HOME AND AWAY August 2004

The Noose Tightens As We Continue To Look The Other Way

On the point of distributing the July edition of On Target we pondered the content of the next one, for August. Much effort has been devoted over past months to the situation in the Middle East. The situation in Iraq was still evolving - disintegrating - with the abrupt departure of United States Administrator, L. Paul Bremer. We were also well into the holiday season. This is a time when pressure of work should ease, when we are allowed to relax, when domestic commitments are allowed some priority. Newspapers tend to arrive much later as the delivery boys go off on holiday with their families, or go away mountain biking and camping. Even so, press reports continue relentlessly to accumulate. Desks and tables can be kept reasonably tidy by batching by subject areas and clipping these together but, as we relax, material on specific topics of interest continues to expand until each one becomes enough in itself for a single edition of On Target. And so we resolved to deal with a range of topics summarised largely from these press reports, and from readers' letters to the press which serve as a useful barometer to public opinion. But, as we shall see, events in Iraq have concurrently taken a serious turn for the worse. Consequently, we have been forced instead to split the coverage as initially intended, to include the latest developments.

Education is one select subject of intense concern as a longstanding target of social and political dispute. In this context we have been tempted conveniently to forget the Cold War era and thus overlook its continuing relevance today, based as it was on politico-military confrontation with the now defunct Soviet Communist Bloc. Equally, we have lost sight of the subversion, espionage, infiltration, propaganda, agitation and so on that were part of this phase of international, geopolitical strategy. Just how serious this was, as its lingering ideological legacy remains today, when Education continues to be a philosophical and political battleground at the expense of our children, may be seen in an old press cutting on Education that recently came to hand. The article, by John Izbicki, was probably written in the late 1980s. It was also probably published in The Daily Telegraph. Here are a few extracts:

Not since the publication of the Little Red Book have I come across as scurrilous a document as the one now being circulated among some Left-Wing school governors. . . . For example, fellow leftists are told to deliberately prolong meetings by "seeking clarification, niggling and insisting on being heard out"; they are also told to "raise pre-planned 'unexpected' points," to discredit the board's clerk by constantly questioning his or her accuracy so that, eventually, they are forced to resign. At this point a member of the Militant Tendency or similar is put in to clerk. Extremist governors must "never be emotional" but must "keep calm and be relentless." They should "suggest the sixth form is non-viable, whatever its size" and they should always support the grievance procedure. The head, representing the establishment and therefore detested by the Left, has to be persecuted to such an extent that his authority becomes undermined, viz: "Constantly question statements made by the head; imply concealment of information; seek to isolate him from staff and governors; visit school unannounced; suggest unrest among parents, teachers, students; imply low morale, low public opinion of the school and ignore good exam results." Teachers, non-teaching staff or pupils with a grievance must be supported "whatever the grievance". . . . "Concentrate to begin with on teachers of humanities, social studies, religious instruction (but ignore music, P.E. and classics); find out teachers' feelings about ethnic groups; hint at unfairness in head's promotion policy; and visit staff rooms at breaks."

Izbicki wrote that the document had been discovered in one form or another in Avon, Shropshire, Lancashire, Merseyside and the Midlands. On reading these lines one might expect a measure of circumspection and even dismissal in today's world. However, we have several folders of such material from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, much of it published by local authorities. As recently as 1990, a draft of 110 motions proposed for the Annual Conference of the National Union of Teachers (N.U.T.), contained many such subversive items. Here lies a major key to the intractable politicisation of Education, and the unique importance of this. Any trades union must inevitably embody political positions in addition to considerations of the pay, employment and other interests of the membership. In Education, on the other hand, the concentration has been almost continuously on the re-construction - de-construction - of what is taught in schools as part of a calculated ideological and philosophical strategy. No trades union associated with the motor manufacturing industry, for example, would indulge in politicised debate about the design technology of their product. Why should this be such an issue today at the heart of our very culture and heritage? Because, as we have repeatedly warned, the World Revolution postulated by Karl Marx in the Nineteenth Century failed only in its Soviet Communist form, in the former Soviet Union, at the end of the 1980s. The Revolution has since continued its transmutation in step with the evolving geopolitical power patterns. Marx advocated the violent destruction of the ruling classes, the wealthy bourgeoisie who owned and controlled the means of production, and so the liberation of the enslaved Proletariat. The former are the rich and super-rich of today's banking, industrial and commercial world, and their supporting cast of the political and professional elite. Ivan Reid, Schofield Professor of Education at Loughborough University has pointed out, however, that Marx "fine-tuned" his classifications to allow for the "petty bourgeoisie" and the middle classes, who were bonded to serve those who owned the means of production(2).

