The Mist

The Mist website: http://www.themist-movie.com/

The film The Mist has been released onto DVD in Britain after a strangely long wait. I bought my copy from the United States on a Region 1 DVD which means I can only watch it on my computer. But HPANWO-readers in the UK can now get their copy from a local shop. Here are some of the reviews of it:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mist/
http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/84961/The_Mist.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/26/dvdreviews-drama

The story is based on a horror novella by Stephen King and runs thus: It’s set in a small lakeside town a short distance from a secret government laboratory. After a terrible storm which blows down trees a thick mist washes over the town and reduces visibility to a few feet. The catchphrase of the film is “There’s something in the mist!” and there is! Bizarre and unearthly monsters appear and begin attacking the people. The survivors take refuge in a supermarket and wait for help. Inside their impromptu shelter they have to fight both attempted encroachments by the monsters and their own rising panic and insanity. It is revealed by one of the survivors, an army guard from the laboratory, that the scientists there were working on something called “the Arrowhead Project”, an experiment to open a “stargate”, a portal between our world and a parallel dimension. The Mist is a frightening horror film but also very thought-provoking. The idea that there are parallel dimensions is one I’m very interested in. I’ve written about it before here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/09/flatland.html . A friend of mine, Brian Allan (http://www.p-e-g.co.uk/ ,) has researched this in depth and has written a series of absorbing books on the subject. He believes that the UFO phenomenon is interdimensional rather than extraterrestrial; that alien beings and their craft travel to our world through stargates, rather than plodding across light-years of space. In fact in his address to the conferences we’ve both attended (like this one: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/now-thats-weird-conference-2008.html) he describes something that I consider a real-life parable of the scenario of The Mist (although unintentional and slightly less malevolent!): the Rendlesham Forest Incident; it is one of the best-documented UFO close encounters of all time and I describe it here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/rendlesham-forest-incident.html . Close to where the strange object appeared at RAF Bentwaters-Woodbridge was the secret military signals laboratory at Orford Ness, closed down since the end of the Cold War. The powerful radio transmissions from the station might have weakened or even broken the fabric of spacetime that surrounds our universe in higher dimensions, allowing the Rendlesham Forest UFO to slip through into our world and give Lt Col. Halt and his fellow airmen such a fright.

In The Magicians Nephew, the first book in the enthralling The Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis, the Uncle Andrew character is talking about stargates and traveling to other dimensions, although that terminology was not used by the author; it was actually uncommon at the time the book was written. He says “You could meet anything! Absolutely anything!” and he’s correct. In a “multiverse” of higher dimensions, a la Flatland, The laws of physics could vary considerably and the physics of our universe could simply be one frequency line on an infinite spectrum of material and spatial structures. I once described The Mist as a worst-case scenario of screwing around with other dimensions, but it’s not. The worst-case scenario would be something we can’t imagine. Not “can’t imagine” in the sense that we’ve not thought of it yet, but literally unimaginable! Something beyond the ability of our minds to perceive and comprehend. This brings me back to my concerns about the Large Hadron Collider, and I’ve amended my views somewhat since I wrote this article: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/03/large-hadron-collider.html . Pretty soon we will have a machine that could possibly do the very thing that “The Arrowhead Project” does in the story, and more besides. What will happen? And if it does will we be able to comprehend the terrible thing we’ve done, or will we be unable to do even that because this universe will cease to exist in the form that we know it.

Hope I've cheered you up! Sleep tight!

The British National Party

The BNP’s website: http://bnp.org.uk/

Most western European nations have a powerful far-right political party. But until the last few years, the UK was an exception. Then the British National Party rose from its previous status as a fringe 1980’s split-off of the National Front and entered the limelight, winning many council seats and achieving runner-up counts in Parliamentary elections.

The party sports a very different look to the neo-Nazi NF. They don’t march in jackboots through city ghettoes; they put on shirts and ties and grin in front of flickering flashbulbs, just like any other politicians. Their policies are radical and in some cases very sensible and progressive. They’re opposed to the European Union and think Britain should get out of it, immediately and totally; so do I. They’re very keen on environmental conservation and campaign for the use of clean energy like wind and solar power. They want to shift urban development to “brown field” sites rather than ripping up the natural countryside. They support local democracy and under their rule community pressure groups would have official recognition and be allowed to influence and even overrule Parliamentary decisions. Good idea! But in truth these are all secondary policies; the very core of their mission, and the reason they’re now gaining so much public support from decent, mainstream people, is the recent increase in immigration to the UK. Many people see this as something very destructive.

