Animus Unhinged – Paul McCarroll, a review.

This review was originally written for MetalIreland (www.metalireland.com) and appears here in its unedited form.  You can visit with curiosity and peruse with incredulity the Unhinged website at www.unhinged.me.uk and this essential hard backed collection is available there directly.

 

There really was no questioning or second-guessing, I saw the announcement, I clicked, I knew something truly special was making its way towards me. I deem it impossible that any fan of Irish heavy metal be not also an admirer of at least one piece of art by Paul McCarroll, the normal world designation of the creative genius known as Unhinged, though his reputation among most will tend mostly to the macabre, his catalogue yields a surprising eclecticism, superficially speaking there is something for everyone. But in all regards I have nothing superficial to say about this collection, to turn the page from one mind-grasping image to the next reflecting only on how “cool” this or that looks or how the style reminds of this guy or that guy is to make a coffee table book for metallers out of an illuminated epistle for the inquisitive mind. There is nothing cool about Animus Unhinged; it is not the dude posed in front of the mirror basking in how perfectly it has rendered its skin tones; it is the unseen but palpable presence which reaches us from beyond the looking glass and forces us to ask of our world, “Is this really all there fucking is?”

In his endwords to this beautifully bound book Martin Walkyier (Skyclad, Sabbat) waxes lyrical about this concept of soul which is so integral to our judgements of all art forms. What he says goes far in explaining what separates Unhinged from many other artists; the pouring of the self into the art, the unabashed revelation of the individual, the courage to be known, in the sense that yes, as well as the paint and the pixels, there is a part of the man in each work. But soul seems an odd word to use in relation to Paul McCarroll, I do not feel or sense or divine anything of a soul from his work, whether that be in his art or in the nihilistic audio expression known as the band Scald. The artist openly blurs the line between his music and his art, the artist is the output, the output is the artist, no one part can be removed as being “other”. Every part is a complement to every other. So why do I say that I feel no soul? Is it simply an absence of warmth or humanity? Not quite, it is more that the grim, visceral immediacy of these images fashions me a portrait of the artist as a vessel, empty of self, willingly presented to be filled by the very real horrors and nightmares of a thinly veiled existence most have no awareness of. If I completely suspend all disbelief, as I am ever more lead to do as I turn the pages, then I can no longer view the artist as a creative force but as someone who merely transmits this other reality in all its overwhelming disquietude.

What warmth there is, in the poignancy with which the works which draw directly from our own visible world are captured, only works to further entrench the uneasiness caused by the collection as a whole. We are not in the presence of someone who puts their soul into their creations, we are in the presence of someone who sees the empires of evil and chaos which seep into our world in their raw, unbridled state. The artist is simply reporting this reality for those willing to accept it, and his reports are delivered with gut wrenching lucidity.

Pick any face from these pictures and you can get inside it, that creature has lived, there is not just a moment captured but an entire existence. There is everything you need for you to imagine yourself in that place, torturer or torturee, executioner or victim, master or slave. Not just fear or suffering in their expressions but a full and complex climax of a lifetime of pleasure-pain. The moment as the culmination of all preceding moments. Dynamic imagery. Far easier to believe that the artist has seen this grotesque theatre than to imagine he, or anyone else, may have created it.

As I said, superficially marking references of style to other artists can easily be done but to do so is to observe on a completely inconsequential level. What Paul McCarroll has in common with a small, and perhaps cursed, selection of artists is exactly that arrowslit through which they glimpse other worlds which pass next to and sometimes overlap with ours. Beyond the possible comparisons of style the comparison of vision tends entirely to H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, the former for his ability to conjur up terrifying mythologically proportioned nightmares which burst into our world, the latter for proposing that these nightmares were even more real than us. McCarroll seems to swagger wantonly between both positions. Were one to ask to which he associated himself most, a feasible Unhinged response may well be, “Whichever one lied the fucking least!” Creation and vision being equally lie and truth. Equally and neither.

Have I always felt like this about Unhinged? No, not at all, it would have been impossible to personally tie together the links from the snatches of images taken from this album cover or that project to then form an overall impression (Paul distinguishes “Art” as being his personal projects and “Illustration” as being commissioned work). But it was precisely the suspicion that there was more going on that made possession of Animus Unhinged an imperative. This is no simple collection of one man’s art into which one should think no further. This collection is in itself a piece of art, it has its own message arising from the choices of the artist, a creation of many creations. To paraphrase from I shan’t say where: “The making of a good collection is a very subtle art. Many do’s and don’ts. First of all you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.” The beauty of this collection, the anticipation of its arrival, lay in the desire to know what the artist would weave out of his own poetry, his own snapshots taken of other worlds. The magic of its organisation is the opportunity it gives us to also become open to receiving the horrific truth of what lies just beyond the obvious. In his humbling by its humility introduction Paul McCarroll dismisses discussion of creative psychology and speaks of an asocial obsession, the hyperbole of this “review” (who amongst us could actually artistically critique these contents?) is thus exactly that; this is human creation at its best and most thought-provoking, in the pages of Animus Unhinged you can let yourself become lost, at your own peril, in staggeringly vivid realities, constantly thinking, “Where is it that ideas come from?” As my eyes fall on Baphomet surveying over an infernal, torture-lust orgy from a piece commissioned by Adorior, I take a side-step to the outlandish and imagine Unhinged giving an answer that owes more to Crowley than Lovecraft. Possession essential.

 

 

Letter to RTE (Irish State Broadcaster) regarding Prime Time, 26th January

The following is a letter sent to RTE and cc’ed to Minister Mary Harney and Minister John Curran.  The programme it relates to can be viewed here:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1064984

To Whom It May Concern

I have just watched the section of Prime Time, 26th January, dealing with Head Shops and, increasingly towards the end of the piece, mephedrone. I am not quite sure where to begin in pointing out how thin, short-sighted, reactionary, ill-reasoned, obfuscated and intellectually offensive I found it. First let me go straight to the short-sightedness as it is this which has the most resounding effects on human safety, the aspect the piece spoke most about.

I am sure that RTE wants to see itself as a guardian of public safety and would like its viewers to see it in a similar light; hard-hitting journalism, asking the questions that matter, getting the voice of the people where it needs to be, putting the government under pressure and so on and so forth. However, is it RTE’s job merely to reflect the questions of a thusfar uninformed public or, as state broadcaster, is it not RTE’s job to inform the public? I say uninformed here only in regards to, for instance, a substance such as MDVP or mephedrone and I use the word ‘inform’ as opposed to ‘pander to’. Not once in the piece did RTE ask the question; what happens to drugs that are banned? Two things happen to them, one is mentioned in the piece, one is not. Drugs that are banned are either replaced or, where a suitable replacement cannot be found, they appear as contraband on the illegal market. How amusing to hear an RTE journalist asking a former cocaine-user what his dealer thought about him choosing legal highs over illegal ones. Amusing and bemusing, as it certainly seems that the line of discourse RTE have chosen would see street dealers stay in business for as long as possible, passing over to them an increasingly lengthy roster of illegal, but marketable, substances to peddle. Did nobody in editing notice the clash of reasoning in having a medical opinion stating that abscesses from injecting legal substances were worse than those from injecting cocaine? Or the complete lack of reasoning in having medical opinions stating that replacement drugs are increasingly unpredictable in their effects while at the same time clamouring to keep on systematically banning them? The answer is no, because the programme seems to have been designed only to appeal to a specific audience and most certainly not to put forward ideas and proposals that would make life safer for what we might call ‘career’ drug users.

