If you're in Cairns, FNQ, during May, it's all happening at the c.1907 Gallery in City Place. There's a website, too, here.
FEZ Sez.................................................................Munky Harris
A Public Announcement
'THANKS, I'LL TAKE IT'..............................................Circusmouse
Free Dom Coupon
'FISHY CHIPS'.................................................................Dimlo 9
'I DON'T WANT YOUR FREEDOM'.....................................crassnsilly
'RESISTANCE'........................................................Duke Meringue
'FREEDOM? THERE IS NO FUCKING FREEDOM'..................Dave Schwan
'FREEDOM IN CINEMA'............................................Craig Middleton
*******************************************************************************************A Public Announcement
'THANKS, I'LL TAKE IT'..............................................Circusmouse
Free Dom Coupon
'FISHY CHIPS'.................................................................Dimlo 9
'I DON'T WANT YOUR FREEDOM'.....................................crassnsilly
'RESISTANCE'........................................................Duke Meringue
'FREEDOM? THERE IS NO FUCKING FREEDOM'..................Dave Schwan
'FREEDOM IN CINEMA'............................................Craig Middleton
The Freedom Fighters
Zed, Munky Harris, Duke Meringue and the Dimlo 9, Bobby Wildside, crassnsilly, Craig Middleton, Dave Schwan & Circusmouse.
by Munky Harris
ONE day small children will gather at the feet of old men and hear extraordinary tales of a mythic time when it was possible to walk down the street without being monitored by cameras, gps systems and electronic chips. When it was possible to board a plane without being X-rayed, searched, swabbed and retina scanned. A time when in cities like London you wouldn’t get arrested (Simona Bonomo), locked up for five hours and fined $160 simply for taking pictures of "iconic" buildings. As more of our freedoms are taken away in "the fight on terr’ism" (front page pic, US soldier parading with a dead Iraqi civilian at Abu Ghraib prison), never has it been more important to protect what liberties still remain. Perhaps we deceive ourselves that we have free will, because the choice of choosing total freedom and rebelling against draconian law enforcement is too daunting for many of us. As the great Johnny Cash said: "Freedom, well that’s just some people talking."
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Print out the coupon, go to the supermarket, follow instructions on coupon. Couldn't be easier.
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RFID chips are at this moment being embedded in everything you buy from clothes to cash to mp3 players and packets of razors. New passports and credit cards have the chips, which give off a signal containing private information about you. To enable US citizens to get access to the new Obama health care plan, patients will have an RFID chip inserted underneath their skin. In effect, RFIDs are a tracking device. These chips act as transponders (transmitters/responders), always picking up a radio signal sent by transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a particular radio query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, a 128-bit number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID chips don't have batteries, being so small at 0.33mm. Instead, they are powered by the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer. US retail giant Walmart pioneered the use of the barcode in the 70s and 80s. It now wants to phase that technology out in the next few years, and is instrumental in the introduction of the RFID.
If you care about freedom and liberty, now's your chance to let the retail industry know how you feel. Tell them RFID tags are OK to use in warehouse crates to track the whereabouts of their products, but that guidelines must be used when applied for use with consumers. Firstly, we should be told when RFID tags are present and RFID tags should be disabled by default at the checkout counter. RFIDs should be placed on packaging instead of on the product and the tags should be readily visible and easily removable. There have been cases of shoppers in the UK finding out the RFID tags are still embedded on mp3 players they bought more than a year previously, so don't say we didn't warn you.
If you care about freedom and liberty, now's your chance to let the retail industry know how you feel. Tell them RFID tags are OK to use in warehouse crates to track the whereabouts of their products, but that guidelines must be used when applied for use with consumers. Firstly, we should be told when RFID tags are present and RFID tags should be disabled by default at the checkout counter. RFIDs should be placed on packaging instead of on the product and the tags should be readily visible and easily removable. There have been cases of shoppers in the UK finding out the RFID tags are still embedded on mp3 players they bought more than a year previously, so don't say we didn't warn you.
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Have you heard of Nelson Mandela? Thought so. Had you heard of Nelson Mandela before 1984, when Jerry Dammers released Free Nelson Mandela? Thought not. The song thrust Mandela’s name into our faces and without its release it is fair to say that there would have been no release for the convicted bomber, who would have died in jail by now.
The song had the advantage of being catchy, too. It’s a great record, regardless of the message. The same cannot be said of Free Recliner with every Three-Piece Suite, by Furniture Village, released to celebrate the 853rd week of the store’s massive countrywide best-ever sale.
