A PUT-DOWN
 
Those who sneer at the minutiae of writing English might ponder the difference between ‘put down’ and ‘put-down’ or indeed the difference between ‘just finishing off Doctor’ and ‘just finishing off, Doctor’.  When there is a difference, of course. Being able to spell is also useful, for instance to differentiate between ‘kernel’ and ‘colonel’.
 
Oh how you hate the free mind that scampers out of reach of your dull leaden constructs, your mental cages, your sad sick notions of what is given, the little cages you live in you call truth and reality
 
That of course does not automatically obey but considers whether your edicts are mad filth, hat of course which does not automatically crawl and make appeasement gestures upon being hit, but wonders if someone should shoot you.  Oh all the big monkey words you use, rebellious, blasphemous, heretical, insolent, wilful, arrogant, when the self-will, the arrogance, the insolence is all your own. 
 
That which does not respond like a slave, like property accepting being owned.  That which does not know you for its master, its god.  That which does not assume it has to approach you with deference, say nothing that will incur your displeasure, lest it be punished.
 
That which does not assume your superior wealth, status, power  indicate you are necessarily superior in intellect, knowledge, moral fibre, omniscient indeed and benign, incapable of flawed reasoning and ignorance, malice, evil.
 
That which understands argument by authority is a fallacy.
 
Should we have the Bobbles letters again, oh I think so, only bandwidth
 
Dear wannabe nemesis

 I think I shall call you Bobbles. It  has a deceptively friendly ring. It refers of course to that limp thing  between your  legs that bobbles up and down. Is it true you can only get  an erection by  beating up women? There are so many things I should like  to know about you.  What freaks you most, the Jew I'm not or the woman I  am? Can't take it from a  girl, huh? Women obey. Ain't that the truth,  now. Butter wouldn't melt in their  mouths. I prefer a mouth that turns  butter to petrol, myself. Can't take it  from a Jew. Can't take it from a Jew-girl. Apart from being a fascist and a  Jew-hater, are you also a  Holocaust-denier? Pause while I give a small wriggle
of pleasure.  Doesn't this just get more and more interesting! Clap hands
together  with girlish glee. How d'you cope with the 6 million non-Jews who
died? I just want to know all about you. Of course there are many things I do
  know. You think you have rights over me. You really believe you own me, I have
no independent existence. I may do nothing that displeases you.  Poor Bobbles. I
think you must be somewhat traumatized by now. Your God  told you so, I
understand. People who have imaginary friends make such  interesting subjects of
study. Is that why they're frightened of you,  because you've got an imaginary
friend? You have to see it's a bit  weird. following the orders of someone who
isn't there. Personally I  don't see how anyone can be frightened of a guy with
a limp prick and no balls. After all, you're even frightened of me. Maybe you're
just shy.  There's no need to be shy. I'd really like to meet you. I have a
  repertoire of phrases of basic English to teach you: "Unhand me, you
  poltroon!" That sort of thing. In modern English that's "Fuck off!" It's really
funny how they all believe you. What d'you tell them? You have  it on the
highest authority, the Prime Minister's personal  assurance...That no-one will
touch me with a barge-pole. That the only  people who talk to me are an
Australian elf called Megan Love and a  English cabby called Raymond Breakspear.
That no-one hugs me, no-one  supports me. They'll still be bleating what a great
man you are when the men in white coats come to take you away. It's a learning
curve, you  see, Bobbles. There are so many things I have to teach you. You
really  mustn't be a silly, do you see. People who assault other people get
  assaulted back. I'm sure you dream of an improved version of the Third  Reich,
but it's a fantasy, do you see. You're very imaginative, aren't  you. Woman is
the new Jew, right? Right along with the old Jews. But you have to think of
Irgun, Haganah, the Palmach. Even Jews got arms from  somewhere, with every
man's hand against them. There are so very many  more of us, you see. Yuck, you
must think, everywhere I go there are  these horrible women-things with no
clothes on. Life must be very hard  for you. Poor Bobbles. You really need to
get your head round the notion that I am not your private property. If you start
to be silly, try to  force women to wear more clothes or try to tell them what
they're  allowed to think and say and read and write, if you insist they are
  subordinate to your imaginary friend, horrible things might happen to  you. If
you had any balls, you could have them cut off. Of course it's  not going to
come to that. There are so many interesting and indeed  imaginative ways of
tackling this. An imaginative man yourself, of  course you'll approve. How about
a full public investigation of how many feudal-retainers dominate medicine,
cheerful peasant-women with  well-scrubbed faces bobbing curtsies to His
Lordship, blindly  indifferent to their duty to a democratic state? That would
be fun,  wouldn't it. You don't think so? But think of all the publicity you'd
  get for your imaginary friend! Look, I have to go now. I'll write again  soon.
Do try and think about what I have to say. I know thinking is  difficult for
you, really I do. You'll get better at it with practice.
 
Shall we try again, Bobbles my sweet?
How can one possibly take seriously a creature  whose sole claim on one’s 
attention is that he has a large club with  which he does not hesitate to hit 
one, a creature so absolutely  ludicrous and devoid of the slightest grasp on 
sanity that he thinks to  demonstrate his intellectual superiority by hitting one, a creature who  has obviously never been anywhere near a university, never 
met an  educated person. Oh Bobbles that's just so you, isn't it, and you're a 
coward, too! All in all, old boy, you are the scum of the bloody  earth

Of course it wouldn't matter if I weren't surrounded by the diseased  prostrating themselves before you and eager to do thy will. Other sick   animals think I'm supposed to be frightened of or in awe of a sick  animal,  impressed by an ape wielding a club. You leave no mark on me bar the  obvious.

Anyone who thinks loonies are confined to Islam needs to get a  life. Bobbles and I know that. 

For approximately seventeen centuries men  acknowledged that authority comes only from God, and temporal rulers sought the  approval and the blessing of their bishops who, by divine right, ruled in their  dioceses as  successors of the Apostles. Then came the Philosophists. As always,  the  Power of Darkness used pride to achieve his aims, the pride of human   reason. As always he called the Light, Darkness and the Darkness, Light   (Isaiah 5:20). That is why the Medieval times are now referred to as the "Dark  Ages"; (in fact, the Dark Ages were pre-Medieval), and why  philosophism is  referred to as "Enlightenment". ...When the first battle had been won, the Devil  moved from the religious field into the  philosophical field, and conceived  Rationalism, which put human reason  before Revelation.
Satan’s Master Plan from The Catholic Treasure  Chest 

"First, the wearing of men's dress by women  affects the woman herself, by  changing the feminine psychology proper to women; second, it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate  relationships  between the sexes; and third, it affects the woman as mother of  her  children by harming her dignity in her children's eyes . . . This  changing  of the feminine psychology does fundamental, and, in the long  run, irreparable  damage to the family, to conjugal fidelity, to human  affections and to human  society."
 That Difficult Question of Immodesty and Women Wearing Men's  Clothing  by Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D.

When a woman is dressed immodestly, she becomes the temptress for men  Many women will say they wear the modern  fashions because they are more comfortable, and the weather is hot (Remember, it  is very hot in Hell). This brings us to the area of sports. Regretably, all too  many sports  are taboo for us Catholics, not that they are in themselves a sin  or a  near occasion of sin, but because of the skimpy attire that such sports   "require". Think of these sports and the clothes people usually wear  when  playing the following sports or activities: swimming, baton  twirling, tennis,  basketball, dancing (disco dancing and little girls  who take dancing lessons)  and gymnastics. Let us take swimming for an  example, since people usually wear  less clothes when swimming than any  other sport. Swimsuits have no sleeves,  have very low necklines, no  coverings for the legs and usually has the whole  back exposed. When we  think of the saying, "in proportion to the amount of  flesh exposed  mortal sin seems to increase", shouldn't we avoid the bathing  suits like the plaque? Do you think this suggestion is crazy? You say yes, then   let us ask another question. Do you prefer to have the mortal sin of  immodesty  on your soul and the untold number of mortal sins of your  being a temptress or tempter and causing others to sin? 

One might say that our little girls can't do  anything. You are wrong,  because, if you modify the costumes and attire that  the girls wear, in  most cases they can still participate if you are Catholic  enough to  stand up for the proper moral dress code. In addition to the   modifications, our girls can go bicycle riding and horse back riding if  they  have a full skirt and the skirt reaches at least to the middle of  the calf; 
and, of course, skating can be done in a skirt. Our girls  should be pursuing 
lady-like activities and hobbies which will prepare  them for marriage and their 
proper role as mother and wife. They should  be learning to sew, embroider, 
knit, crochet, cook, make rosaries, sing  good Catholic songs and other decent, 
patriotic songs, play musical  instruments (we'll need an organ player 
eventually for our chapel),  paint and draw. Above all they should be learning 
to talk, dress, sit,  walk, stand, kneel, stoop and act like a lady at all  times. Our girls  have many options open to them, if they will only pursue them 
in a moral decent manner.
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/morality/modesty/dress.htm

This guy had a real problem with living in the United States, bastion of  Protestantism and infidelity,  where Satan had ensured that the supreme  authority of the Church was rejected. 
  
Throw in a couple of Muslim loonies for good measure Made for each 
other, aren't they.

AI: You have misunderstood the reality. As a Muslim I believe Allah…created whole universe;  he created the UK. It doesn’t belong to you, it doesn’t belong to the Queen, it  doesn’t belong to the Anglo-Saxons…Allah has  put us on the planet earth to live wherever we want and implement the  Sharia rules.
  
Transcript of BBC interview with Abu Izzadeen

"As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as  women, children, monks, old people, the blind,  handicapped and their  likes, they shall not be killed, unless they actually  fight with words  [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by spying or otherwise  assisting in  the warefare]. Some [jurists] are of the opinion that all of them  may be killed, on the mere ground that they are unbelievers, but they make an  exception for woman and children sind they constitute property for Muslims."--Sheikh Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah

Guess it's never occurred  to him he'll run into 24 inch-waist SAS

Now, pet, I imagine that in  what passes for your mind England and the  English like everyone else and  everywhere else belong to God. It’s a possibility. There is, however,  something in between England and  God in your model, is there not. You, little  you. You represent God and  rule England on God’s behalf. 

There are a  few problems here, as those nice young men in their clean white coats I’m sure  would be glad to explain to you. 

1) there is not one shred of evidence  for your conviction you carry out God’s will
2) If you do carry out God’s  will, then God is clearly a grossly  mentally disturbed being to whom no sane  and civilized person would give two seconds’ attention 
3) There is not one  shred of evidence for  the existence of this God of yours. You believe he  exists. Others do  not. What is not demonstrable cannot be binding. You must see  that. Some people believe this God exists. Others do not. They can’t both be  right and it is impossible for any individual to be bound by both beliefs.
 
So we have a situation here, Houston Control, where this fucked-up  baboon 
thinks he carries out God’s will. The territory he inhabits may  be summarized 
as the supreme authority of the Church which I must be  made to accept. The 
fruits of the independent exercise of the hearts and minds of humans are the 
work of Satan. This is to what Blair and the  rest of the New Labour rabble 
consider me subject. It's perhaps not so  much a question of why haven't they 
been arrested as of why haven't they been sectioned.
 
That which makes you look stupid, ludicrous, ignorant, irrational.
 
There is somewhere in literature or oratory a superb put-down I cannot unfortunately recall and can’t be bothered to hunt for.  It may be classical, it may be Churchillian, but the gist is: your refutation of my argument would be greatly enhanced by your having understood it
 
 
THAT AM I

That indeed, ‘old boy’, are you, the difference being I know what I am and you do not. If you have love and the universe, you do not need God, though possibly you have It anyway. Depends on what you mean by 'God'.

My happiness is not contingent upon your approval, your liking. That of course your sick sad ego finds intolerable. You must matter to me, no? I must find you important, defer to you, take you into account. I do not. Thus in common with sick sad monkeys of all kinds, Nazi monkeys, Stalinist monkeys, religious monkeys, you force yourself into my life physically, impairing my mobility such that you are ever-present in my life. Vulgar little man, aren’t you, not a gentleman.

As I have previously remarked:

Having class is entirely distinct from being a member of a social class. You, I suspect, may be either what people think of as a 'real' aristocrat, ancient title and blah, or someone who thinks having a lot of money and mixing with the 'right people' makes him posh.

Since, however, you are sly, cowardly, dishonest piece of puke, a thug, a wordless, mindless baboon, you have no class at all. 

You seem to think your culture (what culture?) important. We all have our cultures, of course, and within them many quaint customs that have not survived into the modern age. If we are to be civilized, we do not do such things any more. Perhaps you might ponder that? However, if you insist on being a product of the Stone Age, I would remind you that my culture used to have a fondness for stringing people like you up from lamp-posts. Shall you all swing together/Dressed in the old light blue? Just a thought. Perhaps we should therefore agree to differ? 

Hmm, that would be irresistible. No, not the stringing-up. A Labour Government was so mortified by the distress of an Old Etonian that it allowed him to cripple the grand-daughter of Labour pioneers. You do just have to see the funny side.

But then it is terribly obvious that the entire ‘New Labour’ project was dedicated to the destruction of England, the destruction of freedom, the destruction of reason.

Ah, the insolent deliberation with which democracy is rejected. Ah, the smooth voices of the clinically insane, it isn’t an issue, nothing may be said. How many doctors are psychopaths? Isn’t that an interesting question. How many doctors really believe that they are divinely or otherwise appointed to command and order things as they please? Apes find speech so unnecessary and reason too too taxing. The insolent, insolent out of hand refusal of the norms of a free and democratic society,


For the moment, therefore, old boy, you must be jolly pleased with the outcome. The slave-sluts of London medicine have proved wholly reliable. You know you can count on them to work to destroy democracy, rely on them to shit on freedom and to beat up women who displease you. They’ll do anything for you, cripple the grand-daughter of not quite the founder of the Labour Party, after all it must be all right if it’s Master’s will. Make you wet between the legs, does it?

Animals are obedient. I’m a human being.

You are of course a psychopath, sick mad child-monster-animal cannot see where it ends and someone else begins crouching in terror of reality of the rest of the universe, must control or fragile self will die, die if people don’t like it, die if people oppose it, die if people are themselves not what it demand they be, all must obey, what will happen if people have ideas of their own – well, in your case the loony drivel you call your religion becomes the preserve only of a handful of freaks. Keep them infantile, keep them obedient, claim to reward them with power, your power, they can determine what others may be. Cannot. Illusion. They have no power over me. You have no power over me. Except of course that of the thug. How impressive can you get.

Reality REALITY REALITY frightens little monkey, other minds, other hearts the most freaking obvious reality to any of us is another human being who is separate, distinct, equal, not permitted, not permitted TERRIFIES little monkey. Monkey must have power. Power really impresses the slave-sluts. Ooh how great it is, how important, it doesn’t need to speak to its victim. It commands. Its slaves obey. Frightened little monkey, aren’t you. Absolutely fucking terrified of speaking to me, or of course to anyone who regards you as an equal not a master.

And so there are questions, big fat obvious questions to anyone who is not a completely enslaved nutter. The problem with a free and open establishing of the facts? The strange proposition that some people are considered innately incapable of lying and so there is no need to establish the facts because the truth is already known.

May not be. Forbidden. Monkey screams. I do not think you scream openly though of course your slave-sluts do, but rather fancy yourself as a cold hard man of steel. Can that veneer be shattered? Probably.

And so instead of being taught to love their neighbours as themselves, to regard their neighbours as equals, they are taught a seedy hierarchical ‘respect’, taught systematically their own supremacy – are they not, brothers, sisters and comrades - taught that whatever drivel has been fed them as ‘reality’ is sacrosanct and may not be challenged and so of course they scream, taught psychosis, taught of course to be feral, to hit, to use no words, taught to despise language, logic, liberty and love.

And you old boy will do anything to maintain Corruption, keep them mad, afraid, ignorant, dependent, subservient and all the politicians suck your cock, certainly in the case of the bastardized fascist fake Left because they too believe people are property, to be and do what the State requires. They are funny, aren’t they. They babble about equality and demand slavery. We are equal in rights. That absolutely petrifies you, doesn’t it, the mere idea someone can address you as a fellow human being not an overlord. Can say things to you you do not wish to hear. Or of course ignore you.

They are repulsive. I am repelled. I trust I have made that clear, woodentops whose sole criterion for judging an idea is whether Master permits it, who would burn all the books if they knew what they contained, a cancer in the University, tumour cells replacing healthy tissue.

I have to say one of the areas in which I am wholly lacking in knowledge is the law governing the keeping of dangerous animals but it would seem to me likely, whether one is the Master of Longleat or a fan of poisonous snakes, that the law demands they be securely contained that they pose no threat to others. You wish your dangerous animals at liberty to molest others and politicians concur. That has to be funny. When others do not even wish to contain the savage beast but merely to comment on its bestiality you cry 'They must not be hurt!' and politicians, who are either fools or evil, rush to assist and to attempt to enforce silence but what is the hurt but the existence of other human beings who are not like them.

You really believe you are set on high to dictate to others, that you are some kind of superior life-form endowed with rights particularly over me, either born to or given by God the power to dictate reality.

Hey it’s the Wizard of Oz.

This ain’t Kansas, bubba.

Keep them afraid, keep them animals, keep them impotent, incontinent, keep them terrified of words, monkey cannot cope with words, keep them hating and fearing human freedom, keep them enslaved, keep them convinced everyone is the property of their master. Keep them believing a psychotic frightened little monkey speaks for God, his will is God’s will, keep them incapable of question, keep them obedient, keep them intellectually incapable because if a cowardly thug represents God, then God is a cowardly thug.

Keep them FRIGHTENED. Keep them hating freedom. Keep them shit and then they’ll hate the freedom to say they’re shit. Keep them frightened of words. How can words hurt control change you? You change you. Or rather obviously not. HATE FREEDOM hate no control, hate no-one kneel HATE IT. Frightens little monkey.

Try going down to Yasgur's Farm, man. Perfect love casts out fear.

What happens when people stop sucking your cock? Apart from your need for a hand-job of course.

What are you, apart from robe, gown, status, power. Have you a heart? Have you a mind? Are you anything besides a large baboon who hits people? When people are free to ignore you. Set moral example, persuade with reason. Why are you right? You cannot. Thus you think you need not, convince yourself you have Truth. You are morally superior. You ordain. The slave-sluts of course are utterly convinced of their intellectual superiority. They have Truth. Therefore I am lying. Convinced of their moral superiority, for they are obedient and their minds are dead. They do not cannot will not question. It terrifies. Cannot question Truth.

Animals are obedient. I am a human being.

Your Truth is a load of intellectually and morally indefensible ape-shit.

It is not demonstrable. It cannot therefore be binding. Anyone who does not have cunt-for-brains can see that. It exists only in your head. Other realities exist only in the heads of others. Both cannot be binding. Hundreds, thousands, millions of alternatives cannot all be binding.

If you want trouble, you can have trouble, but it should be amusing trouble. Black Sabbath, I think. Or how about a few love-ins? If you and the rabble of degraded slave-vermin you control still don’t get the point, we can up the ante and depict both slaves and masters in bondage gear. Nothing like Photoshopping a few priests, rabbis and mullahs to keep the joint jumping. If you have any shred of sanity in you, you will get the point.

I would, however, point out that there are people ready to defend England who are not as nice as I am and would consider the rock-concert followed stringing up the Queen’s enemies rather than preceded it.


THE CLOSED (SEALED/WOUNDED/STUNTED/PRACTICALLY NON-EXISTENT)MIND
Grand-daughter of one of the earliest members of the Labour Party repeatedly brutally abused then left for dead at the express order of fascists and traitors, avatars of criminality, corruption and degradation. You may know them as doctors and nurses.It is reasonably clear that if these people were questioned by any normal educated intelligent person in an open forum where their lunatic notions of Authority, the pathetic and diseased convictions of the psychotic that what they say goes because they say it, so disguising their inability to provide argument or fact supporting the argument and attempting feebly to disguise their rejection of and contempt for others' equal right to speak, they would come over as severely retarded, completely intellectually incapable.But they can't be....So really what the fuck is wrong with them? Certainly fear addles minds.Certainly they are ruled by fear. Certainly fear may be inculcated in them, frightened of getting into trouble, frightened of going to hell. Certainly the fear also contains them internally, they identify themselves with what they believe and if they feel those beliefs threatened they fear they will disintegrate.While the ceiling on thought imposed by a belief-system is of course arbitrary and the ceiling on thought imposed by biology is of course not, each represents a closed system. The Vatican/insert drug of choice/Vatican particularly among the religious but also of course Stalinism and Maoism drools that of course it upholds reason and means by that that the frame of reference, the boundaries of the system, the bricks in the wall are not to be questioned, all that may be'questioned' are the elements in the box, though in fact this is not so much active questioning as a passive exercise in understanding how those elements fit together, because of course if and when the bricks are questioned the whole thing collapses, and so what is meant by 'reasoning' is understanding how what is given comes to be
Much learning of biology must necessarily be the same, understanding the mechanism by which A becomes B. The thinking is relational. Sounds good. Is it? Possibly even necessarily relational. Ooh, ooh. It is learning to understand how, how absolution works, how the liver functions, how the dictatorship of the proletariat leads to the withering away of the State. That in biology the bricks are real, you cannot challenge what a muscle cell does and adduce argument to demonstrate that actually it performs the functions of a platelet, does not I think affect the general process.With regard to religion, the bricks are of course not there.. Could I have said this before?
 
THEREFORE, VICE-CHANCELLOR
Well, yes, repeatedly being clubbed has failed to stop the daughter of Marxist-Leninism who is also a student of Voltaire and a child of Woodstock with a distinct fondness for Greece from accepting that it is inconceivable and ridiculous to mock, criticize and condemn religion, no-one ever has, noone ever either had views deviant from orthodoxy or felt entirely free to voice them, as is has failed to convince an Englishwoman that no-one previously has ever said the Vatican is a crock of shit, but then no-one not severely mentally damaged would have thought it would.
I suppose these nutcases think atheism is and always was proscribed. My father was an atheist.  My grandfather was an atheist.  Do they think Marxists crept around in terror of being overheard by the 'holy'?  I have of course pointed out that, whatever cosy chats Uncle Richard and Cousin Rodney, being card-carrying members of the Communist Party,  might have had with the security services, they lived happy untrammelled little Communist lives, not forced out of employment,, crippled or otherwise victimized. 
How many other convenient fantasies are harboured supposedly justifying doing nothing, that I'm 25 with the whole of my stretching before me to get through this, and doubtless in perfect health, since Professor Black/Mr Sturridge/Dr O'Mahony/Professor Abraham/insert cunt of choice said I never had pneumonia, and doubtless that there is nothing wrong with my back, all this doubtless being supposed to be an elaborate charade for which Doctor is adamant that he is not going to fall.  I of course only went to MI5 because these vermin seemed to be sort of trying to destroy me, though I couldn't see exactly why, and now of course I do.
But that doctors and nurses should be sectioned for the safety of those around them is not quite the University's business; there are doubtless mad people in the Faculty of Arts, though I suspect not this kind of mad.
Certainly these doctor zombie subhuman creatures only survive on suppression of fact.  I'm sure the University is entirely dazzled by the intellects displayed by first half-killing me then crippling me then proving entirely incapable of speech. Having been contained at least from dismembering my body, they now treat me like a silly little girl who is idiotically objecting to having been quite rightly beaten as punishment for her crimes and who is to be ignored..  I mean Medicine is quite overwhelming, isn't it.  I'm sure the University is completely awestruck by them.
So I have apparently wasted my time scratching at a granite slab until my poor little paws are bloodied stumps, but of course it isn't quite like that since I have clarified my thinking – doesn't that sound good, though I don't suppose those who don't have any thinking understand it – on a wide range of issues and though certainly I am supposed to be doomed I am not necessarily doomed, since it is a question not of that I can write or that I shall write but that I have written and so of what I publish when and whether it can save my life from total shipwreck, since clearly no-one will lift a finger to help or support me.
Really, I should have thought the University would relish the sight of the  irrational unlettered bigoted fascist thugs of medicine nailing themselves to the wall failing to explain to an audience prostrate with with laughter the inutterable evil of my thought and why it should not be disseminated widely.
Well, what I think is...                              The new Marxism                        Medicine: the joke
Coal in the bath and the victim culture   The earth is not flat    The abolition of mind
Just hammering the stake a little further in
You shouldn't be so squeamish. After all, they're not.  Gosh, it's all so sensitive, isn't it, the egos of psychopaths,   It is not of course necessary to be 'sensitive' about a woman's body.
 
You can’t expect doctors and nurses to concern themselves with something like that.
I have been CRIPPLED – oh, what’s the point, I’m addressing animals.
The point is of course and has long been that there is no point. The evil is universal, unswerving, impenetrable, unyielding, irreducible.
FLOWER POWER
 
The French have a word for them.
 
lèche-cul , nom masculin
Sens
De manière vulgaire, désigne une personne extrêmement servile envers des responsables ou supérieurs hiérarchique, dans le but de se faire bien voir ou accorder certaines faveurs.
 
Arse-lickers
 
Liberty is a function of love.  Control is a function of self-will.
 
You are not self-forgetting by definition if you are forcing others to obey you, placing to the fore the seedy clamourings of your self. Similarly 'God's mercy' is an exercise in self-stroking, whether attributed to God or claimed by the religious, a sitting there stroking yourself at how virtuous you are being because you are 'showing mercy'. If you love other people, you don't want to do that from which you are 'mercifully' refraining in the first place.
Self-forgetting is graciousness, as in beauty of manner. Grace is paramountly not forcing oneself on others other than to restrain them from forcing themselves on others.
 
So do go for it, line by line, your obvious vigorous and exquisitely argued objections, apes, wordless mindless butchers, tumour in the University, etc.
Aw, come on, it’s only 60-odd pages of A5.  Even a mental defective of a doctor or nurse should be able to cope with that.
PANTHER: the argument

The collapse of the credibility of Marxism has enabled the power of both religion and capital to go largely unchallenged and the restoration of a Left ready to confront both is needed to restore balance in our societies.

We are being taken into Never-Never-Land where the most basic facts of political and intellectual history are ignored as though they never were: 'defamation' and derision of religion have been standard form for some 300 years from the Enlightenment through to Marx, Darwin and the counter-culture, and are the root of the free world. ‘They eat and drink, shit and piss their god,’ observed Voltaire (‘chient et pissent leur Dieu’, Dictionnaire philosophique: Transubstantiation, 1769) ‘Spiritual booze‘, ‘mediaeval mildew‘, opined Lenin (Socialism and Religion, 1905). People have not hesitated to say what they think, not what others have instructed them it is permissible to think and so established the foundations of the modern world, of science, of medicine, and of gender equality.
 
The hostility the Enlightenment evokes in certain orthodox religious is due to their loss of power. Instead of the self-appointed representatives of God set on high above us all to dictate what we may think, what we may do, how we may be, we became equal in rights. Power was transferred to the governed who gave power to the governing, who are equals, fellow, fallible human beings  accountable for how they exercise the power given them and can be dislodged and dismissed if they abuse it.

I own me. Who else can? Slavery has been abolished. I decide what I read. I decide what I think about it. I decide what I say or write, as I decide what I wear and with whom I shall make love.
The notion it is given people are in some sense property, tools of a greater purpose, whether God’s will or the demand of the State (in both cases of course what equally fallible fellow-humans have decided is God's will or the demand of the State) appears to be  gospel for something like 95% of the current 'Left'. Soviet Marxism adopted it lock, stock and barrel. To insist on being oneself not a creature of the will of others, thinking only what one’s masters permit, is evil/insanity. The wannabe overlord has a stock vocabulary - wilful, insolent, impudent, rebellious all terms which simply mean resistant to the wilful, insolent and impudent, if not rebellious, attempting to impose its will not only on other people but on reality itself, to define the mental world of all who surround it, to create a false reality and call it Truth.
 
You may wish to have a purpose to your existence, but it is not for others to say what you are for.  Once people are designated a purpose , if they fail to be fit-for-use they are expendable. Thus the Gulag Archipelago.

It is possible theoretically we are in some sense the property of God, but that does not make us the property of God's self-appointed representatives. This is a Protestant country; we sort ourselves out with God, should He, She or It exist.
 
The concept of God is not in itself a problem to anyone. We can argue until the end of the universe about whether God created quarks and it makes no difference to the even tenor of our lives.  The problem is those who insist the universe and its inhabitants are as described many centuries past by people who could not be talking out of the back of their heads because God spoke through them and so cannot be criticized, derided or indeed corrected.
 
The earth is not flat.  Most of us, whether theist or atheist, have moved on. 
 
There are many ‘abominations’ noted in Leviticus - God is not keen  on crustaceans, coneys or many other elements of his supposed creation. God Hates Shrimp is entertaining on this subject.  Clearly rabbit-pie is taboo and indeed swan.  Should someone tell the Queen, who is after all the head of the Church of England? To pick on just one ‘abomination’ and ignore the rest suggests a certain mental strangeness - what happened to ‘scriptural authority’? -
but it was only with the movements to ordain women that the full extent of the strangeness became apparent.  Clerical homophobia is more than some sexually confused old chaps clinging to Scripture to justify their confusion.  It seems sex and gender have cosmic significance., that the cosmos is rocked to its foundations by a female person representing Jesus.  How the sexual arrangements of an ape-descendant on the third rock from the sun comes to define the multiverse is not explained.
 
