[EN] No comment / [RO] Fără comentarii (26) – Deceptive choices / Alegeri înşelătoare

[EN] In the UK, pedestrians are carefully invited to look left or look right.  [RO] În UK, pietonii sunt invitaţi cu grijă să se uite la stânga sau la dreapta.

[EN] So are citizens and consumers – choices to he left, choices to the right.  [RO] Tot aşa sunt cetăţenii şi consumatorii – alegeri la dreapta, alegeri la stânga.

[EN] But what about people? Why isn’t anyone advising Brits to look upwards anymore? [RO] Dar ce-i cu oamenii? De ce nu-i mai sfătuieşte nimeni pe britanici să se uite în sus?

[EN] As long as choices are prefabricated, both left and right equal good = happiness. [RO] Câtă vreme alegerile sunt prefabricate, atât dreapta, cât şi stânga egal bine = fericire.

[EN] Only upwards = bad. It’s pretty Orwellian, isn’t it? [RO] În sus = rău. Destul de orwellian, nu-i aşa?

[EN] And this is not Orwellian  Great Britain, but an Orwellian entire world. [RO] Şi aceasta nu este orwelliana Mare Britanie, ci orwelliana lume întreagă.

[EN] Mankind should be aware of other choices than these horizontal ones. [RO] Omenirea ar trebui să fie conştientă de alte alegeri decât acestea orizontale.

[EN] Salvation doesn’t come from the left, nor the right. Look upwards, beyond what can be seen! [RO] Mântuirea nu vine nici de la stânga, nici de la dreapta. Priviţi în sus, dincolo de cele văzute!

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] No comment / [RO] Fără comentarii (25) – A facelift / Un lifting facial

[EN] Even Big Brother needs a facelift from time to time. [RO] Chiar şi Big Brother are nevoie de un lifting facial din când în când.

[EN] As these images – taken in London, in the Whitehall area, somewhere near the HM Treasury – prove. [RO] După cum aceste imagini – făcute la Londra, în zona Whitehall, undeva lângă HM Treasury – dovedesc.

[EN] The wolf may change his hair but not his surveilling nature. [RO] Şi-o fi schimba lupul părul, dar nu şi năravul supraveghetor.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] No comment / [RO] Fără comentarii (7) – Big Brother’s eyes / Ochii lui Big Brother

[EN] Although Great Britain ‘sets the standard’ (pics 1, 2, 5), it would be unfair not to admit a worrisome truth. [RO] Deşi Marea Britanie ‘stabileşte etalonul’ (pozele 1, 2, 5), ar fi necinsit să nu admit un adevăr îngrijorător.
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[EN] That many other countries are catching up with the British model… [RO] Că multe alte ţări prind din urmă modelul britanic…

[EN] Video surveillance is now omnipresent… not only in countries under Communist rule, like China (pic 6), but also in sunny Italy (pic 4)… [RO] Supravegherea video este acum omniprezentă… nu doar în ţări sub regim comunist, precum China (poza 6), dar şi în însorita Italie (poza 4)…

[EN] …up to every Romanian county (pics 3, 7); and I’ve travelled to 31 of 41 (42 with Bucharest) in the past three years. [RO] … până la fiecare judeţ românesc (pozele 3, 7); şi am călătorit în 31 din 41 (42 cu Bucureşti) in ultimii trei ani.

[EN] What are we afraid of? What do these ‘electronic eyes’ see more than ordinary people could see? [RO] De ce ne temem? Ce văd aceşti ‘ochi electronici’ mai mult decât oameni obişnuiţi ar putea vedea?

[EN] Are the ‘security benefits’ of this huge infrastructure outweighing the costs? [RO] Cântăresc ‘beneficiile de securitate’ ale acestei uriaşe infrastructuri mai mult decât costurile?

[EN] Are there any computers scanning everything that is recorded? Are (compromising) images picked arbitrarily? [RO] Există computere care scanează tot ce este înregistrat? Sunt imaginile (compromiţătoare) alese arbitrar?

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (14) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

The less aware of Who really keeps the world alive people are, the easier it is to scare them into believing that there are ‘threats’ everywhere around them.