All RTE has done in this piece is make itself a part of a discourse on narcotics which does nothing to address the causes of drug use, the address of which is the only constructive way to approach the subject. Psycho-active drugs are marketable because people want them. The question that RTE should be asking is this; what kind of nation are we the people, under the leadership of our government, creating, that leads so many to seek pleasure and release in substances which many claim have detrimental effects? RTE have chosen not to ask this question but have chosen instead to further marginalise those who find themselves in a position where this is indeed their only release. So, in its position as spokesperson for the nation, is RTE driving the government towards legislation that will improve or worsen our beautiful state and everything that it was built on? Certainly when hearing a lawyer suggest ‘imaginative’ legal steps and a presenter heckling a minister more or less towards ignoring due-process, and then broadcasting these views to the eyes and ears of the viewership of Prime Time, who, let’s be honest, are probably not those who find themselves seeking such releases on a Friday or Saturday night, one is lead to somewhat believe that RTE has taken upon itself to encourage the public to shout and scream for legislation on subjects it knows little or nothing about. But what it should be doing, as stated, is informing the public and, much more importantly, encouraging the public to inform themselves, as I did after watching the piece, having never heard of mephedrone before.

This is the very worst kind of mass-appeal journalism. The constant leaping between generalities and specifics was simply mind-boggling – did RTE expressly decide to confuse the issue as much as possible? A doctor is asked about his experience in A&E wards concerning the drugs, he talks almost exclusively about hallucinogenics, then mentions a survey from the UK stating that mephedrone is now the 4th most popular drug amongst clubbers – I also found this piece of information on wikipedia. What he does not do is mention any specific case from experience that he can accurately pin on mephedrone. But apparently that doesn’t matter, the word has been used and so Keelin Shanley, speaking, apparently, for the whole nation, starts demanding that the minister ban it, ban it, ban it, whatever it takes just ban it. Seemingly our presenter has learnt nothing in the preceding ten minutes about the almost instant replaceability of these drugs or, on a general level, how easy illegal drugs are to access despite their status as such.

Here is an interesting quote from the same wikipedia page on mephedrone, where I’m sure Dr.Chris Luke got his UK survey result from: Professor David Nutt, former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in the UK: “people are better off taking ecstasy or amphetamines than those [drugs] we know nothing about” and “Who knows what’s in [mephedrone] when you buy it? We don’t have a testing system. It could be very dangerous, we just don’t know. These chemicals have never been put into animals, let alone humans.”

That right there is the crux and nutshell of the entire issue: better the devil you know. There is a discourse on narcotics that must be had, even Gay Byrne suggested that it needed to take place but public opinion, backed up by the loud media voices, shouted him down and even, with a further complete lack of logic, suggested that he was being doubly irresponsible given his position on the Road Safety Authority. Every person who dies in this nation from substance abuse, be it cocaine, nicotine, heroin, alcohol, amphetamines or through the side-effects of hallucinogenics, represents a tragedy. What price can you put on a human life? we are asked in the report. You cannot put a price on it. Therefore there is only one statistic to be taken into account, not how many people have died due to this substance or that one (which as we all know would shine a very dark light on nicotine and alcohol) but the statistic of all drug use in Ireland – is it increasing or decreasing? If RTE really care about the state of the nation and not just about appealing to the target audience of one of its documentary news programmes then it should look at the fact that drug use is increasing and say; current legislation and banning of substances is not decreasing drug use. The problem must therefore lie somewhere else. Real hard-hitting journalism would be to go and find that. I, for one, am utterly fed-up of legislation which does nothing more than appear to be useful, but that surface appearance need only be scratched the tiniest amount to see how false it is.

There is my viewer challenge to RTE – to admit, statistically, that current drug policy – drug strategy as they now call it – is neither decreasing drug usage nor, more importantly, making drug usage safer for those addicted, and to encourage our government to take positive, constructive steps towards honestly educating its people and letting itself be educated by its people, asking them why they have this unquenchable thirst for release that feeds both the legal and the illegal drug market. The banning of a substance merely creates a vacuum, as with the changes of off-licensing laws, legislation without replacement alternative action achieves nothing. I would dearly like to see RTE adopt this positive, constructive approach in suggesting that our government seek to find and heal the social causes of substance abuse and not continue to just drive it, still expanding, further into the underground.

A message from John Locke to fundamentalists and neo-atheists…

No, not the character from Lost – although it’s worth noting that yes, he is named after that most modest of all philosophers whose message I am about to deliver.  I’m afraid that as I prepare for exams the second part of Every Man Is An Island is still two or three weeks away – thanks to and patience asked of those who have enquired after it.

Today I have been revisiting what I consider the greatest of all philosophical works, John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and in doing so stumbled across a passage which encapsulates all that is wonderful about his mind, his construction of thought, his modesty and his appeal to man to be tempered.  And so, carried across more than 300 years, a passage for meditation for all of us to consider when facing opposition of thought.  I address it specifically to fundamentalists and neo-atheists although of course the former perfectly incorporates the latter much as such would like to be denied, for some would claim that fundamentalism does not exist when backed up by truth.  But the important aspect to be born in mind should be whether or not our words and our rhetoric improve or diminish the world around us.  The truth, if it be such, should not be used as a weapon, its power is not to be wielded but to be allowed, by its own power, to sow the seeds of questioning that the human mind produces naturally by itself.  When we try and use truth as a weapon we destroy its power, we shatter its blade against what we attack, the seeds are not sown, they fall, impotent, on barren ground.  There are those of us who wish the truth to be known by all, who dismay to see it snatched up by impatient and arrogant hands and dashed, wasted and diminished against conflicting views instead of merely being neutrally presented as the mirror it is to all thought which finds itself in opposition to it.  Parallel to the debate on the existence of God is the somewhat more valid debate as to whether the hasty, crude and frankly vulgar approach of the neo-atheists is in fact doing more damage to the dissemination of truth than good.  This especially considering that those most prominent among them seem determined to completely ignore all that we have learnt from psychology and sociology regarding the fixing of cultural opinion and the study of how it changes and develops, favouring rather to just continually wield and thrash about with scientific truth (note that I do not deny this element) to the clamoring applause of those who were already converted.

