Matisyahu's Blog

Today was good and I finally made the progress I wanted to finish up detail cleaning my house – all the skirting boards have been wiped down, corners of the ceilings removing any cobwebs, pulled out the furniture and vacuum cleaned behind it all. I was quite surprised at just how but dust and random things I found under the sofa. After all that work the house is looking really nice, it feels like I’ve finally gotten around to doing something I’ve kept kicking the can down the road for ages. I’m not too sure whether it is my age but I’m deciding that rather than putting things off that I should do them when I have the opportunity rather than pushing it onto the next day which turns into the day after next day which then translates into next week then eventfully it turns into some time in the future.

With all the talk about banning children under 16 from using social media I am reminded of George Carlin when he commented about how politicians hide behind two things – the flag and children. Politicians playing on the sense of helplessness that many parents have but rather than providing parents with the tools they instead sell a false sense of security by saying, “just give us more power and we’ll take care of everything”. I’m always cautious when I hear politicians make claims that they can solve a problem but all you need to do is give them more power and everything will be taken care of.

As I remind people, power is consolidated through promises of security but power once consolidated is never given up freely. Anyone who has studied history and the rise of dictatorships in the early 20th century made use of emergency powers by claiming the consolidation of power was necessary to protect democracy – “protecting democratic institutions by undermining them”. Need people be reminded by the 1980s ‘Satanic Panic’ followed by claims of subliminal messages in music, claims of violent video games leading to violence not to mentioned the discredited idea of ‘Repressed memory’ – this latest hysteria about social media is in a long list of panics that have been manufactured so don’t fall for the unsubstantiated hysteria.