Revolution And The Metamorphosis And Arrogance Of Power

The bloody Bolshevik Revolution of October, 1917, which followed the Menshevik seizure of power in the previous March, was ruthless in liquidating whole swathes of Russian society(3). During the Stalinist period of the 1930s and 1940s we come across an important handbook on Diversion ("Diversiya")(4). This embodied many non-violent means to circumvent outright military conflict by undermining the administrative, moral and social fabric of one's opponent. It was based on the theories, 2,500 years before, of the Chinese military strategist, Sun Tz_, whose work is often glibly cited today, although the close relationship to Soviet Politico-Military Doctrine of the former U.S.S.R. is rarely recognised(5). What might be termed the "methodology" of the Armed Struggle of violent revolution failed to take root in the West. Therefore the Marxist corollary of the Ideological Struggle, for the mind, became the nature of the same revolution in Westernised, principally Christian society. This took the form of what has become known as "Cultural Communism"(6). An essential element of this is Political Correctness, the process originating with Marxism-Leninism, for relentlessly conditioning, and so controlling, public thought, perceptions and ultimately behaviour(7)(8). As one consequence we are even now witnessing the annual replay of cheapjack party political point-scoring over examination results in Education, just as we see this in continued attempts to eliminate merit, so-called elitism and competitive team sports in state schools.

The late Alan Clark pointed out that the historical creed of the Conservative Party was to retain political power in the interest of their own kind, thus control over land ownership, property, inheritance, and entrepreneurial independence(9). But the Revolution has since moved on from this Left-Right ideological gridlock. It has deposited in its wake a barren Tory Party devoid of any viable or meaningful philosophy. Socialism, not Communism, was always the key philosophy underlying the Marxist World Revolution. Both served the increasingly global Power Brokers in some 200 years of revolutionary insurrection and social change. Revolution also required the essential stimulus of finance. The Soviet Communist system was sustained throughout most of its existence by Western Capitalism. Concurrently, the same Revolution in the West has been obligingly bringing the petty bourgeoisie, the middle classes, to heel. The electorate, who fondly imagine that they elect governments to serve the interests of the people, are being progressively emasculated and neutered by the ratchet of an oppressive domestic bureaucracy in conjunction with that of the centralist European collective. It is becoming an egalitarian, amorphous society in which we are gradually being coerced into becoming "non-judgmental", a function of power to be exercised only by the Ruling Elite - the Nomenklatura - over the rest of us. We may now better understand the close connections between the Marxist-Leninist concept of Diversion (Diversiya), Cultural Communism and Political Correctness.

Socialism is international, seen by ideologues of democratic liberalism as a "brotherhood". Socialism and Communism had diverged by the early 1920s, but only in method. The Fabian Socialism of the Nineteenth Century is the International Socialism of "New" Labour today. By its open association with big business interests, rather than with the interests of the electorate, other than cosmetically, Socialism has become a de facto agency of the Global Power Brokers. In this post-Soviet Communist transmutation we forget too easily that people power, rule by a Marxist Proletariat, was never more than an illusion. In any society there will inevitably be those who rule and those who are ruled; what is critical is the relationship and balance between the two. The Ruling Elite, the rich and the super-rich, along with their political, diplomatic and other acolytes, feed like carrion on the corpses of Nation States as their power is increasingly consolidated. They meet through organisations like the Bilderberg Group and the Aspen Institute, and at locations such as Davos, in Switzerland. They transcend religions. They encompass the monarchies and aristocracies as complex global power patterns evolve. This was nowhere more evident than during the B.B.C. Television programme "Hard Talk" on 24th August, 2004, when Tim Sebastian, by far the most penetrative of the programme's presenters, faced Lord Charles Powell. Formerly of the Diplomatic Service, Powell was Private Secretary to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He is also a Trustee of the Aspen Institute and is cushioned by a number of company directorships. His wife, Carla, is on record as a friend of Peter Mandelson, the discredited Cabinet Minister and newly appointed European Commissioner. Brother Jonathan was appointed Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair; another example of how political boundaries are seamlessly transcended. Along with Jonathan, a third brother has close connections with the media and entertainment industries. Those in a position to know are quite clear that the Inquiries by Lords Butler and Hutton into the conduct of the Government and the function of the Intelligence services in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, have been a blatant cover-up. Challenged on these issues Lord Powell displayed breathtaking, patronising arrogance towards public concerns; not least dismissing criticism of the conclusions of these Inquiries as conflicting with those that the media had anticipated.