I hand over to Mr.Locke:

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book IV, Chapter 16 – extract

Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several opinions, without certain and indubitable proofs of their truth; and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance, lightness, or folly, for men to quit and renounce their former tenets presently upon the offer of an argument which they cannot immediately answer and show the insufficiency of; it would, methinks, become all men to maintain peace and the common offices of humanity and friendship in the diversity of opinions, since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own opinion, and embrace ours with a blind resignation to an authority which the understanding of man acknowledges not.  For, however it may often mistake, it can own no other guide but reason, nor blindly submit to the will and dictates of another.  If he you would bring over to your sentiments be one that examines before he assents, you must give him leave at his leisure to go over the account again, and, recalling what is out of his mind, examine the particulars, to see on which side the advantage lies; and if he will not think over arguments of weight enough to engage him anew in so much pains, it is but what we do often ourselves in the like case; and we should take it amiss if others should prescribe to us what points we should study: and if he be one who wishes to take his opinions upon trust, how can we imagine that he should renounce those tenets which time and custom have so settled in his mind that he thinks them self-evident, and of an unquestionable certainty; or which he take to be impressions he has received from God himself, or from men sent by him?  How can we expect, I say, that opinions thus settled should be given up to the arguments or authority of a stranger or adversary? especially if there be any suspicion of interest or design, as there never fails to be where men find themselves ill-treated.  We should do well to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of information, and not instantly treat others ill as obstinate and perverse because they will not renounce their own and receive our opinions, or at least those we would force upon them, when it is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs.  For where is the man that has uncontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say, that he has examined to the bottom all his own or other men’s opinions?  The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than to restrain others… There is reason to think, that if men were better instructed themselves, they would be less imposing on others.

Every Man Is An Island: Part 1 – A guide to drifting back together…

In hundreds of years time anthropologists may be asking themselves whether humans drifted apart or whether they were pushed. Or maybe we will have addressed the problem by then. It happens to be Christmas week, though what I’m going to write doesn’t really have anything to do with that, just one of life’s coincidences that I feel like talking about the importance of returning to a way of life that embraces unity and human cooperation. Not just because that would create a better world but also because it’s naturally what every fibre of your being craves. Are you all familiar with the works of John Donne? Probably not, I wasn’t either until yesterday when I was running the only quote of his I knew around in my head. I think the majority of us are familiar only with that famous bumper sticker quote he wrote: No man is an island. I say bumper sticker but really I mean horse and cart sticker as it was written in the early 17^th century and at the time he was writing it was actually true. Good for you John Donne! But unfortunately it’s not true anymore. I think you could construct a quite convincing hypothesis that modern society since the industrial age has been hell-bent on turning every man into an island, transforming humanity into a huge collection of islands all connected together by merchant trade routes, a disparate sprinkle of floating landmasses taxed and excised on the exchange of our most fundamental needs. I’m going to present some ideas here and they may seem a bit ridiculous and they may even seem a little warm and fuzzy and your first reaction may be one of utter cynicism but I’m also going to present to you the idea that most of our modern cynicism is also due to the individualisation, the ‘islandisation’ that western life is undergoing or has in fact already largely undergone.

So let’s go back in history to a time before the industrial age, let’s go back to say 1624, just because that is the year that our friend Mr.Donne wrote his ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ and let’s look at what immediately follows the quote: no man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Beautiful. Every man needs his fellow man, from the most fundamentally emotional level to the blatant physical needs of nourishment and nurture, we rely on each other, this is the continent that we are part of. And what was the dream of industry? What has always been, and still remains today despite 150 years of practise to the contrary, the dream of industry? The dream has been that industry would make man’s life easier, that man would need to spend less time toiling and more time advancing, that man would have an abundance of those things he needed most like food, clean water, shelter, that this abundance would lead him to share with those who lacked and that in this sharing man would negate the need or even desire for conflict and warfare.

Writing in 1897 the father of modern sociology Emile Durkheim wrote the following damning summation of the industrial age which reverberates ever louder these 112 years later as its truth has snowballed to globally encompassing extents: Industry, rather than continuing to be regarded as a means to an end which surpasses it, has become the end supreme of individuals and of societies. What is the function of industry in this age? Can we honestly look at our modern society of endless products and say that industry is there to make our lives easier, to help us enjoy life to a fuller extent, to help us better understand ourselves and advance our species as a whole, to ensure that each human has access to the human rights the UN purports to revere as its ultimate aim? Or is it not a lot truer to say that industry is there seemingly only to regenerate and constantly reaffirm the necessity of its existence by making us more and more reliant on it for our day to day existence, constantly upholding the increasingly ancient and hollow dream that one day industry will allow us to toil less and advance more? Can we deny that industry is now the end supreme of each of our lives and of society in general? How is it that we assess our progress as a species? By the advancement of industry. As a species we have not advanced at all, we are slaves to the same power struggles that exist amongst animals. What good our ability to reason if our reason is only used or abused in a struggle for power and if industry has become the most powerful weapon in that struggle? And yes of course industry has the power and the ability to make all our lives easier… so why doesn’t it? Not wanting to scare some of you away but a quote from a Sepultura song penned by Jello Biafra seems most appropriate here: like all technology, it’s in the wrong hands. And what hands are they? They are hands whose only motivation is power and money. Which you will of course all know, from another famous bumper sticker quote, are one and the same thing: money is power. Power to purchase on one level and power to control those who wish to purchase on a higher level.

How then is power gained in a capitalist system? Very simple: you make individuals want to purchase, the more they purchase the more power you gain over them to convince them to purchase more and the more resources you have to convince new people to purchase and then this cycle repeats and extends ad infinitum, taking as examples of perfect models the global giants like Gap, Nike, McDonalds, Calvin Klein, Apple etc etc. I repeat, these are perfect examples of industry working at its self-sustaining best, their ilk are the gold medal winners of global industry and capitalism. And this is the system which controls industry, a system which demands endless consumption to function and the only way to feed endless consumption is endless over-production, surplus, waste. Ensuring that there is constantly product available while also constantly updating product to ensure you have something new to advertise necessarily demands over-production. I won’t be getting into that aspect right here but in our current overtly green-conscious mentality it’s worth bearing in mind that capitalism necessitates surplus and waste, this is something you can look into for yourself should it interest you. But back on track, how do you convince someone to purchase something? Mind-boggingly simple: you just tell them that they will be happier if they have it. This is where we have really let the human race down, mankind discovers the wonders of mapping and tracking the impulsions, desires and basic natural motivations of the human mind in the form of psychology and psychoanalysis and, effectively, hands this power to the advertisers and marketers to run amok with, selling pure power willy-nilly to the highest bidders. Advertisers for the most part don’t sell products anymore, they sell an image, they sell a life that is better than yours. They intoxicate your senses with a visceral sense of lack, they force your brain to associate those runners or that perfume or this coffee or that bra or their credit card or the latest car with a life that is better than the one you currently have, a life in which you are happier. They are right to sell in this way. It is a more effective means of selling. They know this from studying human psychology.

