In Search Of The Truth

From “the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights” Article One All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Lots of things in life simply don’t matter. The price of stamps. The colour of the Queen’s hair. You might even argue that god no longer matters any more. And what you’d also probably agree on – or the majority would, at least – is that politics doesn’t matter either.

Article Two Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Politics doesn’t matter – and by that I mean everything from the United Nations down to local councils – because no matter how loud you shout you’re still one person. At the end of the day, no-one wants to listen to you whine and so no-one will. It doesn’t matter if you want us to declare war on France or repaint your town hall– no-one’s going to listen to you. Right?

Article Eighteen Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

So perhaps, when the election comes to voting tomorrow, you just won’t vote or just use it on a party that amused you. Because, at the end of the day, it isn’t going to make much of a change. You’ll vote, and it will be lost in a tide of Other Votes. Of votes that seem to be more important than yours. You’re not part of a race to win, you’re just betting on the outcome. Win or lose, you won’t have had a part in it. Right?

Article Twenty-One 1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. 2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. 3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

And after all, what has politics ever done for us? We don’t owe Tony Blair anything, just as we don’t owe Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, the United Nations or John F. Kennedy anything. Politics doesn’t do anything. They talk about change, and all that happens is the hospitals stay full, the schools stay underfunded, the buses still smell slightly strange and the sun still rises in the east. What has politics ever done for us?

Article Twenty-Four Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

But perhaps, before we throw away our vote or write ‘Communism Rules’ on a ballot paper and chuck it in a box, we should consider what politics really means. Because even though it might be dumbed down to bitching party leaders, debates about the price of milk and door-to-door annoyances, politics has at its root one of the most important things on this planet. You. And your rights. In the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights there are thirty articles, each one laying down the fundamental rights of every person on this planet. They were laid down in 1948, and its members had just witnessed two world wars. They were last altered in 1997. Are we happy with the way the world works? Are you happy with the way the world works? And is there a difference? No. Because just as we all share human rights, we all share a part in the future of our school, our nation and our planet. Voting is not about being a comedian. It is not about being a political extremist. It is not about being a philosopher. It is about being a human, and playing your part. And that is why the vote on May 5th will be so important.

In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me... and by that time, there was no one to speak up for anyone. -- Martin Niemoeller, Pastor, German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church

The Pinboard

Well, well, well. Well, well, well! Mock elections, eh? Shame they don't represent the real thing. Strange, how they create such tight microcosms of the real thing. Just 1000 votes, and five parties. It doesn't take much, you just need to win the hearts and minds of the young voters and you've got a good chance of swinging it. If only they told the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates that. Bless them. They seem to think that offering eleven year-olds shorter NHS waiting lists will get their vote. Unfortunately the more excessively-tilting Communist and Green parties are creating a commotion in a slightly more lively way - rousing speeches, informed meetings. They're playing to the audience, not the voter, inside us all. And they're going to win, no doubt. I've written a short article about the elections. The Apathy campaign, in particular, has made me wonder about how the world (and the mock election) works. It'll probably get published sometime this week. Mock elections, eh? Shame they don't represent the real thing. Shame they didn't tell Mark Gilbert that. Site Of The Week Ctrl-Alt-Del - I know I probably praise this site too much, but this really is one of the sharpest, funniest cartoons on the net. A gamer will get most out of this, but most of the time it works on a lot of levels. Really good stuff. Blog Of The Week AnimeKicks - An amusing (if worrying at times...) blog charting the life of someone, somewhere. Now with added bomb recipes! Quote Of The Week

"Yesterday we bowed for kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today, we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love."

From The Apathy Party Poster

Reasons Why Not To Work With The General Public

Number Two - Your personal worth is downgraded slightly below kitchen roll, and just above microwaveable rice.

Currently Drinking

Water. And lots of it.

It's My Universe And I'll Be Nihilistic If I Want To

ni·hil·ism: Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.

If I asked you to name the best time and place in history to live in, most of you (i.e. the ones who aren't giving awkward answers to screw up my rhetoric) would agree that here and now is a pretty good deal, relatively speaking. Let's take a look at the situation - you've got good healthcare, a fairly democratic system, sound education, fair crime rates, reputable life expectancy, laudable scientific awareness. And that's without mentioning things like QVC and cling-film. Yep, we've got it pretty good.

Perhaps that's why every generation always scorns those older and younger than it. We're so convinced that we've got it right, that no changes need to be made. You're either messing with something that works, or you didn't discover it quickly enough. I have the ability to talk to millions of human beings without moving from my current location. I can feed live images to hundreds upon thousands of people. I'm connected, hooked up and aware. I think this is the best the world is ever going to get. And I'm supposed to - if I didn't, well that'd be kind of depressing for everyone.

But, let's face it, this is a pretty poor future is it not? Not only is it hardly the buttons, dials, gauges and flashing things portrayed in the science fiction films and books of eras gone by, but we also seem to missing any kind of religious direction. We've got war, famine, disease and pollution. We've got reckless businesses and untrustworthy politicians. We've got apathetic voters and population booms. We've got a problem on our hands. But when was the last time you ever considered changing the situation?

The answer - you didn't. You didn't, because life has always been this way and you know that things will 'sort themselves out'. After all, we've been through war, famine, disease and the rest of it before. The system irons itself out, and we get back on track. Perhaps this is why people believe in God's power and the predestination of us all - no matter how much we try to screw up the system of this planet, everything returns to this supposed 'harmony'. It's all cool, guys. Just sit tight and wait for the problem to go away. It usually works.

I'd like to ask a question to everyone who believes in God, Religion, or anything of that kind. What if you're wrong? What if - let's just go crazy here - what if there's no God at all. What if all we've got is this junk of rock in some unfashionable end of the universe circling some big, burning thing that seems sort of important. What then? What if no-one is waiting to punish the ruthless, the dastardly, the mean? What if, most importantly, no-one gives a toss if you're a good person or not. What then?

Nihilism doesn't usually do it for me. The whole idea of just denying everything (including existence) always seemed a bit stupid. But when you consider that this world we have, this completely random occurence that has come from a chain of inexplicable chaotic events, and you see how people think that there is some order to it, some purpose... you begin to worry for the future.

Douglas Noel Adams is not a philosopher, a politician or a scientist. He is a writer, a schoolboy who was criticised for having too wild an imagination. I'd like to leave you with a quote from him. No doubt the world will right itself from whatever we do. Global Warming is a bit of a joke when you consider that it happense naturally and all it leads to is an Ice Age which then resets to the kind of environment we have now. There is a system, there's no doubt about that. The only problem we have is that we tend to consider ourselves to be at the centre of it a little too often. This world we've created, these societies and religions - no-one needs them. The universe does not acknowledge them. If we screw the system over, it will screw us back. Ultimately, we're just hydrogen and carbon that's learnt to think.

"If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was god given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made of anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."