Get all 16 Active Minds releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Active Minds / Pivnica - split album, Active Minds / Kontra Orden - "Inevitable" split EP, Canarian Noise Attack, What If We Decide...?, Blood Is On Our Hands, Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Unreleased Compilation Tracks, Religion Is Nonsense, and 8 more.
1. |
In God We're Trussed
02:53
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Religious morality invades so many aspects of our daily lives - whether by school discipline, social pressure or Government laws. In God we're trussed. It's impossible to escape the crippling effects of Christian dogma when religious bigots hold positions of authority in the state machine. As we enter the 21st Century, surely such superstition is no longer valid. The time has come to finally disentangle church from state.
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2. |
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Your head is full of your punk rock fantasy life existence - filled with thoughts of violent protest and armed resistance. Far removed from your real life of watching videos and drinking beer - bands and gigs and record sleeve politics are the only things that exist here. You talk enthusiastically of rebels in far-off lands, who've taken up the struggle with a gun in their hands. They're living out the role played out in your imagination. You use them as a mascot to disguise your own stagnation. Nestled in the security of your safe European home, you dream of playing the part of a revolutionary hero - a perfect blend of Chomsky and Sylvester Stallone. It's just hollow words and slogans that all add up to zero.
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3. |
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When they tell you that the economy's doing great, whilst some people have no food on their plate - don't you get the feeling that something's very wrong? And do you really believe their stories of "feel-good" factors and other glories? Isn't it pretty obvious that we're being strung along? In order to find the answers we must start asking the right questions. Whilst some may become millionaires, billions more don't get air shares. Do you think this is the way the world should be? Some complain about lack of competition, whilst millions suffer from malnutrition. I can't understand how the connections are so hard to see.
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4. |
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The race is on to replace reality with a computer simulation of how it should be, which is able to respond to any virtual situation that can be thought up by a braindead population. The need for human contact and to communicate are now being reclassified as quite out-of-date - if you're plugged into a terminal and watching a screen then you'll have quite enough idea of what life really means. And maybe one day they'll say we no longer need food - they'll just give us virtual nourishment down a cathode ray tube. Now you can have virtual children, or virtual pets who, when they get ill, can go to virtual vets. Friday night clubbing with your virtual mates - trying out your chat-up lines on virtual dates. If you pluck up the courage you can have virtual sex. Does it make you wonder what they'll think of next? Maybe a virtual job and a virtual wife? Why not go the whole hog - load in a virtual life? And at the end of it all you'll be virtually dead (which you are already, I'd have honestly said). You should never underestimate the power of the companies to take your lives and natural drives and replace them with pale copies. If you think that life is just a little too real then a virtual world may have an appeal - a hypothetical life-game you can practise at home and pretend to yourself that you're not on your own. In a virtual world, choose any life that you want - you can print it all out and even choose your own font, but just don't think of opening your door and wanting the real life that you had before. When the game is over you'll just turn off the set - a feeling of emptiness is all that you'll get. Now you're back in the real world where you're just another maggot on a hook to be torn apart by corporate sharks who don't give a virtual fuck.
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5. |
Blinded By Science
02:45
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Vivisection - do you think it's good? Animals in cages - covered in blood. LD50 just has no use - pointless, mindless animal abuse. Vivisection - too many people don't care, perhaps because they're unaware. The reality is more like a nightmare - slaughtered for a hairspray, do you really think it's fair?
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6. |
Judgemental Voice
06:43
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I've heard the arguments of the pro-life camp, and I can't say that I'm impressed. They lack the practical common sense that they'd need to stand the test. If I was being charitable I'd say they're sitting on the fence. At worst, I'd say their ideas were based on total ignorance. A faulty contraceptive is sometimes all it takes, but in your moralistic dogma there's no room for such mistakes. "She can always have the baby and then simply give it away", but if she does you'll still try to make her feel guilty until her dying day. Well, what if your campaigning led to a change in the law, and women died at the hands of backstreet butchers as they did before? And if desperate, pregnant women are to be given no chance to escape, then what about a woman who is the victim of a rape? Do you really think she should be forced to carry the pregnancy to birth to be the subject of people's gossip, derision and mirth, whilst being increasingly reminded of what was done to her - the pain and humiliation that she had to endure? So, after some persuasion, you finally concede that if the law was changed a woman should be allowed to plead that under special circumstances the pregnancy can be aborted, as long as an incidence of rape has been reported. But, in practical terms, what does this proposal mean? Is an accusation good enough, or would proof need to be seen? And if only a conviction of the rapist is sufficient, then do you really think the justice system is that efficient? And what about those women who may feel that they want to maintain their silence for fear of being disbelieved, or because of threats of violence? Maybe they feel that going to court will make them re-live the pain, or that cross-examination will try to make out that they're to blame. How clear is the distinction between what is good and what is bad when you are only 12 years old and you've been raped by your dad, and you've been told that your parents should be obeyed at all times by the family values moralists who do not comprehend such crimes? In your fairy-tale fantasy world everything is always nice - like a Barbara Cartland novel, laced with sugar and with spice - where all families are supportive, fathers never harm their daughters, and the starkness of reality never muddies up the waters. All women are empowered and able to speak their piece, and judges can always be trusted, along with the police. Domestic violence against women simply doesn't exist, and no woman can be raped as long as she resists. Well, the real world isn't perfect. In fact, it doesn't even come near, and questions of right and wrong are often not so clear. To think that women take these decisions lightly is a complete distortion. Don't be fooled into thinking that pro-choice means pro-abortion. Each decision must be made with reference to each individual case, and, in my opinion, those people who are best placed to decide are those who must live with the consequences of that choice, and it's hard enough already without adding your judgemental voice.
