"bath salts"

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/miami-cannibal-was-not-on-bath-salts-943768

According to this the Miami attack had nothing to do with Bath salts but similar incidents have occured since which are linked to the drug.

There's an article in the latest Vice about bath salts, it's quite interesting. I found this on the Vice website http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/6/...ernative-hypothesis-excited-delirium-syndrome Not the story, but a possible (if Vice are to be trusted at all) alternative explanation.

The guy who filmed himself killing/eating/defiling was just a psychopath, wasn't he? An attention seeking one at that.

I suppose zombie-movies/video games must be popular on some level because they reflect fears we have about society: genetic manipulation, use of hazardous chemical materials (the general pernicious influence technology/industry is now widely accepted to have on the natural order of things), the widespread use of drugs (both illegal and pharmaceutical) etc. But then also, this zombie mythology is so popular that we probably just frame events using that context - I'm sure people have been doing crazy things like eating each other/their own intestines since time immemorial.

There is an intersection between cannibalism/zombie-mythology that you find in cannibal serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, who often say that the reason they ate their victims was that they wanted to 'possess' them completely, in the same manner that voodoo witch doctors supposedly make zombies of people in order to control them. e.g.

''Once Dahmer got his own apartment, he stepped up both his killing and his cruelty.� He wanted to create a zombie to do his bidding, so when he'd drug a victim into unconsciousness, he'd drill holes into his head and inject acid or boiling water.� Usually they died, but one actually survived for a while and walked out into the streets.'' http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/necrophiles/secret_2b.html

Cheery stuff.

Corpsey said:

I suppose zombie-movies/video games must be popular on some level because they reflect fears we have about society

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I'd def agree with that. I think they often reflect people's fears of the mindless/frightening ways in which others can act under the influence of particular propaganda/ideology. Romero set Dawn of the Dead in a shopping mall very aptly...

I went to the anti-EDL demo at Walthamstow yesterday, and the number of people just wandering around their usual business/shopping, gawping as if confused by the whole thing, was predictable but still a little terrifying. OK, so there's going to be a possibly large group of fascists (wasn't a big group in the end though, thank god) marching through the actual place where I live, but hey, I do need a new T-shirt...

I'd sort of understand (but not sympathise) if people weren't doing it out of apathy and just stayed home, but the fact that they were devoting exactly the same energy required to go on a short demo to going shopping...that's something else. Which is where the idea of zombies comes in very useful.

Forgotten about that bit, very true.

I'm sure Romero must've referenced similar ideas about the pacification of people in other of his zombie films too, but I haven't seen them tbh

Well most notably Dawn of the Dead is actually set in a mall.

baboon2004 said:

I'd def agree with that. I think they often reflect people's fears of the mindless/frightening ways in which others can act under the influence of particular propaganda/ideology. Romero set Dawn of the Dead in a shopping mall very aptly...

I went to the anti-EDL demo at Walthamstow yesterday, and the number of people just wandering around their usual business/shopping, gawping as if confused by the whole thing, was predictable but still a little terrifying. OK, so there's going to be a possibly large group of fascists (wasn't a big group in the end though, thank god) marching through the actual place where I live, but hey, I do need a new T-shirt...

I'd sort of understand (but not sympathise) if people weren't doing it out of apathy and just stayed home, but the fact that they were devoting exactly the same energy required to go on a short demo to going shopping...that's something else. Which is where the idea of zombies comes in very useful.

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looking studiously unconcerned, bemused even, by the bloated red face of the EDL as you shop for more halal chicken and saudi oil pisses them off more than actually counter protesting and giving their ridiculous little firm a sense of political relevance.

Mr. Tea said:

The shopping-mall zombism is ref'd nicely at the start of Shaun Of The Dead, where it's implied that most of us are in a pretty zombic state already.

(Remember at the end of that film, where the remaining zombies are shown 'employed' in Tesco, collecting trolleys and whatnot? The whole Workfare thing really makes you think supermarkets would try that if they could, doesn't it?)

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going in tesco makes me think they already are trying it

Patrick Swayze said:

looking studiously unconcerned, bemused even, by the bloated red face of the EDL as you shop for more halal chicken and saudi oil pisses them off more than actually counter protesting and giving their ridiculous little firm a sense of political relevance.

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Don't agree with this at all. The reason movements like that are stopped is because they are countered, not because people are able to mortally damage them with their insouciance. History is pretty clear on this; and dismissing the EDL as a 'ridiculous little firm' is also dangerous, as if (organised) fascism is always a niche pursuit. It starts from somewhere, and inevitably it always starts small, in organisations that people dismiss as 'ridiculous'.

baboon2004 said:

Don't agree with this at all. The reason movements like that are stopped is because they are countered, not because people are able to mortally damage them with their insouciance. History is pretty clear on this; and dismissing the EDL as a 'ridiculous little firm' is also dangerous, as if (organised) fascism is always a niche pursuit. It starts from somewhere, and inevitably it always starts small, in organisations that people dismiss as 'ridiculous'.

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you see organised paramilitaries with a firm belief in a 20th century ideology, I see overweight, alcoholic football hooligans dismayed by the police clamp down on their old pursuit and determined to replace it with something that appeals to their vaguely tribal tendencies. having an opposition is exactly what they want.

are you seriously concerned about the rise of the EDL? have you heard them try to explain what they believe coherently? they'll be easier for the security services to infiltrate and dismantle than legoland at night.

"you see organised paramilitaries with a firm belief in a 20th century ideology" - trust me, i don't see that at the moment, not at all. But these things happen over time, organisations build over time, from sometimes incredibly 'risible' roots. They should be stopped before they do become properly organised.

"having an opposition is exactly what they want." And if they weren't opposed at all, then what? Do you think they would just go away? That seems incredibly illogical to me.

Of course I don't think their beliefs are coherent. But I don't see what this has to do with anything. Front National policies are completely incoherent and millions vote for them. That started somewhere very small, too (and they were considered risible), and such organisations can grow in surprising ways if they are not stopped near birth.

Edit: Also, I do think their ideology of intolerance and scapegoating does have political relevance to many people at the moment, however confused the particular ideas are. It's a more extreme mirror of the generally heightened climate of intolerance that always accompanies a right-wing government. And more broadly in Europe, conditions for far-right groups are pretty good. I'll bet Golden Dawn were considered a joke a few years back.

baboon2004 said:

"you see organised paramilitaries with a firm belief in a 20th century ideology" - trust me, i don't see that at the moment, not at all. But these things happen over time, organisations build over time, from sometimes incredibly 'risible' roots. They should be stopped before they do become properly organised.

"having an opposition is exactly what they want." And if they weren't opposed at all, then what? Do you think they would just go away? That seems incredibly illogical to me.

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yes tbh. If they'd been ignored from the outset then I think most of the members would have simply sat around in pubs being pissed off. the only thing that brings them out of the pub before each demo is the massive fanfare and angry uaf students.

Don't agree, but then we've established that. And the 'angry student' caricature of everyone who protests is a bit weak.

I blame facebook for people not being able to deal with ignoring ppl/being ignored any more.

baboon2004 said:

Don't agree, but then we've established that. And the 'angry student' caricature of everyone who protests is a bit weak.

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it's their caricature, what brings them out.

fight ignorance with ignorance

No, I think they'd be quite happy to harrass/intimidate passers-by. There's a reason they march in multicultural areas, after all.