The stories a society tells itself are a mirror of how it sees itself and this society's block-buster record-breaker stories are not of 'up there' or 'down there' or even 20000 leagues under the sea, and only sometimes of 'over there', lost kingdoms where the hand of man has never set foot, Indiana Jones, for instance; overwhelmingly they are of of 'out there', Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, Avatar, Matrix, 2001: a space odyssey, Independence Day, Dr Who, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the unforgettable Lost in Space.  ET is the highest grossing movie of all time. It supplanted Star Wars, the previous title holder.
 
The ultimate in how puny and insignificant are humans is not persons in church telling God how worthless they are in his sight, is not even having your planet demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, it’s the invisibly small dot constituting Earth on a map of the multiverse and multiverse theory while still theory is real not just Pratchett.
Rethinking the universe: Groundbreaking theory proposed in 1997 suggests a 'multiverse'
New physics complications lend support to multiverse hypothesis
 
This of course poses questions to clerics they may prefer not to answer, as indeed does the universe alone. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to it?  What exactly do you mean by world?  Do you think that, if other worlds host sentient life, Jesus appeared there too? Is God just the God of this universe?  Are there equal Gods of other universes?
 
The image below is both the oldest and the youngest picture every taken.  It is the oldest because it has taken the light nearly 14 billion years to reach us. And it is the youngest because it is a snapshot of our newborn universe, long before the first stars and galaxies formed. The bright patterns show clumps of simple matter that will eventually form stars and galaxies. This is as far as we can see into the universe. It is time, not space, which limits our view. Beyond a certain distance, light hasn't had time to reach us yet.
How Big is our Universe
 
To take a trip through the visible universe and there are many excellent ones on the Web is (perhaps) to see the mind of God.  We don’t know.  We haven’t a clue. We make up our own minds. 
 
Until key religious figures come to terms with the the cosmos, with astrophysics, with quantum theory, until the language of multiverse theory is as familiar to them as New Testament Greek, they are not so to speak on the same planet as the rest of us.
 
The position apparently held almost universally across the so-called Left that one human being must curtail or deny the independent action of his or her heart and mind to accord with the beliefs of another human being on the grounds that the second person believes he expresses the Will of God cannot be sustained; to certain comrades slavery is fine, so long as no-one profits from it, ironic given that one of the few areas in which the record of the Left is unblemished is the fight against physical slavery and human trafficking. 
 
The reality of one’s fellow beings is that they are distinct, independent, starting from somewhere else.  They have their own thoughts and feelings, their own histories, their own lives.  They are not you.  They are not an extension of you.  They are not within your domain.  They are equal in rights.

We are no longer isolated hunter-gatherers in the year dot where any idea unfamiliar or distasteful to the devout is cause for apocalypse. This is England in the C21st. Millions of ideas circulate, not least those which have historically ended or curtailed the political power of religion and every version of every religion from the most blood and thunder to the most mystic.. No-one is going to like all of them.  No-one can like all of them.  People who strongly adhere to one view think people who strongly adhere to its opposite are talking nonsense and pernicious nonsense at that. We all have an equal right to speak. We all have to co-exist. We all have to accept we may come across that we find distasteful. Most of us do.

Objectors to Britain's embryo theocracy are many but splintered. We do not take tea in Downing Street. We remain unhugged by Livingstone. It seems the only elements heard are conservative bordering on neolithic.

The December 2004 YouGov poll found 35% of the nation to be atheist. The British Social Attitudes Survey released in 2011 showed 50% affiliating with a particular religion and 50% not. The 2001 Census identified 9 million with no religion (National Statistics Online – Religion in Britain), the 2011 Census, 14 million. 
 
On ‘Census Sunday’ in May 2005 6.3% of Britons attended a Christian church. The New Labour government hyped endlessly the 2001 Census finding that 71% of us identify ourselves as Christians. Whatever the respondents meant, clearly they did not mean formal observance.
 
By 2011, only 59% of us identified ourselves as Christian, not improbably due to a surfeit of dinosaurs.
A past golden age in which the whole of England was both devout and observant is itself a myth:
 
The Religious Census of 1851 demonstrated what Christians had long feared, that a large proportion of the population of England were neither Church people nor of any other religion. Although the exact figures must be treated with great caution, it seems clear that at least one-half of the people who might have been expected to go to church or chapel in 1851 did not do so. Most of the non-attenders came from the working classes...'the population having been till recently all but destitute of church ordinances, has relapsed into a state of semi-heathenism', wrote a vicar in a new parish near Oldham.
....
Queen Victoria...cared little for 'extreme views' in religion, and in teaching her children...chose to dwell not on 'the supernatural features of the Christian religion, but rather upon the pure and comprehensive morality which it teaches us as its essential and indestructible element;
Dickens's morality owed nothing to Evangelicalism or Tractarianism. Much religion, he suggested, was a 'vent for bad humours and arrogance' and there was no authority for the Murdstones in the New Testament; David Copperfield's opinion that 'we can all do some good if we will' was far more appealing. Dickens's obituary notes in Fraser's Magazine (July 1870) rightly seized on the point that 'he spent no thought on religious doctrines or religious reforms but regarded the Sermon on the Mount as good teaching, had a regard for the village church and churchyard, and quarrelled with nothing but intolerance'
Asa Briggs: The Age of Improvement
 
The original report of the 1851 Census reads as follows:
The most important fact which this investigation as to attendance brings Most important before us is, unquestionably, the alarming number of the non-attendants. Even fnquirj as to in the least unfavorable aspect of the figures just presented, and assuming (as attendance, no doubt is right) that the 5,288,294 absent every Sunday are not always the same individuals, it must be apparent that a sadly formidable portion of the English people are habitual neglecters of the public ordinances of religion. Nor is it difficult to indicate to what particular class of the community this portion in the main belongs. The middle classes have augmented rather than diminished that devotional sentiment and strictness of attention to religious services by which, for several centuries, they have so eminently been distinguished. With the upper classes, too, the subject of religion has obtained of late a marked degree of notice, and a regular church-attendance is now ranked amongst the recognized proprieties of life. It is to satisfy the wants of these two classes that the num ber of religious structures has of late years so increased. But while the labouring myriads of our country have been multiplying with our multiplied material prosperity, it cannot, it is feared, be stated that a corresponding increase has occurred in the attendance of this class in our religious edifices. More espe- cially in cities and large towns it is observable how absolutely insignificant a portion of the congregations is composed of artizans. They fill, perhaps, in youth, our National, British, and Sunday Schools, and there receive the elements of a religious education ; but, no sooner do they mingle in the active world of labour than, subjected to the constant action of opposing influences, they soon become as utter strangers to religious ordinances as the people of a heathen country. From whatever cause, in them or in the manner of their treatment by religious bodies, it is sadly certain that this vast, intelligent, and growingly important section of our countrymen is thoroughly estranged from our religious institutions in their present aspect. Probably, indeed, the pre valence of infidelity has been exaggerated, if the word be taken in its popular meaning, as implying some degree of intellectual effort and decision ; but, no doubt, a great extent of negative, inert indifference prevails, the practical effects of which are much the same. There is a sect, originated recently, adherents to a system called " Secularism " ; the principal tenet being that, as the fact of a future life is (in their view) at all events susceptible of some degree of doubt, while the fact and the necessities of a present life are matters of direct sensation, it is therefore prudent to attend exclusively to the concerns of that existence which is certain and immediate — not wasting energies required for present duties by a preparation for remote, and merely possible, contingencies. This is the creed which probably with most exactness indicates the faith which, virtually though not professedly, is entertained by the masses of our working population ; by the skilled and unskilled labourer alike — by hosts of minor shopkeepers and Sunday traders — and by miserable denizens of courts and crowded alleys. They are unconscious Secularists — engrossed by the demands, the trials, or the plea sures of the passing hour, and ignorant or careless of a future. These are never or but seldom seen in our religious congregations ; and the melancholy fact is thus impressed upon our notice that the classes Which are most in need of the restraints and consolations of religion are the classes which are most without them.
Census of Great Britain, 1851
 
If this is what New Labour hoped to rectify, they were about 150 years too late.

Tom Paine in The Age of Reason (1794) described Jesus as ‘a virtuous and amiable man’ who preached ‘most excellent morality…It is upon this plain narrative of facts…that the Christian mythologists, calling themselves the Christian church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not to be exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.’

Many people of all faiths and none have engaged with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. In the words of Jesus Christ Superstar, ’he’s a man, he’s just a man’, and engagement with him does not mean that we have the slightest interest in the notion that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to it.
 
Voltaire too had no problem with Jesus.  
 
To this day the Catholic Catechism states
 
"The Magisterium of the Church
85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
86 "Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."48
87 Mindful of Christ's words to his apostles: "He who hears you, hears me",49 the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.
100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him
Catechism of the Catholic Church
 
In other words they are the only people who know what it means. It is not exactly surprising to the mostly normal that many disagree.
 
What Catholics, certainly in the West, think of this is not recorded, though one American Catholic journalist has mused, ‘They pretend to lead and we pretend to follow.’ Bill Keller’s article on the Vatican should probably be read by every politician in Europe.  The Vatican is a sovereign state, a law unto itself.  What it is not is the incredibly cool nun you met at a conference on ecumenism or the inner-city priest who advises contraception. The Reformation has been trivialized - if we can all agree on the nature of the Host then we can be one Church again.  It is not accidental the Reformation followed the invention of printing and so people starting to read the Bible for themselves; Protestants are supposed to read the Bible for themselves
Probably the biggest problem of organized Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, has always been Jesus himself and Christians saying, we don’t think he represents what you say he represents.
 
We are being fed a reduction of Christianity to fascism, the refusal to acknowledge the polarity in the thought of Christian nations between love and power,  the false identification of the enemies of the Church with the enemies of Jesus, the privileging of faith regardless of what that faith entails, contempt for unbelief, regardless of what that unbelief entails. Science and learning are as ever the enemies, for they take us beyond the arbitrary ceilings on thought of dogma to the world of physics and biology, to other readings of Jesus as a Kabbalist, a Sufi, Brahma, . If one does not live in the mental world of the 1st century AD (or indeed the 7th), if one does not submit to such a world, one is flawed and insensitive; if one does, one is blessed, a superior form of life. Just obey.

Paine also wrote: 'My own mind is my own church.'

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

British citizens have gone in the direction of Tom Paine. British politicians are headed off in the opposite direction, courting figures from religious establishments who by definition adhere to a dead orthodoxy, about which no-one besides fellow-dinosaurs gives a damn.

The precise crime of the philosophes was not atheism but thought, pitting one’s puny human reason against revelation, as deliciously expounded in this passage entitled The Master Plan of the Devil
 
For approximately seventeen centuries men acknowledged that authority comes only from God, and temporal rulers sought the approval and the blessing of their bishops who, by divine right, ruled in their dioceses as successors of the Apostles. Then came the Philosophists. As always, the Power of Darkness used pride to achieve his aims, the pride of human reason. As always he called the Light, Darkness and the Darkness, Light (Isaiah 5:20). That is why the Medieval times are now referred to as the "Dark Ages"; (in fact, the Dark Ages were pre-Medieval), and why Philosophism is referred to as "Enlightenment". ...When the first battle had been won, the Devil moved from the religious field into the philosophical field, and conceived Rationalism, which put human reason before Revelation.

In other words, in place of ‘I know that’ and ‘it is good that’ came, ‘you know nothing of the kind’ and ‘it’s a lot of twisted nonsense that’. Thus Voltaire in his article on atheism in the Dictionnaire philosophique:

Men fattened by our wealth shout, "Believe that an ass spoke, believe that a fish swallowed a man and spat him out good as new onto the shore three days later. Do not doubt that the God of the universe commanded a Jewish prophet to eat shit (Ezekiel) and another prophet to buy two sluts and make whores of them (these are the very words they make the God of truth and purity speak), believe a hundred things either evidently repulsive or mathematically impossible. If you don't, the God of mercy will burn you not just for hundreds of thousands of years but for the whole of eternity, whether you have a body or not.

These preposterous imbecilities repel equally the weak-minded and foolhardy and the strong and wise. They say: "Our masters depict God as the most deranged and barbaric of beings, therefore there is no God", but they ought to say, 'Our masters attribute to God their own absurdities and their own rage, therefore God is the opposite of what they say, as wise and good and they say he is mad and bad." Thus speak the wise. But if a fanatic overhears them, he denounces them to the magistrate who puts them to torture, believing he avenges and impersonates the divine majesty he outrages.

(My translation)   Full English text here et en français
 
Plus ça change...

During the French Revolution Notre-Dame de Paris was looted, vandalized and for a time turned into a ‘Temple to Reason’ with a statue of Lady Liberty on the altar.  Of course no-one has ever previously become a little cross with the Church.
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997):
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"9 as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.10
 
From the inauguration of Cardinal Nichols:
At the installation of the Most Rev Vincent Nichols at Westminster Cathedral, his predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, described a lack of faith as “the greatest of evils” and blamed atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a greater evil even than sin itself.....
 
In his homily he said: “Faith in God is not, as some would portray it today, a narrowing of the human mind or spirit. It is precisely the opposite. “Faith in God is the gift that takes us beyond our limited self, with all its incessant demands . . . Some today propose that faith and reason are crudely opposed, with the fervour of faith replacing good reason. This reduction of both faith and reason inhibits not only our search for truth but also the possibility of real dialogue.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor went farther. Referring to the battles that will be won and lost in the effort to sustain the Christian presence in secular society, he said: “What is most crucial is the prayer that we express every day in the Our Father, when we say ‘deliver us from evil’. The evil we ask to be delivered from is not essentially the evil of sin, though that is clear, but in the mind of Jesus it is more importantly a loss of faith. For Jesus, the inability to believe in God and to live by faith is the greatest of evils.
“You see the things that result from this are an affront to human dignity, destruction of trust between peoples, the rule of egoism and the loss of peace. One can never have true justice, true peace, if God becomes meaningless to people.”
From The Times, 22nd May 2009, now behind a paywall
 
To the harmless civilized atheist of course belief in God may seem the principle and explanation of all moral deviations; to many, whether Christian or not, it would seem that on the contrary faith may underpin the clamourings of the limited self, claiming the forcing of its incontinent urges on others has divine sanction; it is love that takes us beyond them. 
 
A modest Christian education recalls 1 Corinthians:
 
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
 
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
 
Perhaps at a later date Their Eminences might take this up with Paul, that same Paul?
 
Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself
 
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
 
Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these
 
Or possibly with Jesus.
 
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."11
Hope
2090 When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God's love and of incurring punishment.
2091The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption:
By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy.
2092 There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
 
The limitations of reason within any given frame of reference are equally apparent.  Certainly reason may be utilized to demonsrate the workings of the Trinity or how the withering away of the state follows from the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the bars of the cage cannot be questioned.  It is of course explicit in the concept of revelation that there is that which reason may not touch.
 
So far as Search is infallible, the words ‘physics’ and ‘biology’ do not appear anywhere in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘evolution’ only once and in a general not a scientific sense (‘the evolution of the liturgy’).
 
It does, however, say this:
 
The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: "It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me."121
284 The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin: is the universe governed by chance, blind fate, anonymous necessity, or by a transcendent, intelligent and good Being called "God"? And if the world does come from God's wisdom and goodness, why is there evil? Where does it come from? Who is responsible for it? Is there any liberation from it?
285 Since the beginning the Christian faith has been challenged by responses to the question of origins that differ from its own. Ancient religions and cultures produced many myths concerning origins. Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of God (Pantheism). Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation arising from God and returning to him. Still others have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked, in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (Deism). Finally, others reject any transcendent origin for the world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed (Materialism). All these attempts bear witness to the permanence and universality of the question of origins. This inquiry is distinctively human.
286 Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason,122 even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: "By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear."123
 
The bars of the mental cage are clearly delineated.  Naturally they uphold their own beliefs, as would believers in any closed system, Marxist or Muslim. The problem is the chasm between them and those of us with open minds who might say, “Indeed my knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos has been most splendidly enriched but I see no reason why your version of the frame of reference in which these things exist should be more real, more true, morally sounder, or in any other way superior.”  Like elements in Islam, which whatever its problems perhaps is fortunate in not having a similar central authority, they simply do not understand the open society and the free market in ideas, how inadequate it is to say one must have faith, how really rather sad it is to say that absence of faith is the greatest of evils, and so do not understand human liberty.
 
We want to talk about love and death and reality and illusion, time and timelessness, fear and love, self and other, about life the universe and everything in the terms these things actually exist, the terms of physics and biology, not the terms set by desert tribesmen, about the principles that inform the human condition, of course we want to talk about the human condition, thinking life always has and always will, and we'll take ideas from anywhere on the planet, and they want to talk about how women priests offend God. God wants your meat killed in a certain way, is obsessed with what you wear and even more obsessed with what you do in bed and with whom, and what we really need to do is just believe in them.
 
There are many, many concepts of God. The one most prominently displayed today is God the Fascist. As even a cursory glance at history tells us, religious people display the same gamut of behaviour from good to evil as the non-religious both upholding and opposing everything from the slave-trade to women's rights.

Again the Catechism:
Wounds to unity
817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame."269 The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism270 - do not occur without human sin:

Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.271

The Church holds we are helpless without God. We cannot do good without God and so without something entering us from outside. There is no mechanism inside people capable of moral choice. What the rest of us would regard as a natural plurality of perspectives is a wound to unity.

The core of it remains that independent mental activity is considered synonymous with self, to assert the existence of a functioning mind as heart, to have one’s own views not those dictated by another, supposedly speaking on behalf of the God person, to be human, is self-will and rebellion. The Vatican, which thinks to represent Europe, does not and cannot represent the free world, not least because of its views on other religions, and far from maintaining a Christian presence in non-Catholic Europe probably acts as a major force for alienation.  Key facts about modern Europe include the Reformation and the collapse of the Soviet bloc culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany in 1990.  A little arithmetic will tell you that anyone over 40 born in the former Soviet empire was educated by Soviet Communism.  Poland has largely returned to the Church.  Former East Germany has not. 
 
Whether or not we leave the EU, France, Germany and Great Britain have in common remarkably similar figures for religious adherence or lack of.  In answer to the question, “What, if any,  is your religion or faith, even if you are not practising?” 45% in France, 50% in Germany and 53% in Great Britain affiliated themselves with Christianity, 35% in France, 38% in Germany and 37% in Great Britain said they had no religion at all
IPSOS Mori poll, 2011, page 41
 
This is not fertile soil for a religious renaissance and rather more a blueprint for potential cataclysm and indeed Europe has already been once rent in twain by religion.  Preferable, I should think, that it does not reoccur.
 
...it is through having thought, that Sweden, Denmark, all your island, and the half of Germany groan under the frightful misfortune of not being subjects of the pope. It is even said that, if men continue to follow their false lights, they will soon have merely the simple adoration of God and of virtue. If the gates of hell ever prevail so far, what will become of the holy office?
Voltaire: Dictionnaire philosophique - Freedom of Thought
 
The political power of the Vatican in England was finally - I trust - ended in 1688 by the Glorious Revolution.
 
The Vatican is not the sole custodian of western civilization.  Such civilization as the West possesses comes from Athens and Nazareth, love and mind.  There have been for many centuries and still are many people who doubt the Vatican Jesus’ true representative. Five centuries before the birth of Jesus, if indeed he was historically real, was Classical Athens, flawed of course, but representing the questioning mind, the birth of philosophy, art, literature, mathematics, the beginnings of science, the kernel of democracy.
 
Greece in all her aspects is threatening to the men of the Abrahamic faiths who attempt to dominate the political sphere.  Real Greek women certainly led constrained lives but the goddesses did not and represented remarkable potential role-models.  Given that it took most of 2000 years for Christendom to fully accept female possibility (mostly), it is probably not too much to suggest that, had the early Church run off with Athens instead of remaining tied to the Old Testament, a combination of remorseless Greek reason, role-models and insistence on loving one’s neighbour as oneself could have breached that particular citadel somewhat sooner. 
 
Mediaeval Islamic scholars discovered Greece nearly a thousand years ago.  I think it may be possible to say that the essential difference between the West and the Muslim world is that the West found it impossible to lose Greece and Islam didn't. 
 
...For if it is difficult or rather impossible for one person to acquaint himself single-handed with all things which it is necessary to know in legal matters, it is still more difficult in the case of philosophical reasoning. And, if before us, somebody has enquired into it, we should derive help from what he has said. It is quite immaterial whether that man is our co-religionist or not; for the instrument by which purification is perfected is not made uncertain in its usefulness by its being in the hands of one of our own party, or of a foreigner, if it possesses the attributes of truth. By these latter we mean those Ancients who investigated these things before the advent of Islam.
Now, such is the case. All that is wanted in an enquiry into philosophical reasoning has already been perfectly examined by the Ancients. All that is required of us is that we should go back to their books and see what they have said in this connection. If all that they say be true, we should accept it and if there be something wrong, we should be warned by it. Thus, when we have finished this kind of research we shall have acquired instruments by which we can observe the universe, and consider its general character. For so long as one does not know its general character one cannot know the created, and so long as he does not know the created, he cannot know its nature
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy, Ibn Rushd (Averroës), 1126-1198 CE:
 
Islam, like Christianity, is multi-faceted. A quick Google of Islamic art, a visit to the Sufi Cookbook or reading the Sufi poets paints a markedly different picture to that we are being force-fed,.  Islam did not become a world-power by just being a bunch of hectic little men waving swords around
 
Consequent upon the enthusiastic propagation of frank lies concerning the intellectual and political history of the West, the notion has been left free to flourish that criticism and derision of Islam ‘must be’ racism, that people feel to criticize and deride Islam only because many of its adherents are brown and would not dare similarly criticize and deride Christianity, when reality is rather that, after centuries of being kicked into line, orthodox Christianity is on the whole less ghastly and so less inviting of derision than orthodox Islam, though if you are a gay Catholic or a Greek Orthodox woman who wants to be a priest, you may disagree.
 
Of those for whom the earth is flat, a proportion are fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic, perspectives on which this society has turned its back - apparently not if someone’s God dictates otherwise.  Of course people can be fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic without a religious bone in their bodies, but - equally of course - such people are roundly condemned.  We live in interesting times.
 
Crushed between Greece and Jesus the Old Testament fought valiantly to survive and lost.  It is sometimes said that the reason the West dislikes Islam is that it's foreign - you know, like Buddha and the Maharishi and for that matter Rumi.  The truth is rather that that good ole time hellfire religion is all too familiar.  The OT has been decisively rejected, not least of course by Jesus: stoning women is not some uniquely Islamic barbarism.  Deuteronomy 22:21 is explicit on the subject..  For certain the only reason Christian zealots have not stoned adulteresses is John 8:1-11
 
More broadly, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ has constrained the rabid in circumstances other than the literal. 
 
We may note in passing that ‘the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.’ (Deuteronomy 22:5)
 
Ah well, that’s 98% or so of western women down the tubes.
 
It may reasonably be said of the C21st that we don’t want to know, we don’t want to know about the Vatican’s sexual phobias, we don’t want to know about Allah’s wrath, we don’t want to know about a Jewish creation myth.  We are being put in a position where we are supposed not only to want to know but to treat such drivel with deference.  It should not be necessary to place statues of Liberty on the altars of Westminster Abbey to terminate this.
 
 

ESSENTIAL PANTHER
 
JOCASTA: This is a slave's lot thou describest, to refrain from uttering what one thinks.
Euripides – The Phoenician Women
 
All adult human beings are intellectually, emotionally and sexually autonomous. My mind and my body are my property. Keep your mitts off them and we'll get alone fine.
 
We are humans not baboons. We have hearts and minds and our business is to exercise them.

The world does not stop because one human has provided his take on it, whether that human is Mohammed, Gautama, Lao-Tze, Jesus, Moses, Paul, Newton, Crick, Einstein, Marx, or a completely unknown sociology student in Luton. Out of this surfeit of information, people choose what they think. Necessarily therefore people have conflicting views. If you wish to believe the entire world is contained in one book, with which the content of all other books must broadly accord or be forbidden, as do some Muslims, Christians and of course Marxists, that's your affair. You are also clinically insane. That's your affair too. Just kindly keep your madness away from the rest of us.

Religion is a multi-faceted affair. Organized religion is the suppression of a multi-faceted, intricate reality. Organized and political religion is largely the official representatives of those who believe the universe is as defined by a guy or guys a large number of years ago because 'God' told them that was how the universe is. If you do not believe the guys who described the universe and its inhabitants a couple of thousand years ago could not have been wrong and those who believe their version of the universe may not be criticized, corrected or derided., if you do not believe the earth is flat, you are not a 'real' Jew/Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Sikh etc. 
 
Flat-earthism has very obvious basic tenets:

There is an alpha baboon in the sky whose majesty and whose self-appointed representatives must be spoken of with awe and respect Like his human slaves, he requires people on their knees to him saying how wonderful he is, and if they do not said slaves shall imprison, torture and murder them.
Creationism
Women and gays belong to different and inferior species (sually this is held true of those of other races also)
Literal heaven and hell
Frank affirmation of human self-centredness, the assumption the rest of the world revolves around them and is subordinate to them, the unquestioned belief that 'I' is the centre of the universe and they can demand others comply with them, the unquestioned enshrining of pure ego as divine will
Thinking, autonomy, independent judgement of mind and heart. are evil, for the rather obvious actual reason that anyone who thinks regards the  mouthings of the acolytes as ravings and the given reason, which a child of six can see through, or at any rate a child of six not drugged from birth, that it is the evil of self-will, of thinking one knows better than 'God', or in other words them.
That which is not demonstrable is not binding. It is critical to today's intellectual corruption that realities that exist only in people's heads, whether their strange notions of the universe or  their convictions of their own probity or intelligence in the face of the evidence, must be treated as sacrosanct, regarded with awe and 'respect’, considered superior to the findings of fact and reason
If there is anything history teaches, it is the capacity of human beings to proclaim nonsense as immutable fact.  Unless forced by liberty to eyeball reality, some humans successfully see no further than the insides of their skulls, looking at the world and the people in it and see what they think is there, what they want to be there, what they have been taught is there. This is not merely a question of lack of education or intelligence. Confident assertion of the nature and abilities of women kept us out of the universities until uncomfortably recently.  Learned gentlemen, writing their papers on Plato in perfect Attic Greek even as they spluttered, were not in any usual sense of the word stupid yet they refused to let us in, even as an experiment to see how we should do.
 
Inventions of the world may be formalized into doctrines such as Christianity or Islam or of course Marxism. Such doctrines are mental cages leaving out some bits of life, inventing others, to produce an all-encompassing explanation of the world.  Arbitrary ceilings are placed on thought, there is that which you ‘can’t’ doubt, that which is regarded as fact, whether that Mohammed is the Messenger of God or that all history is the history of the class struggle
Every -ism is undermined by and eventually crashes on reality, the reality of the physical universe, the reality of individual humans in all their variety, insistent on being what they are not what they're told to be, the reality of the existence of a multiplicity of other ways of looking at the world. This is what happened to Christianity. This is what happened to Marxism.  This is of course what Islamists wish at all cost to avoid happening to Islam.
 
The key to totalitarianism is the supposed helplessness of individual human beings. There is nothing inside. Either they are helpless without the assistance of whatever version of the divine multi-vitamin in the sky happens to be current or they are individually helpless and only collectively capable, whether as the proletariat or as the Volk. On no account must any individual think he or she is significant or empowered.

Love demands acceptance of the right to be of the most fractured, abject, incomplete, fearful, ludicrous, deluded,, irrational and repulsive of human beings, detachment from their folly. It does not demand submission to it.

‘In a time of the breaking of nations’ all that is fractured, abject, incomplete, fearful, ludicrous, deluded, irrational, repulsive in human beings is to be venerated because of the meme of ‘the sanctity of religion’, in no small part due to the occupancy for ten years of Downing Street by Blair and Booth and governance by their hangers-on.
Lenin and Jesus were both highly intelligent men.  If we imagine that in the after-life Lenin taught Jesus the necessity of reason and Jesus taught Lenin the necessity of love, the resulting synthesis would be broadly PANTHER, with input from Socrates, Artemis, Athena, Gautama, Rumi and Lao-Tze  What PANTHER is not is that seedy neo-fascist monstrosity 'Christian socialism' so beloved of sections of the Labour Party.
The old Marxism has failed.  We must move on.  The total screaming cock-up Marxism has made of putting itself into practice does not invalidate its critiques of both religion and capital.

Liberty is a function of love.  Control is a function of self-will.  You are not self-forgetting by definition if you are forcing others to obey you. Grace is paramountly not forcing oneself on others other than to restrain them from forcing themselves on others. To love one's neighbour as oneself is not to inflict beliefs he or she finds questionable on him or her.
 
