The new Freedom is gone!

I was still a student and learning basic English. In the process at a stay in Brighton (GB) a native speaker told me to avoid using "else" - as "if" "then" "else" "end if" does not exist in conversational language, but in programming. "What synonyms are then to be used?" "Use "otherwise" instead!"

Ok... let's do something otherwise then!

In the 90ties we discovered computers and closer toward the Millennium we started to use dial up "mailboxes" and later "the internet" was available to us. The new freedom was born and information was not only accessible in libraries or bookshops, but as well "online". The internet was a space of cooperation, generosity, help and chatrooms were there to connect worldwide. Google was an unknown word or company.

In the process, companies raised and others disappeared: The Palm Pilot was the answer to the Filofax and Nokia, Motorola or Roadstar started to make smaller phones at affordable costs. Only a few companies had firewalls...

Criminals discovered "the net" and acted without prosecution for ages. The longer, the more government officials and politicians started fighting against "things in the net" and it ended up with the patriot act, the GDPR or the Facebook trial, where an election could have been influenced...

These days legitimate political posts (with foundations and confirming the truth) are censored, as they are uncomfortable for a leading political party. A "quarantine breaker" is imprisoned and people are prosecuted for taking their right of freedom or their right of demonstrating in the streets.

We are back in the prohibition and the government is controlling the (social) media and financially supporting the industry "due to Covid", where in fact the voices are bought. The media is no longer able to finance itself, as the "free flow of information" has eroded their industry down to a fraction of what they were before. A journalist can no longer write independently and research is kept short and basic - if even done.

All this has inspired my apocalyptic PAINting. Maybe it is time we change something? In 1930 people thought the same and started a war... we should learn from history and do things differently this time.

Let's do something "otherwise"!