So it happens in today’s Britain, where people are advised by the Nanny State to keep an watchful eye on everything around them, including on… suspicious bags.

In the case of pieces of luggage, the supreme humanist value of “innocent until proven guilty” is reversed, becoming “guilty until proven innocent.”

It’s so much safer to be cautious, isn’t it? Be it peaceful UK or crazy Iraq or Afghanistan (turned into unsafe places thanks to British contribution), I don’t find this attitude exaggerate.

What I wonder is when (not if – it’s just a question of time) this presumption of innocence gets scrapped for human beings as well. Christians are already prime targets.

They are more likely to be suspected and accused of being politically incorrect and prejudicing others than Muslims and secular Britons.

Terrorism is a pretty serious thing, and maybe no precautions are ever too many, yet I can’t help noticing that IRA’s bombing campaign (1969-1997) had a higher death toll compared to that of rather scarce al-Qaeda attacks in the past decade.

Anti-terrorism specialists could claim that such a lack of lethality of al-Qaeda, compared to that of the IRA, could be the result of Britons being more ‘alert’.

I seriously doubt that. Not that I would immediately embrace so-called conspiracy theories – claiming that the ‘terrorist threat of al-Qaeda is invented’ (examples here, here or here) – but it’s surely worth reflecting on their claims.

Unaware of what the name of the ‘disease’ should be, I noticed that the farther away from God one society is, the more it needs ‘enemies’ to redefine itself.

In societies with no fear of God fear of everything and everyone else reigns. So happened to Revolutionary France, to Nazi Germany, to Soviet Russia…

Is this about to happen to Britain? Is this country, supposedly one of longest-continuing-democracies in the world, on the path to becoming George Orwell’s Oceania?

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Aruncă în aer nişte oameni, salvează planeta! [Blow up some people, save the planet!]

“Am fost fericit să fiu aruncat în aer pentru a salva lumea!”, spune un actor-copil dintre cei ale căror măruntaie zboară pe feţele colegilor într-un film de propagandă, în care oamenii răi (prin indiferenţa lor faţă de sperietoarea încălzirii globale) trebuie să moară.

Încă şi mai indiferenţi la ‘explozia’ celor din jur sunt oamenii buni, cei preocupaţi de viitorul planetei, pe care o salvează ba cu un pedalat la bicicletă, ba cu un bec ecologic, ba cu o vacanţă în care merg cu trenul, nu cu avionul.

Aruncarea în aer este soarta rezervată scepticilor, a celor care nu vor să înghită gogoaşa otrăvită servită drept adevăr suprem al zilelor noastre – anume că, fie şi expirând dioxid de carbon, până la urmă facem rău planetei.

Negaţioniştii, habotnicii, iresponsabilii, stupizii etc sunt cei acuzaţi că refuză să vadă evidenţa proclamată de propagandiştii încălzirii globale. Şi bine ar fi ca indiferenţii să dispară, să sară în aer la o simplă apăsare de buton, sugerează pelicula 10:10.

Până la urmă, ce contează câţiva morţi virtuali (deocamdată!!!), susţine creatoarea filmului (citeşte aici, aici şi aici despre ea), câtă vreme “300,000 de oameni reali mor în fiecare an din cauza schimbărilor climatice”.

Cu aceeaşi siguranţă cu care se proclamă că “omul şi cimpanzeul au un strămoş comun” sau că nenăscutul-OM este doar un “mănunchi de celule”, se decretează şi neîntemeiata (altfel decât ideologic) dogmă a sutelor de mii de morţi provocaţi de prea mult dioxid de carbon.

Pentru că existăm şi respirăm, suntem vinovaţi. Şi ne mântuim numai dacă aderăm la religia încălzirii globale, recunoscându-ne nu păcatele, ci amprenta carbonică. Şi nu este suficient să ne spovedim de această vină, fără să o remediem!

Trebuie să ne îmbunătăţim karma, să înlocuim această amprentă cu fapte nu “vrednice de pocăinţă”, ci cu emisii de dioxid de carbon cât mai mici. Nu toţi putem fi stahanovişti, dar fiecare, după puteri, trebuie să jertfească ceva!