While Nelson was in jail, he would have had plenty of time to read, in between beatings. Perhaps he absorbed the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” So poor Nelson was never free, even before he went to prison, and even after he was freed, he wasn’t free. He could have taken comfort from the words of Franz Kafka: “It’s often better to be in chains than to be free.” Confusing, contradictory statements, but catchy. Unlike Furniture Village’s follow-up, Free Credit on all Bedroom and Lounge Suites.
Freedom has joined those over-used words that have lost any emotional power with overuse. Hundreds of earnest marchers with their Freedom placards give the word as much impact as George Michael: “I don’t want your freedom – ‘cos all I want right now is you.” What? Freedom joins Love, Peace and Biggest-ever Furniture Sale as slogans we can universally hide behind. But their meaning is not universal. Your idea of freedom is not the same as mine, or Rousseau’s, or Michael’s. My idea of the Biggest-ever Furniture Sale is a sale of the biggest-ever furniture, massive pouffes the height of elephants. You may think differently.
Isaiah Berlin spoke of “… not freedom from, but freedom to …” This at least is unambiguous. And positive. Not freedom from chains, from prison beatings, from brainless lyrics, but freedom to find contentment in chains, meaning in Wham songs, freedom to choose Benson’s Beds, who offer free chandeliers, over Furniture Village.
Freedom to be taken in by Buy One Get One Free offers, not because you don’t know that nothing is free, but for the pleasure of eating one yoghurt then hurling the free one against Furniture Village’s window and singing: Free-ee Benson Chandelier.
The song had the advantage of being catchy, too. It’s a great record, regardless of the message. The same cannot be said of Free Recliner with every Three-Piece Suite, by Furniture Village, released to celebrate the 853rd week of the store’s massive countrywide best-ever sale.
While Nelson was in jail, he would have had plenty of time to read, in between beatings. Perhaps he absorbed the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” So poor Nelson was never free, even before he went to prison, and even after he was freed, he wasn’t free. He could have taken comfort from the words of Franz Kafka: “It’s often better to be in chains than to be free.” Confusing, contradictory statements, but catchy. Unlike Furniture Village’s follow-up, Free Credit on all Bedroom and Lounge Suites.
Freedom has joined those over-used words that have lost any emotional power with overuse. Hundreds of earnest marchers with their Freedom placards give the word as much impact as George Michael: “I don’t want your freedom – ‘cos all I want right now is you.” What? Freedom joins Love, Peace and Biggest-ever Furniture Sale as slogans we can universally hide behind. But their meaning is not universal. Your idea of freedom is not the same as mine, or Rousseau’s, or Michael’s. My idea of the Biggest-ever Furniture Sale is a sale of the biggest-ever furniture, massive pouffes the height of elephants. You may think differently.
Isaiah Berlin spoke of “… not freedom from, but freedom to …” This at least is unambiguous. And positive. Not freedom from chains, from prison beatings, from brainless lyrics, but freedom to find contentment in chains, meaning in Wham songs, freedom to choose Benson’s Beds, who offer free chandeliers, over Furniture Village.
Freedom to be taken in by Buy One Get One Free offers, not because you don’t know that nothing is free, but for the pleasure of eating one yoghurt then hurling the free one against Furniture Village’s window and singing: Free-ee Benson Chandelier.
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Freedom fighter or terrorist?
BOBBY Sands was a member of the Irish Republican Army and an MP in the British Parliament, who was fighting for a united Ireland. Arrested in a car near a bomb scene in Belfast in 1976, he was convicted by the British after a handgun allegedly used in a gun battle that day was found in his vehicle. Sent to court with four others, with only a judge present, no jury, all five men were sentenced to 14 years' prison in notorious H Block prison. Irish Republican prisoners were at that time holding a series of protests seeking to regain their previous special category status, as they regarded themselves as political prisoners, not criminals. Protests include the "blanket protest" in 1976, when prisoners refused to wear prison uniform, wearing blankets instead. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to slop out, the blanket protest escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells, and smeared the walls of their cells with their own shit. Prisoners slept on urine-soaked mattresses and maggots crawled from their infested beds.
On March 1, 1981, Sands began his hunger strike, telling other prisoners to hunger strike at staggered intervals to maximise publicity for their demands. The hunger strikers wanted: The right not to wear a prison uniform; the right not to do prison work; the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits; the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week; full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
Sands was the first of 10 republican prisoners to die while refusing food. More than 60 civilians, police and soldiers also died in violence attributable to the action. Three days after the hunger strikes came to an end on October 2, 1981, the Ulster Secretary James Prior negotiated a package of concessions for the prisoners, angering the English protestants loyal to the British crown.