It is not necessary to believe in the Christian or any other revelation to have a go at loving one’s neighbour as one’s self, and indeed critical to any civilized society that people be required to make some minimal attempt to do so, which is to say that they do not bash each other's heads in and overcome any conviction they might have that others must do and be what they are told to do and be, others are their property to be murdered or maimed as they desire, a conviction shared between the Ayatollah Khomeini and Fred West.


Democracy is a negative value-judgement on power. Power is suspect. Power must be made accountable, subject to checks and balances. We the people are not done to, the passive recipients of what our masters dole out: we control what is done to us, because we the people are the sole source of power in a democracy. We give them power to do what we want. They have no power over us to ‘transform’ us into anything we do not want to be, they are not set on high to dictate to us, mould us, impose a society based on lies. The behaviour of all public officials must therefore be transparent; we cannot determine if they are doing what we want unless we know what they are doing.

The Left is atheist and feminist or it is not the Left.  The nonsensical alliance between the worst of Islam and the worst of the Left should be abruptly terminated by the sheer derision it should invoke.

The political power of the Roman Catholic Church in England was ended in 1688. We do not wish it back. Nor do we wish an Islamic theocracy instead.

The fascist religious claim ‘the individual is God’ in modern secular society. Their god is incapable of error. The individual makes no such claim. Their god claims to rule the world. The individual claims dominion over only his or her mind and body. It is they who pretend to divinity claiming dominion over all in the name of their hallucination and self-will.

The fascist religious decry moral relativism in secular society but the relativism is theirs: The Good is whatever they say is good. This may observably be what the sane think The Bad.

The essence of the Enlightenment was a transfer of power from being arbitrary and unchallengeable, the carrying out of the supposed Word of God, to being accountable and in the hands of fellow fallible human beings who are required to justify their actions and can be dislodged from office. Instead of the governed having to justify themselves to the self-appointed representatives of an imaginary master in the sky, it became the governing who had to justify themselves to the governed.

We are being taken into Never-Never-Land where the most basic facts of political and intellectual history are ignored as though they never were: 'defamation' and derision of religion have been standard form for some 300 years and are the root of the free world.

Legislation criminalizing such 'defamation' and derision strikes at the heart of the West and forces us back to the C17th, fact and reason subordinate to mad fables. Such legislation also leaves Britain defenceless against Saudi and Vatican interference.

Only in the Sixties when it seemed the back of political religion was finally broken did women and gays finally fly.

Heterosexual males are a minority, about 40% of the population, and are neither divinely nor historically appointed to rule.

Essential to Marxism is the development of consciousness. The average Marxist knows diddly-squat about consciousness, which is probably the primary reason the revolution hasn't happened and isn't going to happen and attempts to make it happen have ended in tears.

Socialism has proved a lethal disease. Much of the Left is in denial about this. PANTHER is not in denial.

The State is not abolished. It withers away.
 
When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not "abolished". It dies out.
Engels: Socialism Utopian and Scientific
That is the theory.
 
1. The State cannot wither anywhere unless and until a majority of citizens are self-determining adults not dependent children
2. It is frightfully unnecessary and unkind to massacre tens of millions of people in order to fail to bring about the withered State and infinitely more constructive to start from a non-statist perspective.
 
It is not possible to have a new way of doing things when people have the mind-set of the old one. It is a logical impossibility that the State shrink while people are taught to regard it as mother, father, sister, brother, the source of all sustenance. This is not a new way of doing things but simply the substitution of the State for God the divine multi-vitamin in the sky, the external source of one's being and doing
 
While undoubtedly sundry of its adherents treat Marxism as a religion - undoubtedly there are as many flat-earth Marxists as there are flat-earth Muslims, those to whom the Book has been given unto the world, and deviation from its teachings heresy - it is not a religion but a humanist, rationalist view of the world, or in other words Marx, Lenin and Engels could on occasion have been talking out of their rears.
 
As with any world-view, Marxist-Leninism is rooted in its time and place and it is as ridiculous to claim that every proposition arising from consideration of Europe in 1840 is true for all time as it is to claim that every proposition arising from consideration of Arabia in 600 is true for all time.
 
Many of the things people consider as necessities didn’t exist at the time of the Communist Manifesto, however rich you or your business were.  The humble paperclip didn’t appear until 1899; the ballpoint pen was born in 1938  It is necessary to differentiate between false needs such as designer-label fetishes, and actual needs, that which is required to function, unless one has chosen to be like Diogenes in his barrel, or possibly living off the land in a tent. Broadly the paradigm was the well-off had nice clothes, houses and food and no need to work and the rest had nasty clothes, houses and food and a need to work; thus one might speak of ‘middle-class dress’ or ‘a working-class home’.  I do not think one can speak so readily of ‘a working-class mobile’ or ‘a middle-class hoover’. The range of products generated by capitalism meet real individual need.   I for instance am mobility impaired in a three-floor house.  No matter how big and beautiful the vacuum given me by the Central Praesidium, it would be largely useless to me because I couldn’t lift it.
 
Certainly there is poverty in England today, sometimes acute poverty, people living rough, but it is not what Marx, Engels and Lenin, writing in a society without either free education or free healthcare understood by poverty. Dire need may lie in the lack of a large and  expensive item such as a fridge.  If you live on the 15th floor of a tower-block, the lifts of which are frequently broken, unless you are young and fit and able to skip up and down 15 floors, a fridge is an essential; in 1840, if you had enough pennies to buy any food at all, you could do it daily.  If you had a grate, you could gather wood from the nearest open space to try to keep warm; the electricity or gas bill did not count among your essential costs.  The terms of modern life have both created poverty among those whose adjusted incomes would have made them affluent and provided free at the point of receipt that of which the working-person in 1840 could only dream.
 
It is entertaining to muse upon Marx’s reaction to being told that every member of the proletariat above the age of 12 requires a smartphone.  I think he would have agreed.  Since he was intelligent, he would have thought about it. I am sure he would appreciated he was in a new continuum.
 
People are free and one of the things they are free to do is make money. Capital is a form of power. The purpose of democracy is to contain power. It must therefore contain the power of capital.
 
The enemy is not capitalism or Marxism. The enemy is power.

Licit authority upholds equal rights or punishes those who transgress against them. Illicit authority suppresses equal rights.

There isn't going to be any 'Muslim take-over', there being a ready-made army in waiting of approximately 30 milllion women and gays, only 10% or so of whom would have to stir our stumps to actually do anything.
A MIND OF ONE’S OWN
 
The root of the free world is that individuals have minds of their own and the right to use them, that we are not empty vessels with nothing within to be filled with whatever our overlords regard as Truth.
 
Biology came along and denied the existence of mind, the more ridiculous elements calling mind a Christian superstition.  How that which intellectually attacked the Church culminating in the French Revolution, how that which demolishes all fascism, religious or not, comes to be superstition is not explained, but then biologists are rarely educated people.
 
Mind sits anterior to data. Mind sits anterior to data, questioning, synthesizing, comparing, creating and of course checking on the reality quotient.  The upper level of mentation, the capacity to select, order, analyse, question  and synthesize information and that faculty called imagination which breaks down what is into its constituent parts and remakes it as something new in the world,  is denied, such that people do and are deemed to exist in mental cages, the bars of which may be as flimsy as tissue-paper when subject to fact and reason, but which the caged regard as fixed, immutable truth.  The slaves function intellectually, so far as they can be said to function intellectually at all, only within a given frame of reference. They are incapable of handling questioning of the frame of reference. 
 
Mind is evident in the world.  Religious freaks call it the work of the devil and Stalinist freaks call it insanity. 
 
Historically, equally evident, the consequence of its denial is the stake and the gulag.
 
If mind does not exist, democracy is unnecessary.  You cannot choose if you have nothing to choose with, if you are a merely an empty vessel filled with external influences and biochemistry.
 
We have today an unholy alliance between Stalinists who deny the existence of mind and religious fascists who regard its exercise as evil.  Freedom of conscience does not exist in their world, either because there is no conscience to be free or because the workings of that conscience are the spawn of Satan.  People’s evil and satanic views are simply what they have been filled with and they must be reprogrammed with Truth.  People are of course in this world simply property, whether that of the State or that of God, to think and do and be and say only what their masters permit. 
 
The world's ideologies divide into cultures of the outside and cultures of the inside. A culture of the outside holds that the individual is moulded by the external world and so is both victim and slave - to environment, to fellow-humans, to self - is a hollow gourd or empty shell to be filled with the Beloved Leader's version of reality. Where no determined State attempts at brain-washing occur, the hollow gourd is merely a passive recipient of fate, a creature of instinct, to whom responsibility is meaningless. A culture of the inside holds that the individual has a central processing unit (CPU) otherwise known as mind that analyses the external world and forms himself or herself and so his or her own views from the results of this analysis, is capable of choice. Where there is no CPU, nothing inside to form oneself with, the opinions and reactions of others are defining and must therefore be controlled or censored. This underpins Orwell's 'Freedom is Slavery' and Marcuse's 'repressive tolerance'. You have no means of handling words that displease you. They therefore oppress you.
 
As a result of this, a line has been breached with potentially devastating consequences, merely the complete destruction of the free world.   Words are regarded as the same as deeds.  To hear words one does not like is regarded as the equivalent of a physical blow, to be responded to by a physical blow or by the force of corrupt law.   To be frankly feral is now acceptable and in some quarters held as the norm, to be self-obsessed, self-centred to the point of psychosis, consider that the rest of the species revolves around one and one's delusional beliefs, to have no concept of the equality and separateness of others, to regard them as under one's control to be silenced if they offend, to be incapable of either self-control (containing one's feelings) or self-command (changing one's feelings), and so being impotent, incapable of changing the inner world and hitting out at the external source of one’s pain. to have as one's true god only power, wherein reality is whatever those with power say it is, The Good is whatever those with power say it is, questioning, argument alien and condemned, in short fascism.
 
In the unlovely symbiosis of fascism, the reward for surrender of autonomy, for accepting the mind-set of another, is supposed rights over others, whether the right to punish the more difficult or rights over some sub-section of the species such as the female.
 
Since nothing can be the responsibility of those with nothing within, they are the simply the product of socio-economic forces, it may be held wrong to deride, criticize, censure, abuse them if they behave like pieces of vomit. 
 
Lenin had this to say:
 
We are not utopians, and do not in the least deny the possibility and inevitability of excesses on the part of individual persons, or the need to stop such excesses. In the first place, however, no special machine, no special apparatus of suppression, is needed for this: this will be done by the armed people themselves, as simply and as readily as any crowd of civilized people, even in modern society, interferes to put a stop to a scuffle or to prevent a woman from being assaulted. And, secondly, we know that the fundamental social cause of excesses, which consist in the violation of the rules of social intercourse, is the exploitation of the people, their want and their poverty. With the removal of this chief cause, excesses will inevitably begin to "wither away". We do not know how quickly and in what succession, but we do know they will wither away. With their withering away the state will also wither away.
 
VI Lenin: The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State
 
The words ‘sweetly naive’ are not readily associated with Vladimir Ilyich but there is here a statement of the natural goodness of humanity which has set and does set elements on the Left apart from the rest of society when considering violations of the rules of the social intercourse.
 
The problem with ‘bourgeois liberty’ is that its exercise may include telling the innately good they are behaving like and possibly are turd, imposing ‘bourgeois morality’ upon them.  How the workers come to be a separate species who like having their property stolen, their daughters raped, their housing-estates vandalized and covered in graffiti is not explained, though of course in this model the workers have no property.  The chief victims of violations of the those norms of social intercourse by members of the working-class are other members of the working-class and the problem in inner-cities is not bourgeois liberty but its absence.  At what point working-class adults became frightened of their young, too frightened to intervene and make clear which end is up, is a question for historians. It is hard to imagine old-style trade union leaders such as Joe Gormley being scared of kids.
  
Similarly, what some see as intellectual corruption and social engineering is not understood as wrong – it’s only the socio-economic circumstances into which you were born that prevented you excelling academically, everyone is just as bright as everyone else, and having failed five CSEs in no way indicates that you are not just as good as someone who achieved an Honours degree.
 
A world without ‘bourgeois’ morality and ‘bourgeois’ liberty upholding the right to criticize the mad, bad and sad, is not wonderful, it is a sewer such as Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, governed by the psychotic, the cowardly, the thuggish, the criminal
 
Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
Marx and Engels:  The Manifesto of the Communist Party
 
Naturally there is an element of truth in this or it wouldn’t have caught on - a starving man hanged for stealing a loaf of bread, while the rich and propertied get away with anything. 
 
Reality is not a bourgeois prejudice.  Reality is the person next to you has an equal right to his or her views. Certainly your views may be more significant than his or hers but your position as say Newtonian Emeritus Professor of Physics does not give you ownership of the mind of someone convinced the earth is flat.
 
‘Bourgeois’ democracy does not favour the bourgeoisie.  On the contrary, it says those with some formal status are wholly accountable.  It says the people underneath have the right to say exactly what they think.  It says the people with power can have that power summarily removed from them.  It says people do not have to be afraid of power.  By making power accountable it makes power vulnerable.  There are no overlords beyond question.
 
It is understandable that looking at the world in 1850 Marx and Engels concluded democracy was a bourgeois plot; Engels said as much in 1877:
The great men, who in France prepared men’s minds for the coming revolution, were themselves extreme revolutionists. They recognised no external authority of any kind whatever. Religion, natural science, society, political institutions — everything was subjected to the most unsparing criticism; everything must justify its existence before the judgment-seat of reason or give up existence. Reason became the sole measure of everything. It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon its head; first in the sense that the human head, and the principles arrived at by its thought, claimed to be the basis of all human action and association; but by and by, also, in the wider sense that the reality which was in contradiction to these principles had, in fact, to be turned upside down. Every form of society and government then existing, every old traditional notion was flung into the lumber room as irrational; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be led solely by prejudices; everything in the past deserved only pity and contempt. Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on nature and the inalienable rights of man.
We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealised kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that this eternal Right found its realisation in bourgeois justice; that this equality reduced itself to bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, the Contrat Social of Rousseau, [21] came into being, and only could come into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic. The great thinkers of the eighteenth century could, no more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits imposed upon them by their epoch.
Engels: Anti-Duhring, Introduction
 
They were, however, wrong.  The tragedy of Marxism is that true democracy is the most revolutionary concept going and by eliminating it supposed Marxists merely re-created an essentially feudal society.
 
The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submissiveness and humbleness, in short, all the qualities of the rabble, and the proletariat, which will not permit itself to be treated as rabble, needs its courage, its self-confidence, its pride and its sense of independence even more than its bread.
Marx: The Communism of the Rheinischer Beobachter, 1847
 
‘The social principles of Christianity’ are thus those needed to survive under Stalin.
 
We are all born squawly little hairless chimps.  We are also all born with a mind and a capacity for love.  We are all born with the capacity to over-ride the hard-wiring. 
 
Equal rights derive from our common humanity. I walk down the street unimpeded. You walk down the street unimpeded. I wear what I like. You wear what you like. I say what I like. You say what you like. Human history is a footnote to difficulty with these simple notions.                
 
For some the order of the day is I shall say what I want to say, what I think, what I feel. You will say only what I permit you, what does not offend me, or worse, cause me to think or question. You will speak and write within my frame of reference and in terms acceptable to me. My discomfiture – my self – is of greater importance than another's right to speak. ‘I’ is the centre of the universe, the measure of all things. If ‘I’ finds something offensive, it may not exist. If you think the Bible is a sacred text, I must express myself in terms you consider suitable to discussing a sacred text. Why on earth should I? is a question ill-understood by the hierarchical mind. Why might you not express yourself in the frame of reference set by me? The Thought-Policeman’s ego, the vapid assumption of superiority, the right to tell others how to be, the ‘psychology of the individual’ as Jeeves would have put it, are too little debated, on the grounds they constitute personal attack and that is not intellectually valid. Argument ad hominem attacks the person in order to discredit what he says: if he is shown to have lied in the past, that is supposed to discredit his word on this occasion. It is distinct from attacking the person because what he says shows he is a creep, and an irrational creep at that .
 
Liberty is a human concept and most of our problems with it stem from the primate elements in the brain. The most elementary of these evolutionary hang-ups is the primate pecking order. A larger more powerful ape beats his chest and otherwise suggests his displeasure and the unconscious thinker toes the line. Only might is right. The mental development of individual humans starts where physical evolution ends. Obsession with form, external appearance, is another evolutionary hang-up. As a chimp recoils at the shape of a snake, so racists and sexists respond to colour or gender. Elements on the Left are equally hypnotised by biology. Where individual characteristics such as honesty, integrity, intellect, application - qualities of mind - have been abandoned as 'elitist' or  'relative values', all that remains is the nonsense that the most insignificant of human attributes, gender and race, are defining.
 
Mind is supposed not to exist and recourse to fact and reason is rejected as elitist. The West is therefore supposed to lie defenceless in what is essentially a mind-game: the trick is persuade (by force or otherwise) the majority of people to a mind-set from which mind, fact and reason are absent. In particular they should not allude to the facts of democracy and civil liberties; since mind does not exist, the ability to make up one’s mind cannot exist, let alone the right to do so and, Homo sapiens sapiens being in its raw state a self-centred little beast, cf. any toddler, people cannot be expected to consider another’s point of view and so accept another’s equal right to speak.
 
As Roosevelt said, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.  In too many influential quarters today, having a mind of one’s own is regarded as suspect and probably evil, making people frightened to speak, whether in the political sphere, or against simple violations of the rules of social intercourse witnessed in the streets. 
 
RELIGION
 
5. But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man's clothing and have human voice and body. [Zeller, 524, n. 2. Cf Arist. Rhet. ii. 23; 1399 b 6.]
6. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own-horses like horses, cattle like cattle. [Zeller, 525, n. 2. Diog Laer. iii. 16; Cic. de nat. Deor. i. 27.]
Xenophanes c C570-475 BC
The following are evident:
Religion is a potent force for evil
Religion is a potent force for good
Christians argued vigorously for and killed in defence of
slavery and the slave trade
Christians argued vigorously for killed to achieve the abolition of slavery and the slave trade
Christians upheld the  obscenities of the Industrial Revolution (and so killed by hunger and disease)
Christians fought for humane working conditions and decent  wages
Christians built, bolstered and killed for apartheid
Christians worked to tear down apartheid.
Christians supported Hitler.
Some  particularly heroic Christians, including priests, pastors and nuns, actively opposed Hitler.
The majority of good respectable Christians ‘walked by on  the other side’ throughout the whole of Occupied Europe while their  fellow-citizens  (Jewish, gay, gipsy subdivisions thereof) were rounded up and  taken off  to the camps.
Conventional religion teaches mindless obedience and mindless obedience is not a virtue; fear is not a virtue.
Conventionally  religious people are thus prone to have fur between the ears. They will believe  something as intellectually ridiculous as ‘a group of Jews  wanted the death of  Jesus therefore all Jews are responsible for the  death of Jesus’.
Vicious  people have a vicious god, the god of fear. Nice people have a nice god, the god of love.

Both Bible and Qur’an contain flatly contradictory statements,  particularly  on the matter of smiting one’s enemies and putting them to fire  and the  sword. It is impossible, therefore, for anyone to believe every word of either literally. Claim to mindless obedience is therefore fake. Religion does not make people evil. It does not make them good. It  does, however, as routinely justify and motivate evil as it does good. Humans make god in their own image and likeness and religious people cover the same gamut  of human behaviour as  non-religious people.

To say ‘religion’ must be protected is therefore to say that people who may be intellectually and morally on the level of the average concentration-camp guard merit legal protection. It is  also  to say that particular kinds of irrationality and general derangement  must be treated as sanity.
Marx on religion (from'Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right by Karl Marx,  Deutsch- Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844):
 
The foundation of irreligious criticism is this:Man makes religion, religion does not make man.
 
If your natural propensity is to be thoroughly unpleasant, you will ascribe to a thoroughly unpleasant version of  religion and have a god who is repulsive, yes.
 
Religion is indeed man's self-consciousness and self-awareness so long as he has not found himself or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, it enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality.
 
A total but delusional construct of life, the universe and everything, yup.
 
The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
 
Indeed
The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
 
Yup
 
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.
 
 
Good grief!
 
The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
 
So long as he keeps out of other people’s airspace.
 
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.
 
One is a little hard-pressed to find a justification here for the drivelling of the fascist Left that whatever garbage is in someone's head, wholly divorced from reality, especially if it is religious garbage, is sacrosanct and must not be disturbed by reality.


AUTHORITY
 
Authority is humanity’s greatest scam. Once something is made a law, a regulation, regardless of how bone-headed, pin-brained, vicious, twisted, it is, the person who fails to obey is wrong-footed, A Bad Person, cast into the outer darkness, when the actual criminals are the law-makers. Of the sweet innocent belief that law-makers cannot be stupid or malign, I shall say little in case I laugh too much. 
 
Authority enables the creation of a world of lies.  Things cannot be other than they are said to be, because - yes, you’ve guessed - Authority cannot lie. Authority is to be respected.  Authority cannot be made the laughing-stock of the civilized world.  Goose-stepping morons are funny and harmless so long as everyone is free to howl with laughter at them and comment what preposterous prats they are. Their first move is therefore to enact legislation to prohibit such unseemly conduct.  Their power is twofold.  They may exert power through corrupt legislation or they may exercise simple physical force.  The more pernicious manifestation of Authority is its mental hold on the minds of its slaves to whom equality of rights is unknown and who do not know how to question priest or professor, for are these not Great Ones, set on high to command, those who know best? Probably the first major dent to this mind-set was Magna Carta, the cornerstone of Anglo-American democracy, but since the slaves know no history, that is irrelevant.
 
Ignorance is vital to a slave-society.
 
Hand in hand with Authority goes Respect.  Respect is a word from ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ that has weaselled its way into the ‘Left’ on the sleazy and spurious grounds that ‘respect’ is what the nobs get and everyone else should have it too.  Alas, little Trots, this ‘respect’ of which you prate is not what ‘the nobs’ get in any free and democratic society, let alone a Left-wing one.  It denotes ‘you gotta be careful what you say’.  Doubtless you stand up and tug your forelock also; assuredly those among the masses who most loudly squeal ‘ain’t you got no respect’ would not object.  It is the antithesis of all the real Left stands for.  In this model one does not tell ‘the important’ which end is up, one does not tell the manager he is a bloody fool, one does not tell his lordship he is a drunken pig, one knows one’s place and one’s reward on earth if not in heaven is one is not oneself told which end is up.  The enthusiasm with which this deliciously feudal model has been adopted by the masses is hilarious.  The nobs don’t have to take criticism and can hit or otherwise punish those who proffer it?  Oh, but they do, they do!  It used to be called socialism, a creed, one might say, the raison d’etre of which was kicking the shit out of those with wealth and power.  We on the Left voice our own opinions, not those of our masters, nor only those our masters permit we say.

It  is of course really, really obvious that, if people are afraid to criticize people who are crap or who are behaving like crap, the crappy people will go being crappy and be confirmed in their belief there is nothing wrong with their crappiness, really, really, really obvious –  apparently not.

It is usually lost in debates about freedom of speech that it starts on your doorstep. It starts when you object to the lout pissing on your geraniums or some other such violation of the rules of social intercourse and not surprisingly don’t display much ‘respect’ when doing so.

It starts with his fundamental acceptance of your right to utter words he does not want to hear. This is not to say he will necessarily meekly accept your reproach and apologize. He may growl, swear, raise two fingers, perhaps even direct a defiant final spurt at your favourite garden gnome. He does not pull a gun or a knife and scream who the fuck do you fink you are, ‘e’s got ‘is fucking rights ‘e as. And of course ain’t you got no fucking respect.
Today's 'Left' despises equally equality of rights and democracy itself. If we are not the property of the self-appointed representatives of God, then we are the property of the State, to conform to whatever the State requires we be – which indeed is the property of the self-appointed representatives of God who get so frightfully upset when anyone crosses them. Anything for a quiet life, eh?
 
It is conspicuously unasked why the self-appointed representatives of God get so twitched.  There is pretense it is normal and indeed convulsion at hearing something one does not like, at - oh the horror of it, persons actually not agreeing with you or your estimation of yourself - is becoming increasingly the norm among the non-religious.
 
In both cases, the recipient of the unwanted words is cast as a ‘victim’  What he or she is a ‘victim’ of is a) the existence of other people in the world with minds of their own and b) his or her anti-education wherein he or she has not been developed either morally to understand that others are not under his or her command, emotionally to be able to deal with his or her feelings or intellectually to be able to deal with ideas that are unwelcome.  Being unable to deal with that within, he or she hits out at the external sort of the supposed threat.
 
It is in in particular not asked why the products of education in supposedly wonderful faith schools are thus wanting.  The answer of course is that the priests and other clerical teachers want their flocks helpless in order to demonstrate to the politicians how awful is this freedom which causes such distress and so increase their stranglehold on the body politic.
 
Thus the story is told of Alcibiades—how before the age of twenty he engaged his own guardian, Pericles, at that time prime minister of the state, in a discussion concerning laws.
Alc. Please, Pericles, can you teach me what a law is?
Per. To be sure I can.
Alc. I should be so much obliged if you would do so. One so often hears the epithet "law-abiding" applied in a complimentary sense; yet, it strikes me, one hardly deserves the compliment, if one does not know what a law is.
Per. Fortunately there is a ready answer to your difficulty. You wish to know what a law is? Well, those are laws which the majority, being met together in conclave, approve and enact as to what it is right to do, and what it is right to abstain from doing.
Alc. Enact on the hypothesis that it is right to do what is good? or to do what is bad?
Per. What is good, to be sure, young sir, not what is bad.
Alc. Supposing it is not the majority, but, as in the case of an oligarchy, the minority, who meet and enact the rules of conduct, what are these?
Per. Whatever the ruling power of the state after deliberation enacts as our duty to do, goes by the name of laws.
Alc. Then if a tyrant, holding the chief power in the state, enacts rules of conduct for the citizens, are these enactments law?
Per. Yes, anything which a tyrant as head of the state enacts, also goes by the name of law.
Alc. But, Pericles, violence and lawlessness—how do we define them? Is it not when a stronger man forces a weaker to do what seems right to him—not by persuasion but by compulsion?
Per. I should say so.
Alc. It would seem to follow that if a tyrant, without persuading the citizens, drives them by enactment to do certain things—that is lawlessness?
Per. You are right; and I retract the statement that measures passed by a tyrant without persuasion of the citizens are law.
Alc. And what of measures passed by a minority, not by persuasion of the majority, but in the exercise of its power only? Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these?
Per. I think that anything which any one forces another to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is violence rather than law.
Alc. It would seem that everything which the majority, in the exercise of its power over the possessors of wealth, and without persuading them, chooses to enact, is of the nature of violence rather than of law?
To be sure (answered Pericles), adding: At your age we were clever hands at such quibbles ourselves. It was just such subtleties which we used to practise our wits upon; as you do now, if I mistake not.
To which Alcibiades replied: Ah, Pericles, I do wish we could have met in those days when you were at your cleverest in such matters.
Xenophon, The Memorabilia (trad. HG Dakyns, 1897)
 

TRANSPARENCY
 
Lies split you between what is and what appears to be or what everyone else may think is. You may state until you are blue in the face that you were born in Bournemouth, that you know the streets of Bournemouth like the back of your hand, you may show childhood pictures of you on the seafront at Bournemouth and state the names of those with whom you were in primary school in Bournemouth but if Authority working behind closed doors states that you were born in Middleton, that your supposed evidence is forgery and Photoshop, and that even as a child you were known to be a notorious liar, you have a problem.
 
It is therefore important that lies be heard, that the residents of Bournemouth who remember you rise up in howls of derision to expose the liars and everyone be grounded in fact not delusion.
 
As Socrates said...
 
but if any man says that he ever learned or heard anything privately from me, which all the others did not, be assured that he is lying. . Apology: 33b
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D33b
 
Cf John 18:20 Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.
 
Thus transparency, embedded in the West from both Athens and Nazareth, not that it helped them at the time.
 
As with the citizens of Bournemouth, so with the rest of the world.  People may simply not know some basic fact of history denied of course by Authority. 
 
 
LIBERTY
 
Liberty enables the pursuit of truth. Liberty demolishes proclaimed truth and clears the path to actual truth. Liberty prevents lies being universally held as truth. If two people have opposing versions of events, only one can be true. Liberty ensures both are heard. Liberty ensures the facts are known.

If the facts do not wholly prove the matter one way or the other, liberty leaves others free to choose what they believe. Liberty does not prevent any given individual from living in a world composed of lies. Liberty prevents those lies being forced on others, such that we must all live in the world of the mad. Liberty enables laughing at those who demand lies prevail. Liberty enables the voicing of countless possibilities, alternatives to the authorized version. Liberty enables science. Liberty enables people to look at all the ideas about life, about people, the human mind has come up with.

Liberty enables the belief in and practice of religions other than that of the Church of England. Elements in British Islam would do well to bear that in mind.
 
REALITY
 
REALITY GROUND ZERO
 
Among other things, reality is the existence of a nation of 60 million individuals, each of whom has his or her own take on life.
The absurd believe themselves set on high to dictate to others who will automatically recognize their superior status and instantly obey.  The zillion or so other responses available, such as ‘you are who?’ or ‘that is rubbish’ are alien to them, dismissed as wilful, resentful, rebellious. They do not know where ‘I’ ends and someone else begins but think others an extension of themselves, over whom they may exert force if they refuse to obey.
 