The conduct of politicians, many of whom remain aloof, for example, from reliance on the State Education and Health Services - how many endure crowded waiting rooms or long delays for treatment? - confirms the existence of a privileged Nomenklatura little different in principle to that of the former Soviet Union. They are remuneratively cushioned by directorships, consultancies, lucrative speaking engagements and commissioned memoirs; all of which demonstrates the detachment, the "rubber wall" that exists between the rulers in Westminster and Whitehall and the mass of Middle England, as any one who has tried to penetrate these invisible barriers will know. The reality of this Nomenklatura has been no more evident than in the conduct of Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose wife is reported as able to command a fee of no less than £30,000 for a single speaking engagement in the United States; a sum many pensioners would welcome as welfare services and pension values disintegrate around them! Blair, who took the country into a genocidal war in Iraq, and ill-equipped British servicemen to their deaths, on blatantly falsified evidence, has been condemned by the distinguished "Father" of the House of Commons, Tam Dalyell, as the worst Prime Minister that he had ever known. Blair is demonstrably vainglorious and, in our opinion, strategically naive, intellectually superficial and politically amoral. He clearly detests the ideal of the Constitutional Monarchy, and by his high profile global perambulations manifestly gazumps Her Majesty the Queen, who remains the true Head of State, like it or not, constitutional or not. Blair's vulgar record of freebie holidays in courting the Global Elite was predictably exposed in the Daily Mail of 7th August, 2004, but was also the target of a scathing article in the Left-leaning Guardian Weekend two weeks later, the author of which was moved to write, following a "sponging" sojourn with the tycoon and Right-Wing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi:

But the Labour Party should know better. It shouldn't just grumble audibly. It should recognise that its leader has become a comic-opera figure himself and rise in revolt. In fact, he's worse than that. His outrageous decision to stay with Berlusconi was beyond mere snobbery and self-indulgence. It was a kick in the teeth for the Labour Party and a show of contempt for everything it has ever stood for.

IRAQ - A "BETTER AND SAFER PLACE"

The sickening parody of governance that prevails in Westminster today is starkly evident whenever Prime Minister Tony Blair makes any reference to the situation in Iraq. The "sparring between barristers" as the Labour and Conservative Party leaders confront each other across the floor of the House of Commons simply adds to this farce. Iraq is in flames. Newspapers like the Telegraph seek to portray the widespread insurrection as the work of rebels, renegades, insurgents, extremists and even terrorists. The United States, aided and abetted by the United Kingdom, contrived to invade a sovereign Nation that had posed a threat only to their oil hegemony. The invasion was based on brazenly false evidence and bulldozed through the United Nations Security Council. Primarily the United States, coarse, crude, cultureless and brutal has come close to destroying an historic country and its heritage in the name of "Liberation". The United States has no other card than the employment of brute military force on the scale of a conventional European-style conflict; force used to smash down, and continue to smash down, any one who gets in the way, at the hands of mindless politicians and mindless military commanders. The "Liberation" of the Iraqi people has turned out to be wholesale destruction, some 12,000 deaths and still rising, and countless innocent men, women and children bombed, shelled and maimed. All because the Iraqis, increasingly bonded together across religious divides, simply want their country back on their own terms. In the Basra region one, then two and now three British soldiers have lost their lives in the process of attempting to keep the lid on this holocaust in the South for the sake of the Americans. There is a rather coarse term, "pass the sick bucket", that comes to mind each time one hears any blandly idiotic, self-delusory pronouncement on Iraq from the British Prime Minister. Robert Fisk, an expert on the Middle East, wrote of the reality on the ground in the Arab News on 2nd August, 2004. Since then nothing has changed. We are moved to reproduce his words here:

Can't Bush and Blair See Iraq Is About to Explode?
by Robert Fisk

The war is a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda which didn't exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm talking about the new lies. For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America's puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against United States troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month's death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told. The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at Saddam Hussein's "trial". Not only did the United States military censor the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe until he reached the courtroom that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked "disorientated" CNN's helpful description because, of course, he was meant to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi: "Are you a lawyer? . . . Is this a trial?" And swiftly, as he realized that this really was an initial court hearing not a preliminary to his own hanging he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence. But don't think we're going to learn much more about Saddam's future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime which were primarily with the United States.

Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching British Prime Minister Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler report. Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realize that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn't Bush realize this? The American appointed "government" controls only parts of Baghdad and even there its ministers and civil servants are car bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilia, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the "prime minister", is little more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq." He doesn't get it. The disaster exists now. When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside police stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even the National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has been twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have spoken to, not a single mercenary be he American, British or South African believes that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we journalists weren't saying so. But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his Republican supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support the "Coalition", that they support their new United States manufactured government, that the "War on Terror" is being won, that Americans are safer. Then I go to an Internet site and watch two hooded men hacking off the head of an American in Riyadh, tearing at the vertebrae of an American in Iraq with a knife.