Cei mai desăvârşiţi dintre noi avortează un copil (vezi şi aici sau aici) sau se sterilizează pentru a salva planeta, dar nouă celorlalţi nu ni se cere (deocamdată!!!) mai mult decât să nu fim indiferenţi faţă de nemaipomenita ameninţare la care este supusă planeta.

“Mai avem doar patru ani pentru a stabiliza emisiile globale şi nu suntem aproape de obiectiv. Toate vieţile noastre sunt ameninţate”, avertizează ayatollahciţa pentru care un singur film pe tema acestui pericol nu a fost de ajuns.

Să facem ceva, neapărat să facem ceva, ni se tot spune… Oare noi nu ştim că luna aceasta, pe 10.10.2010, 91,000 de locuitori din UK, 3,500 de companii, 4,000 de consilii locale, şcoli şi alte organizaţii vor trage un semnal de alarmă?!

Şi nu vor fi singuri. În această Zi Globală de Făcut (Global Day of Doing) ceva în privinţa amprentei carbonice se vor mobiliza oameni din 180 de ţări, de la luptători de sumo la copii de grădiniţă. Toţi oameni buni – preocupaţi, responsabili.

Iresponsabilii care, chipurile, mint pe bloguri că dioxidul de carbon este inofensiv, nu pot fi aruncaţi în aer (deocamdată!!!), dar nici nu ştiu ce li se pregăteşte. Poate că emisiile nu vor putea fi controlate niciodată , dar net-ul va putea fi controlat.

Ceilalţi oameni răi (care nu văd pericolul evident), mai sunt atraşi o vreme cu zăhărelul. Biciul ar fi (deocamdată!!!) incorect politic şi contraproductiv, astfel încât şi oamenii buni ar intra la idei văzând vreo prigoană a scepticilor.

Însă, pe termen mai mult sau mai puţin lung – nimic nu mai este prea lung în aceste vremuri care ard ca un fitil! – ce-ar fi dacă toată lumea ar fi obligată să jertfească idolului încălzirii globale, aşa cum romanii aduceau jertfe statuii împăratului?

[Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la/For all the posts on this blog go to: Contents/Cuprins]

Witty bits from what I learned in the UK (15) [Vorbe de duh din ce am învăţat în UK]

“If someone comes to an exam and writes what I taught him, I will fail him. I don’t want to be told the things I know” – this was, in a nutshell, the philosophy of the British education system, shared by a SEI professor.

Obviously, there’s a continuation – the student is supposed to have read throughly a certain list of books, and then be able to write essays making connections between the things read – but that was the essential part.

Unlike in the Romanian system (originally of French inspiration), students in the UK will not be asked to reproduce memorized data and facts, but to prove their obtained knowledge through a more or less practical exercise.

Writing about something (in order to prove one’s grasp of a certain topic) it’s not the same thing as reproducing it. Therefore, very much different from Romania, British professors are not so obsessed with catching their students cheating.

You simply can’t write an essay and can’t express your view on something you haven’t read before the exam. Even if you had at least a dozen books on your desk during the examination, you couldn’t search for the specific information, nor process it.

Thanks to this philosophy, the higher education system of the UK is one of the things I liked best about this country. Too bad that younger Brits are now in schools that are in an appalling mess after 13 years of New Labour ‘progressive’ reign.

However, I think that British universities will maintain their supremacy in the EU for a long time from now. Be it only because of the English language’s prominence, but also because most French academic institutions are rotten with a bad phisosophy.

If only this sickening political correctness that is creeping into everything ‘sane’ and ‘decent’ in the UK wouldn’t spoil the good things about British universities! Real scientific truths (not those fabricated by ideologies) couldn’t be born in an Orwellian Britain!

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

A ‘risk’ of reporting crimes in the UK [Un ‘risc’ al reclamării infracţiunilor în UK]

Personal data from four times more law-abiding citizens (a total of 181,917 people!) are being stored in British police databases than offenders, this article reveals.

