/ 30 July 2003

Pizza versus Democracy

One of the reasons that closet fascist governments worldwide have been

rapidly introducing more and more legislation to control and monitor the

Internet, is because now Democracy is available to the lazy. In other words,

you don’t need to get up off the couch and go onto the street to protest

anything, its all available to you via your keyboard and monitor. So its

fairly simple to raise hell and chaos online, and then pick up the pizza and

continue watching movies, without any effort.

As an example, go grab some pizza via www.debonairs.com. (And no, no one’s bribed me to put the link here, but we at the Mail & Guardian are open to all free vegetarian food offers.) It hasn’t been updated in a while, but take a look at the laudable efforts by some local pizza fans to provide a one-stop local ‘pizza worship site’ at Pizza Web.

Next up, it’s almost certain that local government is now looking at your

email – and flagging mails with keywords, for further closer inspection. You

can block them by beginning to use encryption with your email. This also

prevents your ISP from being able to read your email, or store it for any

government or law enforcement use. So learn how to make it real difficult

for anyone else to read your email, and irritate any unauthorised swines who

might be reading your mail: PGP Encryption Questions and Answers and PGP FAQ.

And also dip into the links for cryptography.

That done, the pizza getting munched, most governments are within reach of

us pizza-fans, so for a wide selection of governments to regale with emails

on whatever you feel like, without regard to asking anyone local for

permission, try Governments On The Web. If that’s not enough, head over to Governments.

For general info on different countries, try the aptly named

Information Please.

Then dive into the links and data at Political Resources.

If you feel like protesting without the anguish of sunburn and having your

photo taken by embassy officials – then why not hurl cyber-abuse? It’s a lot

more fun, and quicker to achieve. (Remember that the CIA tend to place their

local operatives and structures within the ‘cultural’ sections of their

embassy staff.) So, try the local US embassy.

Of course you could always stick your nose in and irritate US embassies in

Angola,

Egypt,

Jerusalem,

Kenya or

Zimbabwe.

Speaking of Zimbabwe – seeing as the ANC aren’t bothering with the ruler

who’s behaving like Godzilla with dysentry – why not send wildly abusive or

obscene emails to the Zimbabwean government on the ANC’s behalf? Tell them I

sent you, I don’t mind. (If you’re scared, make a hotmail email account NOT

using your own name or email address anywhere in the signup, and send from

there.) Be cheerfully rude at the Zimbabwean government.

Or else, if you’re in need of a good anger venting, say whatever comes to mind at the headquarters of Zanu PF.

All email worldwide is being sniffed through by a global network known as Echelon. So even this column, as I’ve sent it in to a local address prior to publication, has no doubt been automatically tagged and looked over by operatives – however, if I’d encrypted it, they wouldnt have been able to spot it. Read Inside Echelon.

And for a glimpse of the below-the-radar warfare around Echelon reading all

of our emails, try Cypher War.

If you’re looking for nice pix of flags of the world, to mess around with in

Photoshop and anger politicians and people who don’t realise that

‘patriotism’ is the last refuge of child molesters – then find what you need

at Flags of the World.

As regards political parties – the only one with any integrity (as can be

seen by the German version of it) and which needs to be brought in locally,

is the Green Party.

Alternatively, I find that taking the p*ss out of the entire concept is

often a wiser move, such as at this next party, which uses the slogan ‘vote

for insanity, you know it makes sense’ – try the Monster Raving Looney

Party. Also consider the sense of trying the Loony offshoot of the Monster Raving Loonies, known as the Rock n Roll Loony Party. Or maybe you just need to get back to grassroots levels at the

Marijuana Reform Party.

In case all the talk of politics is scaring you, here’s more online pizza .

Most of our ancestors came from the prisons and asylums of Holland – however

most of the sane decent people stayed behind in the Netherlands to make one

of the most sensible and well-run governments in the world. Given the stupid

arguing locally over childish issues like ‘morality’ – why not look at The

Netherlands to see how happy and peaceful society gets, when you legalise

drugs, drug use, prostitution and sexual choices, and keep governments’ ugly

face out of citizens personal morals and choices. Start your journey

towards reality at Holland.

Then watch an incredible full length documentary online – Sex, Drugs and Democracy – which should be required watching for all the socially immature local whining types.

Then leaving the starving masses and political instability to one side, go

learn how to make your own pizza at Italian Food Forever.

And why worry about a crime rate that kills 6 times the daily numbers that

apartheid did, when you have the chance to learn how to make Mexican Pizza?

Finally, I’m not suggesting that just eating pizza and emailing rude

messages to political leaders is all that can be done to make oneself feel

better, but it’s a good start. I mean see how you feel heading

straight to the

ANC Feedback Form,

then follow up your invective rant with perving at food porn at

Pizza Recipes.

Until the next time – if politicians who hate pizza fans don’t get me…

Ian Fraser is a playwright, author, comedian, conspiracy nut, old-time radio collector and self-confessed data-junkie. Winner of numerous Vita and Amstel Awards, he’s been an Internet addict and games-fanatic since around 1995, when the Internet began to make much more sense than theatre.