Here’s a selection of lectures by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP which goes into his party’s position on immigration and race:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-729903760893650752&ei=g7cmSZO-Go2A2wKuwKH3Bg&q=nick+griffin+bnp
and
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8336123906443296275&hl=en
and
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1269630805284168668&hl=en
(And here’s an alternative view of the BNP, a video diary with a former BNP council candidate, Mark Collett, which raises questions over the party’s conventional suits-and-rosettes public image: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3794899708486815008&ei=n7smSeXVMJ722wKU3oSoAw&q=dispatches+BNP&hl=en)

I’ve encountered the controversy over the BNP and Holocaust Revisionism before and written about it here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/bnp-and-david-irving-at-oxford-union.html and http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/bnp-and-david-irving-at-oxford-union-2.html

It can cause problems when too many people want to live in one part of the world, but Griffin and the BNP never ask what I think is a very obvious question: Why do so many people want to come and live in Britain? The answer is simple: life in Britain is so much better than in many other parts of the world. Most immigrants are not coming from the United States, France and Germany; they’re coming here from Africa, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, the Arab world, places hit by poverty, war and other problems which make life in their homelands very difficult. The “solution” therefore, if you see mass-immigration as a problem, is to improve the quality of life across the globe so that people won’t need or want to leave their own countries. They’re surely not going to come here for the weather! Putting up the blockades and keeping people out will also require more and more Big Brother laws and may well be part of the plan for the New World Order. I’ve even heard rumours that some racist groups are fronts for Government Intelligence agencies. Nick Griffin himself has been nominated as an MI5 asset!

As you’ll hear in Griffin’s speeches, the mainstay of the BNP’s case is the rights of aboriginal cultures and races under international law to have exclusive privileges to the lands they own, like the Australian and American natives. But what Griffin doesn’t say is that the reason those lands were so easily taken off the natives in the first place was because the whole concept of "land ownership" is alien to them. This is very obvious if you listen to the words of those natives themselves, and I write about them here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/chief-seattles-letter.html . With our own culture it’s the exact opposite: land ownership is so fundamental to Western thought that any alternative is almost beyond contemplation. But I do question this “it just is” value. Why is this “our” country? At what point and by what right does it become our property, like our house or car? No other species claims permanent possession of land, so why do we? I think we, as the dominant land animal, are stewards and guardians of this little part of our home planet called “Britain”, but as Chief Seattle said: How can we consider it a collective property of the racial and cultural group who live here, something that can be bought or sold? Without the notion of national ownership we can no longer claim the right to decide who comes and goes from the archipelago of Britain. Anyone has the right to travel to and from these islands because we’re all human beings and these islands are part of our home planet; in fact we all have the right to visit and live wherever we want! What’s more in a world of plenty and safety for all people (which is perfectly possible; don’t let anyone pretend otherwise!) there’d be no need for humanity to squeeze into the few small corners free of poverty, war and starvation, like shipwreck survivors huddled on an overloaded life-raft. As I said, they ain’t going to come here for the weather! I actually find the whole concept of national boundaries and official borders, and needing permission from the authorities to cross them, rather obscene! This is our planet, our home, we’re the creatures who live on it; why can’t we share it freely!? Why can’t we just wander wherever we like?

I personally don’t feel threatened by immigration in this country, at least not in comparison to how threatened I feel by the New World Order. Even if I did, I’d have no right to, as I explain above, but I don’t in any case. I once went to Southall in London, a massive Asian community which was the location of race riots during the 1970’s. I walked through the busy suburban market area and passed thousands of people, and I was the only white face I saw. But you know what? I felt totally safe and experienced no hostility at all. In fact the people in the shops I browsed in were very kind and warm. According to some racists I know, what I achieved in Southall should be impossible! I’d surely have been beaten to a pulp less than a hundred yards from the Tube station! History is full of examples of thriving societies where people of different cultures lived side-by-side: During the 8th and 9th Century when Europe was writhing in the turmoil of the Dark Ages, the city of Baghdad was one such place, with a very cosmopolitan university and a vigourous scientific and cultural energy. Other cultures should be a source of fascination and enquiry, not fear, so long as they live in mutual respect and don’t displace each other. Spending time with people who have other languages, religions, philosophies and views on the world is a great source of human inspiration and enterprise! Another such place was Xian in China a few centuries before Baghdad’s golden age, where the poet Li Po found his life’s path in his conversations with people from all over the world. Also Griffin’s paranoia about Islam is unfounded. Of course extremist Islam is a danger, but then so is extremist Catholicism, extremist Protestantism, extremist Atheism, extremist Economics... extremist Any damn thing! Islam is full of wisdom too, look at poets like Jalalladin Al-Rumi and the Sufi movement. Read these wonderful Sufi proverbs: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/quotes.html .