But it is all lies. It is only human interaction which can fulfill the fundamental human needs that we have. That is why the advertisers constantly sell an image utterly imbued with human interaction but are actually selling you an obstacle and a distraction from accomplishing it. For capitalism and the modern market to work at their fullest extents it is imperative that we the people be convinced that we need product to achieve happiness. The very last thing that capitalism wants is for man to realise and fully understand that he is an organic and natural being, that all his needs and desires are natural and organic. To purchase a synthetic, manufactured object in the pursuit of happiness is to buy into this lie. The breakdown of community spirit, the general mistrust openly advocated by modern governments, the negative reinforcement used as an educational tool in regards to sex, these are not accidents and allowing their influence seep into your brain is allowing yourself be turned into an island, to be pushed away from humanity. In the western world every man is or is becoming an island. It’s as if some marketer grasped the meaning of ‘no man is an island’, grasped that man has a fundamental need to associate with his fellow human beings, that man is a social animal and said to themselves, “Surely that means if we push men apart we can sell him products to re-build those bonds! Jackpot!” And we are actively encouraged to be distrustful, our parents, our teachers, our governments – the entire hierarchy of advice and education is built around the transmission of protection by fear. Sex, arguably the greatest physical pleasure man is capable of, is taught through fear. What do our schools teach our children about sex? How to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. What advertisements do our governments put on our television screens about sex? How to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. By this merit we have a right to demand our governments start broadcasting advertisements for perfume which only focus on what happens if you spray it in your eye or for tomatoes that show how easy it is to burn your tongue on a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich because the water in the tomato retains its heat longer than the other components. Our governments tell us that sex is dangerous and our advertisers tell us it is something beautiful people have… oh and of course you can be a beautiful person too if you use this ‘beauty product’ every day. Beauty product… every time I hear that term I want to vomit.

Listen, sex is no more dangerous than crossing the road, and like crossing the road it’s not just for beautiful people, it’s for everyone, and it’s got two distinct advantages over crossing the road too: you can replicate its effects all by yourself and it’s a lot more fun. I don’t intentionally mean to sound crude but an open and unambiguous attitude to sex, something we are all issue from and the majority of us will encounter again, should be long established in our supposedly advanced society. Who knows, maybe if a utopian society is ever established then the manner in which sex is taught will indeed be completely transformed and its focus will be shifted to teaching people how to fully enjoy sex. My god would that be such a bad thing, to teach the world how to get the most enjoyment possible out of life?

You see, that’s the real problem, we’re forgetting how to enjoy life, natural, organic life. We’re letting ourselves be convinced that we need things, objects, trinkets, tokens or any kind of shiny distraction to be happy. And for as long as we let ourselves be convinced that we need to buy these things then these things will have to be made and for as long as these things are being made people will have to make them and package them and market them and stock them and sell them. There we have a whole cycle of production which serves only to wedge men further apart. But what is it then that makes people happy? It’s people! Sure there’s some people who annoy us and aggravate us but the fundamental happiness bringers, statistically, are finding love or having a child: 100% human interactions (yes, there are always exceptions and some people are not at all happy about having a child – if you’ve read this far and are still splitting hairs I advise you to go and find love or have a child). The more open you make yourself to human contact the less need and desire you will have for synthetic objects. Everytime you see an ad that is selling you some kind of idyllic life with the brand name stamped at the beginning and the end just remember to tell yourself: LIE. The advertising industry can be summed up in one character – the child catcher from Chitty-chitty Bang-bang. An industry that traps you by offering something wonderful but which delivers nothing other than entry into a hollow existence.

So I guess it’s a serendipitous coincidence that it does happen to be Christmas, the unholy double climax of both aspects of modern life: the organic and human aspect together with the synthetic and artificial aspect. But pay close attention to what really gets your spirits up, is it the bottle of aftershave or the hug from an old schoolfriend in the pub? And what is it that makes you feel alive? Is it the computer game which will be outdated in a month or is it half-drunkenly hitting on that girl you’ve always liked because just be human and admit it, who doesn’t want to kiss someone on Christmas Eve?

Anyway, put down the products, switch off the television, scream “Liar!” at the advertisements, go a bit crazy and get out there and live, share life, make a connection with a human being and then do the same thing again tomorrow and the day after that. Merry Christmas my fellow man!

Part 2 of ‘Every man is an island’ coming soon…

Marx, music and the underground metal scene…

(This blog entry was originally written for Irish heavy metal website www.metalireland.com)

There’s nothing a really underground metal fan hates more than a really mainstream metal fan. And there’s nothing a really mainstream metal fan hates more than mainstream pop music fans. It’s a generalisation of course, some people have lives to be getting on with and don’t really concern themselves with what other people are or are not into, but as a generalisation it’s got a fair few hundred thousand people behind it willing to cast all sorts of personal judgements left, right and centre. Now I’ll agree that it can be easy to get sucked into this sort of mentality and especially so if you’re in an underground metal band or run an underground label or promote underground shows but unfortunately there just isn’t that much weight behind how specifically hard done by our little metal lives can seem.

For every one of us who laments the existence of each fanboy who buys Trivium into fame there is an independent film fan who laments the €10 we spent watching the latest discharge from Michael Bay and a drab coat-clad socialist who laments the litre of watered-down Pepsi we sucked on while we were at it. And how on earth not to sound political when essentially talking about capitalism but all three things have exactly the same cause for existence. So is it pointless railing against mainstream music in general and metal specifically while flagrantly ignoring other aspects of the same problem? And, in a nutshell, does money make music shit?

My first ever encounter of money in metal was seeing Lars Ulrich driving a Porsche in a clip filmed during the recording of the Black Album. At the time I was about fourteen years old and money to me was exactly that: what separated me and things, shiny black high-speed things. Well, money and a driving license. And while my initial impression on seeing the clip was admittedly, “holy shit that’s amazing, they’ve made money from playing the best music I know!”, it wasn’t long before I began to understand that the link I had had with these people no longer existed. I distinctly remember listening through to Master of Puppets at around sixteen and during Leper Messiah I thought to myself… make a contribution and you’ll get a better seat… so how much are tickets for the snake pit these days?

We’re meant to mollie-coddle and understand the difficulties of the modern band, we’re meant to sympathise, we’re meant to say “oh poor you, people downloading your music for free!”, we’re supposed to be shocked that modern metal bands like Mastodon don’t rake in millions, we’re supposed to feel like we have an obligation to the bands we enjoy, to get them up there to the comfort zone and then keep them there. Well sorry but I don’t buy it. Literally. Money and the metal aesthetic are like oil and water, Jesus and Satan, Rob Halford and women – they just don’t go together. I’ll happily support an underground metal band but I’ll also happily instantly stop supporting them as soon as they sign up to a money making machine. Good luck to them, on the off chance they’re still making music I’d like to hear then I will steal it from their money making machine masters and I’ll pat myself on the back while I’m at it for doing the music world a favour by not supporting any aspect of it involved in pure product.