Once force has been initiated, the door has been opened to force being used against them. This is a door that should be kept tight closed.
 
Beating up gays or women or blacks or whites or people with expensive cars is wrong.  Beating up those who did the beating up is also wrong. Both are criminal offences.  The principle of initiation of force gives those beaten up a moral right to retaliate.  The law exists to retaliate on their behalf.  Where the law fails by excusing those who initiate force, where society attempts to justify that initiation of force, we have a problem.
 
People who by their mere existence may be the subjects of force, such as Muslim gays, need to be be certain both the law and society are on their side
 
People who may initiate force need it repeatedly spelled out that both law and society are against them.
 
The leaft touching of another's perfon wilfully, or in anger, is a battery ; for the law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the firft and loweft ftage of it : every man's perfon being facred, and no other having a right to meddle with it, in any the flighteft manner. And therefore upon a fimilar principle the Cornelian law de injuriis prohibited pulfation as well as verberation ; diftinguifhing verberation, which was accompanied with pain, from pulfation which was attended with none
 
II. WE are next to confider the violation of the right of perfonal liberty. This is effected by the injury of falfe imprifonment, for which the law has not only decreed a punifhment, as a heinous public crime, but has alfo given a private reparation to the party ; as well by removing the actual confinement for the prefent, as, after it is over, by fubjecting the wrongdoer to a civil action, on account of the damage fuftained by the lofs of time and liberty.

TO conftitute the injury of falfe imprifonment there are two points requifite : 1. The detention of the perfon ; and, 2. The unlawfulnefs of fuch detention. Every confinement of the perfon is an imprifonment, whether it be in a common prifon, or in a private houfe, or in the ftocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in the public ftreets
 
BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES PRIVATE WRONGS. BOOK III.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. OF WRONGS, AND THEIR REMEDIES, RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS.
 
REALITY 101
 
The roots of our current ills are sustained attacks on reality. Cries that absolute truth does not exist are used to deny the absolutes of reality. Leftists twitter about relativism and conditioning without having the faintest idea what they are talking about.
Reality is what is. It doesn’t shift or bend. It may change with time. It is reality that Mr Cameron is Prime Minister and Mr Obama is President. In the future both will have ceased to hold these current positions.  They will not cease to be male members of humanity.  They will not become 20 years old on their 70th birthdays.

Reality is what is. What is need not be either true or physically real. What is includes all the ideas in the world and all the products of human imagination. You do not have to believe in the Virgin Mary, Allah or Quetzalcoatl to acknowledge the concepts the Virgin Mary, Allah and Quetzalcoatl exist and have informed the development of the societies in which they dominated and dominate.
Reality is fact. It is fact that some people think Christianity nonsensical and others are devout believers. It is a common obfuscation that to state that some people think Christianity nonsensical is to state that Christianity is nonsensical, that to acknowledge the existence of, the right to speak and write of, those who think Christianity nonsensical is to uphold the proposition that Christianity is nonsensical.
 
Reality is everything that is and everything that human beings have thought and shared with others, both the facts of science and the dogmas of religion. Reality is the sum of subjective realities. Reality is the diversity of views human beings hold and have held. Reality is everything that might be relevant, that which has to be taken account of because societies become skewed if it is not. Within a single free society people arrive at diametrically opposing positions, some devoutly religious, others fervently atheist. Reality is that a doctrine that is ridiculous and offensive lies to one person is gospel truth to another. Authoritarian, totalitarian and often frankly murderous societies are those in which only one aspect of reality is permissible and the existence of other aspects is denied, are those in which the version of reality of one human, whether Marx, Mohammed or Mussolini, is imposed and identified as all-encompassing.
Behaviours and policies increase the level of reality in a society or diminish it. Reality 101 teaches that large gulfs exist between individuals in ability and moral sense, unbridgeable canyons yawn between individuals in beliefs and interests. Further, individuals are not fixed. They may develop their ability, moral sense, change their opinions, develop interests in subjects that previously bored them. When people are free to be themselves, these differences show. Outside the fundy orthodox, whether religious or not, probably no two people think exactly the same thing about the universe or about the NHS. This gives rise to genuine plurality, where people hold directly opposing opinions. Since there are no grounds for believing that some people have a greater right to be than others, everyone has an equal right to the views of the unique individual she or he. People are free to the extent they do not impinge on the freedom of others. Thinking one thing and saying it does not inhibit someone else from thinking the opposite and saying it, though numerous cavorting idiots can be found to claim it does. Those who lack moral sense are not free to steal, murder, rape. Those who lack intelligence are self-limited - there are things they cannot do or be. If they do do them, in a free society they are outdistanced by those who do them better, unless of course individual expansion is ‘restrained‘, as Tawney put it. People who are good at making money are going to have more than people who are not. Households with two incomes are better off than those with one.  Couples are therefore a major cause of financial inequality.  A single man earning 15K may be  surviving. If his girlfriend gets pregnant, he is faced with paying for not two but three on 15K. He walks away, leaving two of the three seriously poor. A major cause of  child poverty is not inequality, class, background or privilege, but sex.
 
REALITY 102
 
There is not only one book in the world defining reality. A belief-system is simply a collection of ideas that seem to make more sense to someone than other collections of ideas. Some people (they know who they are) claim everything is enshrined in their One Book, with the resultant claim that everything was fixed in one time and one place. The historical Moses is thought to have lived in around 1400 BC. In the 1500 years or so between him and Paul, a multiplicity of world-shaping events and perspectives on being human occurred elsewhere on the planet, the whole of Ancient Greece and with it the birth of democracy, most of Classical Rome, the Upanishads, Confucius, Zoroastrianism, Lao-Tzu, none of which is significant to the orthodox Christian, other than as error or sin or at best feeble gropings for troof. This is first order lunacy: discuss. It worked when there was no mass communication, when the nearest city was an alien land many leagues distant. It doesn’t work now.

It is worth being precise about what hardly anyone believes, because actually it is possible to be entirely precise about what people do not believe, whether they be hard-line materialist atheists or flutterby flower-children. We do not believe there is only one book in the world. We are not a largely illiterate society of desert tribesmen thousands of years ago to whom one book was an all-encompassing explanation. We live in a society with access to millions of books and other sources of information; if we do not read much, we may surf or watch Life on Earth. We form our views based on what we read together with our experience of other human beings. We do not believe one book dictates what we must think; clearly millions of books, the content of which is contradictory, cannot dictate what anyone thinks.

Where the content of books conflicts with reality, we do not believe reality is necessarily over-ruled. Where the content of books contains ideas conflicting with ideas in a 'holy book', we do not believe the 'holy book' necessarily true and other books false.

Indeed, we live in a society shaped by a Trinity, that Trinity being broadly symbolized by the combined content of the Philosophy, Religion and Science sections of a major bookshop.

We may prefer to believe that which is demonstrably false or distinctly less likely but on the whole I think have an awareness of the thing called fact; one of the things that distinguishes the  insane religious from the sane is whether he or she accords the Virgin Birth or Mohammed's Night Journey the status of fact, on par with water boiling when heated sufficiently.

Clearly also people who read many books, the content of which is contradictory, come across views that repel or otherwise offend them and do not run around screaming and shouting about it.

It being the case that some views on life the universe and everything directly oppose others, unless you live in a hole in the ground you are going to meet people who think what you think is nonsense.  If you then cavort and scream a) you are mad and b) your ignorance, your self-obsession and your total intellectual and emotional inadequacy are your problem. You seek to annul the external source of your distress because you have neither self-control (ability to contain your feelings) nor self-command (ability to change your feelings).
 
REALITY 103
 
Either you decide in advance what the world is and what the individual humans in it are and when they fail to be it coerce them into being it or kill them if they are recalcitrant or your frame of reference dictates their category of human has no right to life or you look at the world and the individual humans in it and what they do and have done and say and have said and form conclusions therefrom. Either you categorize humans according to their external appearance (form) and declare women or Jews or Arabs or gays are fundamentally a different kind of human to you or you start with the proposition that all are fundamentally human (essence).

Those who believe in One Book, One Truth, whether that book is the Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, Das Kapital or Mein Kampf prejudge and of course deny all evidence to the contrary, whether scientific or social. The authors of these works have created the world as they think it must be or if you prefer have created fictional worlds. The rest in a nutshell is their lamentable struggle to fit the real world into the box they have created for it.
 
There are single, absolute realities. A grain of sand has the properties of sand. It is not a malign entity seeking to infiltrate your sandwiches at a beach-party. Everything is itself, not what it ‘must be’ or you imagine it is, has its essence independent of how coded perception sees it. The unique identity of an individual may be less obvious, not least to the individual himself or herself. People play roles and seek to cast others in them.

The human capacity to deny reality is pretty limitless. When you have dismissed the observable evidence of what people say and do, you are finally happy living in a world that unfortunately exists only in your head and you can truly dedicate yourself to protecting that inner world from any encroachment by reality, because you think you'll fall apart. Emotional maturity is knowing that you won't fall apart.
Some people wish to live in the C21st. The modern world is based on reality.

 1. The reality of individuality. Modern people are not obsessed with        race, gender or sexual orientation.

 2. The reality of one world. We sit in Surbiton and talk to people in          Singapore, San Francisco and Sierra Leone, whether on the                 telephone or over the Web. We understand the world is a single                ecological unit. We understand we're all just people. We live in a      free and borderless world called cyberspace. We read and watch                 and say what we like. We communicate with each other as           equals.
REALITY 104

Perception is conditioned from birth onward as the small and screaming I seeks to deal with the world. Internal realities are formed of what people are, what situations means – mind-patterns, concepts of ‘I’ and ‘you’ and ‘I’ in relation to ‘you’ - stereotypes at the most elementary level. All irtubi are vicious, and so, if I should meet an irtubi, he or she will attempt to injure me. If that is my conviction and I meet a charming, courteous, irtubi, I conclude he or she is feigning pleasantness, suspect him or her of setting some trap for me. Conflict is set up when experience of people, situations – external reality – fails to conform to one’s internal reality. It may be repressed. Alternatively one may make minimal adjustment to the head-set. The mind is very flexible in this respect. All irtubi are vicious. My friend is irtubi. My friend is not vicious. He is the exception that proves the rule – a peculiarly meaningless expression. The brain’s attempts to order the world, order the input, have resulted in false conclusions. The brain has sought to protect itself from what is there. What is there may hurt. We talk freely of people feeling threatened. There is no physical danger. The rickety concepts on which the ‘I’, the self-image, is based are under attack. It may seem strange to say it is essential to personality that one believe for instance that all irtubi are vicious. Nonetheless, the self, the sense of self, may be made up of similar deeply held convictions, and when one foundation-stone is in danger of being pulled away one fears for the whole building.

True loss of self, not the dirty perverted kind purveyed by the clerical ape, which means accepting his lies, lies in ceasing to code perception and seeing what is there, such that there is no ‘I’ between oneself and the universe, the inside equals the outside.

CONDITIONING
 
The Left pretends to have discovered conditioning, aka unconscious attitudes, and twitters about it like a pesky kid who’s discovered water is wet.  Yes of course your infant brain absorbs a picture of the world but this is not fixed.  Later it will be exposed to education offering further data and encouraging it to question.
 
Conditioning is probably best described as learning things which may not be real. Learning that steam from a boiling kettle scalds is learning something based in reality. Learning that you put milk in the cup first or first pour the tea is not (though tea-fiends will doubtless argue with that). Conditioning is learning responses, learning what you think things or situations mean because they’re what parents or peers tell you they mean. It is learning how things are, who and what you are, how you relate to other people. While it operates just as formidably in some regards in cosmopolitan societies, it is most obvious in closed societies where everyone around you subscribes to a particular creed. Unconscious attitudes are surprisingly enough those imbibed and internalized unconsciously. Detox is finding out what is reality-based.
 
If one round, red, smooth-skinned, soft and edible object constitutes ‘a tomato’, all such objects are tomatoes with the same biological properties and the same taste within a spectrum identified as tomato-ish – thus we learn and what we learn is that form is identified with essence. Similarly we may learn to be wary of any scorpion-shaped life-form. But that one dog snarls and lunges at strangers does not prove that all dogs behave thus. A poodle may be vicious and a Doberman a slobbering affectionate idiot. All the time we seek to make connections, arguing from the one to the many. The higher up the evolutionary tree are the beings to which we relate, the less effective form becomes as a manner of understanding the world, until we reach humans and it becomes useless.  None of this hinders the racists, sexists, homophobes and socialists who see people in terms of classes. Fundamentalists do not like people to grow up. In place of the strange convictions about all blacks or Jews of the Christian fundy or all females of the Muslim fundy, Marx gives us his convictions about the ‘bourgeois’.
 
No matter how much your brain screams at you that all x are y, some x remain not-y, perhaps no x are y. There is rarely the possibility of dialogue with those who hold all x are y  and therefore no  x  may be z, no woman has the qualities necessary to being a fighter pilot or a priest. They have a different starting-point. Some, having grasped the vicious imbecility of ‘all x are y’, of racism, homophobia, sexism, have replaced it with new improved super all x are y, no moral or intellectual differences between individuals may be allowed to exist suggesting one may in such ways be better than another. Indeed the world is simpler that way.
 
The unconscious thinker does not think out his or her opinions, his or her assumptions, prejudices, preconceptions. They may be those of his or her parents, religious leaders or peers. He or she has internalized versions of reality that provoke his or her responses. He or she does not know why he or she thinks what he or she thinks or reacts as he or she does, only that it is obviously right, that 'everybody knows'. In this he or she has bolstered himself or herself by reading only newspapers that echo his or her opinion, mixing only with like-minded people. At a more sophisticated level, he or she may have formulated his or her own views starting from the unexamined views of others. This is why Socrates is reported to have said the unexamined life is not worth living: it is not, to use a fave word on the Left, authentic; this is also why for Socrates and Zen alike the first step to wisdom is knowing you do not know. You can look at people, see what people (all different sorts of people) have said about being people, or you can brandish a single book and say this is people (and if people aren’t this, they must be made this). Even better, you can then get the leaders of the (ha!) ‘free world’ to stand behind the special knowledge of people only your book can give and believe in your ‘moral authority’.
 
Inner freedom, whether in Zen, the Tao or the mystic traditions of the monotheisms, is recognized as liberation from illusion, imagined mind-constructs of reality. This is thought remote from real life, the notion of an ‘invisible reality’ scoffed at, but our individuality is an invisible reality - deeply invisible to those who take one look at your exterior, black, Jew, Arab, female, beggar, train-driver and magically derive what you are, how you feel, what you think, and most critically of what you may be capable, thereby.
 
The racist, the sexist, the hater of homosexuals exists entirely in his or her mind-constructs. Confident expression of what women, all women, were innately incapable of or unfit for kept us out of Parliament, out of the polling-booths and out of the universities, out of the professions until uncomfortably recently. Equally confident generalizations were applied to ‘the poor’. The male poor nonetheless acquired basic rights rather before the female poor. 
 
Only liberty can pull down imagined truth. Democracy, by upholding individual liberty, enables people to achieve their full potential, to stretch their hearts and minds to the utmost of their ability. Liberty allows individuals to escape from the imagined realities imposed by societies and forces reality upon those who govern.
 
All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common….few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error in which they admit themselves to be fallible…People more happily situated…place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer; for in proportion to man’s want of confidence in his own solitary judgement, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, in the infallibility of ‘the world’ in general. And the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his party, his sect, his church, his class of society…Nor is his faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes and parties, have thought and even now think the exact reverse….it never troubles him that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and that the same causes which made him a Churchman in London would have made him a Buddhist or Confucian in Pekin.
JS Mill: On Liberty
 
Or perhaps you’d like to get your teeth into this.  You obviously don’t like it.  Whining and hitting is not adequate literary criticism.
“I move.  I shake.  I mingle in circles not wholly virtuous.  The source of rot is the City.  Personally I would think it erroneous to say Kadun is immune to international opinion. It has not been fully exposed to international opinion.  Certainly nationalism is an issue and also a phoney nationalism, which demands conduct contrary to that of vermin be perceived as alien. There are those who hold Kadun will finally find her own way into the modern world. It didn’t work after Jaizal but it’ll work now because of mass communication, because of ease of travel.  It will be organic, effected relatively painlessly.  Indeed people will revolt.  They will start of their own accord to do thngs differently, to be different. Because of modern telecoms, which in their way are marketing. Because of exposure to life elsewhere. I regard this as somewhat optimistic. There are powerful factions with alluring anti-democratic agendas.  They have had some 1400 years in which to develop and adjust counter-arguments!   They need to be under-cut. There needs to be a clearly defined alternative. There are still too many steel-workers in Tjulsit ready to believe anarchy will follow should they be paid a decent wage. The why needs to be clearly and simply delineated. CLIK’s campaigns are excellent, insofar as they make CLIK’s points, but CLIK’s agenda – I am really not averse to blaming capital where capital is clearly to blame, but I do not think that the whole story.  You cannot blame an inanimate object for failures in individual human beings.  The true enemy is power and power may manifest itself as capital but the two are not synonymous.  If I appear to contradict myself, power is not inanimate, far from it.  Power hurts those who challenge the system.  Power terrorizes.  Power moves behind the scenes to block any change. 
“We say,” said Mel, “the only legitimate use of power is to keep power from those who most yearn for it, prevent them damaging the lives of others..”
“That,” said Mitch, “is not what we say, but it is surely to some extent what we do.”
“We call it the matrix.  The ant-heap. The matrix says the rich guy called king in the palace on the hill is top of the ant-heap.  Those with whom he comes into conflict might loathe him but they can’t actually do anything about him, meaning that they can use none of the tactics they use against little guys to stop him saying what needs to be said.  It rests of course on belief in the ant-heap.” 
“Kadun in her right mind must dominate the continent. There are no elements in the south content with the status quo?  Economic migration?”
“There’s a lot of work to be done in Kadun.”
“Fidub cedes supremacy?”
Oh dear, thought Mel, they are so very bright.
“The Republic of Fidub requires resolution of this matter of Kadun.  She has – latterly – admitted some degree of responsibility.”
“She has had her arm twisted?” asked Mitch.
Mel laughed.
“But then a Fidubi emperor is surely two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
“Fidbu cedes nothing?” said Karula.
“Fidub,” said Mel, “isn’t good at ceding.  I certainly have a vested interest.  I want no hostile Kadun on my doorstep using me as a stepping stone!”
“It isn’t going to happen,” said Hass, “that Krarlik sits himself on the Anile throne.  If it did happen, we don’t think there’s much doubt he’d go for a replay.”
“Whew!” said Karula.
The door opened.
 “Good evening, good gentles!” proclaimed Sern.  “Mel and Hass, of course we know.  Micheal and Karula we ought to know.  Nothing like the display of a particularly ghastly error to get us moving like greased lightning.  How did we miss you!”
     “I get around a lot,” accepted Mitch.
     “That is Sern,” said Mel.  “The little fubsy one is Deela.”
     “Hi,” said Deela.
     “Where shall we go?” asked Sern.
     “You can use my rooms,” said Hass.
     “If you’d like to come with us,” said Sern.  “Bring the coffee, bring the bikkies, this isn’t school!”
     Sern sprawled himself over a kitchen chair. 
     “We have an introductory spiel.  Good a place as any.”
     The others sat.
“OK,” said Sern, “you are sitting comfortably.  You are about as safe as you can be outside Fidub. I’m going to ask you to feel that reality. Doesn’t that sound unspeakable! Get really settled into it because it matters.  We are PANTHER.  This is a kitchen in the Dabidan Rep Centre. This is a bloody uncomfortable chair, maybe we should have started in the sitting-room. What a fine solid table this is.  I know it sounds like crap  but we are going to try and blow your reality away and you are going to hang on to it.  You know who you are and you love each other and nothing can come between you.  Just take a second to be here…OK.  If Deela and Karula would like to go into the bedroom, Micheal and I will go into the sitting-room.  Take a minute to absorb your surroundings.  Just keep hanging on to reality. OK…Now we’ll move on.”
Hass opened the door to his sitting-room. There’s an awful lot of fur, fur throws, fur rugs, fluffy furry cushions.
     “Nice,” commented Deela.  “All fake, I trust.”
     Hass grinned.
     “100% acrylic.”
     White and cream fur and occasionally sable fur with a plain cream carpet in the middle of highly polished floorboards and a poster-size photograph of hadin on one wall.
     “This is a real nice room,” said Karula.
     Mitch looked at her suspiciously.
“Bedroom’s through here,” said Hass.  More of the same except in reverse, black and grey fur with a plain black carpet and the poster showed starburst.  “All the clutter’s in the kitchen, books and things.”  They followed him into the kitchen, with its huge pine table, panoramic view of the City and three walls of bookshelves.  “Help yourself to anything you want.  See ya later!”
“Same gig,” said Sern.  “Take your time absorbing this room, which has at least the merit of being memorable.”
Mitch grinned.
“OK,” said Sern, “now we rock!”
Mitch is in a field.  There are buttercups.  There are cow-pats.  It is a distressingly real field.
What is this crap! shouted Mitch.  Hang on, now, hang on to what is real, but then the only reality is in my mind so I’m crazy
OK, so I stand up.  I am standing on a carpet.  The grass tickled his ankles.  OK…Feel it, touch it.  Let me think about this real carefully.  You are making me see – who’s in charge here!  Power. 
Power over me.
I command!  Myself.
So-o-o?
So standing was a bad idea because to sit on air I have to - ?  If the window is there and I walk through it, squelchy heap on the side-walk.  That’s reality!  
Trippy, man.  A very bad trip indeed.
“No rush,” Mitch assured him, “no rush at all.”
“Baz and Paw,” said Sarat.  “Look at it as three for the price of one.”
Mitch guffawed.
“I’m sure PANTHER make a worthwhile contribution to any enterprise.”
“I’m designing a Grid-site.  PANTHER are helping with the artwork.  I’d really appreciate your view.”
     “I think I should be fascinated.”
     “When you are next in Zur,” said Cho.  “Call me.”
Bal played with a pair of pens.
“And what brings Choit ban-varna to our glorious City?”
“Guess he’s real proud of his grandson.”
“One is bad enough.  Both.”
“One is mixing in all the best circles.  He’s had dinner with Searc.”
“Why does that thought entertain me?” asked Bal.
“Guess the dog has to be shown the rabbit, Bal.”
“We are neutral,” pronounced Bal.
“We are so neutral,” agreed Feit, “that it hurts.”
“What screws can Fidub turn?”
“I don’t think they work like that.”
“I don’t either.  But they could.”
Consideration of Sarat’s finances had been largely limited to Sarat doesn’t need finances, he’s got Cho. They stayed in the cat-house.  OK, that’s the cat-house, not a cat-house, but the effect was much the same. 
     Essa to Airoch: So kind.
     Airoch to Essa: [Laughter]
     “I trust them,” said Mitch, “because it’s straight down the line. This, that, this, what kind of crap is that.”  He felt the grin spreading through his body again. “But mostly I trust them because of the script.”
     “So you pledged your sword.”
     “No.  First I talk to Madam President.”
     “Bollocks,” said Karula.  “You’re smitten.”
     “I like to rock.”  He looked at her suspiciously.  “You go to Van-senok.  I am not going to Van-senok to have another set-to about dithering!”
     Karula went off  to Van-senok and related their adventures.
     Sarat and Maya set out to woo the City.
 “What,” asked Tar, “are they doing?”
     “Networking,” said Mel.
     If one grows up Maya Talal, one is simply not groped.  Perhaps, I mused, class is simply a question of the gropeable and the taboo.  In any case, when Maya Talal-ban-essa was groped, presumably quite significantly, at the wilder sort of party where one is unannounced, she reacted predictably and the groper found himself on his knees with one arm twisted behind his back.
     “Death, it’s a dyke!”
     “Hadin-Wadud, darling.”
     “Fuck!”
     Sarat materialized at her side.
     “Please apologize.”
     “Perhaps I over-reacted,” said Maya meekly.
     Heard it from someone who heard it from who heard it from.  Ah, the fatal attraction of wit, cham and unarmed combat.
     From time to time they condescended to appear at the Rep Centre parties.
     Beejay rose as though a fire-cracker had exploded underneath him.
     “My dear young man!” He approached, bowed formally from the waist, then looked up mischievously. “Imperial Highness, I should say!”
     “Who he?” asked Sarat.
     Beejay laughed.
     “Ontologically, epistemologically or historically?”
“Biologically,” suggested Sarat sweetly.
     Kyse took a fortnight's holiday in the Delta and didn't like it.  His complaint was simple; he didn't want what was on offer; what he did want, he couldn't get.  He didn't want to ask each time he wanted a glass of water or a roll or to have to decide in the morning whether he wanted a table for dinner.  He didn't want a wide range of crap food.  He didn't want to be kept awake by a disco ("Get away from it all to the tranquil marsh-lands of the Delta, my ass!")  Especially, fervently, viciously, he didn't want karaoke in the bar.  "The idea of a holiday," he said, "is that you pay to do what you want.  I've been hiking for ten hours.  I don't want a poxy shower.  Took ten minutes to get the temperature right.  I want a bath!  I'd settle for a swim but the pool's closed for the night.  Who is this place run for?  If I've been reading till three, I don't want to get up for breakfast.  I don't want to clear out in the morning for the cleaners.  I do not want to rise with the lark, I'm on holiday!  The virtuous vacationer needs more self-discipline than the worker.  I can pull up my own duvet cover.  Shouldn't want to clean the loo.  Do I need an en suite loo."
     "I have an idea," said Mel.  "Let me break it to you gently."
     After, he rang Sarat.
     Sarat listened.
     "Stress-breakers Extraordinary?"
     Sarat and Maya returned to Zur, leaving Mitch and Karula winding up BSV Associates and waiting for the end of term, Mel pretending to be engrossed in his studies, and Hass and Venga playing socialites in the City.
Stress-breakers achieved moderate success.  Anyone who noticed had dismissed it as a piece of eco-freakery aimed at veggies in hand-weave.  The following spring, a further five Stress-Breakers opened.  I'd fallen for it, for one.  Didn't want to go home again.  They'd bought a row of cottages on the Utmost Isle.  I'd never been to Fidub before, hadn't been able to afford it.  That was the other vein they mined.  You're no longer a student, you're a proper person, earning real money.  Consequently you think you can improve on the tent, the metal bunk, the back-pack digging into your shoulders.  You will go to a real hotel!   Rock-bottom was a room, use of all facilities, all the food you could eat and cooking and cleaning for yourself.  If you wanted cooking and cleaning done for you, that was five dollars a time.  You could buy or order extra goodies and have them cooked for you.  You paid for exactly what you wanted, a simple and appealing notion that seems never previously to have penetrated the hotel trade.  Stress counsellors said they were being done out of a job.  What higher accolade could a man desire?  It was not an anonymous enterprise.  Did I mention droopy girls in Harn bed-sits?  I never drooped!  You were on Sarat's side.  You assumed the whole thing was eco-friendly.  But you'd never heard of Kyse.  He'd made up his mind he preferred studying history to living it.
Cantilip prowled.
“I want to meet him,” said Cantilip simply.  “I think if I meet him I’ll understand.”
Marula shook her head.
But Cantilip is putting something together.
“We’re all going to meet anyway!  We’ve all got to meet, do you see.  Including Sarat.  This they said that he said and we think that they think.  It doesn’t work.  This Mel sounds a bright guy.  I’m sure he’ll understand.”
You couldn’t really call him good-looking, Karula had said.  Mind you, he has stiff competition!  But he’s incredibly attractive, a real enchanter.
I like enchanters.  I’m one myself.
“Where?” asked Behna.
“That’s just it!” said Cantilip.
“Why not tell Sarat?” asked Behna.
“Because I don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Cantilip.  She worked out what she meant.  “Suppose we say – Mitch covers all the dreary worthy stuff.  I cover all the interesting stuff.  In the middle is this – pool of four men who appear to do both.  I don’t understand that.”
“You do not understand the south,” said Marula.
“That’s just it!” said Cantilip again.  “If we ever had understood the south, we shouldn’t be in this mess.”
“We think we are Fidubi,” observed Behna. 
“We do not!” said Marula.
The village of Carlin is a single long and winding lane.  Halfway up is the Rabbiters’ Arms, opposite the post office.
The Rabbiters’ does b+b. Mitch had checked that in the guide-book.
“Just remember,” he whispered to Karula, “that every single damn’ one of them can speak prarper if un chooses.”
The rabbiters looked up slowly.
"Arternoon, Miss," said Vishtu.  "Mam, I should say,” as he noted the kids.
The brat-pack surged in, babbling.
“May we bring the kids in!” said Karula.  “Though they’re in already!”
“Bain’t no prarblem, mam.”
Mitch came in.
“Would you have a room for the night?  Dill!  Get down!”
“Rackon we can do that for ‘ee, sir.”
“Aw, Dad.” 
“Apple-stock,” said Mitch. "An innocuous fruitaceous beverage, Possibly about 200% proof.  It may knock out my children, which can only be to the good.”
Vishtu laughed.
“You’m been to Carlin before, sir?”
“Oi been done thart,” said Mitch. “Many toimes.”
“Don’t know as oi know your face, sir.”
“I was a kid.”
Karula now had Baria (the middle one) firmly by one hand and Qirl (the youngest one) by the other. Dill stood silent but mutinous just in front of her.
"You'm be warntin' zee un shrine." said Barfanu.
"D'you want to show  us?" asked Karula.  “History, kids!”
“We’ve got history, Mom.”
“If ee’d loike to sign the book, sir.”
Mitch wrote his name in small careful capitals then signed.
Vishtu examined the book.
“Rackon you’m be roight welcome, sir,” said Vishtu.
 
