell drugs, or something – whether it’s your phone showing you ads eerily related to those quirky little thoughts or musings you’ve only discussed in private, or the knowledge that every single one of your communications is no longer private in any meaningful way, but rather now part of a vast network of data collection-- all the hypothetical scenarios I just described can affect the artist significantly, and can lead them to apply a sort of unconscious self-censorship to themselves, to self-censor.

It is instinctive to human nature to act differently when one knows they are being watched/listened to, and specifically to act more prosocially, but prosociality is not necessarily conducive to good art. Therefore the artist in the new world must consciously and decisively override his or her natural instinct to subtly, ever-so-slightly alter their speech, behavior, and creative outpourings as a result of the constant surveillance, be it passive or active.

The artist must develop a thick skin, become increasingly evasive and elusive, incomprehensible even, and not worry so much about appearing rude or impolite, and God forbid, potentially offending those who are so seethingly overzealous and so pathetically desperate to spread their patented “freedom and bravery” to other parts of the world, so that we all might become the cowardly and dastardly knavish bootlickers that they are, and who have the nerve to impose themselves on those who actually are free, and then ask them to explain themselves, or call them to account-- yes, the artist must develop quite a hard and prickly outer shell indeed to deal with the insufferable little gestapo and stasi darlings which increasingly surround him or her in the new world.

And these same little soviet sweethearts are the same, who, when they hear, “Art has no limits,” imagine some depraved pervert on a public beach, taking photos of young girls without their consent for “artistic purposes,” or for the pretense of using their likenesses later for his “paintings” for example. That’s the kind of thing they see in their mind’s eye when they hear “Art has no limits” – that or maybe urine and feces, or something else more vile and detestable on their national flag as part of some “performance piece,” for example. But that’s not the kind of “art” I’m talking about, and I’m not speaking in defense of those kinds of clownish “artists.”

No, I’m talking about the very art which when threatened, has just the right kind of medicine for the knavish bootlickers mentioned above: just the right bitter medicine they need: namely, satire and ridicule, which is precisely what they deserve. You don’t even have to make a fool of them after all; they have already done that themselves; they did the work for you. All you have to do is shine a light onto them and show the world who they really are. All you have to do is through your work, to point to them and say, “Look.” People in the end can tell the difference between a real flower and a fake flower, a wasp and a bee (no offense to the hornets and wasps out there; I ain’t got no beef with y’all; maybe you don’t make honey but y’all are alright too in my book), between fertile soil and human sewage. People can be fooled for a long time, but they eventually do come around to see things as they are – and I do believe that.

There are many forms of indirect censorship, propaganda, even subliminal mind control that people engage in often without even realizing it, because they are simply spreading their own slave conditioning. But for now I will restrict myself to something I often hear people say in passing, and innocently enough, but I wonder if they truly realize the implications of what they are saying. They say, “Art is a form of communication.” That seems true enough, harmless enough, right? A relatively benign statement. But be careful…

You see, art can be communicative in a general sense, but art should never be classified as a communication in a legal sense. Those who want to classify art as a legitimate communication in a legal sense are always those who want to censor art. Always be on the watch for that! They are very sneaky!

Likewise, art can be autobiographical, or it can have almost nothing to do with the author’s own life at all whatsoever. And this liminal state between fact and fiction, between the emotional processing of various stimuli from one’s own life and that curious conjuring of fantastical imagination inherent to every artist, should always be allowed to remain ambiguous and wholly unclear.

In a democratic society, the artist owns the unique privilege to express hidden or obvious truths, or even to express falsehoods in service of the truth, with absolutely no clarifications given whatsoever as to whether he or she is writing or acting from his or her own personal experience in human society, or from the infinite possibilities of their own imagination. In addition, the artist holds the unique privilege to accept, validate, or conversely, to reject and dismiss any interpretation of their work which benefits them personally, or which does not benefit them at any given moment, or which might happen to benefit their greater purpose, or does not benefit their greater purpose respectively.

It is the artist’s privilege to either obfuscate the truth, or reveal the truth, to be forthcoming, or prevaricating and circuitous, depending on whatever happens to serve their greater aims in any given circumstance, societal or otherwise – should the artist have any greater purpose to begin with, that is – and to have some greater aim or purpose is not mandated for the artist; it is not a prerequisite; however, it is my just my personal opinion that an artist should always be in service of the truth, even when expressing falsehoods.

