"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

 

"Do you remember how in the past we used to read books?" There was me skimming and scanning Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'. "Whatever, happened to Mr Savage", I thought, and then I moved onto the author's  'Brave NewWorld revisited' and if I hadn't quite got the message regarding Huxley's savage, there it was laid out for me: "Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, with­out freedom, human beings cannot become fully hu­man and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them." 

Didn't bother to pick up my copy of "Die Süddeutsche Zeitung" today and the newspapers in Germany are dominated by yesterday's World Cup game. No news really, of course, after all some 80% of the population watched the game live on television and we can be sure that 99.9% of the 20% who didn't watch it were at least informed of the result. However, there must be some news, the news, where is the news? Swamped in "no news" stories of a soccer game, gagged by a mass of superinjunctions surely something is still filtering through. 

Something is filtering through; there is news out there but it is seldom to be found in the mainstream press. It is to be found at Wikileaks, at 'Democracy Now' and at a plethora of other alternative media sites. Are most people interested, do they really care? Well, not really and they might never. Nevertheless, some of us have to care, for as Julian Assange says we need a public intellectual record where information can be used by everyone to inform their decisions. Otherwise, there will be nobody and nothing to remind us that without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human; information will "superinjunctioned" out of existence and who knows we might even waken up one morning to read that England have beaten a top team at the knock out stages of the World Cup. After all, as Aldous Huxley's contemporary, George Orwell, said: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." However, it is, to Mr Huxley that I will give the final word and it is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist the forces that menace freedom.