XXIII 14th December 2002
One gratifying, if perplexing, circumstance of a farmerʼs life, parallel to that of any producer, is the selling of his output and achieving the best price to provide for his family and to sustain the farm. We store the produce in silos: the seed grain in two 10 ton silos, housed safely under roof in the workshop - and the rest in four 60 ton and two 45 ton individual silos, making a proud display, placed around the two yards, being positioned not only for convenience, but also to enhance the aesthetics of the layout. The total storage capacity of nearly 350 tons frees us from a need to join the queues after the harvest, when the price is generally at its lowest. We are in contact with three places where we can sell - the principal of which is a local manufacturer in Bielsk called ʻPaszarniaʼ - who are good friends and only 4 km away, the others are the ʻGolden Eggʼ producer of poultry feeds and Dalgeta Co, an international company which collects directly from our silos, taking it for export. We also sell to local farmers, to small firms, or even sometimes to the monumental government silos.
By and large we are getting the right prices and keep the cash-flow rolling. It involves many decisions on timing, sometimes holding back, at other times pressing to sell quickly, anticipating as best we watch the movements in price which can be large, varying as much as Z-250 to Z-650 per ton, some being seasonal and some jumping from week to week. It involves keeping an eye on economic changes and often some psychological know-how; itʼs both fun and a business. Grain stored by the farmer, was always his wealth and particularly the seed grain, which was his means of survival by securing the ability to re-plant his crop, whilst consuming it was the omen of a tragedy. While selling it to the highest bidder he had to protect it against a taxman or a greedy seigneur or government and against the hungry army marching to war on its stomach. Things are a little easier for us in Bielsk now, but harder already for our confreres in Canterbury - we must remain watchful and unyielding to modern pressures and thank God for CAP in Brussels.
A modern national identity finds its expression in two persons: one is a person who is a national symbol performing honorary functions, and the other is a leader holding the centre of executive power. A head of state, like a Mikado, a Queen of England or a non-executive president are appointed to act as national symbols. The person at centre of power, on the other hand, is held in his position by the will of the people. The two functions are different because the source of their power is different one calling on the loyalty of the people and the other on their good sense. American republic combines both functions in a single person of a president, in which his election guarantees avoiding a dictatorship. His primary function is executive and any attempt to make American people elect a symbol rather than a true leader would confirm the power in unelected hands of shadow forces.
Looking at last 50 years, one observes a masquerading between functions: perhaps it started with Truman who as a simple man introduced a number of major moves: dropping the atom bomb, interrupting abruptly the lend-lease granted to the allies, forming the CIA and starting the cold war, none of which reflected his character, suggesting that he was being led from behind. Eisenhower was obviously his own man and the forces which may have tried to manage him, of which McCarthy was one expression, were largely kept at bay. He gave a stern warning: “The American people must be on guard against acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We should take nothing for granted”. It was a stark warning that Presidents must not allow themselves to be managed. Kennedy departed like many tsars, by assassination, and many Americans still believe that Oswald was only a patsy. Johnson followed the biddings of the shadow forces behind him, to his utter moral destruction, while Nixon, when he was beginning to develop a strong minded leadership, which might have led to peace, was managed by impeachment; and Carterʼs unexpected decency was managed by the subterfuge in delaying the agreement for releasing of American hostages in Teheran.
But in Reagan they found a classic ʻventriloquyʼ marionette manipulated with hidden strings, conveying convincingly voices of his masters. Basically a decent man, somewhat dim, projected ideas of hate: of evil empire or star wars, and was pulled out by his coat tails at Reykjavik from agreement with Gorbachev on world peace. Bush senior was a mistake in the sense that as a CIA man he was a representative of the shadows that manage, and being dismissed by American people made it evident to the shadow forces that a man representing their brazen model of US policy is never going to be elected. A man like Clinton with some savvy, but basically a Johnson model, falling in with the hidden requirements, knew where to draw the line and perhaps saved himself against Whitewater and Lewinsky, by launching his Serbian war in Europe. And now we welcome GWBush a nonentity, who is an apparatchik, a news reader, a man without knowledge of affairs, sometimes excused by jet lag, a ventriloquist dummy, posing as a president: quel harlequinade. Will American people never again have an opportunity to elect a real leader?