Every time someone calls 999, they are politely asked to accept having their personal detalis introduced in the same database as those of 107,566 ‘aggrieved’ or ‘vulnerably aggrieved’ victims of crimes, while the names of only 38,259 suspects are held.

This yet another example of Orwellian Britain is known to happen only in the case of North Yorkshire Police. What about the other 38 territorial police forces in England, the 8 such law enforcement stuctures in Scotland or the 4 ones in Wales? Or the national ones?

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Information is stored for at least 15 years and up to 100, in ‘the most serious cases’ – but who could check the criteria used to consider a case more serious than other?

According to someone from Privacy International, “a member of the public has to worry about approaching the police for fear of being put on a secret database with suspects,” yet this shouldn’t be the case, police officers believe.

A record of “callers who are victims of ongoing problems,” including data about their ethnicity (relevant in cases of hate crimes), could actually benefit the citizens, a spokesperson from the National Policing Improvement Agency says.

Oh, really? How many Brits feel safer after finding out that their data is stored by the police, possibly for a century from now on? What I considered a very polite gesture of Sussex Police (inviting crime witnesses to show up) may not be ‘risk-free’.

And if this wasn’t worrisome enough, here’s another ‘risk’ associated with being a citizen in the UK. Another ‘scientific myth’ is falling apart, as even DNA fingerprinting techniques (those supposedly ‘infailible’) “can sometimes give the wrong results.”

DNA analysts are subject to pressure, bias and mistakes just like any other human being, and who is comfortable with passing the responsibility of dictating someone’s fate (freedom or imprisonment) from a judge (and/or jury) to a scientist?

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] Hail to competing sites / [RO] Salutări siteurilor concurente (9)

[EN] VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE [17.09.2010] I don’t endorse many views (including religious ones!) of the author of this blog, and I was seriously considering to delete the following recommendation.

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[EN] Nevertheless, for anyone who can separate facts from interpretation, the site gathers a lot of valuable information. The author’s verdicts and solutions may be wrong, but many of his observations (the diagnosis of contemporary society) are correct.

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[RO] NOTĂ FOARTE IMPORTANTĂ [17.09.2010] Nu susţin multe păreri (inclusiv religioase!) ale autorului acestui blog şi m-am gândit serios să şterg următoarea recomandare.

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[RO] Totuşi, pentru oricine care poate separa faptele de interpretare, acest site adună o mulţime de informaţii valoroase. Verdictele şi soluţiile autorului pot fi greşite, dar multe din observaţiile sale (diagnoza societăţii contemporane) sunt corecte.

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[EN] Not that I’d ‘compete’ with this site (or any other); it’s just a title of this series where I recommend websites worth visiting. [RO] Nu că aş ‘concura’ cu acest site (sau cu altul); este doar titlul acestui serial unde recomand siteuri care merită vizitate.

[EN] Actually, I’d say that the content of such web pages should be saved on hard disks and memory sticks, not just ‘visited’. [RO] De fapt, aş spune că asemena pagini ar trebui salvate pe hard-diskuri sau memory-stick-uri, nu doar ‘vizitate’.

[EN] Most pages are in Romanian, but there are also links to articles written in English about where this world is heading to. [RO] Majoritatea paginilor sunt în română, dar există linkuri către articole în engleză despre încotro se îndreaptă lumea aceasta.

[EN] It’s pretty clear that things are going from bad to worse, but many people are confused, brainwashed to reject ‘conspiracy theories’. [RO] Este foarte clar că lucrurile merg din rău în mai rău, dar mulţi oameni sunt confuzi, spălaţi la creier să respingă ‘teorii conspiraţioniste’.

[EN] Therefore, utterly unable to understand anything about the world we are living in. [RO] Aşadar, cu totul incapabili să înţeleagă lumea în care trăim.

[EN] I’m sure that very many people will REFUSE to believe the grim realities described on this website. [RO] Sunt sigur că mulţi oameni vor REFUZA să creadă realităţile sumbre descrise pe acest site.