Each day, the papers here list another construction company pulling out of the country. And I go down to visit the friendly, tragically sad staff of the Baghdad mortuary and there, each day, are dozens of those Iraqis we supposedly came to liberate, screaming and weeping and cursing as they carry their loved ones on their shoulders in cheap coffins. I keep re reading Tony Blair's statement. "I remain convinced it was right to go to war. It was the most difficult decision of my life." And I cannot understand it. It may be a terrible decision to go to war. Even Chamberlain thought that; but he didn't find it a difficult decision because, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, it was the right thing to do. And driving along the streets of Baghdad now, watching the terrified American patrols, hearing yet another thunderous explosion shaking my windows and doors after dawn, I realize what all this means. Going to war in Iraq, invading Iraq last year, was the most difficult decision Blair had to take because he thought correctly that it might be the wrong decision. I will always remember his remark to British troops in Basra, that the sacrifice of British soldiers was not Hollywood but "real flesh and blood". Yes, it was real flesh and blood that was shed. "Deadly force is authorized," it says on checkpoints all over Baghdad. Authorized by whom? There is no accountability. Repeatedly, on the great highways out of the city United States soldiers shriek at motorists and open fire at the least suspicion. "We had some Navy Seals down at our checkpoint the other day," a 1st Cavalry sergeant says to me. "They asked if we were having any trouble. I said, yes, they've been shooting at us from a house over there. One of them asked: 'That house?' We said yes. So they have these three S.U.Vs. and a lot of weapons made of titanium and they drive off towards the house. And later they come back and say 'We've taken care of that'. And we didn't get shot at any more."

What does this mean? The Americans are now bragging about their siege of Najaf. Lieutenant Colonel Garry Bishop of the 37th Armoured Division's 1st Battalion believes it was an "ideal" battle (even though he failed to kill or capture Moqtada Sadr whose "Mehdi army" were fighting the United States forces). It was "ideal", Bishop explained, because the Americans avoided damaging the holy shrines of the Imams Ali and Hussein. What are Iraqis to make of this? What if a Muslim army occupied Kent and bombarded Canterbury and then bragged that they hadn't damaged Canterbury Cathedral? Would we be grateful? What, indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned into a fantasy by those who started it? As foreign workers pour out of Iraq for fear of their lives, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press conference that hostage taking is having an "effect" on reconstruction. Effect! Oil pipeline explosions are now as regular as power cuts. In parts of Baghdad now, they have only four hours of electricity a day; the streets swarm with foreign mercenaries, guns poking from windows, shouting abusively at Iraqis who don't clear the way for them. This is the "safer" Iraq which Blair was boasting of the other day. "What world does the British Government exist in?

The Curious Case Of Ann Clwyd, M.P., And Ahmed Chalabi

Hypothetical Mirror Images - The "Channel Wars" - Or How Would We Like It?

The Health Service organisation, one of the most comprehensive in the West, now faced a critical shortage of vital supplies and constant power supply breakdowns due to the precarious condition of the public infrastructure. This, and contaminated residues from the widespread use of Depleted Uranium ammunition, saw a massive rise in untreatable child cancers, birth malformations and other problems. When later challenged about the deaths of some 500,000 children, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid replied that this was "cheap at the price". Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland had been encouraged by the European Union to rebel at the end of hostilities. When military support from Europe failed to materialise, British reprisals began, including the use of poison gas supplied by some Common Market governments, so Denmark and Germany unilaterally instigated high altitude aerial patrols over the United Kingdom in defiance of the European Commission. A number of schools, hospitals and residential areas were accidentally bombed during the ten years that followed the end of the first Channel War. Even flocks of sheep, along with shepherds and smallholders' families as far apart as the Welsh Berwyns and Perthshire became innocent victims of indiscriminate bombing during surveillance patrols.

Ten years after the British surrender the European Commission began to bring pressure to bear on the British Government over "suspicions", based on information provided by British expatriates domiciled in France - vigorously denied by the United Nations Weapons Inspectors - that Britain was once again manufacturing Weapons of Mass Destruction. A suitable dossier of "evidence" was concocted. Helped by promises of aid to certain Third World countries, approval for a Resolution to sanction military action by the European Coalition was bulldozed through the United Nations Security Council. Ahead of any formal declaration of hostilities the Danish-German aerial bombardment was intensified and was now directed against specific military targets. The British Government dispersed into hiding. As a prelude to the invasion broadcasting and television stations were targeted in heavy bombing raids along with major public buildings in cities around the country. With numerous town and city centres already on fire, the ill-equipped remnants of the over-stretched British ground troops were overwhelmed by large armoured formations that were driving inland from bridgeheads at Folkstone and Portsmouth.

