Active Minds - Terrorvision

  

  Active Minds (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063591065475) are a punk band from Scarborough who've been around since since 1986. They're no strangers to this blog having featured twice previously. 

https://justsomepunksongs.blogspot.com/2019/02/active-minds-trial-by-social-media.html

https://justsomepunksongs.blogspot.com/2020/05/active-minds-another-peasant-valley.html

  One thing that stands out about them for me is their carefully thought out lyrics. Their new album, Things that Cannot Be Unseen, bears ample testament to this. Just one example being closing track, Shamima, in which they tackle a divisive subject and put forward a compelling case about how maybe we shouldn't be too harshly judged by the mistakes we made when we were still a child. Agree or disagree with them, they tackle a thorny topic eruditely. 

  (The song is an album highlight and I was going to feature it here but the free version of the Youtube movie maker I use won't let me convert songs over 5 minutes long. Happily there's plenty more great songs on the album so I've chosen another and I'll settle for playing Shamima on this week's show). 

  The album's available on vinyl and digital download here :  https://activeminds1.bandcamp.com/album/things-that-cannot-be-unseen  

  This song is summed up by the band thus; 

The early days of the internet were hailed by many, who talked about the democratisation of news; that we'd no longer just be able to hear the words of governments or corporations – everyone would have an outlet to be able to share their thoughts to the world.
These days, the reality is more of a dystopian nightmare, rather than the utopia many had imagined. In this new online world, it has become difficult to even be able to differentiate facts from lies. When everybody has access to everything anybody says, and it can all look equally legitimate, how are you supposed to know the motivation of those who are behind the stories that are spread? It has created a platform for psychopaths and fanatics which is far more effective and wide-reaching than any which has ever existed before.
A great many people now rely on social media as their primary source of news about the world. This is an environment in which deliberate disinformation is rife, and hate speech is normalised. Self-appointed sleuths, who are primarily interested in maximising an income stream for themselves, can undermine criminal investigations and make fictitious online accusations about people which some struggle to ever throw off. And for those with an extremist rage against innocent sections of the population, the internet provides access to a network of like-minded lunatics to make themselves feel both vindicated and supported.
The live-streaming of the Christchurch Mosque shootings in March 2019 was a grim wake-up call for the world as to where all this can lead. A right-wing fanatical maniac murdered 51 people while his social media followers cheered him on. Many of those who had watched the live-stream had recorded it and then tried to upload it elsewhere on social media – there were well over a million upload attempts made on Facebook alone.
Violent extremists look to post even the most gruesome of content because they realise that there are people in the world who are looking for something to believe in, and yet who are completely desensitised to violence – often due to the games they've played since infancy. It is a potent and appalling combination. 

 Not only great lyrics but also a nod musically to Stiff Little Fingers, this is Terrorvision...

So, now maniacs can live-stream their atrocities,
And upload essays of their twisted philosophies
Straight to your homes or to your phones with such consummate ease –
Thanks to the miracle of modern technologies.

The most sickening future acts will all be televised –
Twisted minds playing out their fantasies before our eyes.
Pandora’s box is not just opened – it’s been pulverised.
Is this what global tech-giants once visualised?

To facilitate the sharing of everyone’s thoughts may seem a great idea,
But there are those who’ll want to use it to spread vile hatred and fear.
They screen the close-up details of the latest crazed attack.
The genie’s out of the bottle – can it ever be put back?

Is this what we think freedom of expression means –
That ISIS can broadcast war crimes to computer screens?
And is the horror of the image still all that it seems
When decontextualised and reformatted into memes?

And so this desensitised online culture that’s been building up for years
Leads to mass murder sprees accompanied by the sound of online cheers,
Where all the victims look like targets that you are supposed to slay
To get extra bonus points in all the games you’ve learned to play.

The horrors that appear on the screen
Are things that cannot be unseen.
The cruelty, the terror, and the screams
May always haunt you in your dreams.

Active Minds - Another Peasant Valley Slum Day

  Hailing from Scarborough, Active Minds (https://www.facebook.com/Active-Minds-438472032865450/) have been releasing hard hitting punk rock music for donkeys years and have built up an impressive back catalogue. It's a body of work that has been recently expanded with the release of a new ep titled Two Sides Of The Same Coin. Presumably though they're a bunch of ugly buggers as they haven't any band photos on Facebook or Bandcamp so you're having to make do with this update starting with a picture of the ep cover! It's a good cover though which sums up the ep well.