What price freedom?
*BOBBY Sands was a member of the Irish Republican Army and an MP in the British Parliament, who was fighting for a united Ireland. Arrested in a car near a bomb scene in Belfast in 1976, he was convicted by the British after a handgun allegedly used in a gun battle that day was found in his vehicle. Sent to court with four others, with only a judge present, no jury, all five men were sentenced to 14 years' prison in notorious H Block prison. Irish Republican prisoners were at that time holding a series of protests seeking to regain their previous special category status, as they regarded themselves as political prisoners, not criminals. Protests include the "blanket protest" in 1976, when prisoners refused to wear prison uniform, wearing blankets instead. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to slop out, the blanket protest escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells, and smeared the walls of their cells with their own shit. Prisoners slept on urine-soaked mattresses and maggots crawled from their infested beds.
On March 1, 1981, Sands began his hunger strike, telling other prisoners to hunger strike at staggered intervals to maximise publicity for their demands. The hunger strikers wanted: The right not to wear a prison uniform; the right not to do prison work; the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits; the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week; full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
Sands was the first of 10 republican prisoners to die while refusing food. More than 60 civilians, police and soldiers also died in violence attributable to the action. Three days after the hunger strikes came to an end on October 2, 1981, the Ulster Secretary James Prior negotiated a package of concessions for the prisoners, angering the English protestants loyal to the British crown.
What price freedom?
As I understand it, freedom is relative or comparative. You are free from something. You are free to do something. There is no pure state of freedom. Much is made of the concept but talk is cheap, freedom being steadily lost or given away with little or no argument. Some countries, the USA is a good example, include freedom in their constitution and advertise their abundance of it. The USA was once known as the leader of the free world. Today, such a claim is laughable, especially since the events of 9/11 and the resulting worldwide reduction of certain freedoms. In this country, under the reactionary leadership of Howard and his liberal mates, the term Un Australian was used and abused to label those who thought, spoke, or acted in ways contrary to what those in power deemed acceptable. Back in the USA, G.W. Bush told the world that we were either with them or against them. Those who failed to toe the party line were called traitors.
Since 9/11 the claim has been made time and again that the world is now a different place, that to ensure that we remain safe and free we must be prepared to be less free. We must accept increased surveillance, a constant state of war and ever increasing censorship of thought, word and deed. Europe, in joining the European Union, has taken a large step towards One World Government. World travel has become more complicated and paranoid. As time passes freedom becomes a quaint concept, a state of mind and being that once was cherished, desired and fantasised about and that is now becoming a relic from an imaginary past.
So, were we ever free? When I initially began to ponder the word, the concept, the physical and mental state of freedom, before my mind became burdened with definitions, other opinions, realisations of losses and more, I recalled earlier days, younger impressions and idealistic dreams from long ago. Years ago I was not employed, not in a relationship, living at home with my mum and relatively free from worry about where money and my next meal would come from and how my life would be. There was a time after that when I had dropped out of university, moved out of home, registered for the dole and was living in a house in which we had stopped paying the rent the moment the landlord went overseas. I was an unemployed, dole-bludging punk-rocker, living in a squat, waking when I woke only to face days of endless parties. This, at the time, appeared to be freedom.
Prior to these experiences, and probably the time when a person is as free as they will ever be, is childhood. Initially you sleep and shit, waking now and then to experience the world. Children, before rules and regulations, whilst learning the ways of their world and testing new boundaries, are as free as they will ever be, bound mainly by parental concerns and the limits to their physical and mental abilities. As kids we do what we do because we can, only being reined in by mum and dad. With no idea, no concept of freedom and what they have to lose, children experience the purest form of freedom.
What a shame it only lasts so long.
Since 9/11 the claim has been made time and again that the world is now a different place, that to ensure that we remain safe and free we must be prepared to be less free. We must accept increased surveillance, a constant state of war and ever increasing censorship of thought, word and deed. Europe, in joining the European Union, has taken a large step towards One World Government. World travel has become more complicated and paranoid. As time passes freedom becomes a quaint concept, a state of mind and being that once was cherished, desired and fantasised about and that is now becoming a relic from an imaginary past.
So, were we ever free? When I initially began to ponder the word, the concept, the physical and mental state of freedom, before my mind became burdened with definitions, other opinions, realisations of losses and more, I recalled earlier days, younger impressions and idealistic dreams from long ago. Years ago I was not employed, not in a relationship, living at home with my mum and relatively free from worry about where money and my next meal would come from and how my life would be. There was a time after that when I had dropped out of university, moved out of home, registered for the dole and was living in a house in which we had stopped paying the rent the moment the landlord went overseas. I was an unemployed, dole-bludging punk-rocker, living in a squat, waking when I woke only to face days of endless parties. This, at the time, appeared to be freedom.