Do you know what free downloading of music does? It almost returns the dynamic of music to where it was around 1930 and before. So let’s say 80 years ago, that’s where it brings us back to. Now, I would like every short-sighted, uninformed person who has ever suggested that illegal downloading of music is killing the music industry to ask themselves if music existed before being widely available as a physical product, a piece of merchandise. I’ll give you a few minutes to look up ‘history of music’ in wikipedia if need be. What then was the dynamic of music before 1930? Well, if you wanted to listen to music you could either play it yourself or you could watch someone else play it. And if you were a musician in those days, how did you make money? First of all, you didn’t make very much of it and second of all, what you did make was made through live performance. You travelled around, you sacrificed your life but you sacrificed it only out of obsession for music, there was just as little if not even less chance of fame back then as there is now. For every supposed financial disadvantage the internet age has brought to music there is a potential financial advantage too. But I honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that aspect. As far as I’m concerned the internet has returned recorded music to its rightful place in the big picture of music as an artform – utterly insignificant in terms of any definition of value when compared to the live experience. Who really gets to share in music these days? The closest the average metal fan comes to uniting around metal in a human way is singing and roaring along to their favourite recordings at a session or in a rock bar… which is excellent. But gone is the spontaneous creation or recreation of music which dominated life before 1930. We humans don’t love music any more now than we did before but beforehand the enjoyment of music necessitated the coming together of people, it was a link between men and everyone present was partaking in a creation. Whether spurring an orchestra on with thunderous applause in Paris or Vienna or raising your voice in accord with your neighbours in a local pub to an aul Irish air – you were actively involved in an event which had never happened before and would never happen again. Moments of pure authenticity.

When comparing the experience of the theatre to that of the cinema Walter Benjamin said, “The most lamentable production of Faust in a provincial theatre is superior to a film on that same subject.” Why? Because a recreation is still a creation and man is an animal who creates. A reproduction at its very highest function can only remind us or tell us of a creation which we, probably, had no part in.

I’ve almost forgotten what I’m talking about here… ah yes… capitalism. Listen, be glad of and cherish the fact that you have a genuine underground metal scene to partake in. Sure it’s nice to have these recordings, these reminders and informers of what other people are creating but the scene is alive, music is alive and every person who stands in a dingy bar watching a band struggle or shine is taking part in creating something new. Every musician who complains about music downloading is missing a fundamental point which only really smacked me in the face when people started illegally downloading my music. It’s not the job of the audience to pay the musician to play music. A true musician has an obsession which nothing will quench except the creation of music. Don’t you be worrying about musicians and how they make their bread… and if this means that they can only put up with the lifestyle for 5 years instead of 50 – so what?

And who knows, maybe after thinking about this long enough you’ll see what it means for the other aspects of life we allow be run by other money making machines and you might just think twice about buying into the whole anti-human experience, product-churning monster we’ve let the world turn into. But that’s quite enough of my ranting for now, there’s a market here I want to check out that sells the most wonderfully drab coats…

A fantastically simplistic guide to ending terrorism…

Two ways to do this: you can either declare war on terror and kill all terrorists and anyone who might be thinking about becoming a terrorist and also anyone who becomes a terrorist because you killed all the terrorists oh and anyone who is now thinking about being a terrorist specifically because they disagree with all the terrorist killing that’s going on – actually we might just have to kill all the evil people in the world whether they’re terrorists or not. What? What do you mean there’s no fixed definition of good and evil? Well why isn’t someone working out these so-called abstract concepts? What? Over 2,000 years! Oh for God’s sake, well what did you expect getting the Greeks to do it, you should have got the Germans working on it, they’d have had an answer in no time. Oh yeah? Well this Nietzsche bloke doesn’t sound very German to me, you can’t just decide to go beyond good and evil without sorting it out first. Where would the world be today if people just walked over problems without sorting them out properly? Hmm, good point, yes I guess we would be in exactly the same position as we are, caught up in a war on terror having walked over the real problems without sorting them out at all. Maybe we should take a leaf out of this Nietzsche guy’s book and go beyond terror as well, move on to a war on horror or a war on romantic comedy.

And if we do leave the war on terror behind, then what is the other option for ending terrorism? Well that’s the fantastically simplistic part, much easier than defining good and evil, you simply remove the causes of terrorism. I know, you’d think someone would have already realised this. So what causes terrorism? Well it’s not terror anyway, terror is an effect of terrorism. So a war on terror is a war on an effect of terrorism. It’s a bit like getting punched in the face and then declaring war on broken noses. So if not terror then what does cause this scourge? Romantic comedy? It’s certainly a contender, 9/11 could conceivably have been a review of Maid In Manhattan. But surely it takes a lot to push someone to such a murderous extent, whatever the causes of terrorism they must be serious and they must be many. Don’t you then think that finding and removing these causes should be the primary occupation of our governments and don’t you have to ask yourself why it isn’t? The international war on terror fails to take the only action which can realistically bring about the definitive end to terrorism which is supposedly its objective. The action needed is to move towards a society in which there are no causes of terrorism. A logical and precise plan to identify, understand and remove the elements of our society which drive people to terrorist acts. Identifying these elements involves studying the demands, goals and grievances of terrorists and terrorist sympathisers, studying their social backgrounds, studying events which lead to discontent, studying legislation which leads to unrest, studying all factors which cause or are thought to cause the birth of terrorism. In short, to understand at what point of civil discontent and under what social circumstances man feels justified and righteous in using indiscriminate violence to address the ills he sees around him.

In an ideal world there would be full disclosure after a terrorist attack. For instance after 9/11 someone would have come on the news and given a background to the entire relationship between the US and Afghanistan. And then when it was decided to go to war against them one or two people might have said, hang on, eh… won’t that maybe make things worse in the long run? A full understanding of such situations necessitates that all information available on the root of these causes be made public, that the people be allowed free access to information concerning the causes of terrorism and that they be allowed make their opinion regarding how their state should respond known. If a government, corporation, company or any party is involved in activity which has been identified as a cause of terrorism then the people, those ruled by that government or by the government legislating that party, have a democratic right to all information concerning the situation and a democratic right to have their say in how the government which serves them should respond. All activity deemed to be in opposition of the International Bill of Human Rights must be judged fairly and then all necessary action must be taken to end it. An understanding and objective perspective is the only thing which can move us towards this utopian terror free society we hear about from the war-mongers of today. Terrorism can not be eliminated by fighting terrorists or terrorist acts. The war on terror is to terrorism what water is to an electrical fire. It seems like a good idea only to those who have no understanding of the problem or those who do in fact wish to make the problem worse. To extinguish a fire its fuel must be removed, its cause must be removed. In simplistic terms, the only way to definitively eliminate anything is by eliminating its causes. This is not what the war on terror does. It could be that our governments are unaware that the only way to eliminate terrorism is by removing its causes, they are certainly capable of being unaware. If this is the case they must be informed and then freely allowed to decide whether they will act with their people to remove these causes or if they wish to be replaced to make way for a government that will work to establish a content and equal society.