In short, in a truly democratic society, the artist holds great power. And more than that, unlike the average citizen, the artist dares to wield that power – the artist does not simply extoll the virtues of freedom of speech for appearances or social points towards good standing; the artist actually uses that freedom of expression inherent to him or her – and so it is easy to see why it is often the artists who are the first hunted when democracy begins to show its first signs of degradation and decline: when those tiny little shoots and blossoms at the highest limbs of the tree begin to wilt and wither away, when those cunning and dastardly enemies of democracy, those wily little demons who seek to subvert democracy, and by extension, free artistic expression, are left to run amok.

Those who seek to “pin down” the artist, or restrict the artist to one single interpretation of his or her works in service of their own biases, in service of their own hopes, dreams, suspicions, misgivings, aspirations or intentions, be they societal, personal, or otherwise – those who seek to answers the question, “What is this work about?” or “Whom does it concern?” – such individuals do not know how to appreciate art at best, or, again, seek to censor it at worst – to pigeonhole the artist, to reduce him or her to something they can control and understand. Anything beyond their control or understanding is disturbing and unacceptable to them (and perhaps even on an unconscious level, terrifying, and therefore, from their myopic and small-minded perspective, dangerous).

You know, back in the day, when George W. Bush once said, “They hate us for our freedom,” in reference to the radical Islamic extremist groups and the long-growing anti-American sentiment in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and elsewhere, he was crudely mistaken, and his reductive appraisal of the situation in the Middle East was at the time frankly ridiculous, if he even believed in that appraisal himself, that is.

But if you’re an artist, that statement may actually carry some truth to it for you into the 21st century: there are repressed and hysterical dimwits out there who do hate you for your freedom: for your freedom to express anything you want through your art, even things which might be socially unacceptable or undesirable to express in everyday life, or perhaps especially that which is not generally acceptable, or desirable to express in the humdrum everyday (and that, after all, might actually be the whole point of art in the first place, if there ever even was a point, or some kind of tangible end goal to begin with, that is).

Art is the last true bastion of unbridled freedom in our modern western democracies, and of course, like swiss clockwork, all of our little hitlers, all our little himmlers, all our little stalins and maos, as is their charge, as is their nature – all those insufferable little would-be tyrants among us who cannot suffer anything they cannot understand and cannot control, want to do away with this last remaining liberty which threatens their fragile and precious little sense of self so (These are the same kinds of people who might hate cats, and love dogs for example, or conversely, might just hate all kinds of wild animals in general, because they love obedience and cannot stomach any kind of insubordination, no matter how effortless or graceful, to their droll human buffoonery).

I have little doubt that all those little would-be napoleons among us would sooner or later once again try to lay siege to this last remaining fortress of freedom, if given the opportunity. And they’ve already tried it once! If they cannot achieve their mouth-breathing aims through concrete legislation then they will try to establish a legal framework for censorship through legal precedent and case law. They’re nothing if not predictable.

But as I allude to in one of my songs, the First Man still walks free; the First Woman still walks free. Whether confined to a concrete block, or graced with the mellifluous sounds and the gentle harmony of their own nature, of their own sight, and their own minds, the First Man and the First Woman will always be free. They cannot in essence be confined, and their minds cannot be changed. This is why historically people tend to blow their brains out.

Extrajudicial killings in particular are in essence an acceptance that a person’s mind cannot be changed, and an expression of frustration at this immutable fact. The herd and its agents cannot stand even the sight of a First Man, or a First Woman, because in the First Man and the First Woman they see the freedom which they themselves do not dare aspire to, or even imagine, let alone attempt. This creates great resentment in the heart of the herd.

Attempts begin at first to break the First Man, or the First Woman, to inflict a kind of psychological torture on them, to alienate them, to dominate and humiliate them. But of course the First Man and the First Woman cannot be dominated or humiliated. They laugh even at the thought of humiliation in a society so depraved. And they do not break, because they allow themselves the vulnerability of human suffering; they allow themselves a space to endure that pain which is their birthright; they do not shy away from that pain; they embrace it and accept it as their most precious treasure and bleeding gemstone for being human, and therefore flawed, and prone to moments of weakness and even cowardice. In allowing themselves that right, they can never be broken. This creates endless, unbearable frustration for the herd, which is not accustomed to dealing with individuals like this. In fact, the herd is not accustomed to dealing with individuals at all.

