Favorite comics

[christophe]

Dear jimBob,

You're right about the corporations. Europe is becoming more like the US every day. It's good to hear from someone who has experience and knowledge.

I'm with JimBob, who you fighting with?

C.

[JJP]

I'm probably going to set myself up as a prime sad bastard for suggesting the Beano, but I'll do it anyway.

It might be mostly shite now with too many crap fart gags, but it really is what introduced me to comics.  The Bash Street Kids still raise a laugh.

[paulvonscott]

No worries, the thing is, once the power is there, who are YOU to say it can't or won't be misused, now or at some point in the future?  And even if these powers havn't been misused yet (we'd be lucky to find out) are you seriously telling me that something hasn't been introduced for reason A. and exploited for reason B.

We are lied to and patronised by governments regardless of their bent, as you've attested to yourself.

It's governments who should be protecting us from corporations, but there is fat chance of that happening.

[JimBob]

 

No, and any one who says differently is naive. What I can say as a fact is that we are being lied to daily. Have you noticed that crime stats have gone through the roof recently? We have a new way of recording crime. Any incident we comw accross is now logged, wether their is a complaint or not now. Crime hasn't exploded, the recording system has changed. However Iive heard a whisper that stats will return to old system before next election, showing a massive fall ion crime.
 Successive Govt have promised to cut paper work for police whilst actually continuosly incrteasing it to gather staistics.
 the thing to remember is no Western Govy gets to power now without the support of corporate bodies and their media arms, and we are constantly being fed false infomation.
 The instruments of the state are not your enemies, but the people you elect and buy goods from just might be.

[Generally Contrary]

In my earlier post I wasn't trying to say that we are being spied on by THEM.  But there doesn't have to be a them, just the potential.  And it doesn't have to extend to the highest level, to the corridors of central power.  It can be a single person, at the lowest level.  A councillor (do you know who yours is?), a crooked police officer, or with this extension of powers a whole lot more.  But these bodies are not our enemies, the intention of the BODY is to fight crime, to responsibly adminstrate the borough etc.  The inention of the people involved can be as corrupt as anyones.

Also, while I am not worried about the government abusing the power to, oh, let's say, restrict my right to travel as a suspected troublemaker, or confiscate my earnings because I cannot prove where they come from, or read my personal communications as a matter of routine, I am worried that these powers can act as the foundations of a police state.  This doesn't have to be the one party police state of old, but perhaps something more sinister, the police state that looks like a multi-party democracy.  We see collusion between business and government, and we are not surprised.  Extending the possible powers, well, sooner or later they will be asked to use them.

I appreciate that the police are too busy filing forms to read everyone's e-mail.  So why make it legal for them to do so?  Why not make investigations of this sort require a warrant.  It seems to me either the police will remain underfunded, in which case the laws are toothless, or at some time in the future there will be the manpower to expliot the act.

Andy B.

[JimBob]

 Interesting arguments, but the earnings policy is very hard to use and requires a lot of evidence. A Police state would not happen in a country with unarmed police, and I find the daily Express's campaign to give all cops jhandguns seriously worrying.
 Democracy is always going to end in corruption, but it's the best of a bad lot of ways to run a state.
 

[rius]

"and I'm not buying Gaymes Workshop's Nazi Flavoured Crap."

Pardon? What do you mean by this? Please explain for those of us of a less politically-aware sensibility.

[JamieB]

Written and drawn by the wondrously talented Martin Eden, the O Men - described by Comics International as "the best comic currently being produced in the UK" - has a website at:
http://www.theomen.free-online.co.uk/
*J*

[paulvonscott]

You are obviously a devotee of the Games Workshop hobby Rius, as you've also questioned another GW comment I made, so I won't expect you to agree to me.  

I just happen to feel that Warhammer 40K is a fascist universe and that imperial society is uncritically promoted while actually being worse than Hitlers Germany.  Something I find peculiarly disturbing.

I don't expect you to like or agree with my comments, but it's what I feel to be the case.