The most likely solution at present is to carry on with the ventriloquy as an alternative course would either mean giving up the hegemonic policy or making the country overtly fascist. It can be done by presenting for election one of three types: first a Truman-Reagan naivee, easy to mould or a dud like Bush, willingly to do the bidding - but how long can you sell dim people; or second a Johnson-Clinton type of person, managed by blackmail of one kind or another and chosen because of their feet of clay; or third model, whose dependence is disguised: in mufti, or out of ordinary, by either being a woman, or black, or Jewish or foreign or a combination of these, able to camouflage his or her submission to the secret dictat. When you have a WASP, people recognise a certain ethical tradition, which rests on him in the context of his background, and can identify the character traits in his eyes, and his misdemeanours. With a strange model, it is easier to disguise a murderous policy; saying, she is only a woman and did not mean it, or black so he should be trusted even if wrong, or Jewish as they suffered so much and misjudged their reaction, or a foreigner who does not know any better, similar but smarter than saying all the time: he is only a Texan. At the end of his or her cadence, the blame can be heaped on such a person for these weaknesses, hiding the reality: a unilateral hegemonic policy, ruthlessly applied form a hidden source. The ventriloquy has to be concealed from American people, but already there is a strange array for all three types, with full camouflage like: Mrs Clinton, Mr Powell, Senator Cohen, Condoleezza, or Schwarzeneger. Shadow forces will likely get a ventriloquy persona, but one person the Americans will not be allowed to elect is another Roosevelt, or JFK.
Who is the Shadow Force? A secret kept well in the shadows, but known to most informed Americans and sensed by the rest, though spoken about in hushed tones. When the potential was first realised, smart men moved into the positions of misplaced power to use Eisenhowerʼs term, for power held without any reference to democratic usage, as that of enormously rich, or in political institutes, and other useful nooks and crannies from which the elected ʻdollsʼ can be manipulated: the classical example is our friend Mr Kissinger who managed to haul himself up to highest spheres of power and has probably decided more policy for American people then all the presidents put together. The Shadow Force is managed by a group of men who may be referred to as Houstonids, because they largely congregate in Houston whereabouts. There resides the money, the power and the secrecy which this group needs, as the country is no longer governed from Washington, which is a theatre. The personalities involved forming the usual collection of madmen, surfeited on power, with shadowy groups of multinationals, interest groups or fanatics, all cooperating their activities for hegemony over the world.
The present Houstoburo which the groupʼs committee may be called is like the old Politburo all powerful and not elected. It likely consists of eleven men: with Cheney, the chairman, referred to euphemistically as most powerful vice-president ever, an FBI man, the CIA director, one General, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Wolfowitz, Greenspan, Negroponte, a multinational head, and a media man. Say eleven men, each with a group of his own ten members, representing probably 121 unelected individuals (even allowing for Cheney squeezing through on a ticket), in control of every aspect of American policy with absolute power. All these men and women, maddened with rapacity for power, hating and competing with each other for the next rung on the ladder, come together in the hegemonic madness. They congregate mostly around Texas and talk, free of all moral or ethical codes; they are kind of scientologists of hegemony, prepared to break all observed human rules without a qualm of revulsion, such as: man being declared guilty without trial, or punished under a retroactive law, or friends being asked to betray each other, soldiers to use methods of barbarism, men to be tortured or murdered or minorities massacred, all now daily practice of American policy even if by proxy or on foreign shore, and circumnavigating the power of the people. Shadow Force leaves the nation without an overt leader, and by doing so it identifies its evil aims operating on history with the whole of the American people. It is the industry of ʻabsolute fakeʼ and their only bugbear, are ʻthe librarian ladiesʼ against the Patriot Act, and the American people.
These unpatriotic people will be dealt with, as the Nazis knew how. They will be killed. They will be humiliated before friends. They will be observed by satellite, by camera and electronically spied on. They will find the books you read. They will have no secrets from the masters, who will keep every secret from them. They will be intimidated. They will be identified as spies or traitors. They will lose their homes and their jobs. They will be denied the law. They will be given bodies to gloat over as their enemies. They will be asked to join total hegemony. They will elect symbols. And in the end, they will be perhaps given a glorious leader.
Now, with all this bother one cannot forget the America who was our friend and whom we loved. The Wild West, Cooper and Bogart, Henry Ford, Mark Twain and Jack London, Fred Astaire and Ginger, Empire State building, or New Deal, Judy Garland and “I like New York”. I remember as a boy, when our crystal radio packed up, we went to a neighbourʼs house in Milanowek, to listen, with doors open to the garden for a crowd of others, to Roosevelt speaking, and though we did not understand a word; the sound of his voice was enough to give us hope.