[EN] Hopefully, some could understand that the bad times we’re going through simply don’t happen out of the blue. [RO] Să sperăm că unii vor pricepe că aceste vremuri rele prin care trecem pur şi simplu nu se întâmplă din senin.

[EN] The hoax of democracy, the descend of our ‘civilisation’ into a swamp of hedonism, consumerism, promiscuity, mass abortions… [RO] Păcăleala democraţiei, coborârea ‘civilizaţiei’ noastre într-o mlaştină de hedonism, consumerism, promiscuitate, avorturi în masă…

[EN] …the death of the traditional family, and other ‘blessings’ of ‘progress’ – ALL of them happen for a reason. [RO] …moartea familiei tradiţionale şi alte ‘binecuvântări’ ale ‘progresului’ – TOATE se întâmplă pentru un motiv.

[EN] For instance, dozens of articles (selected here) refer to the surveillance society, political correctness and anti-Christian abuses in UK. [RO] De pildă, zeci de articole (selectate aici) se referă la societatea supravegherii, corectitudinea politică şi abuzurile anti-creştine din UK.

[EN] According to this article, not even scrapping the biometric ID scheme may not be good news for a long time. [RO] Potrivit acestui articol, nici măcar renunţarea la planul de buletine biometrice s-ar putea să nu fie o veste bună pentru multă vreme.

[EN] Those who have turned the UK into a huge social engineering laboratory meant to create the new (politically correct) human being won’t stop. [RO] Cei care au transformat UK într-un uriaş laborator de inginerie socială, menit să creeze noua fiinţă umană (politic corectă) nu se vor opri.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (9) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

Centuries later after agreeing that ‘there is no God’ – and thus replacing the absolute truth of a theocentric world with the absolutization of their ‘everything is relative’ belief – humanists realized that the world is pretty unsafe and countless things threaten us.

The comfort of ‘I do what I please’ needs to be secured by a surveillance system, and the UK appears to be the stage of an experiment with no match anywhere in the democratic world. The Brits threw God away, but they must be wondering what to put in His place.

No matter how ‘primitive’ the idea of God may appear to these ‘wise’ humanists, they probably admit that God-centered societies had a certain cohesion, and many other good features which should be substituted.

While people’s minds should not be fenced in any way – there is no God, therefore anything is permissible! – their actions should be carefully watched. People shouldn’t be allowed to do anything harmful to others, should they?

This apparently generous ideal means that people should be controlled – but who has the right to do that? What entity could be as omniscient and impartial when pursuing its surveillance as God was supposed to be have been?

Are politicians trustworthy? Are scientists reliable? What impersonal democratic and judiciary system could be impartial enough to be granted the privilege of overseeing all citizens of a given state? On what rules should such a system be based upon?

Before having reached any definitive answers to these questions – and of course there are no absolute truths in such a relativistic world! – some wise people in the UK started setting-up a surveillance system rivaling the one in Communist China.

It’s not I, a lonely madman, who claims that, but an NGO based in… London. I am refering to Privacy International (PI), which is described as “watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations.”

The above map issued by PI says it all. I can see only five countries coloured in black, meaning that they are “endemic surveillance nations” – the (Big Brother’s) UK, the USA, (Putin’s) Russia, (Communist) China, and Malaysia.

In spite of its founder (Simon Davies) being considered a controversial character, PI’s website is certainly one I recommend. Their reports about national ID cards, biometric passports, and all types of surveillance are very interesting.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (8) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

What I had in mind when I started this series was to try my best to describe how an ordered (for how long though?!) and rather amoral society (like Britain – but other countries could fit the description as well) functions.

And things work as long as the Nanny State manages to provide rules (laws, instructions, regulations, prescriptions) for most spheres of human life, so that people could be told what is good and bad, and be spared from the effort of judging by themselves.

“If it’s not expressly illegal/forbidden, it means it’s not bad/immoral” – this is the mindset of most Brits, the same as that shared by millions of people from the contemporary supposedly civilised world.

This is why one can see in the UK little announcemens or large billboards where you are given advice, interdictions and recommendations. Nowhere else is this visible than in the means of public transport.

