U.S. military plans to make insect cyborgs
A bit offbeat with the above link but it tells of plans by the US military to further enslave our planet's other species. Already experimenting with sharks and dolphins, they now have their eyes on the small fry - insects. Forget the war zones, this could be a nifty move for the surveillance state. With a population vastly exceeding that of the human race, a few trillion extra little critters crawling around spying on us will no doubt be un-noticed - even by those of us wary of CCTV cameras, web-monitoring and ID cards. Maybe not the near future - but a darkly possible future nonetheless.
Talking of dark futures, much is being made of how brave Hollywood has been in bringing "V for Vendetta" to our screens. Although the story has been sanitised, the scenario remains based in London and I suspect it would not have got made at all if transposed to the US. The original message was a warning about the direction of Thatcherism in 1980s Britain and was no more a "glorification of terrorism" than Orwell's "1984" - with which it has something in common. There may be subtexts for modern today Amerika (and indeed Britain itself) and it could have the power to make viewers question contemporary reality, yet it will probably be absorbed as pure entertainment. Those who seek to ask questions are already doing so and the danger of this movie is that it will further romanticise a silent message of authoritarianism that so many are all-too-willing to embrace when faced with a climate of fear. The original author, Alan Moore, has dis-owned this exploitation of his work.
Our current pretender to the totalitarian throne enters his own political twilight years and this week may be a landmark of sorts. Successful on the surface, his pursuit of social reforms and an enduring legacy has only been possible by cultivating support fromn what was once the idealogical opposition. He has effectively abdicated leadership of his own party political base. If that wasn't enough, his subversive attitude to party fund-raising has the same hallmarks of "sleaze" that he so vindictively fought against in his original quest for power. The evangelical arrogance of what now purports to be our government is about as far away from the movement that gave rise to it as can possibly be.
The kids of Amerika want nothing to do with the military conscription agents that are now a compulsory presence in their schools and colleges, but a report indicates a large increase in those studying for religious qualifications. It's a disturbing trend in that it seems these students have little intention of adopting the pulpit as a platform but rather see such fundamentalist education as a prerequisite to success in other career paths.
When Clinton left the White House, the Amerikan bank account was slightly in credit. Since the advent of the ape emperor that same account is in the red by so many trillions of dollars that this author's mind has great difficulty comprehending the figures. Now the senate have given him the go-ahead to borrow some trillions more - largely to finance foreign adventures and line the pockets of his corporate paymasters. No doubt the rape of world resources will continue to equate with the pillage of homeland welfare.
As predicted here last week, it seems the US are now working with Iran after all. The intent is to help solve the problem of civil war in Iraq but it stinks of hypocrisy in the light of the Condi-Bush intransience on matter nuclear. There's also a bit of a stink over "Taliban" fighers admitted as students at Yale, just as Bush has added to the list of regimes he wants to overthrow. Such contradictory behaviour, could there be signs of civil war in Amerika too?
Back in 1968, protests in France had the enduring legacy of keeping subsequent governments rather cautious about doing anything to upset a delicate status quo. The French seem be be very good at this kind of political empowerment by the people. Shades of those times, nearly 40 years ago, have come back to haunt the administration today. Not quite so volatile as yet, the new riots come all-too-soon after the recent ones by Islamic residents and the urban dispossessed.
Next year will be the 40th anniversary of the original "Summer of Love" - focal point of the hippie era and anti-vietman war movement. Those of us of that generation considered it a "revolution" and indeed so many of the social mores and attitudes of those days are now embedded in greater society. Maybe a new "revolution" is in order - after all the word itself implies the cyclic nature of events much as nature, the planet and the universe itself follow rotational patterns. This similarities between than and now are increasingly obvious, albeit the modern version obscured behind technological smokescreens, the propaganda base underlying contemporary media and news delivery and the comfort zone of consumerism. Once again, Amerika is pursuing a war of its own devise driven by the idealogical follies of fools with an ill-defined mission. Once more, governments are adopting attitudes of social dictatorship rather than acting as servants of their electorate. Once more, minorities are becoming oppressed by a vast swathe of the unthinking population who are subconsciously urged to react adversly to anything they don't understand.
Fortunately for freedom, governments rarely find they can maintain the complexity of deceit for too long. For every age of inquisition there follows a age of liberation. Maybe the time for that revolution is here again.
Later.
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