The herd perceives every gesture, every phrase, every melody, every movement by the First Man and Woman as death by a thousand cuts, until finally, the Last can endure the First no longer. And what’s worse, the First cannot be changed. You can confine them to a smaller space, you can attempt to dominate them, but you cannot change their mind. This total impotence to make the First Man, to make the First Woman just like them, or even to make them more like them – their total impotence in this regard is what brings the herd’s frustration to its peak until finally they cannot bear it any longer. And that’s why historically, First Men and First Women are typically shot in the head. As the poet once said, “They always aim for the head, because it’s what’s in your head that they’re afraid of.”

Well, the First Man still walks free, the First Woman still walks free, and they will always be free. There is nothing you can do to them which will take away their identity or their freedom. Even confined to a concrete yard, the First Woman is more free than you are swimming towards that distant shoreline on your local sunny beach, or driving your red corvette down that pacific coast highway, or running and prancing down those expansive fields of sweet lilies, or whatever you do either in your free time or in your cinematic Hollywood ideals of ultimate freedom, which for most of you exist only in your imagination, and are enjoyed only by a very select few – namely, not you. Likewise, even surrounded by enemies on all sides and hated by all, the First Man experiences moments of elation and freedom you cannot possibly imagine.

Your definitions of freedom are all limited to how far someone can walk, how many material pleasures they can experience, how many different channels of television they can watch, how many brands of cereal they can buy, and therefore you have no idea of freedom at all; you don’t know the taste of it, the sight of it, the sound of it, nothing. You have tasted the counterfeit, a cheap imitation product, a poor knockoff, and you think, “This is freedom.” You don’t even know how to be yourself, you don’t even know who you are, and you think because you can walk up and down some boulevard and choose which people to make small talk with and choose which storefront you might want to walk into and shop in, that you’re free.

So when I say, “Jesus Still Walks Free,” you have no more idea of what freedom is than of who Jesus is. You have no idea who Jesus is, and you have no idea what freedom is.

Nonetheless, I’ll say it again, and whoever understands, understands: The First Man still walks free. The First Woman still walks free. They will always be free, and there is nothing you can do about it. Even confined they are free, for their freedom does not depend on movement. Even shot dead they are free, for thankfully then they will not have to fare with any of you any longer.

So even in its last acts of pettiness, the herd’s sweet revenge is stolen from it, like one last mouthful from a baby when its parents are playing “airplane” with its food – even in those final acts of pettiness, Charon comes not as destroyer, but as liberator – for of what weight is any human judgment once Charon comes? And what power does any human judge have over Charon?

Socrates in his old age probably well understood this, and I’m sure he had a good ol’ hearty belly laugh right before the end: a laugh at their impotence, even as they were killing him! Because no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they willed it, they could not make a good man evil just by wishing it so, or proclaiming it so, or repeating it ad nauseam. They were totally impotent in this regard! And Socrates knew this. And it gives me some comfort that in the end Socrates was proven right: that a better man cannot be harmed by a worse.

Likewise, a true artist cannot be confined by any restriction. If you take his canvas, he’ll use toilet paper; if you take his paints, his own blood. If you take his toilet paper even, he’ll recite poetry. If you cut out his tongue, he’ll write poetry in his mind and sign deaf words to a new audience.

So to bring this all full circle: I see the censorship coming on the horizon, I see the wars coming, I see the fascism knocking on our doorsteps, I see the darkness coming – and I don’t know if it ultimately makes any difference to me in terms of my freedom. What is my freedom?

My freedom is who I am. It’s a beautiful thing to have something that no one can take away from you. That’s true freedom, as far as I’m concerned. And you don’t attain it by having more choices and more options. You earn it through discipline, experience, and self-knowledge. And the more discipline, experience, and self-knowledge you have, the less afraid you are. Because you have gained something which is imperishable, something which you cannot lose to anyone, or to anything. That’s true freedom. And maybe you could say, such an exercise is in and of itself, an art as well – the final true art, in the end.