It could also be that our world leaders and advisors are already aware of this logical simplicity, let’s give them at least some credit, in which case their decision to fight terrorism and not the causes of terrorism is an open rejection of the creation of a terror free society. If they are aware that terrorism can only be eliminated by eliminating its causes but do not act accordingly then our governments are working under motivations which have no bearing on the improvement of society or the establishment of a content and equal world. Any government not working to establish a content and equal society must be replaced. The judgement of all government action across the globe should be based on whether it is action towards contentment and equality or action towards discontent and inequality.

Removing the aspects of society responsible for causing terrorism requires uncompromising action from governments in making every facet of their state, both at home and abroad, conducive to the equality of all humanity. The time of ideology without action must end. The International Bill of Human Rights is a meaningless document without action. Terrorists and those who create the causes of terrorism have one thing in common: a complete disregard for the value of human life or the value of a supportable quality of life. Whether this disregard stems from apathy, hatred or simply a lack of understanding it is a disregard which must and can be addressed. The governments of the west drive their populations to condemn terrorism and to support their war on terror but provide no insight as to who these terrorists are and, most importantly, why these terrorists have a seemingly cold-blooded desire to bring violence and death to civilians across the globe. In regards to terrorist acts the first question asked is why. But, like my little nieces do, we need to keep asking why until we get to the root of the problem. We need to understand the why of why and so on until somewhere along the line of questioning is found the point where humans have been allowed to act in a way which flagrantly places materialistic or ideological values above the value of human life and a supportable quality of human life. It is this point which must be removed.

The general population have been too easily satisfied with the answer to the first why. Our governments have led us to believe that the question “why are there terrorists in the world?” is the same question as “why are there evil men in the world?”. This equivalency does not measure up to anything that we have learnt from the human sciences but when we are told that terrorists are evil men we accept that the only solution is to remove them. If we are lead to believe that terrorists are evil men and that evil men are born that way and so can be justifiably killed, then in those circumstances we end up supporting wars such as happened in Iraq and still continues in Afghanistan. However to believe that evil men are born evil is to ignore over one hundred years of human science, most notably psychology and sociology. The government who says that war is the solution to terrorism is the government who ignores a hundred years of human development in favour of a Machiavellian approach: the end justifies the means. Unfortunately for our governments we can now scientifically show that the end does not justify the means, that in fact what happens in practise is that the means dictate the end. Peaceful means, peaceful end. Violent means, violent end.

The violent means being employed in the war on terror are the water which is agitating and further destabilising the political and social climate through which terrorism is born. These means are, as they always have before, dictating further future violent ends.

How then to remove the causes of terrorism? Only the creation of a content and equal society is the creation of a terror free society. Fantastically simplistic, yes, but think of this rather as a direction than a destination. A direction that everyone can point themselves in, from the lowest to the highest levels of the social order: invididual to familial, communal to social, national to political. To recall an expression often used by a teacher of mine: we have to learn to disagree without being disagreeable. Behaviour we do not accept in ourselves we will not accept in our governments. And when we see a terrorist act and ask why this has happened we can’t let ourselves be satisfied with an answer which owes more to the old testament than modern science such as – because there is ‘evil’ in the world. Someone who gives this as an answer either does not understand the problem or is trying to hide the real causes.

So is the fantastically simplistic solution just to be excellent to each other? Did Bill and Ted give us the right answer back in 1991 and we just weren’t ready? Maybe so. But most importantly when talking about terrorism remember, the means dictate the end. The more and more we understand of the human sciences the more we see that not only is conflict regenerative but also counterproductive to all, barring those who profit directly from it. And the end of conflict is a responsibility which is weighted equally on every individual, an individual who does not resort to conflict will engender a society which does not resort to conflict. We have allowed the human sciences be hijacked for the politicians and advertisers and marketers and economists of the world to influence our thoughts and decisions. There is only one way to counter this trend: get informed and inform others while always resisting conflict. As soon as your rhetoric becomes conflictual it necessarily becomes ineffectual.

Recommended viewing: The Power of Nightmares – Adam Curtis/BBC

Unrecommended viewing: Maid In Manhattan

It’s a far cry to prayer from Toblerones…

“That’s not real is it?  You can’t print that!”  This is the response given by Spinal Tap when Marti DiBergi reads them the two word review of their album Shark Sandwich which simply says, “Shit Sandwich”.  Well a shit sandwich is certainly what seems to be becoming of western thought and the reasoning behind what should be the march towards a more advanced and damn it just better society.  So some Swiss people thought they’d take advantage of the country’s direct democracy structure and have a referendum about Islamic architecture.  Slow day at the clock factory.  So, what is direct democracy?  Well, technically speaking direct democracy is fantastic and you may hear it also referred to as popular democracy or participatory democracy but they’re not exactly the same and I’m not getting into how here.  But basically put there are a lot of referendums in Switzerland, any citizen can challenge any law at any time, or in flowery political language: full sovereignty belongs equally and in full to every Swiss citizen.  It’s the kind of system which sounds instantly appealing, power shared amongst the people and anyone who decides to take an interest can really make a difference.

There’s just one problem: some of the differences that some people sometimes decide to make are the kind of things that should never, ever appear in written law in the 21st century in a nation like Switzerland.  The kind of laws that would, for instance, prohibit the building of minarets (small tower from which the muzzein calls the adhan – the muslim call to prayer) on mosques.  Now I can understand that from time to time the Swiss may like to stay up late having fondue parties and that the last thing they would want the next morning is to be woken up at dawn by a man standing in a small tower on the local mosque calling the local muslim community to prayer… we can all understand that… but how do you expect to vote in a law saying you can’t even build the little tower without expecting to be called a nation of small-minded racists?  Okay so you don’t like the sound of the adhan but hang on a minute, you gave the world yodelling!  And no, the toblerones don’t make up for it.

I find it hard to understand how this latest law can possibly be deemed beneficial to anybody.  Surely in Switzerland the building of anything is subject to local planning permission just like anywhere else in the western world.  Surely it would have sufficed that on a local level those wishing to object to a planned minaret could have just lodged their objection and blocked the construction on a case by case basis.  Wouldn’t that have been the sensible, non-bigoted, non-prejudiced, non-idiotic thing to do?  Why publically defecate in your own constitution, in front of the whole world, by demonstrating that you’re just as close minded as the Islamic dictatorships?  Why completely avoid finding a well reasoned solution to the problem?  Why think to yourselves that yes, this seems fair, it seems fair that the entire nation vote on an issue which concerns a non-violent religious practise of 4% of the population?  Do you really think it seems fair that we pass laws not based on reason or advanced intelligence but on fear, prejudice, lack of information and short-sightedness?  Oh brave new world!

