XXVI 4th September 2003
Leszczyn had a bumper harvest: 335 tons of wheat and barley plus 42 tons of rapeseed earlier - although theoretically we have enough storage in the silos - by the time different varieties are loaded separately we were short of space and had to leave 50 tons on the concrete in the barn; it needed turning with shovels to keep dry, as the grain lay a meter high. We sold some because the price was good and eventually re-loaded the rest into silos. The harvest was unique in being completed in eight days, with lovely weather and without any faults in the combine; it shows that the work can be achieved by doing 9 hectares a day. It meant working very late every day and starting early because the ground was free of dew. We had our usual celebration in the restaurant overlooking Vistula River.
Travelling to Peyriac in south west France and passing through Germany: looking all along the road at the rich countryside in both countries - stopping as before in Feuchtwangen enables one to inspect closely the fields now ploughed and sown, tidy and smooth as a billiard table. We observe their fieldʼs edges which are neatly trimmed and cleaned, with a tidy ditch along side, next to country roads, without weeds or wild bushes as often happens chez nous. There is a lot to do to reach Western standards, but Płock County is well on the way there.
Once again we read the lies purveyed by Houstonids and their allies: David Kay former UN inspector, now a leading CIA consultant (a suitable career combination) asserts before Congress the existence of WMD in Iraq, which everyone knows was an invention. A real expert Dr Kelly asserted the opposite and walked to his death. The Observer by publishing my letter indicated that public disquiet exists, while Blair bags his insurance by saying that the denial should not be overstated.
| The Observer | 3.08.2003 |
The implementation of government policy depends on two things: the consensus of support by a sizable section of society and the governmentʼs control of administration, judiciary and in the last resort police and the army. In a liberal democracy the use of power is limited and therefore when consensus is lost what steps in is corruption and fraud.
When the Government lost the consensus over Iraq it first sent Mr Campbell with disinformation and then asserted its power through veiled insinuations of social opprobrium, and Dr Kelly took his last walk in the country. The Government will try with allies in the media to attack the independence of other information centres whether it be BBC or for that matter The Observer. Our society will have to be strong to resist the propaganda.
| Yours | MATTHEW WALLIS |
We observe the lies about WMD which were justification for the invasion are now being presented as a benefit of having enabled the invaders to get rid of dictator Saddam, while contrarily Venezuelaʼs use of its oil wealth to relieve the poverty is presented as a populist demonstration of dictatorship, which is all a part of the same self-willed and arbitrary propaganda. The message of reality is buried in the surfeit of media cover, offering truth occasionally as a fig leaf to better advance the lies. The gradual, uniform bombardment of miss-information - in which all contents are levelled and lose their difference, except for the message intended, is the ploy. “There were lorry tracks, pipes of unknown purpose in the field, there were caravans reminiscent of chemical labs and suspicious diary entries” all convey this false message. Then the revisionists are hired to rehabilitate an individual or a group, disposing of the charges of untruth against them with intricate arguments: sometimes as exaggerations, or forgeries, or as unexplained malice - until all are made to vanish for the public in the cloud of invention. They try to hide it by a surfeit of words, in a 24 hour dirge - which only says: there are lies, there are damned lies and there are Fox, CNN and Herald Tribune. Dostoyevsky identified it, in another context, by saying: “itʼs time that people vomited out the abomination that they are feeding it.”
As a result what happens then for a man in the street, is that things he faces become not ʻobjectsʼ to view, but ʻsymbolsʼ completely absorbed: like terrorism, into his life. A kind animism develops, attaching to objects an innate soul of evil. It is therefore essential in our world today that the intellectuals stay concerned with the issues and do not lose touch with the masses, to prevent formation of what may be called a Lumpenist Party. The Lumpenism can assert itself at every level of society: among intellectuals, it does so by individuals declaring no interest in politics or by a sophist view portraying politics of the day as something that it is not, or by using relativist definitions, and their erudition to misrepresent, arguing the ethicality of torture or of other crimes. The Lumpenism of the bourgeoisie is represented by people who exaggerate the use of their time on home improvement, or personal activities like dancing, garden decoration or cooking to take them away from political considerations and thinking, and taking the easy way of joining one of moribund parties. The Lumpenism of the working classes consists of the people who by and large left their class interests behind and give their time excessively to watching sport, fixed holidays and gambling. It results in ʻplaying the harp while Rome burnsʼ - by various groups of society ignoring reality and exposing themselves to manipulations of which they are not even aware. They become a backward public opinion, often referred to as moral majority and used at will.
The freedom of the press, asserted to protect freedom, is made into an illusion. The control of editorial centres is taken over by larger and larger enterprises, by multinationals who are paying for the news cover to suit their money deals and policy or by political parties in their shadow. Most journalists write the propaganda for newspapers whose wealthy ownersʼ politics they disagree with, but have to slant their own views for them in order to survive. Only accidentally is an irresistible public fascination created in a subject which leads to portrayal of the true interests of those who are simple and not wealthy - and using freely full expression of intellectual and ethical forces existing in the society. Such an accident, on behalf of racial discrimination was Martin-Luther King and there are not many of those, whilst the few accidents are opposed by daily fabrications.
Blair, who was described by Lord Jenkins as a man of ʻa shallow mindʼ, has constructed such a system for lying. At Hutton Inquiry it is said now that he interfered with the use of intelligence in the September dossier, dealing with WMD. A witness describes how: the objections and concerns to allegations of Iraqʼs use of biological or chemical weapons in 45 minutes, were either ignored or concealed. Also how spin merchant, took control of the dossier and furnished it - with distortions and inaccuracies. The structure of our lives seems to break down under the weight of these never-ending lies, and Dr Kelly was killed for trying to expose it. Men like that are confronted with a mixture of insults and coarse jokes; with extracts from what they say truncated or skilfully deformed with captious arguments built up by assertions both vague and peremptory enough to destroy their credence to an outsider. There are others who belong to, and express, this finest club of English spirit: fearless, with dignity asserting the truth but largely powerless this day. One day London will be proud to have his statue.
The propaganda for neo-consʼ houstonid ideology: policing the world, democracy by invasion, and all that sound and fury (shock and awe) to mesmerize the masses, creating an animist image of men of Islam, totally without ideals, without meaning and without satisfaction, does not very from Hitlerʼs, who said: ʻif the Jew did not exist, we would have to invent him, a visible enemy, not just an invisible one, is what we need.ʼ This propaganda is a little better than the clumsy Mein Kampf or Volkischer Beobachter, but as all-embracing as the other for this reason. For an ordinary citizen - who is trying to decipher the truths, from the lies - it is like trying to read the hieroglyphs without a Champollion.