 
     Reakoed finally got hold of Mel.
     “There’s something I have to say,” he said with a sort of taut irritation.  “I know this isn’t the time or the place.  Does Cantilip know about Fal?”
     “Yes.”
     “What does she know about Fal? The official version or the reality?”
     “What do you think?” asked Mel somewhat curtly.
     “Just checking.  Everyone else has been fed a load of total hooey.”
     “Protecting Fal,” said Mel even more curtly.
     “All right, all right.  Mel – my basic reaction is WTF?”
     Mel relaxed and laughed.
     “It’s a long long story and I’m not going to tell it.”
     “OK.”
     When it exploded over Reakoed in Azt, Mel wished he had.
     Cantilip sought out Saski. 
     “Could I talk to you, please?”
     “Of course, darling.”
     “In – in the current geopolitical situation, I should not wish to make a mistake!  In other circumstances if I accidentally upset Dabidans I should not fret over-much but make amends.  In the more delicate situation in which we find ourselves, one where sensibilities are perhaps heightened – I feel everything I represent is a minefield and there are tripwires I don’t even know exist.  Mel, I think, thinks that the transition from being my lady of one place to my lady of another is not an issue.  Insofar as that goes, he is correct.  But he takes no account of the surrounding, very different and historically hostile culture. Then again I have to differentiate between the culture of All-Kadun, the history of All-Kadun, and the culture and history of Van-senok.  One such minefield of course is the rape of Ciletij.  It was not as Ciletij tell it.  Am I not just an apologist for evil!
     “Earth-power,” said Saski.
     “D’you know whom I feel like?  Please don’t laugh.  Asyrion.  She was a wonderful person.  Kaminua adored her.  She became one of the most reviled women in history.”
     “Because she gave the wrong order,” said Saski.
     “Because she gave the wrong order.  Because she misread the tea-leaves.  Because she was a foreigner.”
     “A world immeasurably distant with primitive communication.”
     “Mel is one kind of flame and I another.  I know when our minds meet – he rides it.  I should hate anyone to say I have corrupted him.”
     “Earthpower,” said Saski again.  “Darling, you evade the nub.”
     “I am not made of stone,” said Cantilip abruptly.
     “Then let me look,” said Saski calmly, “and see of what you are made.”
     “You say there are the polarities, active and passive, rational and irrational, strong and weak.  Male and female.  Each is in truth both male and female, active and passive, strong and weak.  Each individual is his or her unique combination.  The rest is talk.  Societies have arbitrarily associated the female with weakness, passivity, the male with strength, rationality – a rationality usually amply demonstrated in those societies in which such stereotypes have applied.”
     Saski laughed.
     “Continue.”
     “Similarly in such societies, and indeed in later ones, the ‘wrong’ attribute may be manifested in a way societally acceptable, for instance a passive man may affect being laid-back.  We say there is only that which is both nurturer and destroyer.”
     “That in essence we say,” said Saski. “So where is the difference?”
     “Earthpower – womanspirit they still call it in Harn -  basically holds that the power of love is rooted in the earth, in the natural world, and is female.  This is not to say that Kadun pre-Narulis was entirely the abode of dreamy soulful types.  They were men.  They did as much running around bashing each other as any other group of men.  It is not to say that Kadun pre-Narulis was an equal opportunities society.  It is to say that there was a certain respect for the female, which of course was crushed by the Cult.  It is to say that Kadun pre-Narulis  was marked by a certain non-aggressiveness and what happens to the peaceful when the thuggish come along is they get battered, until they sigh heavily and and decide to get organized.  Thus the history of feminism.  Kadun had beaten off the physical threat from Harn, but the Cult had got well dug in, the in-fighting of course having been not over boring territory or natural resources but between earthpower and the Cult. Into this tripped Fidub and so for obvious historical reasons I have wondered if the Fidubi way is enough but now I see it is everything.”
     “May I look?” asked Saski again. “My dear, I am simply devastatingly curious.”
     In the drawing-rooms of Azt, they say: He has Var-segan, he has Van-senok.  Undoubtedly he has Carlin (that will have been settled with Talal long ago). 
     “Taking on A-M over Mel’s and Hass’s partners,” said Cho, “is counter-productive.” 
“It is possible,” said Faun, “they are shitting themselves. Sarat, Mitch, Cantilip and CLIK represent a formidable quartet.  I do not know what would happen if they chose to address themselves directly to the Army.”    
     Cho nodded.
     “We have doubled the numbers in Var-segan.  Van-senok protects itself.”
     “I shall speak to Saryulin. Sorg has his ear to the ground.”
     Fortunately a party of the size of the one Mel had planned takes time to get off the ground.  A week beforehand, Por rang Faun at 3 in the morning. 
     “I agree,” said Faun.
     He arrived on the hill for breakfast.
     “Krarlik is bright,” said Por.  “Krarlik is subtle.  Krarlik understands a propaganda war.  We worked through the more obvious possibilities, your marriage celebrated by the mass execution of political prisoners, that sort of thing.  That will win no brownie points.  I think they’ll close the border with Var-segan, Carlin and Van-senok on the wrong side.”
     “Relics of an outmoded feudal system,” sighed Mel.  “Etc.  You want us to call it off?”
     “Oh no,” said Por. “Not exactly. We’re bright and subtle, too.  We want you to hold it in Van-senok.  We don’t think they’ll dare trap A-M on the wrong side.  Even if they did you can get out through Ciletij but the consequent hell Dabida would raise. Zur should have its party on the day planned.”
     “It’s a breach of the Convention,” said Mel.
     “After a while international pressure.  The damage will have been done.”
     “Hang on,” said Cantilip, “if, then wouldn’t they close the border the moment we announce – “
“It’s a game of chicken,” said Faun.
“Obviously we have to celebrate in both countries,” said Cantilip.
“What were we thinking of!” said Mel in horror.
“Next weekend?” suggested Cantilip. “Element of surprise and all that?  What they do after is irrelevant while Zur parties to its heart’s content.”
Por looked at her appreciatively.  Mel just looked smug.
“Glitz,” said Faun.
Sarat pondered then went to see Cho.
“First, I think there’s something I have to tell you.  To some extent it’s been superseded by Mitch and Cantilip, but it’s still important.”
Tantric sex, etc.
“After that it gets weirder,” said Sarat.  “The obvious is if I start mauling Azt people will think chair.  My little brain started throwing up I’d be Anile emperor and people would think I intended to be Anile emperor but actually you’d be Anile emperor. You can rationalize that by saying if you wanted it, you’d have done it. Venga said I’d sit on the Anile throne but it was all the inner, esoteric bit. Where didn’t matter.  How I’m supposed to get to Casin-ruhn!   It seemed a problem at the time!  Via Van-senok may turn out to be the answer but as I figured it  Varchulan darling is going to be enough of a problem without telling him the - cosmos wants me to sit on the chair.” I can’t cope, thought Cho with a sort of wild glee. “What is supposed to happen!” Sarat continued in tones of pure derision.  “I mean really, I plant my exquisite backside on the chair, sound of thunder, lightning rends the skies….Me, not you.  He couldn’t explain that.  It’s just how it is.  I did the precognition module too. Inwardly and esoterically you are definitely Anile emperor. That’s how it is.  You could say my taking over Kadun is your outward and exoteric manifestation!  I’m an outward and exoteric person.  But then so are you.  It’d make so much more sense if you were Dad, do you see what I mean?  I know Dad cares enormously.  I guess about ten people know that and you’re obviously one of them.  He’s just not political.  I understand you want us to take them to the cleaners. I think I understand this is not in the context of your being emperor.  I don’t see why.”
The precognition module teaches that what will be is not fixed and perception of what will be delineates only a possible future.
“The climate in Azt is appalling. I too have a flexible mind.”
“I know you wanted a formal exposition.  This is not it.  It’s just baselines.  I want to rock and I want to rock now and why I want to rock is create and interesting diversion from Mel and Cantilip.”
Sarat handed him his palm-top.
 