#Andrew Lovely #Andrew Eugene Lovely #Art #Censorship #Thoughts #Musings #Opinions

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andrewlovely · 2 months ago

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[Found in the ruins of what used to be the greater Athens metropolitan area, during a routine reconnaissance mission, January 3rd, 2087. The author is unknown (potentially American?) but makes some very prescient observations as to the nature of the late-stage liberal democracy and the earliest dawns of the Technofeudal Ascendancy before the formation of The Resistance. DNA fragments obtained at the site indicate the author to be male, most likely late 30’s or early 40��s, making him old enough to recall a time before the first manifestations of our rising Ascendancy. Whether this was a work of fiction, a stylized journal entry, or a fragment of some larger treatise cannot be ascertained with any meaningful accuracy at this time. The artifact will be sent for analysis subject to Database & Collections Administrative Order 45 Alpha-Bravo, Subsection 32 Sigma. In addition, the artifact has been archived subsequent to Penal Code A1B, Section 4A. Its dissemination is strictly prohibited and any reference to any means and methods still employed currently, as well as any and all references to pre-Ascendancy timelines will be heavily redacted in concordance with T.A.G. guidelines. – Petty Officer Susan J. Peterson, U.S.T.A.G. Expeditionary Force, Database & Collections, March 14th, 2088.]

[CLASSIFIED]

Blade Runner 2025

In the near future, it won't be enough to simply be a law-abiding citizen, to keep to yourself and not bother anybody – especially if you are openly critical of the political establishment or different in some way that is anathema to the insufferable simpletons of the new authoritarian society. No, just minding your own business won't be enough anymore to live in peace and be left alone.

In the new neoliberal police state (a redundant and oxymoronic schema one might argue, but now a very real one nonetheless), law enforcement will become increasingly selective and aggressive: it will go on the offensive (rather than staying mostly on the defensive in order to protect people's rights and persons), in order to target particular individuals, and it will not cease in its efforts until the targeted individual has been somehow incriminated (which will become increasingly easy to do as laws become more and more draconian and antidemocratic).

People's civil liberties will be slowly stripped away or rendered null and void under the following false and purposefully misleading pretexts: "The Protection of Children," "The Ensurance of National Security," the "Protection of Intellectual Property," and "The Safeguarding of the Public Health."

Special Task Forces will be set up either by the police or by the misguided zealotry of non-governmental private charity organizations (many of which are manipulated or run outright by foreign intelligence agencies), or both, in order to alternately intimate at or ostensibly engage in fake crimes, very serious crimes, and indeed, very seriously fake crimes in the plain view of free citizens – citizens who, if they do not indulge the sick imaginations of said operatives and vigilantes or play along with their twisted little shadow games will be subject to arrest and prosecution under "failure to report" laws, mostly centered around children and the protection of children; after all, in any authoritarian society, draconian laws meant to criminalize the innocent and suppress the civil liberties of free people are always justified by appeals to "the children" and "the protection of the children," whether it's blatant censorship of art and media or the criminalization of even the most benign, everyday activities, such as a parent having photos of their newborn baby on their phone for example, or an artist's work containing lyrics and themes deemed "unsuitable for children," even though their work is not even meant for children.

But in such a society, where every edge must be rounded out and "baby-proofed," so that "no child is endangered," and society develops a bizarre fixation on "protecting the children," even when no children are actually in any real danger at all, there can be no real adults anymore, because even adults in this infantilized society are now treated like children.

It is a grossly manipulative tactic that was used by the Nazis as well, as who could disagree with protecting innocent children? I mean, why would anyone? And verily, no one does! Hence its effectiveness.

But it is a sinisterly insidious tactic, as protecting children isn't the point; it was never the point. In such a fascistic society, the point is control and the power to make anyone a despised criminal merely by accusation. And the more unspeakable the accusation, the better, for even the accused will hesitate to speak of such a thing openly and defend themselves. Hence why the false pretext of "Protecting the Children" is always first and foremost, at the forefront of every fascistic society.

No logic applies here; only the words "child" and "children" have to be repeated incessantly and the animal mind takes over, even if the charges and the indictment are totally ridiculous and don't even make any sense to any reasonable person. Just the accusation is enough.

In a fascistic society, or in a society flirting with fascism, run by those nostalgic of military juntas of days past for example, this is a great power: the power to completely alienate anyone of their choice from their friends, from their family, from their community. Once someone is targeted, plainclothes officers show up to their building, telling the property manager that "they've received reports," and to "notify us if you see anything strange, especially involving a child." No charges ever even need be brought; that person is now destroyed.

A culture of fear is created where everything is sexualized and the perverse repressed fantasies of the most diseased, festering minds among us now act as arbiters and enforcers of a hysterical and indiscriminate mob justice masquerading as civil protection.