The BNP have been in the news in the last few days because their membership list, with personal details, has been published on the internet. Here’s the BBC news spot about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7736794.stm . Who did this is anyone’s guess but I’d put my money on a left-wing activist. In my view the leftist position towards the BNP is very childish and counter-productive, as you’ll see if you read my linked article on the Oxford Union protest. I’ve experienced left-wing stupidity a lot myself from my trade union, in fact it’s the main reason I’m refusing to become a shop-steward, despite a drive to recruit me. They see the BNP membership as pure, unadulterated evil; they’re the leftist equivalent of the Devil. This is unfair; they are naive, misguided dupes, not evil. They’ve been led down a blind alley out of hysterical fear and engineered rage; in other words: divide-and-rule. I always debate politely and respectfully with any racist I meet, even if they’re not always polite back! This is ten times as effective as surrounding their house waving placards and yelling “RACIST SCUM! OFF OUR STREETS!” etc. (And before any non-white HPANWO readers do an “I’ve Been There!” pose on me… see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/11/hpanwo-guide-to-being-ive-been-there.html ... I know how awful racism is because a couple of years ago someone punched me in the face and called me “white trash”!)

So let’s not grab our torches and pitchforks at the mere mention of the British National Party’s name. It’s far better to allow them their universal rights to free speech, and claim ours in order to debunk them too of course, and let the BNP make a fool of themselves. If their beliefs really are all nonsense then let that nonsense be blown apart in the marketplace of ideas. Censorship would be a mistake, as it always is. Locking the BNP away from sight will not make them go away. On the contrary, their ideas will just fester in the underbelly of society, preying on the disillusioned and desperate, not to mention other people who are just fed up of being told what to think!

Today some of our fellow human beings are being imprisoned for the "crime" of traveling to another part of their home world. Here's the site of an Oxfordshire-based group defending them: http://www.asylum-welcome.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=47

Here's a background article on the Divide-and-Rule method: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/04/snob-walls.html

The HPANWO Guide to being an "I've Been There!" Poser

Learning to be an “I’ve been there!” poser is vital if you’re going to gain status over others and attract their fear, envy, admiration and respect. The unhappy truth is that almost everybody has a virtually equal amount of life experience and hardships of various kinds (DON'T DIVULGE THIS SECRET UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES IF YOU VALUE THE ENTIRE "I'VE BEEN THERE!" WAY OF LIFE, BOTH FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FELLOW "I'VE BEEN THERE!"-ERS!), so if you’re going to stand out and shine brighter than the herd then this is your challenge! And if you want to rise to the challenge then The HPANWO Guide to being an "I've Been There!" Poser is for you! This following clip from a Monty Python live show is very funny but it also shows an amazingly astute knowledge in the art of “I’ve been there!”:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo


Selecting your target:
A vital opening strategy that is often overlooked. To be a proficient “I’ve been there!” poser it’s necessary to assess and vet your target like an army general does the enemy lines. You won’t get very far if you open a pose on a wily and retaliatory cool dude. Such types can “I’ve been there!” you into a cocked hat! Your target should be a timid and shy person with a reputation for geniality and not answering back when insulted. Spend at least 4 or 5 hours talking to your target in a non-“I’ve been there!” way. Pretend to be friendly and supportive. Find out about their life, where they’ve lived and the work they’ve done etc. Then devise a profile for yourself that outstrips them. For example: Your research reveals that your target grew up on your hometown’s second-roughest estate. Your own profile should include a life on your hometown’s very roughest estate. You could even pretend to have lived abroad in a country your target knows nothing about; Saudi Arabia is a good bet because few people have been there and it has a reputation for being hard to live in; a very fertile source of “I’ve been there!” material. Now, once you target is well-assessed and off guard, you can move in for your attack! This should build up through the following stages over a minute or more to the full-blown pose.