  As was the case with the split that I featured yesterday, they were intending to release it on 7" vinyl but the Corona Virus has caused that to be delayed. They have however stuck it on Bandcamp and very impressive it is too. Themes covered are our changing world ("It’s a very different place to the one where they grew up, And the new world is not so kind To the ones who are left behind"), the pursuit of material wealth & the ever expanding gap between the haves and the have nots and how we should resist the slide from angry youth towards apathetic middle age. It's political punk with bite and you can check it out here : https://activeminds1.bandcamp.com/album/two-sides-of-the-same-coin

  This track reminds us how well off we are compared with many of those in far away lands and it's called Another Peasant Valley Slum Day...

The reality of global economics
Is that some will go without,
And we are amongst the fortunate ones –
You shouldn’t have any doubt.

Far away from the tabloid pages
People are forced to live in squalor –
Living each day from hand to mouth,
Not daring to think of tomorrow.

Out there, it’s another peasant valley slum day
Back in exploitation land.
We don’t leave enough to make their ends meet.
When will we start to understand?

If we want to make to make poverty history
We must tackle the excesses of greed,
Where a minority have stockpiles of wealth
Far greater than anyone could need.

Meanwhile, it’s another peasant valley slum day
Back in exploitation land.
We don’t leave enough to make their ends meet.
When will we start to understand?

Active Minds - Trial By Social Media

  Active minds are from Scarborough and formed in 1986 from the ashes of S.A.S. (Speak Against Society). They've a lengthy back catalogue, mainly self released on their own Loony Tunes label. I played a song last year on the show from their Freedom Of The Borough ep but when I checked back I found I'd not featured them on here yet. That's going to change today as they've got a new album out called Religion Is Nonsense. It's available on 10" vinyl and digitally :  https://activeminds1.bandcamp.com/album/religion-is-nonsense

  The music is hard hitting punk rock, the lyrics are political and touch on religion, the political gains to be made by keeping people fearful of foreigners, kids on prescription drugs, kids with their childhoods cut short, mouthy bigots etc. One of the songs is a Discharge influenced lament about stamping boots, starving children and poisoned rivers which ends by asking why we can't have a peaceful future where everyone has what they need to live a happy life. For the answer to that last question the other songs on the album provide plenty of reasons why it's unlikely everything will urn out rosy. The band hold a mirror up to society and the reflection isn't pretty.

  And there's the song you'll find below which the band describe thus :

Social media may have been created as a tool to help bring people together, but it doesn’t seem that it’s creating a lot of social harmony. The ability to connect easily with so many strangers creates opportunities for anonymous acts of mental cruelty. 
Around half of all teenagers have experienced online bullying, and more than a third have been the victim of online threats. 
The effects of online abuse can be deep and long-lasting – leading to anxiety, depression and, in the most extreme examples, suicide attempts. Yet, too often, the perpetrators are divorced from the results on their victims. They may even think they’re being humorous, but there’s nothing funny about being publicly ridiculed or belittled. 
The modern world is one in which kids have very little choice about whether or not they interact with social media. To opt out is to virtually cut yourself off from your peers. But should social interaction have to mean living in fear of being mentally and verbally abused online? Has society really become that unkind?

  It's called Trial By Social Media....

These days it’s easy to accuse. It’s easy to abuse. 
You can hide behind anonymity so there’s nothing much to lose. 
These days some people are so vile – spreading so much hateful bile. 
There’s an outlet for these comments that are really not worthwhile. 

From vicious scorn to revenge porn – it’s a trial by social media. 
They’ll make you wish you’d never been born – it’s a trial by social media. 
Kids today grow up so fast in a world of social media. 
How long do you think you’d last in a trial by social media? 

These days young people get so stressed, and some get so depressed. 
It’s hard to cope with all the things they mentally ingest. 
These days there’s bullying online – it happens all the time. 
Do we have to wait ‘til kids self-harm before we draw the line? 

Small minds are turned on others to make their own lives feel less small. 
Do they think about the consequence of what they do at all? 
Some may think they’re funny, but do they think of the effect 
That their words may have on those whose reputations have been wrecked?