Messages like these are being poked into your eyes because godless people are more and more less able to understand why something is (more or less strictly) forbidden, and something else is, on the contrary – recommendend.

As long as God’s voice in ourselves (our consciousness) has been suppressed ever since early childhood, a human being becomes a sort of Pavlov’s dog, conditioned to behave ethically only by interdictions and/or sanctions, plus immediate rewards, accessible like those on a supermarket shelves.

This is precisely why these poor civilised Brits, who have thown the Lord away from their hearts, now need a Big Brother, to constantly tell them what to do and what not to do, what is permitted and what is forbidden...

Or just to assure them that they are being watched. And that being watched is by no means an intrusion, an infringement of their rights, but some kind of a blessing. They are watched for their own good – so they are told.

These people believe that God’s presence in their consciousness is a hard thing to bear, yet inherently they need assurances – they fear for their lousy animalic lives, for the safety of their petty ambitions, for the comfort of satisfying their hedonistic aspirations...

Obviously, one doesn’t need God for these, thus Big Brother eventually becomes a necessity for any godless society. Something (anything but God!) must keep the society working.

The absolute madness of mass abortions, sexual education, gay rights (privileges, in fact), binge drinking, the global warming hysteria, consumerism – all these need to take place under watchful eyes.

These mad people rejected the eyes of the Supreme Being (The Holy Trinity), and replaced them with the look of an amorphous entity, this politically correct Big Brother.

All these atheists who want ‘to seize the day’ for their vain delights are foolishly gambling it all on ‘here and now’, on this absurd assumption that there is no God, there is no afterlife, no Heaven or Hell, no absolute Truth, thus no responsibility.

I am sure that they just say I’m just another madman, but I dare saying to them: “Beware! This gentle and apparently benevolent Big Brother is just a forerunner of the Antichrist!”

I don’t fear any of their labels, as we were warned centuries ago, by the Holy Fathers of the Lords’s only One Church, that such times will come, when the world will be so full of mad people, who will call madman enyone who refuses to join them in their insanity.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

About public transport in the UK (9) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

I don’t think there’s any train station in the UK (or any train station in the world!) where a photoholic like me wouldn’t be tempted to take some pictures.

Far from being a passionate trainspotter, I simply can’t help finding things worth being photographed (and subsequently shared to the world, as I am doing on this blog) in such places. Stations are true goldmines for photoholics!

Out of my initial 6,800 photos in the UK (2008) – to which I could add another 700-800 (2009) – at least some couple of hundred pics (more maybe?!) were taken in or around trains stations...

...or while I was on a train, and therefore more than once annoying people. It’s somehow risky, but as a foreigner you can always afford to be a bit rude, and not bother for being deemed a weirdo.

Does anyone want to make a truly broad image of the Brits (or any other nation for that matter)? Well, go and watch them commuting, eavesdrop on their conversations, take a glimpse at what they are reading, smell their lunch, and scrutinize their clothes!

There’s no better research tool for this type of cultural studies than gazing around at people in train and bus stations, public toilets (not through holes in walls in this case!), caught in traffic as pedestrians or motorists, shopping in supermarkets etc.

But in today’s Orwellian Britan, obsessed with security and the threat of terrorism, it seems that what my photoholic habits could have gotten me an ‘interview’ with the police.

Click here to see what happened to a guy who loved taking pictures in the wrong places. Today’s Britain is gettig a less and less friendly place for photoholics :-(

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (4) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

One of the defining features of the irreligious human being (the typical British man or woman of today) is the constant – albeit hidden behind the apparently comfortable life offered by the Welfare State (more about this concept here, here, here or here) – fear for one’s life.

Even worse than in Romania under Ceauşescu, people all over the UK are being put on guard about potential enemies, health hazards, criminals on the prowl, and all sort of risks to their well-being.

“If you suspect it, report it!” – Big Brother warns you every few hundred meters in British cities. You may have no idea of what this ‘it’ (the danger, the threat, the foe you have to face) actually is, nevertheless, this is of little importance. You may not know what ‘it’ means, but you surely fear for your life.