When checkpoints were established on major routes and all entry points to residential and commercial centres, numerous incidents began to occur in which innocent civilians were shot at random by raw, trigger-happy Coalition troops unfamiliar with the British language and customs. Heavy armoured vehicles were deployed en masse at key locations. A Provisional Administration, comprising long-term expatriate Britons appointed by European Intelligence agencies was installed, shortly after which Roman Catholic militiamen assassinated the Archbishop of York. Anger began to mount at the killings and lack of public services, even to war ravaged hospitals. With the Royal family incarcerated incommunicado in Holloway Prison, the Coalition Military Headquarters was established at Buckingham Palace. Kensington Palace, St James Palaces and Windsor Castle were taken over as barracks for Coalition troops. The British Museum and the British Library were ransacked. Numerous museums, historic castles, abbeys and cathedrals were similarly desecrated and, in some cases dismantled ready to be shipped for sale to collectors in the United States. Historic statues in Westminster were ceremonially dynamited before imported crowds. As pockets of British servicemen began covertly to regroup in regional militias across the country, the hard-line Bishop of London led the occupation of St Paul's Cathedral in defiance of the more moderate Archbishop of Canterbury. His militia seized a large tract of urban London to the East of Hackney. Two members of the puppet Administration were killed by rocket propelled grenades as they entered the House of Commons. A convoy of London buses conveying European officials to the Headquarters of the Provisional Administration in Whitehall was attacked on Waterloo Bridge with heavy loss of life. Helicopter gunships attacked centres of suspected urban resistance, maiming and injuring hundreds of innocent men, women and children, as the blitzed hospitals struggled to handle the flow of casualties. Several schools in densely populated areas were destroyed. Civilian ambulances clearly bearing the Red Cross were repeatedly fired on by Coalition troops.

Many urban areas and much of the countryside became no-go areas for the Coalition Forces. Business was at a standstill. Railway and local bus services were non-existent except in remote areas, and the M1 motorway, a vital corridor between London and Birmingham was littered with the wrecks of Coalition vehicles and became too dangerous to negotiate. The militia effectively controlled all other motorways to the North, to Wales and to the West Country. Supermarkets began to close due to the shortage of fuel for road transport, and the refusal of transport drivers to run the increasingly dangerous gauntlet of the major supply routes. Rumours now began to circulate that British prisoners had been transferred from Wellington Barracks in London to Wembley Stadium, where, coached and incited by Mossad agents at the behest of senior local Coalition commanders, dogs had been set on them, and they had been sexually assaulted and otherwise humiliated for the benefit of the cameras. In a pattern repeated throughout the country, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery continued to pound residential areas in the hunt for the militia. In the face of this relentless use of military force by the European Coalition, Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Moslem and Jewish factions began to unite against the common oppressor. Car bombs were exploding regularly in Coalition-controlled areas. Coalition British soldiers and police were particular targets. Bulldozers gouged a vast defensive wall to encircle the area from St James Park to the North bank of the River Thames. Tanks manned all checkpoints protecting the four square miles of this secure "Green Zone". Even so, parts of Downing Street had been severely damaged by mortar bombs, and the main building of the Ministry of Defence had been completely destroyed by fire. Westminster Bridge had already been mined by the militia; ritually condemned as "terrorist" insurgents.

In Brussels the President of the European Commission leaned, smirking, on his dispatch box and faced the assembled Members of the European Parliament. He contemptuously dismissed the highly critical findings of two investigations by the European Court of Justice into the justification for the invasion and conduct of the war. He went on with the same characteristic smugness to say of the "liberation" of British people , that the United Kingdom was: A "BETTER AND SAFER PLACE".

The Vice-President of the United States, there as a guest, and to negotiate reconstruction contracts for his company, Haliburton, applauded, as did the Australian Ambassador to the European Union.

HELPLESS, OR HOPELESS, IN THE GRIP OF POWER?

Persuade the high and mighty to promote a dubious proposition and even illustrious Harvard professors will eventually join the chorus. How else is one to explain the claim by Francis Fukuyama, author of The End Of History, that Kosovo proves that the international community knows how to do reconstruction? Reconstructed Kosovo is plagued by high unemployment and is crime ridden. Far worse, most of its Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanian communities were ethnically cleansed under the noses of the occupying Nato troops. This was accompanied by a concerted and continuing campaign to erase the province's heritage. Countless churches and monasteries, many mediaeval, have been destroyed. The few remaining Serb enclaves are under constant threat. Professor Fukuyama also forgets the Kosovo Liberation Army and its Macedonian offshoots used Nato-occupied Kosovo as a base to mount war against neighbouriing Macedonia. Far from rushing to confront the K.L.A. insurrectionists as was its legal obligation, Nato's response was appeasement. Skopje was duly pressured to make concessions. Kosovo is no success story.