When it's not about "Protecting the Children," it's about "National Security," or "Ensuring the Public Health." As needless foreign wars are drummed up, anyone can become accused of being a sympathizer to the enemy or a foreign asset, a spy, or a mole. Individuals targeted can even be tricked into unknowingly engaging in some kind of incriminating activity, in violation of some obscure national security or espionage law, old or new.

Can't afford to hire a licensed professional for every single home repair, no matter how trivial? Well, why not? You should be rich, or take out a loan – otherwise you could be charged with "endangering the public health," even for something as simple as changing out a lightbulb yourself.

The wealthy of course have no need to ever face such a dilemma; they are beyond such dilemmas, as they can hire a professional for every single menial job, no matter how trivial, without a second thought given. They have that luxury. And they write the laws, so whom do you think those laws will benefit, and whom do you think they will punish?

The gross inequality on display in such matters, in such everyday ethical questions which the rich can always deftly avoid, by effectively floating over and above the law, never having to engage in such impossible quagmires themselves, well… this kind of blatant inequality is just accepted without question and oh-so-very matter-of-factly, oh-so-very self-evidently in this society.

Do you know what else the rich can afford? Endless CD's, DVD's, streaming services, downloads, software, films, music, you name it. It never even occurs to them to engage in peer-to-peer file sharing because they've never even had any need to! They don't even give such purchases so much as a second thought.

But if you download some recording software to make your music, or some photo-editing software for your photography for example, or maybe some film-editing software for the avant-garde animation shorts you put together on the weekends when you’re off work, they'll treat you to their miserly contempt, clothed in the fine rags of some supposed and imagined lofty virtue; they'll look down on you as if you are some sort of unscrupulous, uncouth criminal.

Nevermind that they have never had any need to pursue such avenues themselves, being so pure and lily-white – because again, they can float above such concerns, they can avoid any such quagmires. They'll just plainly tell you, oh-so matter-of-factly, oh-so-delicately, that "You know, there is free software available that you can use." You can use the shitty software, the lesser software, because after all, "Art is a privilege, not a right." You see, for you it is a privilege, but for them it is effectively a right. You see how that works? At the same time they pay lip service to values such as fairness, and freedom, and equality when the cameras are on or their church congregation is listening intently.

It doesn't matter if you created the most beautiful symphonies, the most sublime sonnets, the most mellifluous songs, published photographs worthy of National Geographic, or short films worthy of Cannes; you "stole" that software, and therefore, you're a criminal. Authorities in the past never paid any attention to such matters, because public opinion and public sentiment have always been squarely on the side of the artist and the consumer, even if it is often to the detriment of the major companies; the average person has an innate sense of right and wrong, and to put it simply, on the average no one cares if you're downloading music, games, movies, or software.

But why? Isn't that stealing? No. The reason almost all people have an ingrained sense that file sharing is not the same as stealing, is because theft requires that the original owner of the property has been deprived of his or her property. If I had a magic wand with which I could touch your car, and then make an exact copy of your car out of thin air, would you be inclined to report your car as "stolen" once I drove off with my new copy? And even if you were within your legal rights to do so, there would always be some modicum, some vestige of common sense remaining in all people, even in the enforcers, which would make them feel like what you're doing is petty, vindictive, and frankly ridiculous.

Intellectual property laws were originally intended to protect artists, inventors and creators from having their works stolen. Imagine if you have written a song, and someone else takes credit for it, puts their name on it, and begins selling it, without giving you any credit or any part of the profits. This is the exact scenario, the exact kind of indignity intellectual property statutes were meant to prevent.

Intellectual property laws were never intended originally to punish people for sharing art, music, and film with each other absent of any profit. The reason is simple to understand, because in the past there was no real way for people to share artistic media with each other on a mass scale without the at least implicit consent of the artist. These laws, or at least the frameworks for these laws, were written long before it was ever possible to make an exact digital copy of an artistic work; in fact, to the people of the time, such a thing would have probably seemed like magic: something unimaginable, unthinkable.

Using intellectual property laws to punish people for sharing art, music, and films with each other, especially people who may not have the same kind of exorbitant financial means as those who write the laws, constitutes an abuse of intellectual property law, and a violation of the spirit of the law. Intellectual property laws were originally meant to punish exactly what the name implies: the theft of intellectual property – which for most people, means taking credit for someone else's work, or idea, and profiting financially from that work or idea you stole from the original creator. And no one hates the theft of intellectual property in its truest sense more than the artist, who puts their heart and soul into their works.