After centuries of living away from Christ’s One and Only Church, after and accelerated secularisation of society, life of most Brits is emptied of any spiritual dimension. And reaching any firm belief about the meaning of life is of no interest to anyone.

This senseless speeding towards prosperity, achievement, and enjoyment leaves no time for metaphysical introspection... That would be such a waste when there is so much around to do, to see, to earn, to feel, to fight for, to consume... wouldn’t it? It doesn’t matter what life is, but it has to be lived to the full, and nothing is too much of an effort for protecting it as it is.

Therefore, little by little, what was once a despicable deed in Communist Romania – reporting to the authorities what you were suspecting about your neighbours, colleagues, subordinates, students, friends, and even family members – is turning into a civic (I wanted to say patriotic, but that’s tipically American, not British! :-) duty in the UK.

You don’t have to know anything for sure; it’s just enough... to suspect. Nor do you have to assume any responsibility for your allegations – which are supposingly well-intended, but could very often prove malicious, as there’s not much left of the once famous British civility.

You don’t even have to give your name (2nd picture above – a traffic sign pole from Brighton), as your anonymity is guaranteed, in the greater interest of the common welfare, I presume :-)

And on what should people base their assumptions? Big Brother clearly shows this on a billboard (1st picture above – a billboard near a departure gate in Victoria Coach Station, London)... If you see or hear anything suspicious tell our staff or the police immediately. Trust your senses!

Oh, yeah, what could be more trustworthy for the irreligious and hedonist Brits than their senses? Additionally, what could be more convenient for Big Brother’s plans of setting-up a surveillance society that to reduce human beings to animals which couldn’t put their trust in anything else than their own senses, and by no means in the only Saviour of mankind – Jesus Christ?

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

Bad news for photoholics: pictures of British policemen are forbidden [Veşti proaste pentru fotoholici: pozele cu poliţişti britanici sunt interzise]

One of the latest pieces of bad news from the UK – a new anti-terror (anti-liberty in my view) law makes it easier for law enforcement officers in this country to prevent people (including photoholic tourists like me :-) from taking pictures of policemen or military personnel.

This actually restricts the freedom of professional photographers and amateurs to make pictures of any event where the police is present! Of course, they are supposed to do it in the British polite manner, initially asking you ‘to stop taking pictures’, and only afterwards arresting you.

Those who refuse to stop taking pictures after being warned may be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison or unspecified fines. But what if you don’t hear the warning or you’re just too excited about what you’re shooting to stop rightaway?! Or what if the event (a riot, a strike, a streetfight, a car accident, the seizure of somebody etc) is really worth taking pictures of?

Like many British laws (which are so peculiar, so vague, so unclear to those used to a French-style or continental manner of legislating), I guess there’s no clear interdiction, but a relative one… left to the presumed common sense (?!) of the policemen.

And it’s quite funny to read in China Daily, the English newpaper of a Communist regime, this advice given by the Associated Press: “Tourists better think twice now before snapping pictures of the iconic British bobby,” isn’t it?

After other people expressed their opinions on such an un-British interdiction – as long as taking pics of a British Bobby was basically a ‘must do’ for every foreigner coming to visit the UK – I don’t think I could add any more relevant comments.

What I want to say is that you don’t have to be a photoholic, in order to feel somehow sorry that pictures like the above one (with mounted policewomen Kensington Gardens), may become impossible to take…

Obviously, the official explanation – that terrorists may take photos of officers and ‘targets’ – is complete nonsense. Had this silly motivation been offered in another country than the UK (one facing a real and permanent terrorist threat – Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan etc), it could be somehow understandable, however, still hardly acceptable.

Given the fact that the UK is so filled up with surveillance devices and people are being photographed hundreds of times each day, I’d say that this law is the first step towards imposing a state monopoly on taking pictures in public spaces... Forbidding people from taking pictures is clearly another symptom of the terminal disease the British democracy is suffering from.

It may be a matter of years (as this economic crisis enhances totalitarian impulses) or still decades (I’d be excessively optimistic to believe this, wouldn’t I?), but this British democracy – as many people in the world admire it, and as many Brits unfortunately take it for granted – is already in its death throes...

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]