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7. |
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So, you think you've got it all sussed out? So, you think you know what life's about? Set fast in your heterosexist ways - unwittingly agreeing with what religious bigots say. Or perhaps you don't quite fit the norm and your prejudices take another farm. You fall into the homosexist trap - spewing out more close-minded crap. You follow society's rules like a flock of sheep and never question anything that you're told. Well, don't expect me to be like that, because I don't want to fit into any of your moulds. Can't you see that you've got to open up? Don't fall into their trap and close your mind. No-one can see into the future. Who can tell whose love you might find? All this pressure from outside telling us that we must decide - "Choose how you're going to live your life. Choose your husband. Choose your wife." They want your lifestyle easily defined so they tell you to make up your mind, but they really mean that they want it closed because a close-minded stereotype is easier controlled. Now you're married and you've settled down - more close-minded conformity formalised. Signed away your life on the dotted line - heterosexual monogamy institutionalised. Victorian principles and religious dogma blended together into an outdated institution. You kid yourselves that you really love each other - so why do you need a written constitution?
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8. |
New World Law And Order
02:10
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New World Order - new Fourth Reich - a totalitarian power scheme. Clinton, Bush, Reagan - they're all alike. World domination is their dream. The USA as the world's police? That must be a sick fucking joke! Fuelled by self-interest and riddled with corruption - that's the sort of police force that they recognise. Heavy-handed, arrogant and hell-bent on destruction - justifying it all with propaganda and lies. When power is given to the world's biggest terrorists, in times of crisis where can we turn? Will they drag the world to the edge of a precipice? Will we have to wait until then to learn?
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9. |
Sponge
01:06
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You utter all the right words in the right company - it seems you know just what to say. You wear fashionable opinions like others wear clothes - it's a sycophant's role that you play. Nobody can figure out what you really think or if you have anything real to express, but I think that I have sussed out the truth and that is that you couldn't really care less.
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10. |
Junk Food
04:36
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Dulled into unconsciousness by satellite TV and the tabloid press. Junk food for the human mind makes for a malnourished humankind. You have no reason to exist but to work for the cash to get you pissed. An uncomplicated life, but at what cost? Your imagination has been lost. A modern lobotomy is what you've got - a brain full of rubbish left to rot. It's true that ignorance is bliss, but there must be more to life than this.
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11. |
Exception To Their Rule
01:44
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I take exception to the rule of those who wield their might to perpetuate injustices and not to do what's right. And if others just accept it - think that nothing can be done, then I'm an exception to the rule and I'm not the only one.
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12. |
Human Beings Uber Alles
01:59
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Human beings uber alles - calculating, cold and callous. Lives are snuffed out in the name of science. This is our voice of defiance. It seems as though the human race considers that its rightful place is at the culminating point of evolution, so it has the right to embark on a final solution where all life which is not seen to directly benefit human beings is there to be used up and discarded - the suffering of these creatures is disregarded. Humankind takes and humankind destroys, using living creatures as if they were toys - dissected for experimentation and led to mass extermination. Scientists claim that there is a purpose, and that these experiments exist to educate us. Well, the only lesson that they show is just how low mankind can go.
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13. |
The Holy Babble
02:13
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Jesus was a hero to many, but he didn't mean shit to me - just another walking rule-book telling me how my life should be. You may say the Bible offers many relevant lessons and solutions, but this is my fucking life that I'm living, so let me draw my own conclusions. Jesus was a hero to many but he didn't mean fucking shit.
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