Why should it be the government's concern if a new magic wand has been invented which greatly reduces the profits of major corporations? This is just the nature of technological progress: companies must either adapt, provide a new service which meets the needs of the new technological landscape, or go out of business. And in the past, companies did provide a remarkable service and ease of use/convenience which made peer-to-peer file sharing too much of a hassle and too tedious for most people – and these companies saw their profits rise – massive profits. Now they are leaning once again on Government Big Brother to ensure that they can continue to squeeze every single possible penny out of every single one of their customers, violate their privacy rights among other things, and make an even larger fortune for their already opulently wealthy shareholders.

There is no real ethic or ethos behind the enforcement of intellectual property law to punish those who share amongst themselves art, film and music. Anyone who feigns, or worse, actually believes in some appeal to a higher ethic or virtue in this regard is a charlatan at best and an irredeemable fool at worst, a clown. Nothing about these enforcement practices has anything to do with protecting artists, or protecting art. It is so that some shareholder somewhere can log into their bank account every month, or every couple of weeks, and see an extra zero at the end of that already large figure.

And it is these same shareholders, these parasitic wasps on our society, who write our laws. They cannot fathom why anyone would be compelled, or want to engage in file sharing to develop themselves as an artist and as a person, regardless of their means (because the drive to develop oneself artistically, emotionally and intellectually is a divine impetus, and should be freely and equally available to all human beings in any society that takes itself seriously) any more than they can imagine how someone can live and survive without their own personal lawyer, or accountant. And these are the people who write your laws!

And make no mistake: these are the individuals the neoliberal police state protects. And the more the law is written and implemented to protect the interests of an elite, entrenched aristocracy of technocrats, robber barons, and trust fund parasites, the more dystopian the bourgeois democracy becomes, until it begins to render itself into a theatre of the absurd, absent of any real logic or common sense, or worse, taking some fringe line of logic to its ultimate conclusion – and any line of logic taken to its ultimate conclusion ultimately becomes an absurd line of logic. Likewise, if you live in a society which enforces every single letter of the law on the books at all times, no matter what, you will no longer be living in a society; you will be living in a theater of the absurd.

We have come full circle it seems from the times of Jesus, where people came to believe that Man was created for the Sabbath, rather than the Sabbath for Man. People forget that this was the entire reason that Jesus was crucified in the first place: because he dared to highlight through powerful action and living example a glaring inconsistency, a logical fallacy within the restrictive rituals of his time which reeked of hypocrisy and pointless stupidity: that the establishment's obsession with, and enforcement of every single letter of the law was in fact violating the very spirit of the law. In doing so, he humiliated the established religious authorities of his time, and started the clock ticking on his own inevitable execution. False authorities don't like to embarrassed, because it exposes them for what they really are: naked, foolish, and contemptible.

In the new technofeudal century everything will be taken to its ultimate extreme: forgot to pay for your hamburger at your favorite local establishment? When you return that same day to laugh at your absent-mindedness, apologize to the wait staff and pay your bill, you will be arrested on the spot.

Does that sound far-fetched? It's not far-fetched in a land where there is no longer any common sense or any kind of common courtesy or common decency – where the people exist to serve a system, instead of the system existing to serve the people. In such a state of affairs people are capable of anything, because they aren't looking out for one another anymore; they're looking after the system. In such a state people betray one another for nothing, not even for a piece of bread, but just for a feeling of loyalty and duty to something which they serve mindlessly but don't even really understand – a system that doesn't even care about them – that is not humane but anti-human.

Pedantic, selective, and nitpicking law enforcement becomes the norm, even as gross miscarriages of justice and pernicious social problems are ignored. Employers who have their employees consistently working unpaid overtime in unsafe work conditions which routinely lead to wrongful deaths? This is of no concern to the neoliberal police state. Politicians who funnel millions of dollars to their friends for kickbacks through horseshit government contracts set up at the last second? Well, that's just the cost of paying taxes!

But downloading a movie? Having a barbeque at a local festival? Parking your camper at a rest area to take a nap? Well, now, this is serious business! Serious business lost that is, from someone else who can take your money, whether it's one of the countless streaming services you're subscribed to which can revoke access to the games and films you've purchased at any moment, the catering services who lose money when people can host their own traditional barbeques at festivals, the hotels who see their bottom line suffer as more and more people are drawn to the freedom and the joy of camping in nature.