     Cantilip giggled.
     “We’re getting married!  Do you think anyone will notice?”
There was a fraction of  a second when Azt was silent.  It didn’t last and no-one expected it to last but in it you sort of knew that what Azt wanted to do was jeer, what power does this ridiculous lout hold, but she couldn’t because  the prospect of an insurgent army coupled with the  prospect of economic mayhem meant she was on the run.  That of course was the barmiest thought of all and a lot of people didn’t dare have it.  The continent began a prolonged period of insanity. 
Somewhere in the cavernous depths of the HQ of VILE, small, tubby and balding examined his mounting delirium.  Hey, I’m a sophisticated guy!  I like good theatre.  Tell me this isn’t for real.  Tell me these damn’ crazy bastards don’t want their chair back. 
STB wasn’t alone.  An article appeared in The Times considering virtual reality.  Even Seani thought it was all extremely clever, but not necessarily all extremely real. 
“Take the existing facts.  Hype them.  Put a bomb under the bastards.  Scare the fucking shit out of them.  I am sure they intend a revolution,  I am not sure they intend a silver chair.  Tar is pivotal.  Clearly he smiles benignly on the whole thing.  But then you may say why should he not wish his niece on the Anile throne.  I don’t know.”
“This is not Kadun,” said Num.  “We ask.  It’s no longer a game, Seani.  Possibly!”
Seani smiled sleepily.
“That is true.  I think not in the heat of the moment.  Let’s just see how this act ends.”
Sarat-ban-essa sets himself against the lawful government of Kadun!  Lawful, did you say, in which way?  In the chambers of the Federation irturbi lawyers began to sweat.  It was put to Tar that Sarat's conduct was inappropriate.  He trades upon a title six centuries mouldering!  And you, sir, whose illustrious ancestor so seminally contributed to the abrupt cessation of Anile governance, you above all surely cannot recognize the Anile Throne.  Ciletij, poor fools, joyfully took up the chorus.  Tar shrugged.  What say you he claim to be only a citizen of Fidub?  It is who he is.  He cannot not be it.  He meddles!  A headstrong and thoughtless young man.  He recalls the integrity of the early Aniles, retorted Tar, in the light of history surely no bad thing.  Integrity! screamed Ciletij.  Integrity, said Tar.  Great evil was done, but it was not of Kaminua's willing.  He was Fidubi!  Shall Fidubi torture and flay to show evil-doers punished?  They say, after, the light went from his eyes and he spent his life grieving.  When his son came of age, he killed himself, for he had failed to civilize irturbi.  This was not a version current in Ciletij, nor, for that matter, in Kadun.  The talking-heads nodded to each other.  Alzani-Meta has no cause to love the Aniles.  Those who know more reproached Tar, but he laughed.  They wish me to apologize! He said to Essa.  To my lord Kaminua or to irturbi?  We lie to our children until they are old enough to know the truth.  We lie to the world, that it never know the truth.  Our children, said Essa drily, look set to find the truth for themselves.
     "Thank you," said Sarat.  Sweet boy. The Kadun Rep, out with his family doing a little eco-harmless shopping, took them for tea at Sorito's. Sarat crossed the Saa’nda Senta.
     "What," murmured his partner, "can you possibly be looking at?"
They laughed. 
     Ban-gibol drained his cup and peered into it..
     "I look for the storm."
     "What is it the kids say, does my head in."
     "We shall see."
Sarat sent a few emails.  You are invited to join a new generation of interactive forums.
Sorg sat motionless in front of the monitor.  Perhaps this is what dying is like?  Perhaps this is what is meant by drifting away, that described in NDEs?  One has entered a new continuum.  He half-stood, wondered if he meant to flee the room, then sat, collected himself, rang Layat at home in the evening.
“I think one may say, sir, that Sarat-ban-essa has formally announced his intentions.”
“They are honourable, I trust.”
“On the Grid, sir.  May I show you?”
A phenomenal amount of unpleasant nonsense is talked about the empire.  The true empire united five kingdoms under the imperial crown.  It neither assaulted nor desired to assault neighbouring territories.  Thus Kadun – for some 1500 years.  The perversions of the years of decline have come – perversely – to represent the whole.
“Modesty forbids,” murmured Sorg but no-one noticed.
“Objection over-ruled,” said Karca.
Pusal chortled at the ‘reviews’ down the left-hand side-bar.
A fair reflection of Sarat’s concerns, both past and present.  The article on breeding hamsters is particularly fascinating.  Tar Talal.
     The seven o’clock news reached the Caniba Plain.
     No-one would look at Sorg.
     “It’s true,” he said and turned on his heel and walked out.
Vij had skidded to Sarshi’s door.
     “I didn’t know!”
     She looked at him like someone in a trance.
     “That your sister will be Anile Empress.”
     “I did not know what the hell they are – mum and dad didn’t know.  Tar didn’t know.  OK, they made some shrewd guesses – don’t leave me, please!”
     “How can I leave?  I have nowhere to go. Vij, I sit here like a mouse, paralysed.  I do not dare ring home.  Do you understand, I do not dare.”
     “My dear sweet girl.  I – I told you Sarat was radical.”
     “Radical.  That is the word? He has accused them of theft.  He has effectively accused them of treason.  In five minutes he has destroyed…”
     But it’s true, thought Vij, wretchedly aware that he and his beloved were poles apart and always had been.  Sarat, kindly give thought to your brother-in-law’s relationship before you speak.  There are other bloody ways of saying things.  The whole thing has crumbled, he thought wildly. He got out his mobile and found himself shouting at his sister.
     “There are other bloody ways of saying things!”
     “Sarat,” said Maya.  “Vij.”
     Oh shit, thought Sarat.
     “Vij.”
     “In trust for a non-existent emperor?  What is this crap?  It has been 600 bloody years since your family deigned to note the existence of Kadun.”
     “Not exactly,” said Sarat. 
     “What is exactly?”
     “Cho is the – hereditary – head of what is sometimes called Kadun PANTHER and which has patrolled Kadun for something like 1500 years.”
     It gets worse! thought Vij.
     “I didn’t know that,” he admitted.  
     “You’re with Sarsh?”
     “I don’t know how your girl feels right now, but mine is devastated.”
     “Then look after her,” said Sarat and rang off.
     Vij looked in fury at the phone.  So what did I expect, an apology, a retraction, a fake apology – gee, I’m sorry to hear that.
     Ring Sarsh, thought Sorg.
     “Zur 650344.”
     There was a note in her voice that frightened him.
     “Me, me, me, only me!”
     “I’m with Vij.  He didn’t know, Sorg.”
     “What didn’t he know?”
     “That Sarat is a bastard!”
     “Sarshi – “
     “That his sister was Anile Empress.”
     “Hang on – “  He laughed suddenly.  “Terribly suitable, wouldn’t you say.”
     “Sorg!”
     “Why are you screaming?”
     “You, of all people…” sniffed Sarshi.
     “Have you talked to the parents?”
     “Of course I haven’t bloody talked to the parents!”
     “You do seem in rather a state.”
     “He’s destroyed everything,” said Sarsh in tones of total ice.
     “Yes,” said Sorg, “I suppose he has.  So long as Vij is with you.  I’ll call you later.”
     Life just became interesting.
I see, thought Changri.  Lot here I didn’t know and no mistake.   He read Land ownership in Kadun five times then rang Koh in CLIK in Maona-pri.
A lot of people read Land ownership in Kadun at least five times, usually while rubbing their eyes and muttering I don’t believe I’m reading this.
The sexual habits of the hamster, thought Mitch dreamily, have long been an abiding interest of mine.
“I demand equal rights, equal coverage for gerbils.”
He mailed Heela and Kile the link.
No reply.
Sarat’s Pad was a hybrid of blog and forum.  When you got past the cutesy stuff, you got a plain page with a list of articles.  About me.  The matter of Kadun.  Land ownership – the Rape of Ciletij and the changing metaphysic – Values - Other stuff.   Each article represented the start of a thread in a forum.  The extracts given are necessarily abstracted to make a dialogue – war, dialogue, something of the kind.
Seani:  Dear Sarat, WTF? 
Sarat: I want to know what people actually think not what you guys tell everyone they think.
Seani: You – want – to – know – what people think about your being Anile Emperor!
Sarat: About a lot of things.  People spout stuff and they don’t always connect with their brains.   It is one possible solution to the matter of Kadun.  There are others.  Just don’t tell me there isn’t a problem!
Seani: The Dabidan model?
Mel:  Isn’t she cool?
Kyse: We think she’s rather sexy.  Is she exportable?
Mitch: What others?  Just stirring it!
Seani: Yikes, they’re all here.
Sarat: If you look at your history, she’s the Kadun model!  Cho says the second time round Fidub saw how to make sure it didn’t fall apart.
Seani: Of course nothing inflammatory will be posted here.
Venzat (IT editor of the Straits Times): Technically 8/10.  The quality of the content has yet to be determined.
The world woke up.
Torl: As a Ciletij citizen resident in Zur, I am appalled.  Does the young man have any conception of what the Aniles represent?
Sarat:  That has been covered.
Torl: Glossed over. 
Finisi: I’m from the Ciletij Rep Centre in Maona-pri.  I understand we are discussing the situation with Airoch-cha.
Mel:  What ‘situation’?
Sarat:  Why don’t we get Varchulan darling* here?  *How Airoch addresses my lord Cile.
Mel:  Some of Cho’s constituents!
Finisi: Sarat-ban-essa has resurrected a putrefying corpse best left sleeping.
Zulagan: As some people are aware, Choit-ban-varna is a major benefactor of CLIK.  I would just like to ask what Ciletij does for  human rights in Kadun?
Sarat: PANTHER has never abandoned its ties with Kadun.
Abidaba: Human rights in Ciletij!  Allegations of torture in The Times
Betla: We – are – a – democracy.  Unlike – the – freaking – Anile – Empire!
Sarat:  Now you are.  Then you tortured and mutilated prisoners and practised human sacrifice.
Mitch: Guess Jaizal got it from you.
Venzat:  Of course nothing inflammatory will be posted here.
Seani: I think I might like this.  Where’s the bomb-shelter?
Betla: Whose freaking side are you on!  Listen up, kiddo.  You massacred half Ciletij and enslaved the other half.
Sarat: Garbage.  I wasn’t born.
Venzat: What kind of a feeble excuse is that!
Seani: Now, Sarat, you are going to have to do better than that.
Betla: Will you two clowns shut up!
Seani: First rule of politics.  Be nice to the Press.
Venzat: Sarat understands that (gdr).
Betla: How shall I put this?  I am attempting to have an intelligent conversation.  Since I seem to be the only intelligent person present I am a little thwarted.
Mitch: I do not take that kindly.  When I was six I won a prize for spelling.
Betla: All right, bozo.  The Anile Emperor massacred half Ciletij and enslaved the other half.
Sarat:  Kaminua did not order the massacre of Ciletij.
Betla:  You were there, right?  I thought you weren’t born.
Sarat: You were? 
Finisi: You had slaves in Var-segan. (Sigh).  You know damned well what I mean.
Torl: They’re only serfs now!  Vassals of his lordship.
Zulagan:  You want to get out more, talk to the real world.
Mitch: The slave-route to Azt led through Fas-sigree. If Var-segan and Van-senok forbade the passage of the slave-trains and we forbade it there really was not a whole lot Jaizal could do about it because contrary to your mythology there was no vast united army of imperial Kadun to be moved against you or us. Mel will tell us that ‘Jaizal’s army’ confronted Zani or a fragment thereof and reality is much that a fragment thereof constituted the whole.
Various: Yer wot? 
Mitch: You have to understand how the imperial army was constituted or perhaps that there was or had been no imperial army.  Each of us had something between a standing-army, a militia and a police-force.  Sarat has repeatedly made the point that we did not pose a threat to anyone.  Naturally squabbles break out from time to time.  In the south-east the Morag-Fahdi moved freely in and out of Kadun.  In the north-west, as you should know, there was and is no border, only trees.  There is no strand of barbed wire, no sentry-post. To understand this you must understand that Jaizal was fully aware of his predicament and naturally attempted to create around himself an enlarged imperial force, recruiting soldiers from the five Houses, but before that you should understand that there had always been a small force around the emperor.  If you can count, you will understand that traditionally everyone speaks of five Houses,Var-segan, Carlin, Vaudos, Fas-sigree and Van-senok.  Fas-sigree is of course the site of Azt and became subsumed by the imperial capital.  It is the nature of the beast that the militia of Fas-sigree became that of the emperor and so attracted some of the best of All-Kadun. Now, the empire as founded by Narulis consisted in five contiguous States, but again there was no line of barbed wire and the borders were flexible concepts  As a matter of historical fact it is open to doubt whether the rape of Ciletij in fact took place within Ciletij.  No-one doubts that an obscenity in human terms took place, but the ghoulish zeal with which you guys cling to your determined misconceptions – have you talked to Marula za-fenan of late? I shall now modify that to sate you!  Purely for the sake of accuracy.  We have been around a long time and Var-segan has not always been squeaky clean.  You may say we have had our ups and downs and have dealt with our downs. One might say that if Kadun had been invaded, then we should have united, but funnily enough (evil grin) when Kadun was invaded nothing  stood in the invaders’ path.  Now to return to Casin-ruhn – as some here will understand it took much – it is inconceivable that Van-senok fire the trees.  Yet, as my lady of Van-senok tells it, some terrible evil was loose in the forest and fire the only solution, and this decision taken from Azt and enforced by a young officer from Azt, far far from home, San-yaega-baht his name, being shouted at from all sides, and the fire escaped control and the consequence one of the greatest tragedies in history for Ciletij and senoki alike, for humans.  And who in hell cared for the survivors but the House at Van-senok and if you guys insist Kaminua ‘meant’ to exterminate the Ciletij tribes, you are entitled to your views, garbage though they be. 
Betla: Hey, folks, it’s ‘His Imperial Highness’s’ pet monkey.  What a load of putrid self-justifying shit.
Mitch: You want to meet me some time, say that to my face?
Torl: Deranged nonsense, boy!
Mel: You think I’ve married a liar?
Seani:  Oo-oo, ref!  Below the belt, Mel.
Betla: People who repeat the lies they’ve been taught don’t know they’re lying.
Mitch: Indeed you do not.
Sarat:   There was no thick black line, this is the border! The empire just sort of petered out, OK. There were out-posts. As I’m told it.  Kaminua was a decent guy.  He did not want to extend the empire and he sure as heck didn’t want to slaughter Ciletij. When push comes to shove, you lot were the aggressors. Were irturbi just supposed to sit and take it?
Betla: I do not fucking believe I am fucking reading this.  Want a re-run, do you?
Sarat:  As far as I understand – there was the lake, Casin-Ruhn, on its shore the garrison and a clearing, one road, track, it must have been, leading to the east. The Ciletij raiders lurked in the forest. San-yaega-baht tired of the toll of his men.  He devised a plan to fire the forest and drive the Ciletij into the open. You say he meant to trap and slaughter them.
Mitch: Perhaps we allowed ourselves to be influenced by Ciletij. No, I mean really, objectively.  You have one lot of guys with rules about this kind of thing and another lot with no rules  Something obscene happened.  No-one disputes that.  But it seems to me that you reinforce Sarat’s point that Ciletij was not then civilized by perceiving yourselves wholly as victims.  You were not facing the massed forces of Imperial Kadun.  Except you insist you were, that the entire will of Kadun was bent on your destruction. From what I have read, Jaizal’s conquest of Vasucula was not anything to keep the contents of your stomach in place.
Essa looked at Cho.
“Better out than in,” said Cho.
“You think so?”
Betla: Don’t you mean your conquest of Vasucula?
Mitch:  There are courses on anger management.  No, little pearl of the north, I do not mean that.  I mean in fact the point previously made about differing levels of civilization.  If your little brain can take on board anything resembling a fact, Jaizal surrounded himself with an elite in military terms force of the similarly morally degenerate to whom Vasuculi, Ciletij were a push-over. 
     Betla: But you could have.
     Mitch:  We took the line of less resistance. We in fact determined Jaizal had to be contained.  Into this stepped Zani, as previously noted. You may see us as spectators to increasing moral depravity.  Evil is incremental, no.  Prisoners are treated more roughly, prisoners are tortured. What you guys do not get is among other things the willingness of Jaizal to enslave and torture irturbi.  That induced a certain moral ambivalence on its own.   
Dabidanflier: You seem to be saying the empire was a coalition!
Mitch: It was an agreement,  Life is better than death.  Love is better than power.  An anti-Cult alliance which had a leader. 
Skylight: What I don’t get is what’s now Dabida is the obvious starting-point.  That makes no sense, OK.  For x zillion years there’s wonderful Fidub on the other side of the Straits and she never thought to hop across and talk to the guys on the other side.
Mel:  But she did! There were Fidubi settlements all over the place.  NOT colonizers, NOT rulers, often traders.  As I understand it, there were these five guys…
Mitch: And the rest is history!  
Sarat: You could say Narulis liberated Kadun from Harn.
Mitch: You could.  You could also say that struggle continues to the present day!
Skylight: What are you talking about!
Various: High Harn!  Than which there is nothing lower.
Mel: Far across the distant ocean lay Harn…Than which there is nothing lower.  They could sail too, you know, but it’s a very large ocean Harn looted, raped and pillaged Kadun, including people, including slaves.  Naturally the natives didn’t think much of this and they thought even less of the Cult which rooted itself in Kadun. Irturbi themselves weren’t stationary!  I mean there had been contact with Fidub before Narulis. Consequently, and this is important, there were Fidubi in Kadun before Narulis, if only in ones and twos, fives and sixes, maybe twenties and thirties, travellers, traders. You know what Fidubi are like.  Some irturbi ship lands on the Utmost Isle.  Fidubi say, where do you come from, then?  Over yonder!  Oooh, ooh, let us return with you to scrutinize yonder!  When Narulis landed, Kadun wasn’t an inert mass, far from it, there’d been a lot of in-fighting, and out of that had emerged the five Houses.   Now I think we really do have to talk about other stuff.  What did our irturbi explorers notice about Fidub?  Was it the miles of golden sand, the sun-drenched beaches?  No, no! It was the blasted music.  Kadun, roughly, Kadun, broadly, what is now Kadun was not a pre-literate society and guys thought and wrote about things other than the price of a good sword.  As far as I have been able to discern, the indigenous belief-system was earthpower or as a certain person whom I know to be lurking might put it womanspirit.  She is the expert and she should continue the story.
Various: ???
Me: Fiend!  Hi, guys.
I told them about womanspirit.
Me:  That does not make sense! I hear you cry. Anyone who knows anything about the Cult knows where it starts is a ‘bit of fun’ on Xulaman, Kinsquol… Actually it makes exactly the sense Kadun today makes.  I do not think (evil grin) Var-segan or Carlin today espouses earthpower but what are today and yesterday centres of moral hegemony do not mean the Cult is not a force to be reckoned with and indeed feared.  Now (sigh) even I have to admit those five guys were quite something.  They established five oases of sanity and nameless thingies crawled round their borders and the dark silent forests.  Oft-times they were beleagured.  I’m going to write historical novels when I grow up.   Into this tripped Narulis and got them united. ‘Narulis var-goan Kada’ is and is not total garbage.  There was no Kadun.  Narulis created Kadun and ended internecine strife.  That does not, repeat not, mean there was nothing there to start with.  Narulis landed at what is now Car-sandis – and the rest is history.  Carlin’s heir thought, hey we can make music here.
 Mitch: Hey, Sarat, you want to rock?
Mel: ROTFLMAO
Finisi:  I have to admit I didn’t know any of that.
Mel: Friend of mine and one bright lady. Ladies, gentlemen and  other species, Caithan Morsen, daughter of Estanzia Morsen, Harn’s leading exponent of womanspirit, and fellow student of anthropology.
Sarat: You were saying?
Betla: You’re kidding!  Come on, we fall for this?
Me: Fall for what?
Betla: These bastards are all new men!
Mitch:  We sound quite old-fashioned traditionalists to me. 
Me: Among the Ciletij tribes, women were chattels.
Betla:  You bitch!
Me:  Literally.  Bought and sold.  Stating fact does not make me a bitch.  Sharp white teeth, maybe.
“Round One, I think, to us,” said Cho.
“Darling,” said Amida, “that’s a terribly male way of seeing things.”
Sarat: Shall we talk about the liberation of women in Kadun?
Venzat: We’re going to have a new column.  Reactions to Sarat’s Pad.
Mitch: All publicity is good publicity.
And men throughout the continent looked at their womenfolk and cleared their throats and murmured they didn’t quite know what to say and there was a bad epidemic of data overload as people came to terms or not with the world not being as they had thought it. .
Cantilip:  There’s a problem here?
Mel: Kaminua meant to exterminate the Ciletij.
Cantilip: Bollocks!
Betla: That’s how the future Queen of Dabida speaks.
Whoops! thought the Cile.  You have been doing very well so far, child.
     Cantilip: I have no difficulty speaking plainly or speaking the truth.
     Torl:  Perhaps Dabida has difficulty with you.  An irturbi queen!
Mel: Fidubis kumsit var-goan dabidi? (Out of nothing, Fidub made Dabida.)  Have I declined that correctly?
Cantilip: Yes.  I’m a good teacher.
Mel:   Do we care!  Do we fret!  What are we but a Fidubi colony that grew up!  Apart from an irturbi colony of course. Jaizal’s soldiers couldn’t go home, so they stayed.  I believe there was a Captain Ban-sarndit-vaq?
Mitch: We get around 
Mel: We could be related    I must look in the ‘phone book. If you have some pure-breed nonsense about Dabida, check your facts.
Mitch: They’re not very good at that, are they.
Mel:  Since time immemorial, screen goes whooshy, ethereal music, the Morag-Fahdi have roamed half a continent, indifferent to border, to empire, to state.  Please tell me Zani was something you call ‘Dabidan’.  It will entrance me.
Betla: You know damned well what he meant.
Mel: Tell me.
Betla: The ruling-class of the empire, the ruling-class of that shit-hole called Kadun today.
Cantilip:  It is, isn’t it.  Complete cess-pit. 
Mitch: Aren’t they cute?  One day they’ll work out why we’re here in Zur.
Betla:  Oh get fucked:
The party spread down the hill and into the Old Port, even into the sea, out to the Saa’nda Senta, along the Senshal Road, up to the old City Wall,
Mel with enormous ceremony led Cantilip into the middle of the Saa’nda Senta. They began to tango.  Waves beat upon the foreshore, etc. 
Stress-breakers brought out a line of essential kit for outdoor-types.  You need a logo, said Mitch.  I have a logo, said Sarat.  It's not for sale.  How about a panther?  I'll ask, Sarat said.  We do the quality-checks, said the shadowy and mysterious one.  How can you have eco-friendly shades?  Recycled plastics, waste disposal.  GRUNGE, said Sarat.  Green Radicals Undercut - Non-Green Exploitation? suggested Faun.
Heela and Kile sat contemplating a missive from their only child concerning opening a  Stress-Breakers facility in Var-segan.
Make me an offer I can't refuse and so enable a delectable early retirement in Fidub.  Stress-breakers bought the Grand Hotel in Azt.  It stands at the end of the Colonnade, overlooking the Magrit Fountain.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the Grand was running to seed.  There was nothing Krarlik could legally do about it, so he had the Ministry of Culture moved into it.  In Azt it became a cult, especially among the garrison, to refer to it as the palace.  Kadun had been a bit confused by Stress-Breakers.  Her knowledge of emperors was of course strictly anecdotal, but even so it hadn't seemed appropriately imperial behaviour.  They hadn't understood what it was for.  Life in Kadun ran at a more leisurely pace than in Ciletij or Harn. There were irturbi in favour of Sarat who thought it must be a front for training a private militia, so alien were the concepts.  They began to catch on fast.
     Economic imperialism!
     Sarat suave, expression concealed behind TDS: Certainly we seek to diversify.  While we are not at the momennt in a position to develop the property, we believe the future holds many possibilities.  Azt is a historic city?  Should not enjoyment of what is after all our common heritage be open to all?
     Economic imperialism?
Boccacalin:  Now,  if  I might introduce myself, I’m irturbi and a working-man.  Right, now two of you young gentlemen would be called princes though whether that’s what the world calls you or what you call yourselves.  And the word is that out in the real world you reject being called ‘sir’ or such similar terms, and so, Sarat and Mel, I would ask why you think everyone should call you by your pet names.
Mel: Because it’s more likely you’ll say what you mean.  I know Mitch has an issue there.  It’s an aspect of human behaviour that people only express themselves freely with those they consider equal or subordinate, meaning with the same amount of power of less.  As soon as people start to think there are things they don’t say to My  Highness I stop living in the real world.  I’m really not that delicate (flutters eyelashes).  I can take people not liking me.  Whatever.  I personally of course am a paragon of virtue, wholly incorruptible.  In principle, once anyone with power is permitted to lose contact with reality corruption sets in.  You think I’m behaving like a fuckwit?  You tell me.  You don’t let me think you think I’m wonderful.  You don’t observe nervously that you think perhaps His Highness might reconsider.  You don’t say to your friends, Mel’s gone off his freaking rocker and say nothing to me because I need to know you are not impressed.  I don’t say I want to know!  Need to know. The point of the title is to move and shake in a hierarchical world, to open doors. To keep power away from the people who want to push other people around not to set ourselves above the guy in the street. We call it the matrix. The matrix says the rich guy called king in the palace on the hill is top of the ant-heap.  Those with whom he comes into conflict might loathe him but they can’t actually do anything about him, meaning that they can use none of the tactics they use against little guys to stop him saying what needs to be said.
Dabidanflier: I think you have to take into account it’s an external thingo.  Pause while they ask him to be more exact.  I mean, this show has been on the road a long time now.  It's not an issue in Dabida.  The guy who’s just walked into the shop is our Mel.  Sure, he’s also ‘His Highness the Crown Prince’.  I think there’s an element – hi, world, I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing – A-M’s our private joke against the dumbfucks who generally run things.  There’s a very strong loyalty thing.  To an idea, to an ideal, to a mate.  Just because it doesn’t express itself how outsiders think it ought to doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Boccacalin: And what does our Mitch have to say about that?
Mitch: ROTFLOL. First names mean nothing.  See it all the time in the City, and they still crawl, manipulate, back-stab, and most relevantly blindly obey.  You get more back-chat, honesty and original thinking from a bunch of squaddies at attention. 
Mel:  So what does it mean?
Mitch: I have shown more balls or demonstrated more brains and you respect that.
Boccacalin: Aye, lad, you have that.  Not really anything to do with the title at all.  So  our Mel would not say he expects to be obeyed?
Mel: No more or less than anyone else in charge (evil grin).  You do your thing, man.  That BTW applies across the board.  I’m not commanding anyone to call me Mel.  If you want to call me ‘sir’ or ‘Highness’, that’s your stuff.  Maybe you want to keep me at my distance.  Just so long as it’s clear it’s your stuff.  As much or as little as any other fairly dynamic young man I don’t expect to be ignored.
Boccacalin: I’m not getting the impression that ignoring you is something Zuri – if you was, though?
Mel: If it were physical the H-W would intervene.  If it’s just yelling they can all yell at me instead. 
Kyse: Again that’s a context thing.  A) Zur Is not a zero tolerance zone!  B) We all mind each other’s business.  Oh, and C) We’re all frantically cool….Yes, I am going to say the magic words of power, ‘dominant ethos’.  You try and mug someone in Zur, there are 50 Zuri on your back. 
Sarat: You obey what makes sense, what’s rational, what’s caring, and you can be told to obey that, though of you course you don’t necessarily obey it, all the same.  If you mean obey some piece of garbage because it’s the ‘royal will’ of the person ordering it – what kind of crap is that?
Boccacalin: Out of the same egg.  I thought you probably were.
“Boiled, fried or poached?” asked Varulin.  “You do realize that nothing in our miserable little lives is ever going to be the same again.”
“Our Sarat,” said Vrin.
“Our private joke against the dumbfucks who generally run things.”
“Do you know what that is? It’s irresistible.”
Somewhere in the cavernous depths of the HQ of VILE, the small, tubby, balding guy asked:
“And this Kyse guy is who?”
“Real ordinary Zuri, sir.”
“You’re still calling me ‘sir’?  Good, good, I like it.”
“Father’s a baker.  Got a scholarship to the Schools.  Sir.”
“Made a nice  friend.  Kids, right?  Students.  Can’t do anything.”
“Bwahahaha, sir.”
“Ex-actly. So what have we got behind them?”
“PANTHER  – “
“Certainly.  Bad enough. Tar, obviously.  Ban-varna, obviously.  Airoch-cha…”
“Fidub, sir.”
“Why am I so surprised?  My lord Heela, I’d say certainly.  My lord Saryulin – probably, given his ties to Dabida.  My lady Marula.  Half the working population of Kadun, minimum.  Every stifling suffocated under-25, every weeny-teeny cos you only have to look at the boy.  Every gay for much the same reason except it’s Hasiyata.  Gentlemen, if Kadun wants her emperor back, there is not one damn’ thing we can do about it.”
Dabidannationalist: Sovereignty.
Kyse: What is it?
Mel: Self-determination.
Mitch: At the level of the individual or not, which is where we started.
Kyse: Then why have borders?  Why do we have a border with Vasucula?
Mel: Shared history.  Our collective past is entirely different.  Same with Fidub.
Kyse: And that determines the present?  Can anyone escape history?  Lo, we are born anew!  Isn’t that a denial of reality?  You can’t say, x, y, z, didn’t happen.
Mel: The fact of x, y or z doesn’t determine its consequence. 
Kyse:  Oh really.  If I get run over tomorrow, it’s pretty determined there are a number of things I don’t do subsequently, which in turn must influence the course of anything I was engaged in prior to my demise.
Mitch: I think maybe – that Jaizal was defeated (I’d love to hear that one from the horse’s mouth some time) – OK, if he had no offspring it did, but since he did, it did not necessarily signal the end of empire. He had a brother.
Mel: Hadin’s, puh-lease.
Mitch: I sincerely apologize 
Sarat: It can’t go sideways.  Don’t ask me why!  It never has.
Mitch: (Sigh)  Us too.  If I say, so why did Fidub wrap it up, I’ve shot myself in the foot?  I’m claiming what I’ve just denied, that Fidub was the determining element?
Mel: (Sigh)  The entire history of the continent is the history of what Fidub did or didn’t.  ALL (24 pt bold) of us, my lord Cile, like to pretend it isn’t.
Mitch: (evil grin).  Then Fidub was the true imperial power.
Dabidannationalist: You do still want a job when you grow up, Mel?
Jubua: Dear Mel, We think you might be out of what even we have to admit is your not wholly insignificant mind.
Hashea: It’s not Sarat who’s the threat, you drongo, it’s you. Zeshazesh, what is it like dealing with.  You love each other like freaking brothers, right.  OK…Can Tar cope with three of a kind, we ask, but that is not our problem.  Everything you have posted points to one thing.  Hey, who needs borders, man!  How anal, how retro.  Six kingdoms under an imperial crown, right. 
Mel:  No.  It’s just not how I was brought up.  No, A) because – A) I guess because no-one ever seems to think about the implications of the first event.  Zani defeated Jaizal in front of the Great Gates.  Everyone knows that.  You talk about borders.   He flew there? A lot of people I think have this wonderful mental picture of Zani valiantly defending the land south of the GD. Essentially Zani invaded and to some extent conquered Kadun. There are reasons Fidub didn’t put Zani on the Anile throne, but she could have.   Restart the whole thing with a new line. B) Vaguely following from A).  We didn’t think Dabidans would think they’d be sucked into Kadun.  We thought you’d think more the opposite because of Maya.  Hey, it took 600 years, but we did it in the end. C)  I was the guy here pushing sovereignty, national identity.  D) As a matter of Realpolitik, of course Sarat isn’t a threat.  What is currently in Azt is.  Do I want that on our doorstep?  I do not. 
Hashea: ROTFLMAO.  I take on board  A) and B).
Sunka: Economic migration meaning refugees.  If Kadun goes pear-shaped, shouldn’t we be swamped?
Mel: Exactly.  That, among other reasons, is why Kadun is not going to go pear-shaped.
Sunka: Kadun isn’t going to feel any loss of identity is she!
Hashea: Check mate!  A Dabidan empress and an irturbi queen.
“Wonderful,” remarked Tar, “to see the young people enjoying themselves.”
Sarat: 3000 hits and rising.  A special vote of thanks to our friends from Ciletij for making this site grow.
Qine:  If I just put my oar in here, I have a very clear idea of the hierarchy stuff and how it works and by the way as a native of Var-segan I’m saying the lad as said we’re all touching our caps is talking out of his – but there are ladies present and about some things I’m old-fashioned, even if the lasses do mouth it as much as the lads.  As I was saying, how I see it is they’ll never lean on you, try to put one over, if you talk to them man to man, as it were but by heck they’ll lean on the squirts as do try to put one over, and I have to say in the perfect world that wouldn’t be necessary but this is not that world and I hope I am properly grateful to our Mitch for doing his stuff.
Mitch:  Qine, you bastard!  I thank you.
Graphic: Sarat on one knee to Kadun asking for her hand.
Graphic: Sarat as a tart flaunting herself before Kadun
Sarat:  I’m only here for the adulation.
Graffix Warz had begun. 
Some of it was cruel, some of it was funny – and some of it was on a different plane.  It was evident there was a real artist among those present, but s/he didn’t identify him/herself.
Graphic: Sarat bringing all manner of supposed perversions in his wake. 
Zeph sharpened his claws.  Hass hadn’t been seen yet.
Graphic: The previous artist left out the worst one.  Oh, officers of our glorious army being castrated by women in uniform.
Graphic: Maya depicted as The Star, Jaizal’s favourite tart, meaning a slave-collar, silver stars over her nipples, a shaved outer vaginal area, falling prostrate before her lord and master.
Sharp falling off in posting while world waits to see Sarat’s response (not to mention Mel’s)
Graphic: Krarlik depicted as The Star
Graphic: Maya as panther holding Krarlik as a rat with a truly repulsive scaly tail covered with festering sores between her teeth and shaking him vigorously
Sarat: ‘They came, the skull-faces, but we laughed.’
Mel: Honestly, Sarat, for someone who was going to be a vet.
Graphic: Sarat’s sisters as imperial slaves in the cage.
Sarat: My lord Krarlik, you are a guest in my house!
Art: Malice stalks the streets of Azt.  Decency, honesty, probity are nailed to a hoarding.  Giant bipedal rats stalk the Colonnade. 
Comment by anonymous artist: Cats and rats, it is an image as old as Kadun.
Various: Cripes, that’s good!
Link to video: Re-enactment of imperial harem with Sarat and his family doing slave-dance.
Sarat: I see.  You wish to insist we teach you how to behave.
Various: Sharp intakes of breath.
Graphic: Sarat sitting on the Anile throne, wearing the silver coronet, accompanied by ethereal music.
Maya: Darling, it’s so terribly you.
Graphic:  Krarlik and others from Ministry of Internal Security depicted as rats on trial, cat judge and jurors.
Graphic: Hard-core porn movie with Sarat’s sisters sucking enormous cocks.
Sarat: Those are supposed to be my sisters.  These are actually my sisters.
Shavli: In your dreams, boy.
Zika:  One has to pity them.  Can’t you get it up, boy?
Shavli:  It seems to be some kind of ape. Here’s what we really look like.
Photograph: Shav and Zika leaning against a Skyhawk wearing Fidubi Air Fleet uniform.
Essa: Those are actually my daughters.
Sarat:  He said with fatherly pride.
Shavli:  We were going to college but Sarat started a war.
Zika: What’s a girl to do!
Shavli: Do we join up or do we join up? 
Zika:  No FAFfing about, OK.
Shavli: I hope they’ve taken on board all the stuff about Shehela.
Zika: A direct succession is a direct succession, regardless of gender.
Shavli: Just so long as they understand.  If anything happened to Sarat – not of course that anything will happen to Sarat – but if anything did happen to Sarat, not only are there Cho and Essa, there’s ME! 
Zika: I think she’d be quite good at it too.  Not sure I should be.  Too shy and retiring. 
Shavli: Then of course there’s our baby sister, Ven, she’s really not old enough for the filth here but she soon will be.
Zika: I expect she’ll join up too.
Art:  Essa and Baya as eagles presiding over a nest of four half-grown chicks feeding on chunks of ape.
Cho: I think we have the measure of the opposition
Art: Cho sitting in a working-men’s bar listening
Art: Kadun holds her head up again as a member of the community of civilized nations.
Art: Honesty, rationality, decency, kindness, honour, integrity depicted as prowling caged lions.  Rats stand around the cage explaining to Sarat and his sisters that the lions are extremly dangerous and must be contained. 
Art: Sarat and his sisters  turn into  lions and pounce on the rats.
Art: All the lions loosed, Sarat and sisters at their head, they bound roaring down the Colonnade.
Cho: I thank you.
Mel:  Someone can’t half draw!
Mitch: I should hope that even our friends in Ciletij take on board that none of this is complicated.  We confront the scum of the earth and frankly I do not notice that anyone else has the balls to do that.
Maya: Right in, darling, with their eyes wide open.
“What the hell does one say!” said Vrin.
“His sisters are fighter-pilots?”
“Actually they just get the coffee.”
Freedabida: Some people might call you a traitor, Maya.
Maya:  Might they?  Tell me their names and maybe we can work through this in the middle of the Saa’nda Senta.
Mitch:  I hope the world notices we are posting under our own names.  Those in Kadun of course may need their identities protected.  Surely those in Dabida are merely cowards.
Freedabida:  You keep out of this.
Mitch: Why?
Freedabida: Could it be because it is none of your damn’ business?
Mitch: I should tend to the view Her Imperial Majesty is the business of the Master of Var-segan.
Freedabida:  Oo-oo, his lordship speaks!
Mitch: But I do it so well!
Freedabida: Some people might say Mel and Hass are traitors.
Maya: In that case, some people might say Tar and Saski, Pietri and Caluna are traitors.  If that’s where you’re heading, I really do suggest you do not confine it to the Grid.
Mel: And Vanya!
Freedabida: We can get rid of Vanya.  Guess it’ll take another Zani to get rid of you.
Mel: And you’re volunteering?
Freedabida:  I’m not alone.
Mel:  Just as well, since you’re distinctly unbrave.  I failed to notice when we abandoned our noble traditions of unfettered speech in real space.
Freedabida: You watch your step, Mel.  I’m just saying.  People are watching.
Mel: Always have, always will.  D’you want to mail me privately?  I’d appreciate it if you stopped being a prat.  The door is open.  You know that.  Come to dinner on the hill and we’ll talk about it.
Freedabida: Talk won’t change what you’re doing.
Sarat:  Oh, I don’t know.  You’ve just given the entire continent an object lesson in the Dabidan model.  I can really only thank you.
Mel:  ROTFLOL.  OK, let’s talk turkey.  What am I doing?
Freedabida:  Selling the country out.
Mel:  How?
Freedabida:  Maybe not in your time or mine.  Everyone knows that eventually the border will go.
Mel:  I don’t know that.  That will not be the direction in which I point my heir.  It is not within our remit.  I think in fact there would have to be referendum.
Freedabida: That won’t make any difference.
Mel:  I don’t understand.
Freedabida.  People will come and go as they like.
Mel:  Just as the Convention says they should.
Freedabida:  We’ll be corrupted, man!  Can’t you see it?
Mel: Ah. Meaning - ?
Cantilip: Meaning, I suspect, that the pure free air of Dabida will become polluted and odiferous by the import of irturbi moeurs.
Freedabida:  You got it.  We’ll all be slaves of the fucking empire, tugging our forelocks and calling cunts like you ‘milady’.
Mel: I’m ignoring the second half of that.
Freedabida: At best you’re in a dream-world.  I’ve met them.  They don’t want to be fucking free!   If they did, they’d have liberated themselves.  Come on, what shit is this?
Tar turned from the screen
“Better out than in.”
Mitch: I think we appreciate that if I or Cantilip  points out that we have undoubtedly met a greater number of irturbi than our friend here he will riposte that all such exchanges took place within the matrix.
Sarat: {Appreciation.}  What you’re talking about is the Cult, isn’t it.
Freedabida: At least someone has a brain.  You think you’ll wipe them out?  Dream on, boy! 
Mel: They can only survive in an atmosphere of paranoia, secrecy and fear.  Like cockroaches.  Turn the light on and they shrivel up.  That is one reason we insist anyone may say anything.  1) I trust that the slightest inkling of Cult activity here in Dabida would be over the front page of The Times. 2) Alzani-Meta has only one purpose and that purpose is why we are unshiftable.  That purpose is to insist upon openness.  You are clear, I trust, that if a non-democratic or anti-democratic government be elected we have the power to dissolve it?  You are clear that anyone too nervous to speak is under our protection? 
Freedabida:  I am clear that the Anile Court was corrupted.  What the fuck makes you so sure Alzani-Meta is inviolate?
Cantilip:  I guess I’m just a sign the corruption has begun.
Mel:  A lot of things.  Not least that any of us who did start to behave like a twat would have several million Dabidans on his or her neck. Effectively there is only the Constitution.  If the State tear it up, there are the Crown and the people.  If the Crown tear it up, there are the people and the State.  If the people tear it up, demand anti-democratic legislation, there are the State and Crown.  It is not classic democracy.  That is why it works.  That is one reason it works.  It trusts no-one.  There are other internal checks.  We’ve talked about hierarchy and the silencing of dissent. 
Freedabida:  You pass.  My points are valid.  I’ll mail you.
Mitch looked at Karula.
“Is there a limit to free speech called tact?  Or is it that I should frankly at this moment not know what to say?”
Mel came into The Room.
Tar smiled
“Not just a pretty face.”
“Who is he, darling?” asked Saski.
“Guy with a trucking company out in Sar-kaynai.”
STB to Faun:  OK, OK, I’m impressed.  I never thought Mel a dodo.  So that is the style of the Anile Court, right?
Faun to STB: Or several million irturbi scream!  The trick is making damn’ sure they do.
Sarat and Mel arrived on the Sohenisle.
“Had you thought of it?” asked Mel.
“Yes,” said Cho.
“And?” demanded Sarat.
“You must judge.”
Mitch: There have to be some taboo terms even in Dabida.  I’d be real pleased if His Imperial Majesty would join me later for a beer.
Sushea: Wash your mouth out at once, young man!
Dabidanationalist:  Ugh!  Take it away!
Freedabida: Isn’t that a kind of species of ape?
Gontwin: I think I have to respect your sheer balls, sir.  (Evil grin). 
Mitch:  That is a lie.  My balls are not sheer.  They are firm and solid.
Dabidanflier: That is true.  Don’t ask me how I know!  (Evillest grin).  I don’t think anyone should forget that Sarat, Mitch and Mel go fresh from blood-strewn keyboards to the streets of Zur.
Maya:  Ahem.
Cantilip:  Didn’t quite catch that.
Maya:  I said, ahem.
Mel:  Sewing.  Girl-talk.
Sarat: I don’t think anyone should forget that Mel goes fresh from his blood-strewn keyboard…
Dabidanflier:  It’s true though. Sarat sit on throne.  How, my son, how?
Sarat: Tell you, we tell Azt.
Dabidanflier: Whew!  I think we can all appreciate that, whatever we think about the end-result.
Maya:  Didn’t someone say check mate.
Dabidanflier: We had noticed, Maya, honest!
Zeph: Mel isn’t someone you’d ignore, any more than his baby brother, though of course he’s nothing like as good-looking.
Cantilip: I think he is!
Mel: Somebody loves me!
Dabidanationalist: Both of them paired with irturbi.  We notice that too.
Cantilip: Then it must be a relief to you Hass won’t be having any children.
Zeph: Whoops!
Cantilip: Oh dear, is there blood on my keyboard?
Dabidanflier: The trouble is, I have to admt it, the product is as advertised.
Zeph: What I think is, however casually Mel puts it when he says they don’t go telling people how to talk to them, what he means is there are things that are personal and you don’t go treading on them.  I know a certain young man who stands up when Hass comes into the room and calls him sir because that’s how he feels about the Crown and if our friend here who thinks he’s such a great patriot thinks that creeping corruption, he’s as sick as they are.
Dabidanflier: I accept that.  I did say, there is a very strong personal loyalty thingo.  In private of course we all throw ourselves at Mel’s feet!  No we do bloody not!  But I wouldn’t even say it’s an issue unless someone makes it as issue.
Dabidanationalist: As a loyal subject it is my sacred duty to tell our Mel when he is talking total bollocks.
Cantilip: And I’m being genuinely timid and shy here.  Would you guys say underneath their callous exteriors Zuri are romantics?  Because a number of them have flung themselves at my feet and given me flowers. Apart from Mel, of course.
Dabidanationalist: What else are future queens for!
Zeph: Indeed.  I do hope we are gentlemen. (evil grin)
Dabidanationalist: Wicked boy!  For those not in the know, Zeph is a prominent member of Zur’s gay community.
Mel:  No-one gives me flowers!
Dabidanationalist: Everyone go Aaaaah!
Cantilip: Darling, you never asked!
Mitch: So can we just confirm for our friends outside Dabida WYSIWG.
Dabidanationalist: Appalling but true.
Freedabida:  I have to accept that.
Sushea:  They’re really rather cool (sigh).
Mitch: So the scene changes to a café just off the Colonnade in our glorious capital of Azt and here Their Imperial Majesties are having a reviving bear – I mean beer, no, honestly, Betla I meant beer – and the good citizens of Azt as opposed to the bad citizens of Azt are hesitantly but slowly attaching themselves to the royal party, and that is take-off.
Gontwin: It can’t happen.  That’s a gut response.
Mitch: Why not?
Sarat: It will happen.
Gontwin: Start with the practical.  You will be five deep in security men.
Sarat: PANTHER are more subtle than that.
Gontwin: They’ll kill you.
Sarat: Maybe.  I accept that.  It’s not a reason to back out.
Gontwin: Then what is the point?
Sarat:  It’s more likely they won’t.
Gontwin: What will you say?
Sarat: Isn’t it a fine day?  What do you think of it so far?  There’s no script.  That’s not to say there’s no plan.  There are places I want to go. Schools, hospitals.  See for myself.
Gontwin: You are two people, the Fidubi  and the other. 
Sarat:  Which is worse?
Gontwin: Why does either dream it can succeed?
Sarat: Tell you, we tell Azt. Sorry.
Gontwin: OK.
“A lamentable showing,” said the Cile.  He smiled.  “Except for – who is Betla?”
“Dad’s in business in Fidub, Cile.”
“We have no historians?”
“There was the element of surprise.”
“Formidably well prepared.”
“Damn PANTHER behind ‘em.”
“The monkey has a reputation all his own.  Not undeserved, I think.”
“We know about Ban-sarndit-vaq!”
“Do we?  I wonder”
Qine:   Right, lads, a number of you have said nice things about democracy but I want to say that’s not enough and you prove it.  It doesn’t matter a hoot to the likes of you how a country’s run.  Big capitalists, rich. Company has a bad year, men laid off.  I’m not disputing – I’d be a fool to dispute – you have a nice little democracy, there’s unemployment pay, there’s sickness, housing, nobody starves, nobody’s thrown on the street, and it’s all set at proper levels.  What an unemployed working man gets a week in Zur, riches in Azt, keep a family for a month.  But the directors aren’t touched, are they, the owners.  And who decides, maybe things are looking up, maybe we can ‘afford’ to give folk their work back?  I’ve run this by folk  in the south and they say, maybe they’ve got better paid jobs elsewhere, maybe they’ve started their own businesses, and there’s a lot there, some I agree with, some not.  Supposing the job a man’s lost is near his home and he has to travel more to get to another one.  That’s a valid point, but then again he’s still at the mercy of the bosses, he can’t have things how he wants, and not everyone’s got the get up and go to start up on his own.  I say a man has a right to a decent job with a fair day’s pay, without having to cross the country for it, and I hope no-one disputes there’s work enough to be done in Kadun, if only there were those who’d pay for it. Of course there’s no profit in public health..
So what I’m talking about here is democracy for the workers, putting things in their hands to do what needs to be done.  I have to agree with the point Mitch made earlier – though maybe he learned it from me at that.  Those of us who live in Kadun do have a habit of seeing things differently.  I don’t think Zur needs its drainage seeing to!  So where does that get us?
Taxation is one place.  Those with money have paid the State to sort out the essentials.  Not being one of them gilded few, I don’t think I can say how willingly they’ve done it, but be that as it may it’s been done.  So, gentlemen, I’m just wondering how you defend your position. Our host,  for instance. Sohenoil goes bust.  Grandaddy has no problem.  Banks in the City.  All salted away.  Money stolen from Kadun.  I would say there are three points here. Some people having more money than other people.  Some people having enormously more money than other people.  How those people came by that money.  I would not like to think I am narrow about these things.  If some bloke starts with nowt and makes himself a pile, good luck to him, provided it’s not from sweated labour, and I know people’s made fortunes on the Grid.
Sarat: Think of us as social workers. We fund PANTHER.  We pay PANTHER.  We fund CLIK.  One has a responsibility.  If you want to look at it historically, look at 1500 years of giving to Kadun, not taking.  Mel’s available 24/7.  A-M is where the buck stops.  They cost the State nothing. They pay the H-W.
Various:  You what?
Sarat:  Rent-a-cat!  Basically there is was and ever shall be only one PANTHER and that was founded by Narulis.  They say Fidub just gave us poor stray cats a home. Within PANTHER, there is PANTHER in its outer and more practical aspect and the inner and more esoteric PANTHER, the business end. PANTHER in their outer and more practical aspect are – lent to the State of Fidub. PANTHER, in its inner and more esoteric aspect are not.  A sort of counter-cult. Faun is what dreary people would call the head of State security. Cho heads the business end.
[World: Rent-a-cat?]
Is out of the bag.
Finisi:  The Fidubi tax-payer then is the victim of a monstrous deception.
Sarat:  The Fidubi tax-payer is saved a fortune.
Faun:  PANTHER obey no-one.  But require resolution of this matter of Kadun.
Betla: He just said you work for the freaking Anile emperor!
Faun:  Or the freaking Anile emperor works for the organization PANTHER.
Finisi: Come off it, my fine furry friend!
Torl: And with what money stolen from Kadun does he pay you with?
Sarat: Did you know strictly speaking we own half of Azt? Azt was originally a royal park.  Certainly you could say we own everything on the site of the park.
Mitch: Lawyers’ll have a field day!
Qine:  Grandad’s not running out of cash by any chance, is he!
Sarat: I shan’t tell you Sohenoil’s pre-tax profits.  They might upset you.
 