Clouding The Debate About Political Correctness

Addressing business leaders and party supporters in Staffordshire on 26th August, 2004, Conservative Party Leader, Michael Howard, stated that Political Correctness was a "madness" that was driving the people of Britain crazy and undermining the Nation's basic values. Howard made reference to several examples; a Government-backed booklet that warned nursery teachers against playing musical chairs because this encouraged aggressive behaviour; a ban on cakes made by a Women's Institute for elderly hospital patients because the health authority feared that the cakes could pose a health risk, and the term "hard-working" banned from a Job Centre advertisement because it might offend the less industrious. We were surprised at the manner of the criticism of Michael Howard's line on Political Correctness from the normally excellent Financial Times that we read regularly along with The Daily Telegraph, the Morning Star, the Jewish Chronicle, the Guardian Weekly, a number of weekend newspapers, Middle East International, the Washington Report, the London Review of Books and The New Statesman together with a regular supply of cuttings from other newspapers. The Financial Times editorial, headed "Grumpy old men - [P]olitical [C]orrectnesss cannot be blamed for all society's ills" opined that Howard's "tirade" was no more than party political opportunism and an attempt to "engage with the prejudices of the saloon bar bore". "Resistance to change" is the cliché that springs to mind in this context. Political Correctness and other issues espoused by the Party were deemed in the editorial as those that will "go down well with the elderly Daily Telegraph readers who provide the backbone of the Tory Party". The Financial Times also pointed out that this would not appeal to a younger and more inclusive society, and that the insensitive and offensive terminology of half a century ago was no longer acceptable despite "foolish things that have been done in the name of P.C."

On reading the Financial Times editorial we wondered if this was seriously the editorial view, or that of a "duty" scribe who had drawn the short straw for the day? Certainly the editorial was quite correct on a number of points. On the fundamentals of Political Correctness it was dangerously wide of the mark. Quite right, we are elderly; we tend to be testy, too and somewhat cynical; with good reason. One subscriber, regular contributor and confidant is a 79-year old academic, formerly of the Oversea Colonial Service, with a distinguished career in Education as deputy head teacher and college lecturer who, at the age of 50, studied for a further Degree (M.A.), in History, (Note the subtle conditioning process of Political Correctness when we instinctively typed "head teacher" instead of "headmaster"). He made contact with On Target after despairing at the sterility and paucity of informed, intelligent conversation - or interest - in his club, on questions of serious national and international concern; typical of the Telegraph readers to whom the editorial refers! It might interest the editor to know that two of our youngest subscribers are both aged 23, from that more "inclusive" society to which the editorial alludes. They share our concerns, based on years of experience and observation; one has even provided us with excellent original material of his own - written from the perspective of his generation. It might also interest the editor to know that the Campaign Against Political Correctness (C.A.P.C.), was launched by a young couple, already immersed in civic affairs, who became deeply concerned by politically correct trends and doctrine.(11). We are not aficionados of The Daily Telegraph. In our opinion Telegraph newspapers convey only a veneer of traditional conservative values. Even post-Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph has long been strongly associated with Political Zionism; witness alone Daniel Johnson's astonishingly over-the-top leader only hours after the destruction of the Twin Towers, on 11th September, 2001, before even the dust, let alone the evidence, had begun to settle. ("War to the death between America and Islamic fundamentalism", 12th September, 2001). We do, however, like The Daily Telegraph crossword. The Financial Times was undoubtedly on the ball in criticising Michael Howard and the Conservative Party for jumping unconvincingly on the P.C. bandwagon as an opportunist electoral issue. The late Alan Clark was very clear on the central philosophy of the Tory Elite - that of maintaining power in their own interests(12). Today the Party remains exhausted by the greedy self-interest syndrome of the Thatcher period. Devoid of any meaningful core philosophy, its instincts marginalised by the greater theology of globalism and the mores of Political Correctness, it now scavenges desperately for short-term electoral issues. Our occasional contacts with the bilious anachronisms of the Tory shires, the golf club and saloon bar mentality, only confirms that the Financial Times is right, even if the judgement is somewhat sweeping.