The Sneer:
The “I’ve been there!” sneer is not very effective unless it is incorporated into the rest of your pose, using the correct rhythm and timing that I will continually stress throughout this guide. The following two photos show the off and on positions for the sneer.

On:
Off:

A good “I’ve been there!” poser never simply alternates between the off and on position. He always leaves a pause between the two active positions that match the pelvic and hand movements.

The Pelvic Thrust:

On:

Off:

The true “I’ve been there!” pelvic thrust is very important to the poser. Psychological studies commissioned by the IIBTPA (International “I’ve Been There!” Posing Association) shows that this is the stage in the pose where the most intimidation and domination can be gained. Lean right back and spread your legs in a show of virility. This is why the whole “I’ve been there!” theatre of conflict should be on a low comfortable seat, like a couch in your lounge or settee in a pub den. Like the sneer it has on and off positions. However it is difficult to use the "On-Pause-Off" position method, but luckily it is not as essential that the pelvic thrust rhythm matches the sneer, although it does help. But with the hand movements it is absolutely vital.

Hand Movements:

On:

Off:

As with the sneer it is essential that the poser leaves a pause between positions. It’s not “On-Off-On-Off”, but “On-Pause-Off-On-Pause-Off”. The arms should be outstretched, symmetrical and perpendicular to the body.

Verbal Attack:
Now you’re ready for the finale of your pose, the verbal attack. While maintaining the previous gestures and physical aspects of the pose say the classic words, but you have to say them properly! A slip-up at this stage could neutralize the entire pose and waste all your hard work up till now. Lift your chin, speak arrogantly and obnoxiously at the ceiling and yell at the top of your voice “Hey, man! I’ve been there!” Always use a tone that is exaggerated and cool, So if you follow up the initial verbal attack with another phrase make sure it’s appropriate and done correctly. Don’t say, for example, “I know what it’s like on the streets!” say: “Hey man! I kno wot iss like on Da Streets, man!” The pronoun “man” is very useful to the “I’ve been there!” poser. Use it all the time, two or three times in a sentence even. You can’t use it too often!

Follow The HPANWO Guide to being an “I’ve Been There!” Poser and you should be able to enjoy unlimited years of self-glorification, status, fitting-in socially and street-credibility, along with the exclusive pleasure of beating, demeaning, humiliating and patronizing other people. Happy Posing!

Is Paul McCartney Dead?

http://digilander.libero.it/p_truth/

This explosive accusation first reached me last year and I immediately sent it to my friend Barry. Barry is a big Beatles fan and also a photographer and he was very perturbed by it. The narrative in the link is complete, but it is an abridgement of a very convoluted and disturbing tale. Wikipedia calls it an “urban legend” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead). Basically what happened was that in 1966 Paul McCartney was killed, some say murdered, in mysterious circumstances and his body turned up on a beach in France. The Beatles’ manager Brain Epstein was so concerned that the loss of Paul would ruin the Beatles’ unprecedented success that he arranged for the death to be covered up and an actor employed to permanently masquerade as Paul. The other three members of the band agreed and a man was found to be the fake Paul; he underwent plastic surgery, make-up and voice training to look and sound as much like Paul as possible and life went on for the “Fab Four” as normal. The real name of “Faul” varies: William Sheppard, Phil Ackrill etc, although the black and white photo of the imposter is the same in all sources. In his former life he was a Canadian policeman and was employed by either British Intelligence or a talent company, or both, to become Paul and live his life in every aspect after the real Paul’s death. The Beatles’ songs, album covers, visual merchandise and multimedia are supposedly encoded with clues of what is really going on, either deliberately or subconsciously by those in the know. There is even supposedly an embedded subliminal image of a forensic photo of poor old Paul’s badly-corrupted body in the video of Free as a Bird, a song that was only released as a single in 1995, more than a quarter of a century after the band split up.

