“Why do I turn on the news? They just said Obama beats Romney 50/44, Santorum 53/40, Gingrich 52/37, and then Paul 50/52. First off, that [last total] equals 102%. Secondly, that shows Paul ahead by 2%…” — A [justifiably frustrated] Facebook acquaintance, Garrett Jones. (via hipsterlibertarian)
(Source: pocahauntedx, via ellicstasy)
We Are Being Surveilled - Camouflage Yourself! -
Surveillance is developing in more and more domains and at an extremely rapid pace. Surveillance cameras are obviously involved, as are miniaturized cards, portable telephones, the growing number of recording devices of all kinds, the Internet and electronic “cookies.” This is the era of Big Brother! Today, when cameras equipped with face recognition software add their specters to the pantheon of the failed illusions of security, the government is trying to pass liberty-killing laws under the fallacious pretext of the “fight against terrorism.”
Here, we are made to live in the psychosis of continual control: filmed, surveilled and filed all day, as if we are all criminal suspects, and asked to accept the “fact” that — in the name of our security — men, women and children will have to be killed. We denounce those truly responsible for this masquerade, those thirsty for political power who do not hesitate to use demagoguery and opportunism to inflame the fears of “the Other” and who, even before September 11, were playing the “Total Security” card in an attempt to get votes. We demand the rejection, from now on, of politics in the service of the maintenance of the market — economy and social inequities, of politics that have as their guiding principle the enslavement of the general population and the restriction of human possibilities.
We hope to live in a different world, one in which we don’t have to submit ourselves to the government-subsidized industrial companies that pollute our air, land and water, that rapaciously enrich themselves by riding the backs of workers, those in precarious socio-economic situations, and that set up the market in the surveillance of human beings. The images of money-traffickers and fiscal paradises, political operatives who can act with total impunity, and deal-makers working in the rich soils of the powerful will not be captured by surveillance cameras, despite the facts that they are the ones who are responsible for the world in which we are forced to live, and who should be held accountable for it.
The supermarket is surveilled, as are the streets, offices and factories. What a plethora of images! And why are they captured? In the supermarket, each movement and gesture of the apathetic consumer is filmed and analyzed so as to discover the unknown factor that will facilitate the sale of mad-cow-infected meats, spoiled cheeses, and aseptic chickens. At the office and at the factory, we are surveilled in the name of profits; in the street, we are surveilled so that we never lose the sense of being watched! For what purpose? To force behavior to become normalized; all movements other than normal become suspicious. When will we address ourselves to the real problems, the ones that erode our capacity for life?
When will we have the intelligence — which is lacking in this society, which turns in the wrong direction — to refuse to accept these conditions, neither for us nor for the generations to come? The progress of digitalization and computerized information profits the type of social control that we fear will exist in the future. Aren’t people already enmeshed in the gears of the market, which without hesitation supports every political manipulation so as to have servile consumers? We say “no” to the liberty-killing laws that would legalize this fuckery.
We reclaim the right to possess “disguises.” We reclaim the right to a private life. We reclaim individual freedom, not simply the freedom to exist, but all freedoms.
— Collective for Individual Freedom in the Age of Information Technologies
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“The fact that previous attempts at social change have failed is no justification for us to stop trying. The real danger lies in complacence. The only limitations to the future of humankind are those that we impose upon ourselves.” — http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project/essay
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“If you think you’re trapped, you are. When you realize you aren’t, then you start to realize you’re doing what you’ve decided to do. No whining, no tears, make a decision and live with it. Or make another one.” — ATS Member