Well why the hell am I so strung up about the tiny minority of Swiss people that make up the muslim population being allowed stick a wee wooden box on their mosques?  Specifically I’m not.  Collectively I am.  A couple of months ago Slovakia passed a law outlawing the use of the Hungarian language in all public places.  These are not isolated events.  More and more we’re seeing what are supposedly advanced, modern societies moving away from any semblance of an interest in advancement.  More and more we’re seeing and hearing that intolerance is fine, that causing outrage is alright as long as we think that the other party is in some way immoral or stupid.  And right in the middle of this fray of anger and intolerance are the intellectuals fopping about on their high horses, wielding their intelligence with all the delicacy and gentleness of a polo mallet and all the time lapping up the whooping praise of their followers who are essentially just chasing after a horse’s ass, running around behind them wielding miniature sized replica mallets of their hero’s intelligence.  But intelligence is not being spread.  Not one iota of intelligence is imparted.  These are attacks pure and simple and for all their intelligence these intellectuals seem not to have noticed the little army of self-righteous hate imbued mini-mes they’re creating out of the choir nor the fact that they don’t know how to convert.  Ooh, I bet that hurts, the implication that maybe there is something to be learnt from the religious, hmm?  Well of course there is you blathering idiots, you don’t think they ended up controlling the minds of the majority of all humans using fairy dust do you?

What does religion do that attracts people to it?  It puts information where there is a lack, I won’t for a moment dare say whether this information is correct or not but it puts information where there is a lack.  No converted muslim ever became so because a muslim attacked their beliefs.  No one ever became a christian because a preacher knocked at their door and told them they were simple-minded and hallucinating.  So yes indeed the intellectuals could learn something from religion – they could learn how to spread information.  And what wonderful information it is, the very best, scientifically verifiable, visible, tangible… real.  If we must speak of faith then surely the faith we should be speaking of is faith in the truth of our information.  Every day there are new converts, muslims, christians, buddhists, hindus… what is it that the intellectuals are lacking which these religions offer?  Could it possibly be that in worrying so much about being right the intelligensia of the world often forget how to be human?

Switzerland, what a terrible mistake you have made, what an easy solution there was to your problem but no… we in the west have shown once again that for all our science, intelligence and supposed advanced civilisation we really don’t have a damn clue.

Lisbon…oh you are the living end…

Whatever your personal views I’d ask those of you who see the EU as the local face of a global scheme tied in with Bilderburg, the Industrial Military complex and the Illuminati to put aside those views for the moment.  It is important to realise that at times the expression of some views can be counter-productive to immediate matters.  What is even more important is that there are very concrete unaddressed issues involved in Lisbon which means resorting to the lies that have been scattered around by Libertas and Cóir are completely unnecessary and, in the longterm, also counter-productive.  While I am in the No camp I do fear that if No wins again then it will be all too easy for Europe to begin to dismiss the Irish as detached from reality, paranoid, illogical and resistant to change.  While I can’t do anything to prevent that eventuality what I can do is present some of my views which are devoid of New World Order conspiracies.  There are very rationally based reasons for voting No, for taking a stand against what is happening in the EU today.  I was actually pro-Lisbon before the first election simply on the basis of the lying and blackmailing 1916 referencing that was being tossed around, it is quite normal for people to align themselves against what they see as nonsense, what sowed the seeds of doubt was the reaction we received after the No vote and this lead me to delve further into the rationality of the proposals.

Why people think that democracy should become a given, that a country’s encyclopedia entry should dictate what we call their form of government rather than what actually happens there is an awful thing to see.  Democracy in almost every European country was wrestled and fought for by the people and it is the people who are meant to have full power.  Let me stress that again: every EU country is a democracy and therefore the citizens of every EU country should have full power over the direction their nations take.  Look at us, we don’t even have a system to oust a government that no one wants, the dregs of Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fáil are our public servants, they have power only because we attribute it to them, they are not meant to have power over us, they are meant to administrate systems along guidelines and directions that the people, that’s you and me, deem appropriate.  Voting away power, no matter to how insignificant a level, should not even be considered and I say that especially because of ‘the state we’re in’.  The state we’re in is this: we are being run into the ground by a cabinet whose objectives and vision are incomprehensible at best and destructive at worst.  A democracy where the leader was not elected, where he has a 17% approval rating, where the government itself has an 11% approval rating and there is no system in place whereby the people can prompt an election, in this sham democracy we can’t even get them out of power despite the leader being an un-elected replacement.  This government, a government 11% of people approve of, are asking us to vote Yes and using our crippled financial state, for which they are largely to blame, as a reason for this.  The sheer gall of this juxtaposition of cause and effect is shocking and needs to be seen.

As hinted above, voting into stronger union with a conglomerate of governments who do not allow their peoples the freedom to make decisions on such matters for themselves and who furthermore do their utmost to get around such an eventuality if and when it occurs is not a democratic move.  Supposedly ratifying the Lisbon Treaty will bring more democracy to the EU.  This is not true, no change brought about undemocratically could possibly be said to increase democracy, it can only increase one view of democracy which, of course, by definition could never be called truly democratic.  This may seem like simple word playing but is fundamentally important: democracy is the majority rule of the people.  The two key terms there are majority and the people.  Ireland wasn’t the only nation who voted No to the European Constitution but suddenly we are to believe that all of Europe are gung-ho to follow the plans of a group of men who will re-word and re-mangle this proposition until they can pull it past their own people without having to ask them about it.  This does not ring true.

The number of those who voted first time round in Ireland may not seem like very much as a percentage of all Europeans but it is known full well that the EU’s very existence and the power given it does not match the people of the EU’s sentiment towards it.  If a full vote were given to every member state of the EU and all had to agree for the treaty to be ratified then it would be flat on its feet. They know this. Their response to knowing this is to get it in without asking about it.  This argument has been bandied in variously misrepresented forms by both sides, Cóir most ridiculously quoting Charlie McCreevy has having said 95% of Europeans would vote No.  This is blatantly not true.  However such things as the rejection of the European Constitution by France and Denmark coupled with the United Kingdom’s popular anti-Euro attitude can lead us quite conclusively to believe that Ireland’s people are in no way the only ones who would return a No vote to this issue.

We have seen almost no efforts to inform the people since the No vote went through.  An issue which can almost perfectly bisect the population should have been given long and open debate right from the start, it should not have been left to poster campaigning and scare mongering by either side.  Personally, after long reflection and reading since the reaction we got from the other members for voting No first time, I would vote No again and again and again until we were voting to increase power, and the efficient handling of that power, wielded by the central representation of 27 member states all of whom likewise voted for it.

There is no logical basis for a Yes vote providing more jobs, ameliorating the financial crisis, providing more stability, securing the future or safekeeping against future recessions (financial growth is impossible without periodic contraction) than a No vote would.  There is equally no logical basis behind a single thing that Cóir have said and personally I do wish they would keep their voice silent.  We weren’t down enough last time to vote Yes…it seems our government are hoping we are now, this much is clear from Fianna Fáil’s campaign: Ireland Needs Europe etc etc.  The blatant scaremongering of both sides is pathetic – are people afraid of presenting truth devoid of exaggerated pessimism?