Here we believe the Financial Times, in the popular idiom, loses the plot with grave danger of misleading the reader. The newspaper dismisses as "forms of stupidity" certain examples of what Howard considers Political Correctness. In some cases this may be true as it always has been. But many subtle, interactive and interrelated tributaries may be traced to Political Correctness. It is a matter of cause and effect. Problems of insuring the traditional village fête against possible litigation involve the mentality cultivated at source in the bureaucratic chain, its infusion into local government circles and the legal field. Much historically offensive terminology may have been rightly erased, but this has threatened, for example, the harmless Irish joke and resulted in the banning of sales of the Irish coffee mug, which has the handle on the inside. In the end, tolerance and inclusiveness are a matter of balance, good manners and respect for others at all levels in a proper social order that certain influences are seeking to replace by legislation. Grumpy old men - and women, "persons", let us be Politically Correct - do not all haunt, or fulminate in, saloon bars, even if such generalisations can be excused by the constraints of a few column inches available to an editorial. Some have followed closely the post-war decades of often bitter social dichotomy and painful re-adjustment. They also have many years experience of people, rich and poor, at home and overseas, from the shop floor upwards. They have seen and lived with poverty and known street conditions at first hand. They have the benefit, too, of decades of research and analysis of important national and international affairs, along with comprehensive archives and libraries.

The easy option is to dismiss Political Correctness as the facile diversion of those with nothing better to do. The use of "Chair" or "Chair-person" instead of "Chairman" comes to mind, even if the problem of "Manhole" has yet to be resolved! When a letter to a local newspaper from the female Chairman of an organisation, which term is enshrined in the Constitution, is arbitrarily amended to read "Chair", one has to ask what was in the mind - who had conditioned the mind - of the editor or sub-editor responsible? When such changes are imposed, ipso facto, down through the chain of public services, as far as local government, to the point of ridicule or intimidation of those who demur, the question becomes more serious. If one enquires after the formal authorisation or legislation for such changes, it is a fair bet that it will not be forthcoming and almost certainly does not exist. Rather it is a process of induction and indoctrination. When a College of Further Education can devote scarce education resources to the production of a 24-page Policy Statement on equal opportunities, a substantial portion of which comprises college doctrine on Political Correctness, the questions become even more serious. When this literature includes the elimination of such terms as "Lady" because this has "class implications", "Nitty gritty" "because this refers to having sex with slave women", or "Slaving over a hot stove" because this "minimises the horror and oppression of the slave trade", we have to ask after the mentality of the originator, and of those who authorised it.

The Financial Times cited sexual orientation in the sense of offensive terminology. Here we are getting closer to the nub of Political Correctness and what lies behind it; the progressive elimination of our traditional individual freedom of thought and expression. Since the mid-1980s the campaign to force homosexuality into the public domain was spear-headed ruthlessly by the minority pressure group Stonewall. For many homosexuality is a very private matter, but a number of well-known figures were deliberately "outed". Anal sex is physically and medically abnormal; no amount of legislation can make it otherwise. But legislation is now being driven through the barn door opened by Stonewall such that any criticism of homosexuality and its practices is fast becoming criminalised. Why is this relevant? We have explained that when it became clear that the Armed Struggle of the World Revolution could not successfully be fomented in the West, Marxists turned to the complementary Ideological Struggle for the mind, to achieve their revolutionary aims. We have described in pages 3(27) - 4(28) the continuum of the World Revolution in the West through the Ideological Struggle, following the split between the Socialism of the 2nd International and Soviet Communism of the 3rd International. We have outlined the formal techniques of Diversion that were carefully enunciated in the Soviet manual of 1941(13). These hold good today, as they did over 60 years ago, just as we may identify the non-violent ideological elements of Diversion as Agitation, Provocation and Propaganda, the employment and methodology of which was laid down in meticulaous detail. We have outlined the role of the Frankfurt School of Social Research, established for the promotion of Cultural Communism in this long-laid process of social, moral and religious destabilisation and the destruction of traditional values of society in the West. In our March edition we revealed the connection between the Frankfurt School, Dr Wilhelm Reich and the German Association for Proletarian Sexual Politics in the 1920s and 1930s. One of the aims of this organisation was "Abolition of laws against abortion and homosexuality"(14). .