If I hadn’t come across the fact that cover-ups on this scale in fact do occur I’d immediately dismiss this theory as nonsense. Also I can appreciate the distinct difference in the sets of images comparing Paul with “Faul”. What’s more this cover-up has an analogous event: The long-running children's TV show Blue Peter (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/) always has pets in the studio. In 1962 they introduced a new puppy called Petra. Petra suddenly died a few days later and the show producers decided to go out to a pet shop and find another identical puppy and pretend that it was Petra. This was thought of as preferable to announcing to the programme's young viewers the heartbreaking news that the puppy was dead. The secret replacement of Petra was kept secret until 2002 (presumably giving time for the show's 1962 audience to grow up). I know replacing Paul McCartney with a double is far more extreme than the Petra II Strategy, but the principle is the same.

Let’s say all this is true. An obvious question springs to mind: How many people know? Apart from Epstein and the surviving Beatle, Ringo Starr, who else had to be involved? The Intelligence officers, talent, make-up and plastic surgery team would know, but none of them have come forward, if they exist. Were they “reassigned with extreme prejudice” in order to protect the secret? Paul, or “Faul” married his first wife Linda in 1969. After over three whole decades of being Paul he’d probably have become accustomed to the role. By today it’s possible he’s even convinced himself! Secret agents working undercover in foreign governments often forget their true identities even after five years of living another life, not only acting but thinking like the person they’re pretending to be; this is why they’re so vulnerable to being recruited as “doubles”. What effect would 42 years of such duplicity have on “Faul’s” psyche? He’s also living an enviable lifestyle; the Guinness Book of Records lists him as the richest and most successful musician of all time; plenty of distractions to make his former life seem like just a dream! It’s possible that when he first met Linda in 1967, supposedly only a few months after the great switch-over, he let her in on the secret. However Linda died in 1998 and Paul remarried in 2002. His current wife (and soon to be ex-wife) Heather is probably not briefed in and most likely totally believes she’s married to the real Paul McCartney; as I said, “Faul” may well believe that too.

Remembrance Poppies

Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday and people all over the country will attend memorials and church services to remember the British and British Commonwealth servicemen who died in wars. This will be followed by 2 minutes silence at the exact moment of Armistice, at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. This year it will be a special one because it was exactly 90 years ago. When this tradition began it was just for the First World War, but since then many more wars have been fought by British servicemen, none of them quite as bad but still horrific nonetheless (Even worse wars may be in the planning stages for the future!). The poppy became a symbol of Remembrance after the publication of In Flanders Field by the Canadian war poet John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

All across Britain and the Commonwealth people are wearing poppy badges to state their commitment to remembering the soldiers who died. I used to wear one every year, but for the last three years I haven’t.

Why not? There are a number of reasons. Firstly symbols usually have two meanings. In the case of the poppy there’s the publicly-acknowledged meaning which I outline above, and a hidden meaning. Poppies are not only famous for growing on the battlefields of the Western Front, they’re also the source of heroin and all the opiate drugs. In the 19th Century British forces were used to compel the Chinese to accept the opium trade in their country, the exact opposite of what they’re supposedly used for today in the “War on Drugs”. The poppy could therefore be used as a symbol for anyone who wants to commemorate the Opium Wars. Remembrance is also very politically biased; in fact it’s become almost nationalistic. The poppies revere British forces who’ve died in battle, but only British ones, not their erstwhile enemy troops (Many of whom become allies in other conflicts). Poppy-culture also rejects any mention of the innocent foreign bystanders who’ve died at the hands of British forces, who outnumber their own dead by severalfold! Also the attitude of Remembrance is very geared towards the myth that war may be horrible but it is a necessary evil. Soldiers have given their lives for a noble cause, sacrificing themselves for their country and our freedom. This is not true.

(Background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-brave-boys.html)
I'm all in favour of remembering people killed fighting wars, but it has to be done in the right way: Dead soldiers are victims of a massive con-trick. They should be commemorated as such. Not as "brave warriors" who "died for our freedom", but as murder victims; murdered not by the "enemy" troops, but by the governments of both "sides" who lured them into their engineered conflicts; conflicts based on greed and the struggle for power, not the freedom of the people. There’s so much in the history of the world wars that we never hear in mainstream education and the media. The people who fought in those wars were mostly very well-meaning, endured terrible sacrifices for what they believed in; and did what they truly thought was right. But it was all a scam. And, for me, speaking out about the scam is the only way I can show real respect for their memories. There's nothing glorious about dying in war! I know because I've seen the bodies when they fly them back from Iraq and Afghanistan and process them at my hospital. They're ordinary men and women who've died in a terrible manner for a scam and I see no intention on the part of the Poppy Cult to expose that scam. Its proponents even get upset and angry when I try to expose it and do not address what another war poet, Wilfred Owen, called "The old lie".

