"Our current Situation"

Alluscion · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:07 am

This was taken from another forum, discussing the issues met in reality and the novels "the Traveler"and "the dark river"
both by mystery author John twelve hawks.. (look him up, read the books way interesting)

Quote:

WHAT IS OUR CURRENT SITUATION?

1. During the last few years, both the government and large corporations have increased their ability to monitor and control the lives of individuals.

This change is not a consequence of elections or other forms of traditional political activity. Ideology has become a collection of slogans and simple responses to controversial issues. The true goal of the powerful is power itself.

2. There has been a rise in Islamic terrorism, but this threat has been magnified and distorted as a convenient excuse to attack personal freedom. Our leaders have manipulated the public’s fear in order to intrude into every element of their lives. To a large extent, personal privacy has disappeared.

3. For the most part, the public is ignorant about the new generation of surveillance technology. Although people can see that there are more CCTV cameras on the street, the true monitoring is hidden and omnipresent.

But surveillance technology is only one aspect of the threat to our freedom. Total information systems collect data from all aspects of our lives and keep it forever in one central data bank. Information gathering systems are able to search through governmental and corporate records and assemble an electronic portrait of our personal preferences and political opinions.

4. Our elected officials have no intention of reducing their power. In the private sector, corporations have realized that collecting a data portrait of each consumer will increase profits.

In this past, both print and broadcast media were used a platform for advertising, but now there has been a significant change.

The new media has also acquired the technology to profile individual consumers and sell those profiles to corporations. Instead of defending personal freedom, the media have become part of the problem.

5. Many citizens have lost the power to defend their rights by traditional means. They have found themselves trapped in a system of continual, intrusive monitoring: the Vast Machine. If we are not free as individuals, the democratic system will disappear.

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

Becoming aware of the power of the Vast Machine can generate feelings of apathy and helplessness. People believe that “The battle is over and we lost.” Or “There’s nothing we can do.”

But some of us refuse to accept this new technological slavery. Some of us will resist.

We need to use technology to resist the Vast Machine. We need to alert the general public and form a movement. In this initial phase, our public goals should be as general as possible in order to attract wide public support.

In ancient times, Greece was the birthplace of democracy. Perhaps it’s fitting that people are inspired by the three principles stated in the modern Greek constitution:

Every person’s home is a sanctuary.

The private and family life of the individual is inviolable.

The secrecy of letters and all other forms of correspondence or communications are inviolable.

Some of you may say: “Well, I want to change a great deal more” or “I’m also concerned about…”

I realize that, but what I call the “Greek triad” could be used as a general starting point for forming an organization.

THE INITIAL STAGE

People need to meet and get a sense of each other. You shouldn’t be surprised if there are different opinions about goals and tactics. If you don’t feel comfortable with the people you’re talking to – it’s your choice to walk away.

Over the years, I’ve been involved with both “street” (protest) groups as well as groups with more conventional structures. I’ve noticed the following:

Groups that survive the initial stage have a leadership structure: a group of members that are willing to do the work and accept the responsibility.

Every group needs an issue to focus on. The best issues are local, can be understood easily, have wide appeal and generate an emotional response.

For example, a strong issue in the UK at the moment is the attempt to establish a DNA database for children and the idea that children should be tracked by GPS technology and RFID chips. These schemes continue even though the Home Office admits that kidnaps and murders by strangers are no more common than twenty years ago (about six such deaths a year).

Anything involving children or teenagers is an emotional issue. And this issue could pick up support from a large sector of the population.

Any group activity – even a political one – should encourage moments of fun and pleasure. A large tent welcomes more people inside.

CONCLUSION

The problem is not the Vast Machine.

The problem is fear, passivity and willful ignorance.

We can organize – without prejudice.

We can resist – without violence to others.

--- John Twelve Hawks

Transfixed · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:58 am

John Twelve Hawks is a very intelligent person, he's very aware and intuitive about the future, and he outlines many of the realities about a total surveillance society, which he calls the 'Panopticon' in his books, of which there are only two so far...

Basically, he looks at the world as it is today, sees the patterns of events and the direction they're going, and creates essentially a fictional story with metaphysical elements that serves as a warning to people who care about this sort of thing, and those who are too naive to care.

My only gripe is that his actual writing is a little underdeveloped, and he's not the best at describing things or building proper tension... He happens to be lacking the qualities of a great author, kinda like the quality equivalent of a made-for-tv movie(TNT), but his content and ideas are spot on.

Here's the uhh, wiki page on The Traveler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traveler_%28novel%29

[ko] · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:42 pm

I read The Traveler over the weekend as I decided not to spend anymore money on books for a while and the library had it and did not have Join My Cult that I planned on reading this summer.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. many elements combined from quite a few different areas and I really did not find the plot to be too much of an extrapolation of our current situation (the panopticon concept and technology, although the other elements such as 'traveling' itself are also not unheard of in some more esoteric spirituality). No great leaps were necessary, making it obvious but believable what we may be heading for in this high-surveillance society. While U.S. citizens may understand the concept and relate to it to a limited extend, for other countries, particularly the U.K. most of these elements are already in place or being implemented in the near future.

While he may not win a Pulitzer for his writing style, I didn't find his writing a hindrance or annoying or confusing necessarily. He is obviously intelligence and even slipped in some fun lil things people might not catch (having associated with the discordian crowd I personally appreciated the use of a RNG and the price of 3B3) Sure he could have developed ideas more or gone into more details I guess, but I wouldn't compare it to the likes of a made for TV movie. That's harsh man :shock:

Anyway, I really liked it and found it stimulating and enjoyable. A good warning as well as an entertaining story. Hopefully the library has the 2nd book...

Alluscion · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:05 pm

We have the 2nd if you wanna borrow..

Its awesome, but I HATE waiting for the third which is to come out next year some time.....

I loved them both and greatly enjoyed all of it..

[ko] · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:25 pm

I'm hoping to make it to the book depository tomorrow. if they don't have it I would love to borrow

Though maybe I should borrow it anyway so it's not permanently traceable on my rental history :wink:

Alluscion · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:34 pm

too late...

they already know what you have purchased book wise, and everything else for that matter, food, schooling, movies, concerts..
.. I am pretty sure that we are all already on the "red list"..

kinda creepy how easy it is to profile a person.. look at their available content such as myspce.. get their purchase informations form the banks, and combine that with library and oh website searches ect.. really if the govt wanted to profile anyone it would be a snap... especially since they got away with our permanet records!... Bastards.....

Transfixed · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:47 am

I didn't mean it in an insulting sense when I said 'made-for tv' quality... there are a lot of good made for tv movies out there

But I read a good chunk of fiction and after enjoying really great writing from a few different authors, it's a little irritating when you have to struggle to follow what exactly is happening in certain scenes, like the subway-tunnel chase/shootout scene, which was a complete mess of narration and description...
But hell, I love the books anyway, and still recommend them.
His story, message, ideas and characters are excellent and worth reading.
I guess I kida liken it to Michael Crichton, who is famous and well-known for his sci-fi sorta stories. Jurassic Park was very well written, dense and meaty!
But then compare that to his newer stuff like Prey which is almost embarrassingly bad in it's writing. It was like a bad robot version of him writing a b-grade screenplay....
It just happens to people sometimes I guess. No biggie. I'm definitely looking forward to the 3rd book in the series whenever it comes out....?!?!

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