In past editions we have explained how Political Correctness is a mechanism in this process for penetrating the highest levels of government, academic and public life. This has the continuity of a "virus" with its own carefully concealed "genetic identity" as the World Revolution has continued to transmute following the collapse of the Soviet Communist system in 1989. We need to remember also that the second "S" in U.S.S.R. stood for Socialist, not Communist. Fabian Socialism is International Socialism, and Socialism is politically entwined in various forms throughout the European political establishment. By the same token Political Correctness has an unbroken thread back to Marxist-Leninist Doctrine and the strict requirement for correct mental orientation in accordance with that doctrine. Let us take one small example. We have pointed out that Education continues to be a philosophical and political battleground at the expense of our children. We may recall the deliberate character assassination of the socialist education authority, Sir Reginald Burt, at the hands of the B.B.C. and an academic we may fairly regard as a product of Cultural Communism - of Gramsci's "long march through the institutions". ("Facts and the 'faked' evidence", The Sunday Telegraph, 7th August, 1987). We will now project this forward to the present examination system. Any one who studies tables of G.C.S.E. examination results, even those not necessarily involved in Education and Training, will recognise that "E", "F" and "G" grades are failures by any other name; virtually meaningless for the purpose of future employment. However, the correct orientation in accordance with the official doctrine is that such grades must be interpreted as "passes". We may see the same objectives being achieved when a fair and rational approach to sensitive issues, the natural justice, such as Feminism and Race are deliberately exploited beyond the "point of balance", when we may identify the virus of Cultural Communism and its expression through Political Correctness. Judith M. Bardwick wrote, in 1979(15):

Radical feminists have significantly different political, economic, and social objectives from mainstream feminists. The radicals want to transform or eliminate many American institutions. . . . In the late 1960s and early 1970s radical feminists called for the end of marriage and capitalism, and advocated homosexuality and test-tube conceptions. . . . It is hard to measure the impact of the radicals, since their accomplishments do not lend themselves to an easy accounting. We cannot ask, for example, How many legislators have they put into office? How many reforms have they been responsible for? Yet they seem to have provided much of the crucial energy of the movement. (Emphasis added).

When pushed beyond valid theological argument, we may see how feminism has successfully riven the Anglican Church; thus contributing to the revolutionay aim to eliminate religion. Feminism imposed in all departments of the Armed Forces has introduced many unnecessary, unwelcome administrative, training and operational complications for the front line role, as well as infusing potentially destabilising social and moral issues. Enforcement of Feminism and Race issues in the Police, even allowing for instinctive prejudices within the ranks, has had a similarly destabilising effect. This has not only diverted resources but has seriously destabilised morale in numerous cases.

Political Correctness is not a facile diversion. It is not a prejudice of grumpy old men who read The Daily Telegraph. It is deadly serious. The danger is that as ususal we shall recognise this too late. Consider once again the words of Bertrand Russell(16):

Diet, injections and injunctions will combine from a very early age to produce the sort of characteristics and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so. . . . Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between the rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organised insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton (Emphasis added).

REFERENCES

(1) Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations. A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature. Editor, Christopher Morley; Associate Editor, Louella D Everett. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1946.
(2) Reid, Ivan. Class in Britain. Polity Press, 1998.
(3) Russia No. 1 (1919). Cmd. 8. A collection of Reports on Bolshevism in Russia; presented to Parliament by command of His Majesty, April, 1919. Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, April, 1919. Sudbury Paper No. 3, £18.00.
(4) The Diversionary Service, c1941. Believed to have been translated from the original Russian or Latvian in the United States.
(5) Sun Tz_ on the Art Of War, The Oldest Military Treatise In The World. Translated by Lionel Giles, M.A. No publisher or date recorded.
(6) On Target, Vol. 29, Nos. 6 & 7, 11th & 25th September and Nos. 8 & 9, 9th & 23rd October, 1999. Conspiracy, Revolution And Moral Decay.
(7) On Target, Vol. 33, Nos. 3 & 4, 9th & 23rd August, 2003. Political Correctness (P.C.) Weapon Of Mass Mental And Social Destruction.
(8) Political Correctness and the Ideological Struggle: From Lenin and Mao to Marcuse and Foucault. Dr Frank Ellis. The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, Winter 2002.
(9) Clark, Alan. The Tories - Conservatives And The Nation State 1922 - 1997. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998.
(10) E.I.R. Investigative Team. Tiny Rowland - The Ugly Face Of Neocolonialism In Africa. Executive Intelligence Review, 1993. £10.00.
(11) The Campaign Against Political Correctness (C.A.P.C.), is organised by Laura and John Midgley. A Membership Form is available, as are blank petition forms. Various categories of optional support activities are offered. There are also "stick pins", butterfly clip badges, tie-pins and cufflinks for sale at reas-onable prices. The Website is <www.CAPC.co.uk>. The E-mail address is <info@capc.co.uk>. The Telephone/Fax Number is 07092 040916, and the postal address is: C.A.P.C., Trevose House, Orsett Street, Kennington, London, SE11 5PN.
(12) Clark, Alan. Op. cit.
(13) The Diversionary Service, c1941. Op. cit.
(14) On Target, Vol. 33, Nos. 18 & 19, 6th & 20th March, 2004.
(15) Bardwick, Judith M. In Transition - How Feminism, Sexual Liberation, and the Search for Self-Fulfillment Have Altered America. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.
(16) Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science Upon Society. Simon & Schuster, 1953.