I'm interested in your thoughts on the following question:
Why have the Snowden revelations rocked the rest of the world, and here (in the U K ) ? Nothing!
There are myriad reasons on personal and social levels why a nation, a group of people don't care anymore, or care less or lesser than others. There are always a few radical ones who are trouble makers protesting and shouting but this is a question of whole society not just a small percentage
Apathy sits at the root of it.
Complacency, smugness, nonchalence is one of the main reason why we don't care.
What brings all the above on is a close study of sociology and psychology.
On a social level- we are more disconnected from others than ever in the history. We have a level of comfort in the modern life style has managed to sabotage sense of communal harmony, belongingness, brotherhood. Enough unto myself - is the modern life style. Whole range of experiences from shopping to study can be done without speaking to another person. Detached, disconnected and settled in that mode is one of the reasons of 'don't care' attitude. Each man has become an island and can manage an island lifestyle without much trouble too. All the while I am ok....it is ok to stay put. When the distant flames start to engulf me, my house, I automatically spur to action. We will too, when distant fire draws close...until then where is the need?
Society has seen more comfort in every way in the last 4-5 decades. There is a flip pride to it, masses lose spine, become gutless. Lack drives the societies and put steel in people's nerves. Something that is lacking in today's UK.
System- Every system starts out as a servant to individuals but as it becomes big it becomes a mechanism to devour the individual. As a system establishes and grows... it stops being about the needs of the individuals. It becomes self serving. The individual feels crushed. We are in that stage. The system is crushing down, disheartening and very discouraging to any idea contrary to its own agenda.
The system induces a sleep and slumber in 95% of its people. We are in that slumber stage here in UK. People ' know' it is best to keep quiet and mind their own business. The system has got them where it wanted them
Need- Prosperity has its flip side. Everything has a flip side. Need, lack, want drives human resources, creativity, passion, courage, grit. Great austerity brings great prosperity. We just don't 'need' to be anything more just yet. The will is gone missing. The levels society is functioning at are still in the comfort zone. So it is humdrum response relative to that comfortable state.
In times of need, sorrow, threat, challenge....people gather, come close, bond, help each other are far more open to others around them. Mine- thine melt away. Togetherness come into play. In times of prosperity everyone is smug, enough unto themselves.
We come out of this phase as it hits the point where we, as a whole society are jerked out of that sleep and slumber.
Life keeps flipping these cycles endlessly. Smug....to desperate to proactive to dynamic to properity to smugness and slumber again. Over and over again...
We will care more, as we did in the past. But first the opposite dynamic will have to hit us hard.
don't worry Ruby I've fixed your quotes for you again. LOL! - Energylz
Small price to pay you say Judy.
I say that a lot that is happening in the world is contrived and deliberated manipulated by the corporate industrial-military complex, as continuous war creates big profits!! If there is such thing as evil in the world, it would be a militarised corporate company supported by the state that sells weaponry to two sides of a conflict to squeeze as much profit out of the situation as possible. Meanwhile millions of people suffer.
As for being monitored, it all so normalised is it not? It wasn't too many years ago the idea of having the mail read would of been outrageous.
And who would like to have someone staring through the window to see what your sexual interests are and then have a bondage catalogue sent to you through the post? But with the internet this is all OK.
It wasn't that long ago the mainstream media was reporting about the East German (Secret Police) Stasi's telephone monitoring facilities and commenting how awful this was, and thank goodness for western-style democracy. How easy it is to forget, how easy it is to be fooled thinking we are better off, how easy it is to have our civil liberties to be eroded, how easy it is to become automatons and the serfs of the new age of techno-feudalism.
Absolutely, Reiki Pixie.
On a more serious tone, the world is a dangerous place at the moment and I for one feel it's a small price to pay if it helps the vast innocent majority to be safer because threats are found out and stopped (and they have been). Anyone is welcome to trawl through all my phone calls, texts and emails - but they would probably die of boredom! :p
If we give up our rights and freedoms in order to 'fight terrorism' then how have we won? We've lost what makes society worth defending.
Absolutely, Reiki Pixie.
If we give up our rights and freedoms in order to 'fight terrorism' then how have we won? We've lost what makes society worth defending.
Yes and one country's 'terrorist' is another country's 'freedom fighter'....perspective.