Prior to these experiences, and probably the time when a person is as free as they will ever be, is childhood. Initially you sleep and shit, waking now and then to experience the world. Children, before rules and regulations, whilst learning the ways of their world and testing new boundaries, are as free as they will ever be, bound mainly by parental concerns and the limits to their physical and mental abilities. As kids we do what we do because we can, only being reined in by mum and dad. With no idea, no concept of freedom and what they have to lose, children experience the purest form of freedom.
What a shame it only lasts so long.
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“They'll talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.” Easy Rider (1969)
In the search for their freedom, or the illusion of freedom, the characters of Easy Rider end up paying the ultimate price, they’re murdered.
The disillusioned young man from Into the Wild (2007) wants to be free from society, he puts this ideal to the test, but the harsh environment kills him.
In Milk (2008), another film based on a true story, Harvey Milk fights for gay rights and achieves greatness, but is then assassinated.
The ultimate anti-hero, the gangster, is ultimately denied his freedom. He escapes oppression and poverty, only to become trapped in his own creation of paranoia and lust for power. Scarface (1932, 1983). He must be sacrificed, to show crime doesn't pay.
The idea of freedom and death being inseparable is a common theme that obviously lends to drama. Certain actors, such as Mickey Rourke, have been drawn to this material throughout their career:
In Rumblefish (1983), his ill-fated attempt to free the fish, representing the environment in which he and the others are trapped. In Johnny Handsome (1989), he cannot be free until fatal revenge is taken, and most recently in The Wrestler (2008), a has-been who clings to his fading fame. His idea of freedom is his last shot at glory, and will most likely kill him.
Freedom in Hollywood itself has been threatened by the Hayes Code in 1930 and the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950’s.
Nowadays the public, hopefully, are too savvy to swallow propaganda, and with the ability for anyone to make a film and get it out there, Freedom in Cinema looks safe for the moment.
In the search for their freedom, or the illusion of freedom, the characters of Easy Rider end up paying the ultimate price, they’re murdered.
The disillusioned young man from Into the Wild (2007) wants to be free from society, he puts this ideal to the test, but the harsh environment kills him.
In Milk (2008), another film based on a true story, Harvey Milk fights for gay rights and achieves greatness, but is then assassinated.
The ultimate anti-hero, the gangster, is ultimately denied his freedom. He escapes oppression and poverty, only to become trapped in his own creation of paranoia and lust for power. Scarface (1932, 1983). He must be sacrificed, to show crime doesn't pay.
The idea of freedom and death being inseparable is a common theme that obviously lends to drama. Certain actors, such as Mickey Rourke, have been drawn to this material throughout their career:
In Rumblefish (1983), his ill-fated attempt to free the fish, representing the environment in which he and the others are trapped. In Johnny Handsome (1989), he cannot be free until fatal revenge is taken, and most recently in The Wrestler (2008), a has-been who clings to his fading fame. His idea of freedom is his last shot at glory, and will most likely kill him.
Freedom in Hollywood itself has been threatened by the Hayes Code in 1930 and the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950’s.
Nowadays the public, hopefully, are too savvy to swallow propaganda, and with the ability for anyone to make a film and get it out there, Freedom in Cinema looks safe for the moment.
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FEZ next month:
"CONSPIRACY"
Yes, we're going to open up Pandora's Box and any other cans of worms we can find. If you have a contribution that DOESN'T mention "9/11", drop it into FEZ at the email address below.
Milo The Kyte snagged last month's prize just for having a crazy name!
Contributions to:-
fez@randompress.com.au
"CONSPIRACY"
Yes, we're going to open up Pandora's Box and any other cans of worms we can find. If you have a contribution that DOESN'T mention "9/11", drop it into FEZ at the email address below.
Milo The Kyte snagged last month's prize just for having a crazy name!
Contributions to:-
fez@randompress.com.au
1 comments:
We once had a cat called Boots. Boots would always be anywhere but home. As much as we tried to confine her to the perimiters of our property she would always wonder at her leisure. One morning we recieved a call from a neigbour informing us that boots had been killed by a car. Her life of freedom had been cut short by her poor road scence. In hind sight if we could have controled her freedom a little better she'd still be alive today. I believe too much freedom can be a bad thing.... SAY YES TO THE CHIP!
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