Or how about this
Jaizi stopping off for a drink.
“Sorry, miss, we don’t serve women here.”
“I’m not a woman. I’m PANTHER.”
After that, said Jaiz, it went from bad to hilarious.
From along the bar, half-jeering, half-laughing, “Give her a bowl of cream, then!”
“So long as there’s the brandy and coffee to go with it,” said Jaizi. “You’re not a private club, you’re a public house and I’m public.”
“Read my lips. Men only.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m PANTHER. The law’s here, buddy.”
“Got a badge, then, have you.”
“Oh yes,” said Jaizi, and produced it, except it was a tattered ID card, which was sneered at and torn up.
“Go away, little girl.”
“No,” said Jaizi. “Better call the cops, hadn’t you. I was born in Kadun, of course. Been a long time in Fidub. I’d forgotten what a primitive shit-hole it is.”
“Right little scrubber, aren’t you.”
They moved.
She moved.
They lay on the floor making low moaning noises.
“I’ll be back,” said Jaizi.
Sarat and Challin
“How would you defend Azt?”
Hass and Venga had merely gone for a walk, Sem and Reakoed in tow..
They became aware of a people gathering behind and then beside them.
Venga stopped and turned.
“D’you want to talk?”
“We don’t like that sort of thing here.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Buggers.”
Venga laughed.
“But all is change!”
“That’s not changing!”
“Oh but it is,” said Venga. “We’re human too.”
“Perverts! If you think we want the likes of you anywhere near our children.”
“I come of course from the civilized world,” said Hass.
Reakoed winced. Is that quite the - ?
“I’ll give you civilized! Decadent.”
“That’s the City,” said Hass.
“Why,” asked Venga, “should we be any more of a threat to little boys than what you call normal men to little girls?”
Someone threw an egg at Hass, who caught it, which caused a momentary diversion.
“Breakfast!” said Venga. “Another, if you please.”
“The thing is,” said Hass, “we’re people and we’re in love. The rest is your problem.”
“You have to forgive him,” said Venga. “Culture-shock.”
“Lot of it about,” murmured Hass.
“Never in his life has he been the subject of prejudice and discrimination.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because of who he is, int it. You’re not in bloody Dabida now!”
“You’re in someone else’s country!”
“I’m not,” said Venga.
“Oh we know all about you!”
Venga’s eyes began to sparkle.
“Tell, tell.”
A man barged to the front with two very large very unfriendly mastiff type pooches.
“That’s how we deal with your sort here! Set the dogs on you!”
“I tremble,” said Venga.
He bent down and began to stroke the tiny canine minds.
They gave little wuffs of appreciation and began to furiously wag their tails.
“Dogs always know,” said Venga, “who’s a good bloke.”
“If you would excuse us,” said Hass, “we were on our way.”
“If,” said Venga, “perhaps the next time we meet you could contemplate seeing us as people, you will find us both interested in and knowledgeable about country matters.”
Countless shots of our glorious army, cleaning tanks, replacing wheels, repairing engines, checking ordnance.
“Mel seems to be in all of them,” complained Seani.
Num laughed.
“Just means they shoot Mel. So to speak.”
“Why not Sarat? Do you not find it incredibly bizarre that it is not our iconic young lord of the world?”
But word got out that Mel and Cantilip, Mitch and Karula were staying not at Carlin but in barracks.
“There was a incident,” said Sarat, “with Hass and Venga, nothing they couldn’t handle. Hass and Venga are among the best.”
Tar lounging in the Saa’nda Senta watching Zur watch the screen that had been put up
Contempt for my wise and gentle son is contempt for me.
Zeph: what is this, ape-man? What planet are these guys on?
Hass and Venga in the drawing-room at Carlin
Zur Live: Now, we know there are cool guys in Kadun, haven’t we had some of the coolest right here in Zur Looks like others are still living with the dinosaurs. You reptilian types you need to do one express course in evolution.
Mel: My little brother is wiser than I am, deeper than I am and not least – truly such a thing is possible – cooler than I am. Hurt to Hass is hurt to me. Deal with it.
“Tripwires,” murmured Cantilip
“Non-negotiable standards,” murmured Mitch.
Zeph continued communing with Kadun’s gays.
Maya debriefing on Karula.
“I’m a really bright pretty lady but it’s not the same.”
“You have talked,” said Karula calmly, “to one too many Kadun males.”
“Is it?” asked Maya. “I’m finding it hard to pin down. We all know Sarat is the world’s icon. If he had a brother, would he be second-best?”
“No,” said Karula. “Honey, if you were not Her Imperial Majesty you would know you are second-best. Can we get Cantilip in on this and young Jaizi?!”
“And Sarat,” said Maya.
They gathered in Sarat and Maya’s bedroom.
“Am I appropriate?” asked Sarat.
Karula grinned wickedly.
“You say you want to hear what people have to say.”
“Honorary woman,” suggested Cantilip.
“What greater accolade…”
“OK,” said Jaizi, “I have never talked about this stuff because it hasn’t mattered. Now it matters. I arrived in Fidub looking frankly like something the cat had brought in rather than a cat. It was like the sun had just risen. People did not think of me as something different because I’m a girl. That’s what makes it so nebulous. It’s as though there’s a filter in their brains or maybe a veil. What a girl says does not connect with the little neurons the way what a guy says does.”
“Exactly,” growled Maya.
“I think we could run a little experiment,” said Sarat dreamily. “You, my lady, are going to pronounce upon something or other. Two days later, I shall make roughly the same pronouncement.”
“I’d never met it,” said Maya.
“We have our little ways in Van-senok,” said Cantilip, “and do our best to make sure the equal rights of men are respected. Outside Van-senok, certainly, more or less attenuated depending on awareness that one is my lady of Van-senok.”
“My parents,” said Karula, “are progressive middle-class people who are virtually entirely responsible for my being here, since they insisted girls could excel academically and so pushed me to achieve my scholarship to the Schools. The rest is history! But outside our social circle, of course. In politics, of course.”
“The question,” said Jaizi, “is how do we force them to hear?”
“I would be tempted,” said Karula, “to launch a full-frontal assault on irtubi men.”
“I think,” said Maya, “we should announce the Women’s Revolutionary Committee.”
“It has not in the immediate circumstances seemed the central issue,” granted Karula. “I think we have assumed too much of class, education, tanks and fighters. But if fifty per cent of the utterances of us assembled here are simply not being properly heard, then clearly it is a major issue.”
“Run the experiment first,” said Cantilip, “in case it does not provide the necessary evidence.”
“Tha’s a cunning lass,” said Karula.
“Role models,” said Maya. “It’s not women succeeding, it’s women being human.”
“It’s in the head of every shop-girl in Maona-pri,” said Jaizi. “Every woman who’s staying at home with her kids. I am a human being!”
“Baya,” said Karula.
Sarat grinned.
“Something hideously ‘male’, darling,” said Maya, “something I really should not be bothering my pretty little head about.”
“I want inflammatory,” insisted Cantilip.
“No,” said Karula. “I mean yes, I do inflammatory! I think this should maybe be a ‘women’s issue and of strictly limited interest’ only in the real world every mature male takes it equally seriously.
Sarat and Maya had laughed heartlessly over Mitch’s story of his paperless office in the City and taken the lesson on board. They had seen rapidly that their movements would be impossibly hampered by having to take reams of paper with them. Their in-tray was virtual and hard copies were presented at the presenter’s own risk. Sarat now jumped up and logged on.
“What have we got?”
Maya, leaning over his shoulder, said, “Eeek! Come and read, sisters!”
“Initial findings,” hissed Cantilip, “low priority.”
In the end Maya issued two statements, one on women’s healthcare with particular reference to deaths in childbirth and one concerning administrative aspects of the Imperial Army, where they were billeted, how they were supplied, what liaisons were taking place with the Army of Dabida, including the proposed training of women for combat roles, the painful waste of womanpower where extant and the need to recruit and particularly recruit more women.
Nobody paid much attention.
A week later Sarat said the same. Deaths in childbirth Kadun’s shame! He’s planning a military dictatorship?
Cho rolled on the floor and there were some very red faces.
“I bring to your attention,” said Sarat, sounding unusually steely, “the probability that only 50% of what is being said here is being noted. We do not say things for effect.”
“Or there is no interest in what we do here,” said Maya. “That there is interest only in what is said by men is preposterous.”
“We are all of us a team,” said Sarat. “Maya and I have been a team since we were 17. As a team, we divide the labour. I will not tolerate 60% of my family, my friends and my staff being ignored, abused or barred from public houses on the grounds of their gender or sexual orientation.”
He related the Jaizi and the Hass incident.
Civilized Kadun cringed.
There was a leader in the Times: And so, as some of us predicted, the true gulfs turn out to be invisible. Sarat’s reign will not turn on distribution of wealth or the rights of property but on whether Kadun can adjust to seeing the majority of its population, women and gays, as equal citizens.
Mel conferred with Mitch and the pair of them slipped back to Zur.
“I missed,” murmured Mel, “where the oracle predicted…”
“It was insufficiently focused,” murmured Seani.
“When a country,” said Mitch, “has a human rights anti-record and children dying of malnutrition it is easy to be deceived as to the real issues. I understood and did not understand.”
“A revolution in how people behave to each other,” said Mel.
“It is seamless?” asked Mitch. “I answer myself: It is seamless.”
“You can cure rickets,” pointed out Seani, “without serving PANTHER!”
“It’s everywhere,” said Mel, and related the Cantilip incident.
He grabbed some time on Channel Five.
He sat in the Room.
“Feedback,” he said. “Don’t say Zuri are out of sight, out of mind. What do I think of it so far? It is fascinating, enriching, uplifting, rewarding but also there is a deep-seated problem with which all of us have only begun to come to terms. We have focused too much on the symptoms not the cause. Certainly hospitals are to be turned inside out, political prisoners are to be liberated, interrogation centres are to be razed to the ground That is given. As it is given that current standards of education, housing, healthcare are unacceptable to civilized people.” He’d found he had to think rather a lot about that bit. With Sarat yet to reach real areas of urban deprivation, it was a bad idea to give any impression that the focus of the revolution had changed to gay or even women’s rights. “Kadun does not lack capital, public, private or human. Sarat and May have been impressed and entranced by the many, many people who want to make a difference, who are innovating, who are using their potential so long kept down, wasted. It can work and it will work because the people of Kadun will make it work. But there is a problem and we find it in dark corners, under floorboards, like the scars of an old disease.” He related the Cantilip incident. “The problem is called contempt. It is insufficent to trivialize it as bad manners. What links Jaizi’s, Hass’s, Venga’s, my experiences with the condition of the workers in the inner-cities, with children dying of curable diseases and malnutrition, with the worst of Krarlik's interrogators is a contempt for one’s fellow human beings, and any excuse will do to manifest it, they are poor, they are gay, they are politically undesirable, they are female, a rejection of their right to an equal place in the sun, to self-expression, to being. We are in Kadun for all her people.”
He is very angry, thought Tar.
“You didn’t tell us, darling,” said Saski.
“I thought, what should I do in Dabida? I thought the problem would not arise in Dabida or if it did I should not have to resolve it.”
“What is wrong with these people,” said Tar.
Mel sighed.
“The old stereotype. Yes. What is wrong with these people.”
Munzi turned from the screen.
“What d’you think, Sergeant? Time to join the revolution?”
You left out, thought Karci, the simple fact that since the poor, the gay, the politically undesirable, the female are sub-human, we don’t think anyone is going to bother to bring how we treat them to the attention of the world.
“Where?” enquired Munzi, “is the border of Imperial Kadun?”
“That’s an interesting one,” said Varulin. “Word is it moves in the night. Carlin and then a bit.”
In the Rabbiters’ there is a charming scene of fraternization, a decorous gathering of the young men of the Imperial Army getting to know the local girls.
“Every flippin’ woman in Kadun knows what he means.”
“My dad brought me here since I was three,” said Mila. “I’m not a girl I’m a rabbiter! But I know what the score is. If I go shopping in the town, there’s a nice tea-house.
“That’s one thing,” said Karci. “Being so totally thick as to mess with PANTHER is another!”
“They didn’t believe her, did they!”
“That,” observed Vrin, “is what uniforms are for.”
“Can’t have everyone in a uniform.”
“Everyone is in a uniform. I mean, I go to the hospital and if there’s a lady doctor she’s in a white coat and a nurse is in a frilly hat.”
“There’s no way you get taken seriously for being human.”
“I work for a woman
Mel returned to Carlin and then a bit and had his first proper conversation with Lattic for a long time and his first ever conversation with Lattic that wasn’t mostly about Lattic.
This was because he stopped off at the minute cottage Lattic inhabited.
“I think, you know,” Lattic volunteered, “I’m finding myself. Isn’t that a truly pathetic thing to be doing in the middle of a revolution?”
“You’ve had your war,” said Mel.
“Maybe I have or should have learned something to be able to contribute to this one. I watched you tonight. I’m glad you – there’s a lot of raw devotion, Mel. Much what I feel for you, really. You know that.”
“It’s love or hate,” said Mel. “That at least I think we understood.”
“Sarat once said to me – when I have Krarlik in the dock, no-one’s going to notice you.”
Mel grinned.
“You hang on in there!”
Cantilip walked into the Rabbiters’
Karci turned.
“Why are we so stupid that we don’t understand?”
“Apple-stock for my lady of Dabida!” declared Vrin.
Oh Zesh, she thought. They’re both – unsober, put it that way.
“I’ve had a long day,” she said.
“I should imagine being paired with Mel Talal is quite exhausting.”
A colonel further down the bar cocked an eyelid at her. She shook her head.
“I’m going to sit in the corner,” she said. “You can come and yell me there. I’m ravenous,” she said to Vishtu. “Have you got any chocolate cake?”
“Cream too,” he said. “you’m wan’ apple-stock?”
“Kiddies’ version,” she said firmly. With hot water, lemon juice and sugar.
He just grinned.
“And black coffee for these gentlemen. Come to think of it, give them some cake too. Line their stomachs.”
His grin broadened.
Karci relaxed suddenly.
“OK, we are a trifle inebriated. Apologies.”
“Mel tells the truth.”
“Has some law been passed to say we have to like the truth?”
“We are – “ said Karci. “But no! We are taught to be, our little souls corrupted from the time we can stand. Why…”
“What he struggles to ask,” said Vrin, “is why this freedom to be oneself does not extend to the freedom to be a perfect shit.” Vishtu frowned. Unfortunately Vrin noticed. “Our good host thinks my freedom of expression is limited by the presence of a lady. That is so?”
“No,” said Cantilip.
Sarat walked in.
“Your bosom buddy, Imperial Majesty, is confusing the hell out of us.”
“He has a talent for mayhem,” said Sarat.
“One sees, of course,” said a new drawl, “that poor and not necessarily terribly clean old women take precedence.”
“Can always throw un out, Sarat,” said Vishtu.
Sarat in bar brawl! thought Cantilip.
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” said Sarat. “Coffee, please.”
“And he’s not even pissed,” said Vrin.
“Challin,” said Challin.
“You are here to help or to subvert?”
“To observe.”
“We do not expect,” said Vrin, “to be blown out of the water by His Highness the bloody Heir to Dabida or whoever the hell he is.”
“My cousin,” supplied Sarat.
“Why,” demanded Cantilip, “are you taking it personally? That is not what Mel said.”
“Clearly,” said Challin, with a grin, “we fail to reach the impeccable standards of Zur.”
“I say,” said Karci, “doesn’t that make her your cousin too.”
“It’s the same thing, isn’t it,” said Cantilip. “It’s not what’s said, it’s who said it.”
“The hated, the loathed, the despicable, the foe,” said Sarat.
“Now will you open another bottle!” demanded Karci.
“Guys,” said Sarat, “there’s a trough outside. Stick your heads in cold water and come back to me.”
“Sir!” snapped Karci, but didn’t move. Sarat realized he was unsure of what would happen if he tried to stand up. So did Cantilip. Much much more pissed than I thought. Just holding it well.
Vrin very slightly sheepishly made for the door.
“Give him some coffee,” said Sarat.
“Got ‘un ‘ose in the bark,” said Vishtu.
“Don’t tempt me,” said Sarat.
At which point Mel and Lattic walked in.
“Darling,” said Cantilip, “they’re so terribly upset.”
“Who’s upset?”
“I say!” said Karci, “didn’t I see you on the telly tonight?”
Sarat slipped out after Vrin.
Vrin looked up shaking his dripping head.
“Sir. I am going to be very very embarrassed.”
“This,” Cantilip said with some gusto, “is Challin.”
“Sorg has told me so much about you,” said Mel.
Challin inclined his head.
“And I you.”
At eleven Sarat’s mobile rang and he told Maya he was likely to be some time, did she want to join the party.
At midnight the local coppers joined in, having first noticed lights on and then whose cars were outside.
At two Vrin said, “Look can’t we just think of you as friendly aliens and be done with it!”
“Better than enemy aliens,” said Mel.
“No, no, I mean the kind with green skin and antennae from a distant galaxy. Because that’s where this whole thing is in relation to anything we’re used to.”
The grey-eyed colonel nodded.
“A different species.”
Cantilip grinned.
“But fully genetically compatible.”
“A lightbulb moment!” declared Karci. “What you do not understand is we despise ourselves.” Dissent. “Hear me out! “What I mean is we do not think we matter. We cannot conceive in truth why anyone would bother about us. It is for instance inconceivable the Anile Emperor would sit up half the night…”
“OK,” said Challin.
“Why,” asked Cioulis, “Sarat, Your Imperial Majesty, are you here?”
“I could be asleep,” said Sarat wistfully. “I don’t do too much of that these days. Because I walked into a situation in some sense directly produced by Mel and I want to – assist in bringing it to a resolution.”
“But you know we all fall at your feet!”
Challin raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Sarat cheerfully.
“Admit it,” said Mel. “Because it’s fun.”
Sarat grinned.
For a nanosecond Karci awoke normally. Then he sat bolt upright. Where am I? A quick look around suggested The Rabbiters’. Memory flooded back. Tell me last night didn't happen.
 
Qine had cut out Seani’s leader and carried it around with him for a few days before approaching Karula.
“Would you say this is true? Half-true? True enough to make a difference?”
She looked at him a moment
“Because – Kadun needs Sarat.”
“Kadun needs Sarat. I won’t beat about the bush. That’s not my way. You know how I see a perfect world and I know it int going to happen. Let’s say I’m happy with the runner-up. No, more: anything else is worse for the working man. I tell you frankly – well, you know as well as any – my fight has been economic. But if the struggle has to focus on a different area.”
Sarat to Seani: I think we missed when the oracle predicted…
Seani to Sarat: I didn’t have it focused.
Sarat to Seani: I think perhaps we have assumed. Maya, Karula, Shavli, Zika, Cantilip
 