To conclude: I find there's something very wrong with the way our country, and many others, deals with the tragedy or war. It's portrayed as something magnificent and glorious; in fact the words The Glorious Dead are carved on the Cenotaph. Imagine if somebody carved that on the memorial to the Hilsborough Disaster, or the people who died in a motorway pile-up! There'd be uproar! But for me war is exactly the same as those other tragedies. I don't see any reason to glamourize and exhault in the mass sacrifice of millions of young men.

Some memorial organizations share some of my views on Remembrance and have issued a new type of badge, the White Poppy: (http://www.ppu.org.uk/poppy/index.html)

What finally convinced me to stop wearing a poppy was the July 2005 celebration in London commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day. It took place just days after the carnage of the 7/7 bombings and Londoners were still in shock. The highlight of the ceremony was the fly-past of an original Lancaster Bomber, a weapons platform designed to kill millions of innocent people in the cities of Germany, over the Mall outside Buckingham Palace. It dropped 1 million poppy petals onto the crowd below, including the Royal Family on the balcony of the palace. The petals symbolized the million British and Commonwealth troops who’d died in World War II. As the petals rained down it hit me that I was watching a blood sacrifice in effigy! This was the secret symbolism behind the event. As the TV camera homed in on the Queen I was disgusted to see her dancing and laughing as the poppies fell around her like snow! The Royal Family and aristocracy are seriously into the occult and black magic, but the tour guides in London won’t tell you that!

I hope that everyone who reads this will commemorate the victims of war in whatever way they feel is right; I will too. Hopefully one day soon war will be just that alone: a memory.

"Coins are Dropped!"

I came across this is Birmingham New Street Station the other day. These giant floor-posters are all over the concourse and pass under the feet of thousands of rail travelers every day. They advertise the Maestro Card (http://www.maestrocard.com/). Its advertising campaign is a nasty, scheming way of introducing the cashless society: using fear to make us comply. “Coins get dropped”. So if you use the Maestro Card you won’t have to worry about losing your money. They also use Con-formist peer-pressure and the engineered desire to be “cool”: “Cash is so Old Street, man. Think of what your friends will say if they see you paying with notes and coins!”

We’ve had cashless societies before. In the 19th Century many mineworkers were not paid any money, they were given "truck tokens" which could only be spent in special shops owned and run by their mine. In Roman times and in many other ancient societies where slavery was accepted and commonplace they had a similar system. A slave was considered the property of their master and received no wages; however a slave-owner had to provide food and accommodation etc for his slave. This would mean a lot of organizational work and shopping etc, so some just used to save themselves the bother by giving the slave tokens and saying "Go and get whatever you need." The slave could then take the tokens to special warehouses and exchange them for goods of his choice.

If we accept a cashless society or even one where our financial transactions are monitored, then we introduce a global truck system. Without cash we no longer choose what we do with our own money, because we have no control over it; and the banking system alone will choose what we buy, when and where we buy it and even if we buy anything at all. A lot of people pay with plastic today, and occasionally the machine at the till will refuse to accept your card. This is not a problem nowadays because we still have the option of paying with cash. What do we do when there is no cash? There’s nothing we can do! The system has complete control over all our financial activity. In the novel Better Than Life, a book based on the ingenious sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf, Rimmer punishes a man by taking out a court order that stops him from buying Heinz baked beans; instead he has to put up with inferior supermarket brands! This may sound funny, but many a true word is spoken in jest. In the cashless society just such a punishment will become possible. And if the authorities ever get really pissed off with you then all they have to do is turn off your card. Aaron Russo says just this in his famous interview with Alex Jones (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5932575671781803477&ei=sB8MSa2hBYLi2gKjofi-CQ&q=aaron+russo+interview). What would you do then? Nothing! Unable to buy anything at all, including food, you’d quickly starve to death. This is the kind of world we will live in unless we reject the cashless society.