What I want to know is this: what exactly is it that the EU want to do that necessitates the Lisbon Treaty…why can’t they agree to this action without it and why are the other countries not willing to put it to a vote?  The only EU I would want to get closer to is a more fully, openly, actively democratic Europe where all major decisions have to be explained to and decided on by the people…if that means waiting until the introduction of an education system that actually encourages the existence of informed individuals on a large scale then so be it.  Handing over more control to supersilious and arrogant upper management types who believe that the common man is not intelligent enough to comprehend what is ‘best for him’ is not something I think will help create a more equal and smooth-running society in Europe.

I will not deny that there are positive proposals in the Lisbon Treaty, movements to support human rights and renewable energy increase are always welcomed, but why these changes require such a large change to the EU bureaucracy is baffling.  If I did have to put on my tinfoil conspiracy hat I might say that the positive changes have been bundled in with the, let’s say, more divisive changes simply to detract attention and to give definite positives to point at.  I cannot imagine that the people of any EU member state would vote against giving more power to the bill of human rights or to greater development of clean and renewable energy.  Why indeed do these changes need to be linked to changes to the construction of the EU government which are causing the polemic in the first place?  Is it just a sweetener?  We don’t know.  What we do know is that so many decisions bundled into one makes it very difficult to discuss this subject, almost insurmountably difficult: voting No can be said to make you anti-human rights, anti-renewable energy and, most bizarrely, anti-democracy.  Let me assure the Yes voters that this is not the case, it is the EU that has thrust this false situation upon proceedings.  I for one am very much in favour of increased human rights, actively environmental and intensely democratic.

Simply put, other nations have been hoodwinked into this but the only reason that has been possible is because most people don’t care.  Don’t let yourself be fooled that this is going through in Europe because people want it…and don’t foolishly think either that most people don’t want it.  Most people actually couldn’t care less and that’s exactly the way the EU heads want it: a complacent follower is much more useful to those already in power than a supporter.  Supporters are passionate and useful in getting into power, complacent followers never rock the boat.  If more people across Europe openly wanted this ratification then more people would openly not want it…the best state of affairs for any ruling party is complacency on the part of the people.  Largely speaking the word on the street around Europe about the Lisbon Treaty was non-existent until Ireland voted no, most people knew nothing about it.  Another funny inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty which relates to this is the introduction of a right of initiative for EU citizens whereby they can bring proposals to the EU commission.  Here’s a proposal for the EU commission: give EU citizens the right to vote.

When it comes to voting this second time on Lisbon the question we should be asking ourselves is not whether Lisbon is a good move for Ireland but whether the EU is moving in a direction that closer represents its citizens.  Our response should be this: change what EU government represents until it actually represents the people.

There is only one way to do this: by going to the people, all of them.

Proposed blasphemy legislation in Ireland

In the interests of full disclosure let me state from the outset that I am neither an atheist nor affiliated with any religious body.  I suppose I would be what you would call an agnostic but this is not due to an uncertainty of what to believe, it is more fully truthful to say that I wholeheartedly believe human beings’ limited minds are incapable of understanding the universe well enough to state with any level of logical certainty whether there is or is not a divine power with definable personality traits and an active interest in our lives.  There may be.  There may not be.  I am just as likely to be offended by Richard Dawkins as I would be by Mr.Ratzinger over in the Vatican as both of them are just as blinkered in their chosen view point as the other and the only central tenet of either of their beliefs I can point to and state as true is arrogance.  And now let me extend that blanket from these two figurehead individuals and stretch it out over the two domains of human belief they, officially or otherwise, represent; modern atheism and catholicism are absolutely closed, unmalleable and completely and equally at odds with the more accepting, tolerant mindframe we should be aiming towards to create a society in which one man respects his fellow man irrespective of what either choose to believe on the supernatural plain.  Let me further highlight that I choose atheism and catholicism only because in Ireland these are the two belief systems that the most amount of people can easily relate to but the principal applies equally to any monotheistic or polytheistic religion who believe that salvation and divine accordance belong solely to them; Judaism, Protestantism in all its forms, Islam, Hinduism and all the countless biblically based ‘cults’.

So what does this have to do with blasphemy legislation and if we assert that all laws should be drawn up to the benefit, furtherance and development of a more fruitful, functional and peaceful society then how would legislating against the publication or vocalisation of human opinion affect this.  Quite simply put; would the introduction of laws governing what constitutes blasphemy and what punishment to be meted out if said laws were broken improve or worsen our society?  Could it not be very obviously concluded that instead of outlawing offensiveness(!!) our government should rather adopt some vision in this area and start promoting tolerance instead?  To look at this at its most extreme, but still completely truthfully based, level; the Pope wholeheartedly believes that I am going to burn in hell forever.  This is fact.  Whether they would actually ever think about this or not, that is thus a belief that every Catholic also partakes in.  That is what every bible believing christian and jew believes.  One cannot believe the bible and not believe that, saving only that you wish to start your very own cult which accepts some of the bible but not the rest.  However in doing that one would be going against the words of St.John in Revelations whereby he declares damned any man who would add to or remove from the holy tome.  Now I must ask if any believers can in full conscience claim that my offending their beliefs here on earth can be said in any way to compare with the eternal torment they believe I will face in the afterlife?  Surely a reasonable and sensible human who believes they are going to heaven and the offender is hellbound should be able to shrug off any earthly offense as being what St.Paul would have called a ‘light and momentary affliction’.

Now while our atheist friends may find it sickening that so much of our modern life is still governed and ruled by religion, which permeates the governments and constitutions of the majority of the western nations, they should also be reasonable and sensible enough to understand that change is a development and history shows us workable change is the change which comes in through participation and negotiation.  The new regime should not resemble the old regime and what repulses me about modern atheism is that it displays all the arrogance and intolerance of those who believe I will pass through eternity with Sisyphus as a workmate.  Mankind must be taught that belief is just that; belief.  It is not fact.  That there is a god called Yahweh is not fact.  That there is no god is also not fact.  Government must be based on fact.  Neither atheism nor religion have any place in the constitutions of any nation, they should be devoid of reference to either other than to say that a basic human right is that any man should be allowed to believe and vocalise whatever belief he wishes to have.  That is free speech.  That is the cornerstone of democracy.  That is the only way we can have a society which is unbiased and favours not by the whims of those who hold the majority belief but by the simple fact that belief is not fact.  We believe where we cannot prove.  This is something that atheists need to be reminded of just as much if not more than theists.

The proposed law against blasphemy is absolutely unworkable, unethical, undemocratic, baseless, needless, pointless and counter-productive to the creation and development of a more utilitarian, peaceful, harmonious and productive society in Ireland, the promotion of which should be the sole vision and objective of the current or any other government.  Finally let it be pointed out that should the law be introduced it will not be long before atheists begin legal action claiming that the declaration of eternal damnation of non-believers is the grossest offense conceivable to mankind and thus move to ban any level of public religious discourse using the very law supposedly introduced to protect believers and their views.  Let the government not be responsible for driving further the stake that separates believers and non-believers by creating cause for any additional discontent between the two.  And may I openly invite any interested parties from either side to join me here in the middle, happy to accept mere humanity and promote respect for all.