Did you have an extra half-glass of wine before driving home from the festival, where you now had to eat cold, catered sandwiches, and stay in an overpriced hotel, even though you brought your own camper? Well, there's another racket waiting for you there too. Even after passing the field sobriety test with flying colors and only being .01 over the legal limit, with officers clearly expressing that using their own mental faculties, powers of observation and common sense, they can clearly see that you are not intoxicated whatsoever, you still have to go through all the hoops, because how will the officers meet their quotas, and how will the state make its money?

You see, again, the politicians can't just steal millions of dollars in people's taxes, so they have to find more creative ways to embezzle that money. So they call up their friends and say, "Hey, we're thinking about setting up 'Drug & Alcohol Counseling Centers' for people convicted of DUI. It's easy-peasy, just set up some chairs and offices on the far side of town, and we'll lower the requirements for the 'Drug & Alcohol Counselors.' They won't need to be licensed psychologists or anything; they can just take a two month course. They'll be making close to minimum wage and you'll be raking in the money, Bill, and hell, you can fine the DUI’ers for absences, use any excuse to kick ‘em out of the classes so you can fine 'em again and maybe even funnel 'em right back into the system. Hell, it’s not like they have a choice; they either attend the classes or they go straight to jail. It's low investment and high returns, and people love that 'tough on crime' shit. Just remember me when the next elections come up though, alright?"

Law enforcement becomes about generating cash flow to the state and its cronies, and selectively targeting dissidents or those who the state feels can threaten its supremacy, expose its ineptitude, or bring its supposed public mandate into public question.

How is such an atmosphere created? This kind of atmosphere is slowly created by the constant pushing of police correspondents and crime stories on major news broadcasts for example, which increasingly take up more and more of every channel's airtime, even in areas where violent crime is at an all-time low. In addition, such a cannibalistic and toxic atmosphere can be created by the constant promotion and dissemination of shows and documentaries surrounding “true crime” and “true crime”-adjacent films and novels containing sick themes of abuse and horror, without any real social commentary or artistic value. The public in turn eats up this content due to its unfortunately sensational nature, which satisfies some kind of morbid curiosity lingering deep within the collective unconscious, and a self-reinforcing feedback loop is created. People become suspicious of each other and paranoid.

Whereas before that quiet, solitary guy next door who kept to himself was just "a bit odd" or "kind of strange" or "mysterious," now he must be a serial killer, or a drug dealer, or a pedophile rapist. This serves the needs of the corrupt authoritarian government, so that people never unite to overthrow their oppressors. Alienated from each other, they can now be easily ruled. In fact, injected daily with "lifestyle" propaganda and upside-down bullshit values, they can even be manipulated into loving their oppressors, and wanting to be one themselves! They grow to hate anyone who questions the system and its false values, and will gleefully cooperate with any and all traps set by the police and the surveillance state for those labeled as "unwashed miscreants," "anarchists," "unhinged," "antisocial."

I believe George Lucas's 1983 film Return of the Jedi will end up being quite prescient in this specific regard: the fascists will set elaborate traps for those who are free; then the free individuals will spring those traps and win anyway.

So if fascists set elaborate traps for you, and you fall into one of those traps, don't worry. You'll win anyway, just like Admiral Ackbar.

But right up until the end the Empire will seem invincible and undefeatable… right up until they lose all at once and in spectacular fashion. It has always been thus. Empires rise and fall – and right before they fall they get increasingly desperate and start grasping at straws, at anything they can, no matter how gross or petty. Because they know deep down just how fleeting and ephemeral their power is, even if the people don't. Hence why they become very, very insecure, and feel threatened by anything and anyone, no matter how benign or harmless.

You think those same types of people who had heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. under constant surveillance, and would have us all convinced that he was some kind of sexual deviant, or depraved pervert, instead of the civil rights icon and dignified statesman he was-- you think those same kinds of people aren't around today?

Whether it's the hyper-nationalist hacks nostalgic of the military juntas of days past here in Greece, or the right-wing lackeys who used to spy on John Lennon in Nixon's USA, fascist scum is alive and well.

I see you, I know who you are, and even surrounded on all sides, sooner or later, and mark my words: I will defeat you.

#Fascism #Police State #Dystopia #Andrew Eugene Lovely #Andrew Lovely

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