On a more serious tone, the world is a dangerous place at the moment and I for one feel it's a small price to pay if it helps the vast innocent majority to be safer because threats are found out and stopped (and they have been).
Does this justify the police spying on those that they consider 'a threat' - including Labour politicians? ([url]See here[/url]) When the powers that be decide any disagreement is dangerous, democracy is dead.
Does this justify the police spying on those that they consider 'a threat' - including Labour politicians? ([url]See here[/url]) When the powers that be decide any disagreement is dangerous, democracy is dead.
I wonder when/if we ever had democracy? Remember the massive anti war protest in London against going to war over Iraq? Counted for nothing....although it seemed Blair's hands were tied, i.e. initially he said we wouldn't be going to war then, some 3 days later, we were. Guess America twisted our arm.
Hell, we are even having to fight for our right to protest in UK now
Democracy and capitalism lead us in different directions.
Maybe the US didn't have to twist very far - Blair always gave the impression of regarding himself as a president rather than a PM. A quiet word promising hob-nobbing with the US elite would have done it.
Does this justify the police spying on those that they consider 'a threat' - including Labour politicians? ([url]See here[/url]) When the powers that be decide any disagreement is dangerous, democracy is dead.
Yes, I believe it does justify the police having access to peoples internet records and phone calls.
Yes, I believe it does justify the police having access to peoples internet records and phone calls.
Labour MPs? And if Labour then probably Green, SNP, PC etc. In what way is this justified? How does it keep us safer? Just the opposite, I would suspect.
We only see the tip of the iceberg in terms of this kind of activity.
Bear in mind that UK has more CCTVs than anywhere else in the world and that politcal activists are highlighted and studied in order to uncover their identity. Good reasons to wear a balaclava! 😉
Does this justify the police spying on those that they consider 'a threat' - including Labour politicians? ([url]See here[/url]) When the powers that be decide any disagreement is dangerous, democracy is dead.
I agree that's weird (if it's true - I don't particularly trust newspapers!) The world is not a perfect place, even in good 'ole Blighty, but I'm glad so much of the deception (and especially abuse of children) and its cover-up is now being revealed and that people are standing up to what they instinctively know is wrong.
Churchill famously said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)
if it's true - I don't particularly trust newspapers
Surely you feel you can trust some more than others? They are not all alike.
Surely you feel you can trust some more than others? They are not all alike.
You're right, it's wrong to tar them all with the same brush! But even the Christian Science Monitor which has the highest principles and standards, was taken in by some third party and published a piece claiming they had seen documents that incriminated George Galloway in Iraq (the papers were forgeries) - the Telegraph was also involved. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0620/p01s03-woiq.html
Having read various newspapers' reports on topics I was well aquainted with and found them filled with glaring inconsistencies (often caused by ignorance of the subject) I don't buy into every single thing I read or hear..
No, I agree even the best paper can make mistakes.
But (just as an example) I'd trust The Guardian for several reasons: First because, if they make a mistake, they admit it. Second, because it's owned by Guardian Media, owned in turn by the Scott Trust, a charitable organisation set up to ensure the paper's independence, rather than by Murdoch, Desmond or any other business man with vested interests. Third, because, while it is happy to say that it is left-wing (I wouldn't read it if it weren't) it does have correspondents who will put an opposing point of view, and the paper does not always support Labour. Fourth, the main pages are news - comment and editorials are kept out of the main pages. Fifth, the editor, C P Scott, said his ideal was: 'Facts are sacred but comment is free' - compare with the Daily Mail, that a 'daily hate' is what sells papers. Sixth, The Guardian assumes intelligence on the part of its readers.
Okay - this wasn't meant to be an advert for The Guardian. Just an illustration of the way that all newspapers cannot be lumped together. Someone else might come up with an equally long list of why they read a different paper.
I agree Crowan that the Guardian is a good and intelligent paper - as is the CS Monitor (its motto, "To injure no man but to bless all mankind") but it's a shame that the readership isn't greater. When I worked as a hostie on BA, we only ever used to have a couple of Guardians and they very seldom were taken (business men all took the Times and Telegraph) - except on the flight when we had the LSO, taking them to Europe for a concert and every single one asked for one! :p