Electric Eye

Up here in space, I'm looking down on you.
My lasers trace everything you do.
You think you've private lives? Think nothing of the kind!
There is no true escape; I'm watching all the time.

I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam.
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean.
I'm elected -- electric spy. I'm protected -- electric eye.

Always in focus; you can't feel my stare.
I zoom into you, but you don't know I'm there.
I take pride in probing all your secret moves.
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.

Electric eye in the sky.  Feel my stare, always there.
There's nothing you can do about it.
Develop and expose, I feed upon your every thought.
And so my power grows.

-- Halford / Downing / Tipton (Judas Priest) 1982

The Road Warrior

When the world was powered by the black fuel, the desert sprung great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing; they'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting. A firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men....

-- George Miller, et al (1981)

Natural Grace

 I live in this place with a natural grace. 

And I walk through confusion with a smile on my face. 

-- Laurence Colbert (Ride) 1994

Crystals

It seems that all I want to do is sleep these days

Wake up in about a year and not feel this way

-- Natalie Lew (Sea Lemon) 2024

illusion of freedom

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

--Frank Zappa (1977)

alarm the populace

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

-- H.L. Mencken (1921)

fear free speech

"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

-- George R. R. Martin (1999)