"The new slaves are linked together by vast electronic chains of television that inprison not their bodies but their minds. Their desires are programmed, their tastes manipulated, their values set for them. Whereas the black slave was chained to a living master, the new slave has become a digit, a mere item of production that is expended by an invisable master without heart or soul."

From the book FROM FREEDOM TO SLAVERY by Gerry Spence the famous trial lawyer. It is a rare slave who wishes to be told he can be free but that freedom means he will no longer have the chains he has become so comfortable with. This is why you can not tell others about Y2K or the debt crisis. Your warnings are a frontal on their life support, their chains. I know, I tried and I gave up. "My job is not so much to report the news as it is to mold public opinion." Peter Jennings in an interview in 1988 describing his life and work.

-- Ed (ed@terraworld.net), December 06, 1998

Answers

Excellent book, I encourage one and all to give it a read. One difference though, between the TV drugged and the African slaves: We have become 'slaves' of our own free will, whereas the black man was surely unhappy with his yoke.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), December 06, 1998.

Yes, but ARE the masses happy? Or just placated?

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 06, 1998.

The Mountlake Terrace, WA High School just received 15 brand-spanking-new multimedia computers with fast Internet connections and 17" monitors. The catch? The company that provided them wants to gather data on teen computer users' ages, web-browsing habits, gender, and zipcode, which will all be provided to the many advertisers on the donating company's network.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), December 06, 1998.

Oh come on now - resistance to advertising builds up very quickly - otherwise you would still be seeing the ads they ran in the 60's - and new car models would not change at all. Yes, they do try to target the audience pretty hard now - but shucks - I really don't blame advertising and TV for very many of my habits - any more than I buy the old "porno made me do it" deal that so many sex freaks try to pass off as an excuse.

How do I feel about the oft made statement that most sex freaks have porno around, BTW. Glad you asked - - -

It ain't porno - its those damn tomatoes. Did you know that 99.76% of all sex deviants have eaten tomatoes? Most even admit they have eaten them on a regular basis! The tomato growers even try to get kids hooked on tomatoes - they hid the awful things in sauces, pizzas and even slip tomatoes into the innocent hamburger. Most killers have eaten tomatoes! Every juvenile delinquilent interviewed by me has eaten tomatoes! As for proof that tomatoes are damaging - just crush a few tomatoes and them drop a worm into the juicy pulp - it will die in seconds!!! And if even this does not convince you - prepare a 5 gallon bucket of the pulp, take a person by the hair (I recommend those who support censorship, esp. censors) and immerse their head completely in the mess for about 5 minutes. Every such person this has been tried on - has died!!! That alone should be proof that tomatoes are deadly! Don't ban porno - ban tomatoes.

BTW - Peter Jennings is my personal favorite for the ultimate title of "The Compleat Ass".

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 06, 1998.

ROFL

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 06, 1998.

Now this forum is starting to get really interesting. We've moved beyond science fiction into political philosophy.

On that side, the absolute heaviest thing, grandpa of all critiques of technology is the 1954 work by the French philosopher Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society".

Long, and hard to sumamrize. Here's his final take on technology:

"None of our [technologists] every pose the question of the end of all their marvels. The "wherefore" is resolutely passed by. The response which would occur to our contemporaries is: for the sake of happiness. Unfortunately, there is no longer any question of that. One of our best-known specialists in diseases of the nervous system writes: "We will be able to modify man's emotions, desires and thoughts, as we have already done in a rudimentary way with tranquilizers." It will be possible, says our speicalist, to produce a conviction or an impression of happiness without any real basis for it. Our man of the golden age, therefore, will be capable of "happiness" amid the worst privations. Why, then, promise us extraordinary comforts, hygiene, knowledge, and nouishment if, by simply manipulating our nervous systems, we can be happy without them ? The last meager adventure thus vanishes into thin air through the very existence of technique itself."

y2k, anyone ?

-RC

-- Runway Cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), December 07, 1998.

I posted this link, and the quotation from it, on another thread. It really belongs here. From: What Must Be Done:

"For instance: "What does responsibility mean? That we must re-create ourselves and our government-and keep re-creating and re-creating forever. We must transform the way we look at politics, from an inherently corrupt activity that can only further debase us, to an activity that wrests power away from the hands of tyrants and places it securely in the pockets of The People, giving us some reasonable amount of control over the elements and decisions that affect our daily lives. We cannot avoid responsibility: we must seek it out. Politics must not be a tedious circus show for us but an active, positive, creative part or our lives. Impossible in Russia, you say? No. We must simply make it so.

"Of course, those in power will not allow us to do this, you say. Then, I reply, we must treat them as we would treat employees who walk off with the goods. Fire them. Only one form of government can deal with a Russian Citizenry that is armed with determination to take responsibility for itself and for its leadership-- a Republican one. But the mere form of Republicanism will not be enough. Leaders must lead, and in Russia this means to lead the nation by example and with actions that express the greater virtues of the Russian People. Coincidentally, those virtues are the same ones by which a Republic is defined: integrity, honor, compassion alongside an unbending and ever-present commitment to ensuring freedom. Then, and only then, will we be Citizens.

"Remember this, you who would govern, and you who would be ruled: there can be no Russia without Citizens. Neither citizenship nor freedom is possible without personal ownership for both. The People and the government must make themselves perpetual allies in the guardianship of liberty. Or we will have not citizens but slaves, not government but tyranny, not Russia but a Khanate."

"This is what we can do in our present circumstances, about which we fret so much: we may re-define ourselves and our country and in doing so build a bridge to our future. That is where Russia will attain her true greatness as leader among free nations, her true historic mission. Any who betray this mission betray not only Russia, but history itself, and stand accused as enemies of civilization. "

If a Russian can think this, why can't we?

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 07, 1998.

Boys n' Girls,

This is rightly getting quite heated - a name you might want to research is David Icke.

Check his books out at Amazon.com.

Here's a link from his first apperance on the Jeff Rense show (on real audio)

http://www.broadcast.com/shows/endoftheline/archive.stm

If he grabs you, ***and he is for real***, no bullshit whatsoever, he has apperaed sevaeral more times, also once on the Art Bell show.

His last two books will blow the average American's mind, no question.

Funny how he's never been on CNN or Abc, strange that.......

Rush L. would not have a clue.......

-- Andy (andy_rowland@msn.com), December 07, 1998.

For the David Icke appearance RealAudio clip, see September 21

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 07, 1998.