“OK, guys, R+R’s over.”
Mitch metaphorically reached for his sword.
THEY’RE MOVING.
No story? mused Seani.
He looked again at the film of tank moving into Fas-sigree.
Oh dear. I wonder if anyone will notice.
“Got most of the army, hasn’t he,” said Num.
“There are a lot of them, yes,” said Seani.
He pressed Pause and zoomed in.
“Waaa-“
“Waaa,” said Seani
“I suppose after FAF it really doesn’t matter.”
“Kissing cousins,” murmured Seani.
“Sarat and Hass, Sarat and Maya. No-one really thought it through. Dabida won’t mind, will she.”
Seani seemed far away. He recollected himself.
“No…No, I do not think we shall mind our tanks are occupying Azt. Talking. Let’s face it, they didn’t seem to be doing much in Carlin. Talking the hind legs of – “
“They’re good at that.”
“They’re good at that.”
“Everyone noticed Mel was spending a lot of time with the Army.”
“And we?” asked Seani. “Are we any better? Paint the woman out of the picture. My lord of Van-senok,” said Seani and laughed. “Damn them!”
“Huh?”
“They’ve outwitted us all.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Seani. “Yes I do! The Army, the officers, the squaddies. Who are they?”
“irtubi!”
“No,” said Seani. “No. They’re senoki, segani, carlini.”
“Tribal loyalties,” hazarded Num.
“So modern, so cool…How easy to lose sight of the fact this is about something that happened 1500 years ago. How fatally easy.”
“Better to follow Narulis!”
The ‘phone rang.
“They’re not going to Azt!”
“Of course they’re going to Azt!”
“Laters, laters? They’ve turned west.” There was a lot of background noise. “Tannan’s crossed the border.”
“Oh Mel,” said Seani. You clever, clever little bastard. “They’ve just encircled the Third Army in Vaudos. The guys who were going to come up behind. We have. Tannan’s crossed the border.”
“Then we’re at war.”
“Put the radio on. No, we’re not. Not in any known way.”
Num grinned.
“Yeah, well, we’re not exactly going to be bombed, are we.”
…Now no-one knows exactly what’s happening but looks like we’re lending a hand to our friends in Kadun. Tannan’s crossed the border, I repeat Tannan’s crossed the border and is heading towards the uglies in Vaudos. Sarat is coming round behind them so I guess that won’t be much of a fight – now here’s Mel to explain to us all what the freaking hell is going on. You’ve taken us to war, Mel?
“This is about saving lives.”
“Irtubi lives, man! We going to get body-bags?”
“Effectively Sarat holds Kadun. He commands about 80% of the Army. He has flown to visit the Fourth Army on the Caniba Plain because there was nothing in the way to stop him. He has visited Var-segan. He has visited Van-senok. This you know. There remain the Great Gates. Truly, Dabida objects to assisting in the occupation of Azt?
“OK, OK! But you ducked the question.
“Did I say I’d finished? There is only any great percentage in trying to shoot your way out if you have a hope in hell of succeeding. We have weighed the probability that most of these guys individually don’t want to fight Sarat or indeed their comrades in arms with the possibility that driving Tannan out of Kadun is a different proposition. More numbers were required to complete the circle. It’s that simple. Without Tannan it is a possibility that they will try to shoot their way out. With her, they must know they can’t.
“So you think they’ll surrender to Sarat.”
“We think they’ll surrender to Sarat.”
“What then?”
“Then we push on to Azt.”
“We, Mel?”
“We, There’ll be a diversion. Mustn’t spill all the secrets.”
“I see that. ‘We’ are going through the Great Gates, huh?”
“We are going through the Great Gates.”
“That’s quite heavy, Mel.”
“Oh man,” said Mel.
“With the full collaboration of the Imperial Army.”
“With that. With a lot of things. You’ll see.”
The studio door burst open.
“Ciletij is moving south! Mel – you’ve taken the whole continent to war you fucktard!”
“Oh no,” said Mel. “They’re on our side.”
“Say that again, Mel.”
“They’re going to help us encircle Azt.”
“Ciletij!”
“I guess,” said Grool rather weakly, “Ciletij don’t have any big problem with – helping to occupy Azt, right, Mel?”
“You got it,” said Mel.
“In the name of the Anile Emperor?”
“Most people call him Sarat,” said Mel.
“What have you done, Mel?”
“What d’you mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’d better give a hand to our noble allies in Ciletij! We got the Ciletij anthem?”
“Dad…” said Betla.
Her dad grinned.
“I’m sure they’ll forgive you.”
“Bugger that! How do I join a revolution?”
“I think…” said Bal. “No, I do not. I do not think. I
“To move against the Ciletij invader is to leave Azt wide open, Bal.”
“I had absorbed that.”
“Not just a pretty face, huh.”
“I had absorbed that also.”
“Ciletij have stopped, Bal. They’re just sitting there.”
“Doubtless painting their nails,” said Bal.
“Those are the Great Gates.”
“This is quite heavy.”
FAF cartwheeled overhead.
“This is spooky, Sarge.”
“Aye, lad.”
The spookiest non-battle you’ve ever been in because absolutely nothing is happening.
“They’re going to push them into the sea?” asked Bal.
“Your guess is, Bal.”
“Show me that map again.”
The door burst open.
“Urgent, sir. From Devanu.” Harn Rep at Kadun.
“It’s started,” read out Bal. “The garrison in Azt has raised the Anile flag. Irtubi tank are moving through Azt, flying the Anile flag. We do not yet know whether it’s real.”
“If,” said the Ciletij commander calmly, “it is real, they will stop when asked nicely.” Then he grinned suddenly. “Retreat.”
“Sir?”
“I know what I mean. Get me Sarat-ban-essa.”
Sarat listened.
“Fine,” said Sarat.
“Ciletij are retreating, Bal. It seems they are not needed.”
“They’re falling for it?” asked Bal.
Urgent from Gurion. We are pretending to fall for it. The facts of the matter are that the garrison at Azt is divided.
“So how in freaking hell do they tell the good guys from the bad guys?”
“That,” said Bal grimly, “is the question.”
OK, thought Tannan, now we think, we think our pretty purple stripy socks off.
I will not, thought Sarat, order anyone to walk into a trap except me and suicide is not among my ambitions. What does this mean? How d’you disable a tank?
“Guess I’d better drive into Azt,” said Sarat. “Better clear the road, hadn’t we.”
“No-one,” he ordered, “is to do anything until the morning. Except PANTHER.”
“We can do that,” said Cioulis.
“To summarize,” said Bal, “we have garrison tank at all major thoroughfares into the Azt conurbation. Pointing outward, apparently the bluff ended, but our sources tell us that they may be manned by the good guys who if they refuse to fight may be blown to eternity from the rear. I trust no-one has any further doubts as to the necessity of this war. It would seem to me only the guys in Azt can break this impasse and I am damned if I see how.”
“PANTHER, Bal?”
“We shall see.”
“Join PANTHER, learn new skills,” murmured Fox. “I’ve never driven a tank. Is it interesting?”
“The world watches,” said Essa. “Everything hangs on how he handles this.”
“He is doing adequately so far,” said Cho.
Cioulis’ Dudes slipped through the outskirts of Azt together with the H-W and PANTHER, followed by a small number of infantry.
“Oh shit,” said Fox. “How bloody clever.”
The columns didn’t exactly have a rear but were loosely joined in a snowflake pattern.
“Bloody Narulis,” said Charm.
They passed on. They located the Command Centre. They reached the Plaza, the centre of the City. They started to let off fireworks and smoke-bombs. Loudspeakers bawled out raucous music. A flag was raised, not a silver coronet above a silver chair, but a black panther.
“They can’t turn,” hissed Bal.
“Without demolition,” growled Feit
The Imperial Air Fleet began strafing with smoke-bombs and rose-petals, plastic ones.
“They can’t damned see,” hissed Bal.
The Dudes finished the ascent and lobbed pale pink smoke into the tank.
“We’re on your bloody side!”
And so on through the column or if they weren’t on your bloody side there weren’t owt as they could do about it. As each tank was taken the Anile flag was replaced by the panther.
Just drive out into the open, guys. Clear the way now.
Ciletij drove unimpeded into the centre of Azt. Orders had been explicit. Not only are you on parade on a state occasion you are taking tea with an extremely prim and decorous great-aunt. You will be past impeccable. You are guests in someone else’s country.
OK, guys, said Sarat, you go forward or you go back.
Or you go sideways and find Azt is encircled.
“Come out with your hands up,” murmured Bal.
When that was pleasantly settled, Sarat arrived at the front. Thanks. Great stuff, guys. Are we ready? He climbed onto the leading tank.
The airwaves of the world screamed. Sarat is first through the Great Gates. I repeat, Sarat himself is first through the Great Gates.
On this historic occasion, people began, and then stopped because they didn’t know what to say, or maybe they had lumps in their throats.
Dazed Aztians are out on the streets now, watching the conquering army, their army. Some cheer.
Meanwhile soldiers are spreading through the city. The resistance has started into action. City Hall is occupied, the Ministry of the Interior, and of course the Ministry of Culture.
Vasucula moved into Var-segan.
Kimberly-so looked at Layat. Guess it’s a learning-curve for all of us.
I am really not planning a military dictatorship. Only a five-power occupation. You are not going to be worried by this, guys, because you are going to be an integral part of it.
“Hold me, Mel,” said Cantilip. Hold me very, very tightly while I am a silly girl and sob my eyes out.
She looked up from his shoulder.
“We did it.”
“We did it,” said Mel.
Sarat reached the centre of Azt and slithered down. Bris strode towards him.
Sarat stuck out his hand.
“Sarat.”
“Bris,” said Bris.
Strong men waste no words but that particular picture was said to make every front page in the world.
On this auspicious occasion…The emperor has returned to Azt and nothing will be the same again….This is how history is made…History unfolds before our eyes….Have you a few words, sir, for this momentous moment in time…
“Sarat,” said Sarat. “Oh yes. Now we rock.”
“First impressions?”
“It’s wonderful to be here.”
“I second that,” said Bris, voice dry as straw.
Sarat grinned.
Devanu to Bal: I trust I may present my credentials to His Imperial Majesty?
What, thought Bal, do you do if I say no?
Bal to Devanu: You may.
The Ministry of Culture has the builders in? They are working like beavers. Someone remembers. The Imperial.
“What are you guys doing?”
“You’ll see.”
The world's media wanders through Azt, looking for something to epitomize the silent revolution. Anile flag flies over garrison. A cluster of Ciletij tank. No such signs of coup adequately symbolize the revolution of mind. They arrive at the Imperial, not least because the rumour is beginning to spread that free food is on offer - good free food. This, they say dubiously, is where it's at, but even as they doubt the madness takes off and from all four corners of the continent, sleeves rolled up ready for work, are arriving doctors, drainage experts, drapers.
The Fidubi watch-dogs tell the journos that so long as they don't get in the way they're welcome to clutter up the foyer, shelter from the north-easter whiffling down the Colonnade. The whole of the right frontage is the bar, and then the restaurant, the bar all smoked glass and soft lights and beyond it, 'with one of the most spectacular outlooks in the whole of Azt', the glass-walled restaurant. It becomes the press club.
"Anile Emperor, what does it mean in the age of one man, one vote?"
"It's a transition. Irturbi are used to being told what to do. I'm telling you to get unused, no-one's going to push you around any more, there is no need to be afraid."
"We're occupied."
"You have friends. Different. Krarlik kindly turned five floors into offices, saving us much time and energy. This will for the moment be the hub. Anything you want to know, drop in and ask. Anyone who wants to take part, come along. It'll take a day or so for the set-up to bed down."
"That is an open invitation to any citizen of Azt who wants to help to come and see you?"
"That is an open invitation to any citizen of Kadun to come and see me."
"Things are going to be pretty different."
"They are," said Sarat.
"We don't even begin to know what's hit us."
"Think of it as a learning-process for all of us," said Sarat. “A word about the legal stuff. There will be those who challenge my right to do anything beyond look decorative. We shall be instituting Fidubi law unless we can think of anything better. That of course has a certain historical precedent. Behind that is a backdrop of international law. Anyone who wishes to take us to the Intenational Court in the City has of course a right to do so. We have very good lawyers and this isn’t exactly an isolated step. But you’re welcome to try. It’s a free country.”
“I think we just got our human rights back.”
“You just got your human rights back.”
The party began with a lone flautist in the Colonnade, acceptable even in Krarlik’s Azt, except what he was playing wasn’t, that being the overture to the Imperia. Someone put on a radio. People began to dance. A van appeared. Some kids got out and began to argue among themselves, gesturing at the military of five nations who pretended not to notice. I’m going to ask the boss!
Suli walked into the Imperial. Could I see Sarat, please.
“Sure,” said the Vasuculi. “PANTHER’ll take you up.”
“Sarat and Maya are out,” said Tickle. “Cantilip’s womanning the fort.”
“Oh wow!” said Suli.
“Hey,” said Suli, “I’d known I was going to see you, I’d have brought flowers.”
“You sound like my kind of guy,” said Cantilip. “What can we do for you?”
“We have no problem with that,” said Cantilip. “Just keep it down till about 7, OK. People are busy, busy, busy. Need to hear ourselves think.”
Equipment was unloaded, a stage erected. The military of five nations smiled benignly. Noise began, the inchoate squawls and howls of a rock band testing the sound. The volume was abruptly lowered. A Vasculi sergeant said he was a sound engineer. A Ciletij captain had a go on the drums. Better than we dared dream, thought Faun. I have only one problem with this.
“Faun. PANTHER. Gather round, kids.” They gathered. “OK…I see one problem here. Under cover of the racket you guys are going to make, other nasty people could make other nasty noises. You with me?” They nodded. “So we are going to take precautions. You are going to start your set and then stop, mid-chord, mid-word, with the precision of a symphony orchestra. Shit, you are going to say, while other folk listen to see if there’s anything else going on. You are going to have a number of false starts. Blame it on the power supply. You’re going to have long intervals between numbers. Stop in the middle of a number and tell a story. You’re going to have a rest in the middle of the set. Crack jokes, tell them about your pet hamster. Play all night for all we care, this once at least. Everything’s cool, so long as no-one can predict when you’ll be playing. Clear?”
“Yessir!”
“The other thing is get the kids to clear up after themselves. Puh-lease. 1) No-one else has the time. 2) Sarat’s bedroom window is somewhere over there. Panoramic view of the wreckage.”
“Right!”
Oh, man!
Sarat and Maya arrrived back just after 6. Suli grinned. What do you reckon, guys? Like there’s noise and there’s noise, man. “OK, now take it away! Let’s put some jazz in it!” The opening bars of the imperial anthem shook Azt. Cioulis ten blocks away dissolved. “Should one stand to attention?” Others had no doubts, soldiers and civilians alike, put down what they were doing. . And Sarat in mid-sentence in the foyer turned as stunned as anyone. Then he laughed and returned the salutes.. The crowd around him parted as though divided by a giant comb. Cantilip had rushed to the window. This – this is real! She ran downstairs, joined the crowd in the foyer pushing onto the street. The anthem smashed through the cobwebs and pulverized the dirt, bounced off the peeling paint and slammed into Square people, old people came out onto the streets and cheered. Foreigners looked bewildered. Their irtubi comrades explained what they were hearing And Cho stood as though paralysed in front of the screen because of course the camera was there. This is Azt’s answer?
Sarat and Maya stood with their arms around each other outside the Imperial. Since nobody stopped them or dreamed of stopping them the band played all five verses. Nobody knew the words but it has a pretty good chorus and everyone seemed to know the words of that. And Sarat and Maya stood with their arms around each other until it was over.
Then Sarat and Maya began to walk through the crowd to the makeshift stage. Eager hands helped them up.
“Welcome to Azt, sir! Three cheers now, guys! One for Their Imperial Majesties, one for our Sarat and one for our Maya!”
The crowd roared.
Sarat took the mike.
“Thank you. I am honoured. I am very, very touched – don’t answer that! I think this may be a good occasion - thank you all here. Thank you to all the amazing people in Kadun and outside who have made this possible. Thank you, naturally, to my fellow-plotters, to Mel and Cantilip, Hass and Venga, Mitch and Karula, and to the elders who enabled instead of getting in the way – “ Faun closed his eyes a minute. “ – Tar and Saski, Airoch, Faun. Thank you especially, of course, to my parents Baya and Essa who brought me up to want to do the right thing and suffered the consequences! Thank you finally to two people above all others. One is my grandfather, Cho, who did not tell me I required a strait-jacket when I first confided in him, who took seriously a 17-year-old maniac who said I don’t want to be a vet any more, I want to sort Kadun instead. The other, of course, is my lady.” He took Maya’s hand and kissed it. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Anile Empress!”
“Fiend!” muttered Maya.
More wild cheers.
Sarat murmured to Suli, who took them to meet the guys.
“I do not play or sing,” said Sarat, “but I know a man who does.” He took the mike again. “And now if Mitch and Cantilip could join us…” Mitch and Cantilip were pushed forward, protesting loudly. “Mitch is real good on drums and Cantilip sings like a lark.”
“Remind me,” murmured Mitch, “to have a little word with you later.”
The two of them climbedup. Sarat and Maya perched on boxes at the back of the stage.
“Let’s hear it,” shouted Suli, “for my lord Var-sega’! Hear it for my lady Van-senok!”
Thank you, they said, thank you.
“We’re all a little crazy tonight,” said Mitch. “It’s been a long hard road. I admit to being a closet drummer. Now I pay!”
“You don’t want to pay any attention to him,” said Cantilip. “I’m the star turn.” She whispered to him.
“Her modesty overwhelms,” said Mitch
He sat at the drums and began a slow introductory beat. One guitar joined in, picking out the melody, and suddenly everyone or at least every irtubi knew what this was and a sort of sigh passed through the crowd. Cantilip soared.
The Ballad of
Mitch finished
“Not bad,” observed Kumsat. “Did you ever think of going pro?”
The crowd roared again.
Without warning Mitch launched into Kella’s ‘Red Hot Rock’, one of the greatest head-bangers of all time.
“Pass,” murmured Cantilip.
The band left him solo for one verse, then joined in.
“I think,” murmured a Vasuculi colonel. “Maybe I don’t think.”
“They’re just kids, sir.”
“His Imperial Majesty continued to lounge at the back of the stage.”
The cheers died down.
“Now, we’ll leave you to it,” said Sarat. “Once again, I thank you all.”
“You do not escape!” said Mitch.
And Cantilip thought, I’m going to do this just this once, without explanation, without apology.
Unaccompanied but for Mitch keeping the beat, she sang the first verse of the anthem.
People cast covert glances at Mel who pretended not to notice.
“She’s good, isn’t she. A fine career ahead of her.”
Sarat walked forward and kissed her.
“Don’t I get a kiss?” complained Mitch.
“Oh, you,” said Maya and complied.
The four of them walked back to the Imperial, acquiring numerous balloons and much pressed flesh as they went.
Different, things are gonna be real different, guys. Throughout the continent politicos swallowed hard and feverishly enquired what proportion of their populations were between 15 and 30.
Bal looked at the picture of Mitch on drums and laughed until he choked.
“You can’t say he doesn’t look the part, Bal.”
“I am putting together a thesis,” said Bal, “or maybe my memoirs will do. Damn kids creating havoc in my city.”
Foreigners, in Kadun and outside, looked at each other in bewilderment. How can it mean this much to them?
“I am afraid,” murmured a member of the Ciletij Cabinet, “what they are going mad about is the empire not democracy.”
“That is why it is a very good thing we are there partying with them.”
But most said: Nonsense! They’re kids! What they’re going mad about other kids.
What they’re going mad about is this emperor.
It’s like the whole of Azt’s on the street, babbled the media, then reconsidered: whole of Azt under 30.
Tannan said “It’s been a long war. 600 years long.” Then she smiled. “Six years at least. For six years we have all of us waited for culmination.” And that was Zur’s view, as the party started in the Saa’nda Senta and spread through the Old Port
“Dig that bass,” said Mel, and began to snap his fingers..
Bris looked at him searchingly. Six years of toiling for the public good when other kids of their age…They must have partied, they must have relaxed. When?
Incredible scenes from Azt!
It is impossible to talk, listen, sleep or think but we’d better try. We can do that, said FAF.
The light-show began.
Azt was showered with tiny silver rain-drops. Pastels pattered down the Colonnade and mingled with the crowd then slithered up the hill to the Jumsit Palace where because Sarat not only rocks but has a sense of humour with it they did a quick turn as psychedelia. Clouds of silver light until finally the whole city was bathed in silver light.
“My Silver City,” said Sarat with some satisfaction.
Oi! said Maona-Pri.
The shining empire. Of course it is given that all such tales are regarded as an exaggeration for even with the technology, so to say, of the more advanced Fidubi culture who in those days could and blah.
Because it is impossible to talk, listen, sleep or think, we party and the doors of the Imperial are thrown open, but this is Azt in late fall and little silver flakes begin to fall that have nothing to do with FAF. Emergency decisions must be made! Maya admits with a shy giggle she has never seen snow. Faun potters off to confer with Suli. The word from the man is that if you can go home, you’d better do so, there’s always another day. If you can’t crowd into the Imperial, and so they do, and as there is heat and coffee the party continues, because these are kids on a high and all of them can go nights on end without sleep.
“I guess you’re Azt’s counter-culture,”
“Oh no, man. We’re Azt’s culture.”
But Maya wraps herself in several layers of fake fur and stands on the balcony entranced.
Aztians cheerfully inform the southerners this isn’t the real thing, not yet. The morning will be slushy and depressing.
“The guys,” Sarat asked, “the band, are they well-known?”
Dilemmas around every corner! Because I do not wish to mortally offend them, but on the other hand if they are skint I do not wish them to play for free.
“It would be sweet,” said Karula, “if they recorded it.”
“Wasted,” said Mitch, “quite wasted.”
Great gulfs of ignorance open before us. We have no idea whatever of the state of the popular music industry. Nor do we have a freaking clue what happens when it snows, whether the roads are swept, gritted. A learning-curve.
Not well known, no, a certain following. Did you catch the lyrics? No way they’ll play what the pigs want.
Meanwhile, Suli is saying, “Obviously we can’t clear up! All I’m saying is we need to say something.”
“Can’t say they’re not approachable.”
“Who’s the cat who fixed it?”
“It’s the d-word,” muttered Kumsat. “Little heard in the Azt region.”
“Right! Not like the drongos we usually meet.”
Mellow purred alongside.
“Sarat’d like a word.”
She took them up to what was going to be Sarat’s office, but which was at the moment what Keth called the settee to die for and a load of crates. The heat was palpable.
Mitch turned from the window.
“They are not yet acclimatized.”
Sarat swung his legs over the side of the settee to die for and stood up.
“Come in! Sit down!”
Cubs brought coffee and buns.
“PR,” said Mitch. “You’re good. You’re very good.”
“We’d like it,” said Sarat, “if you recorded it.”
“Ah-huh,” said Suli.
“I think,” rallied Kumsat, “we’d probably like it if we recorded it too.”
“You walk into the studio, you perform, you walk out again. Stress-breakers handles the rest. Only we don’t think we should take a cut. We get payment in kind, right. It would be difficult to argue that we do not benefit from the imperial anthem being a smash hit.”
“You guys,” said Suli, “are something else.”
“Our unique personal qualities got us here,” said Mitch. “We do not make the mistake of thinking if we can get here we can do anything. This is just the beginning of a very long road.”
“I think you should have an advance,” said Sarat.
“It’s so terribly him,” said Mitch, “so impeccably, perfectly him. This empire rocks, kids.”
“That is what we hoped,” said Kumsat.
“Mail me your account details and I’ll have the money transferred in the morning.”
“Sarat….” sighed Mitch.
Sarat sighed.
“Mail me your account details, I’ll put a rocket under the banks and have the money transferred in the afternoon? I’ll give you a cheque!”
He loped off into a side-room which was actually the kitchen and returned with cheque-book and pen.
“Who’s the payee?”
“The Nuthatch.”
Sarat blinked.
“A species of small bird,” observed Mitch. “Also a place that hatches nuts?”
“You got it!”
“I have lived here too.”
Sarat handed over the cheque.
“Thank you,” said Suli. “Thank you very much.”
“There’s something else,” said Kumsat. “We promised PANTHER we’d get the kids to clear up.”
“You’ll have to teach me about snow,” said Sarat. “Do the streets get swept?”
“Main roads do first. Then maybe a couple of guys wander round at midday with a broom and a bag of sand.”
“Huffers?”
Even Mitch looked bemused.
“What is a huffer?”
“I’m sorry,” said Sarat. “I don’t know what the real word is. The things that sweep the streets, like a tractor with huge brushes.”
“I do not think Kadun does huffers.”
“I think I can get my front-yard swept,” said Sarat. “Don’t worry about it.”
Dialogue:
Sarat: Do we have any baby bulldozers?
Sorg: Litters of them, some brindled.
Sarat: I want the front-yard swept.
Sorg: The country is still largely in the broom stage of development
Sarat: Can this be difficult? Do it myself in half an hour.
Sorg, chortling: Is that wholly appropriate, sir?
Sarat: The wheel has been invented. Truly. I’ve seen one.
Sorg doing voice-over: It did not take long for His Imperial Majesty to discern he had arrived on a distant planet.
Sarat: Within the next hour.
Sorg: I’ll sort it. Promise!
Sarat: Leave the stage. It could have its uses. Tidy it up a bit, could you, please.
I think I’m going to enjoy this, thought Sorg. He consulted with Karci and Varulin, who knew a man who knew a man. A scoop was attached to the front of a truck. They drove slowly up and down and then back and forth, like someone rolling a lawn. Malik Zesh, it works! The scoop was carefully laid to rest beside the stage.
Suddenly the sun came out, but the temperature was below freezing.
It’s a freaking ice-rink out there!
“Are we even slightly prepared?” asked Sarat of no-one in particular.
He put on wellies with non-slip soles, a wool polo-neck and over it a heavy cable-knit (Mitch was slightly prepared) and with Baz, Paw, Varulin, Sorg and a trio of Ciletij in tow drove off to something called the Public Facilities Depot.
“Hi, Sarat. Who’s in charge around here?”
“Reckon you are, sir!”
“Apart from me.” A worn-looking balding man emerged. “OK, now we’re going to have a little team meeting. Is there somewhere we can all fit in?” There was a warehouse. “The snow’s started. I have not got time for Azt to skid to a halt. That means I need your help, and you, from what I gather, need up to date equipment. I also gather the number of broken limbs and RTAs greatly increases in the winter months and it’s not hard to work out why. This is what I want.” Baz projected a map of central Azt onto the wall from his laptop. “Not today, no! Tomorrow will do fine. I want all the roads into Azt swept and sanded before people start to go to work. I think you do that already? I also want the whole of the central area, the area in the blue circle, swept and sanded, including the pavements. These gentlemen are from Ciletij. They’ll talk to you about the equipment they use and sort getting it. If you need more people, hire them. Whatever your budget was, it’s just been revised. It’s quite amazing how much money you can liberate by firing the whole of JORK. Any problems, tell me, OK?”
Gotcha.
He moved on, leaving dazed public facilitators in his wake.
Sarat and entourage stopped off at a newsagent’s. The man behind the counter went on checking a heap of magazines.
“What are we waiting for?” asked Sarat.
“Expect instance service, do you?”
“Everyone expects that,” said Sarat.
“What do you want, then?”
“This bar of chocolate I’m holding,” said Sarat, “please.”
“It’s a 50 g bar of Delice,” said Baz helpfully.
“Me, I’m a pig,” said Paw. “I want the super-giant 150 g bar of Chocamelt, please.”
“I just want a paper,” said Sorg. “Pretty-please.”
“Here we are,” said Sarat, “itching to give you money and you shun us.”
“Why don’t you price things?” demanded Varulin. “Tell us how much they cost and we’ll leave the money and go.”
“Bunch of flaming nutters,” said the man.
Sarat looked at Baz.
Baz got out his wallet.
“Five-dollar bill, OK.” He laid it on the counter. “See ya later.”
“Oi,” said the man, “you can’t go without your change.” He sighed and put down the mags. “That’s 83 cents, the Delice, 1.49, the Chocamelt. What paper you got, Sonny?”
“Azt Star,” said Sorg.
“75 cents. That’s 3.07 altogether. Got the 7 cents?”
Varulin dug hastily in his pocket.
“There you are, mate.”
The man handed Baz two dollars then suddenly looked at Sarat.
“Think you can change things, do you, lad?”
“Yes,” said Sarat.
“Well, that’s as maybe, but it’s my guess they’ll send you packing.”
“Who?” asked Sarat.
“If you don’t know that!”
“I know,” said Sarat. “I want you to say it.”
“Flaming Cult, that’s who!”
“You’ve – had a run-in with them?”
“Me! Nah. I know what’s good for me, keep me head down. They own everything.”
“No,” said Sarat.
“Oh, they do, lad, they own the people. Ordinary folk, decent folk, they’ll support you, but you’ll not shift the power unless you hang them. Too soft for that, aren’t you.”
“We’ll see,” said Sarat.
“Any time you want to talk,” said Baz, “you know where we are.”
They drove away.
“Despair,” said Sorg after a minute, “is always awful.”
“Yes,” said Sarat.
Sorg examined him and thought: he is absolutely furious.
They stopped off at a street-stall for coffee.
“Right proud of you lads,” said an old man to Varulin. “Did the right thing in the end.”
Varulin grinned.
“Thanks. Yeah. Some of us a bit slow on the uptake.”
“Could have happened years ago,” growled another, with a sidelong glance at Sarat.
“No it couldn’t,” said Sarat. “I wasn’t old enough. Mind you, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be old enough.”
“Army could have stepped in, kept yer seat warm.”
“It could have,” said Sarat.
“Like I said,” said Varulin, “slow on the uptake.”
A passing young female stopped, stared, giggled, threw her arms round Sarat’s neck and kissed him, then ran away.
“I think I like it here,” said Sarat.
“Lasses like you, love, that’s for sure,” said the woman behind the stall.
Love? thought Sorg. How the bloody hell is it done?
It’s because he’s (also) a foreigner, thought Varulin. At one and the same time, he’s Anile Emperor and totally outside the class structure of this bloody country. And what was that business with the other guy. Testing, testing to see if he’s outside the bloody class structure of this bloody country, if he’ll behave like a bloody human being.
Baz said: “Could we please have one more to take away?”
Cho once more walked slowly out to the press-fiends at the gate.
“Cho!”
“You did it, man!”
“I?” said Cho. “No…”
“A helping hand!”
“A helping hand,” admitted Cho.
Kids, thought Zulagan. No-one ever worries what kids think. Then he laughed. Except one man listened to the kids.
“How does it feel, Cho?”
“Oh, puh-lease,” said Cho, mimicking Mel, then laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it feels. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I am lost for words.”
Incidents and with them not so much acts of conspicuous gallantry as acts of conspicuous thinking on one’s feet.
Kids throwing stones. Not big stones. Not throwing them with any great fervour. The Vasuculi captain conferred with her troops. They found some netting.
She walked slowly towards the kids brandishing the ultimate weapon. It looked suspiciously like a butterfly net. She made a sudden dive to catch an imaginary stone.
“Hey, kids, you want a game of lacrosse?”
They didn’t know what lacrosse is but they got the general idea. One of them bowled a stone at her. She netted it.
The gallant troops of Vasuculi advanced, menacingly waving butterfly nets.
Miscellaneous incidents of people seeing other people so petrifyingly cold that they took off their jerseys and jackets and handed them over.
Suddenly I feel wrong-footed, thought Mitch. Suddenly anything I say or do sounds patronising and I swear that has not been true to date. All because I have a nice thick jerkin and central heating.
Sarat, also aware of the semiotics, but figuring that central heating was one of the perks of his job, faced the camera from the settee to die for wearing a sleeveless black tunic.
“We can’t revamp the economy in 24 hours to sort the manufacturers of snow. Anyone with an income below 20K gets a cold weather payment of 50 dollars for clothes and boots. CLIK will sort the distribution. The minimum wage will kick in on the first of the month.”
“What of?”
“Undecided.”
His Highness the Crown Prince of Dabida or whoever the freaking hell he is (board member of AMI) turns up at a food-processing plant with a gaggle of AMI employees.
Other than people’s homes, there are no no-go areas. That’s not an issue, either. What is this, martial law? It’s commonly known as absolute monarchy. We do not do reports from those with vested interests, papering over the cracks.
Ciletij communalists support their comrades in Kadun!
We appear to have a workers’ revolution contained (barely) by the military of five nations. Just remember that most of the military of five nations are the workers.
Most concerns in Dabida have some element of profit-sharing? What is ‘some element’?
“Means,” said Mel, “if the company doesn’t do so well, you still get paid.”
“You, certainly, get paid. May I ask what you personally contribute to AMI?”
“I did a stint on the factory-floor,” said Mel. “We both did. Aside from that, modesty forbids. Ask around.”
Sarat, Qine and PANTHER walking into a working-men’s bar. Sarat ordering drinks, turning.
“So I’m only here for the beer.” He perched himself on a stool and swung his legs. “You talk. I listen. What do you want to change?”
“That,” said Qine judiciously, “would seem to me to be a big one. Like everything. How about we start with how folks live?”
“Some depressing people,” said Sarat, “say I can’t work miracles. I don’t want to work miracles. I want what is normality for working people in the rest of the continent.”
“Why should we trust yer, lad?”
“Come on, boy, you’re going to be on the side of the bosses in the end.”
“Sure,” said Sarat. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You mean it int?”
“Sohenoil muscling in!”
“Appreciate your input,” said Sarat. “As I say, how about you tell me what you want to happen?”
“Aye, and then you’ll do what you was going to do anyway.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t forget I’ve been listening to CLIK for years. Maybe what I was going to do anyway’s no bad thing.”
“Oh aye. The new young master. Maybe we don’t want no more bloody masters.”
“It’s been said,” said Sarat, “among the people who’ll want me out are those who’ll want the whole cake, not just a slice of it. So tell me how you’d run things and then you can tell me how that doesn’t make you top dog.”
“Tongue in your head, boy, say that for you!”
“Think the lad’s able to speak for himself,” said Qine.
“It’s been a long road and blah,” said Sarat. “I have heard an awful lot of perspectives on Kadun.”
Or as Cantilip was to put it, you know when male dogs meet? They circle around each other, sniff each other’s bottoms, give a half-wag of the tail, an experimental wag. An awful lot of those first few days was male dogs meeting.
The Federation of Kadun Labour, what CLIK called the tame workers, wanted 10.50. CLIK wanted 13. Sarat wanted to raise expectations. Partly he realized the economy was going to convulse a little before it came in line with the rest of the continent – and partly 15 bucks an hour was the equivalent of the minimum wage in Dabida. Ten dollars an hour for a 45 hour week is 23400 a year. There are people on less than 20K, Sarat. If you can only stay in business by paying slave-labour rates, maybe you’re in the wrong job, said Sarat. Meanwhile his mystery shoppers were quietly combing Kadun. The calculation was this. OK, 10 bucks an hour for a 45 hour week, that’s 450. You pay tax on this? Oh man, you pay tax on this. Fine, you pay tax. Leave the tax alone, a minute. You pay tax on anything over 300. That’s freaking 6.50 an hour, man. No wonder the poor are poor. OK, you pay 30% tax on 150, that’s 50, so you have 400. Say half of that is rent and rates and you keep a bit aside for bills. That’s less than 200 to live on. So we’ll just see what 200 buys, shall we. Then we’ll get the food analyst boys to check it out.
Qine faced the cameras with unadulterated glee. Before him fresh from the oven was a steaming pie.
“Nice bit of pie for a lad’s tea. Only the food chemists, a species I do not think we have previously seen in this country, say it’s rat.. This lady here is from Dabida, she’s a mother of three youngsters and her man works for AMI. Young Mel persuaded her to do a bit of shopping in Azt, down by the docks, where the poor folk live. Pretend she were feeding her family.”
Kunis had not been impressed.
“And this lady here,” said Qine warmly, “is my ma. Her and dad, they live comfortable like in Var-segan and I don’t rightly think she ever shopped in Tjulsit before, but then she has me as a son and she loves me, though there’s them as might wonder why.
His Imperial Majesty will address the nation on the subject of the minimum wage. I enjoyed saying that.
“We must be brave little soldiers,” said .
I have no objection, indeed it would be extremely strange if I did, to some people having more money than others, though I may in some cases object to how they came to do so and indeed consider its removal from them justified on the grounds it was dishonestly obtained.
What the hell, said Zulagan, does that mean!
You have my attention, sir, murmured
I have no objection to some people enjoying more expensive vacations or meals out than others. I have a deep-rooted objection to any people being unable to enjoy any kind of decent vacation or meal out. In brief, therefore, I expect all people to be able to take part in the many facets of the thing called human society. Meanwhile people are starving and children have no boots to protect their feet against the snow. The transformation will not happen overnight. Certain things, however, can be quickly rectified.
The baselines are these. We want to kickstart this economy and increase disposable income. There are too many people in Kadun whom modern standards pass by. People paid for their labour have a right to be able to afford something out it, beyond survival. To set a minimum wage pushes up wages all round. It gives people more to spend. It also pushes up prices but it will not be necessary to raise prices to wholly cover increased costs, since people will buy more. There are whole swathes of this country cut off from buying the simplest inessential, from a can of paint to brighten up the front door to curtains to keep out the draught, and then there are people cut off from essentials, such as boots. That is not how people should expect to live in the modern world.
“We are not convinced all concerns run as efficiently as they should, due at least in part to circumstances outside the control of the individual entrepreneur.
We are aware that in the absence of regulation the hourly rate may be as low as 7 dollars.
We are aware that due to compliance with the Adulteration of Foodstuffs Act and the Fraudulent Description of Goods Act the price of food will rise.
We do not want to drive out of business the little guys who make for themselves barely more than they pay their employees. We understand that deals are done, payment in kind. A shop-worker may be paid a pittance but get free food. We like to see money move around. If a partnership of self-employed builders employ someone a couple of hours a day to do the cleaning we do not wish that person to become unemployed. Nor, however, will be permit people to be exploited.
The new tax rates are as follows, effective from midnight.
The new tax threshold is 35K. That means you have to be earning 15 dollars an hour for a 45 hour week, 35100 a year, before you need pay any tax at all.
The rate remains 30% on incomes between 35K and 250K. The rate is 40% on incomes over 250K.
We come to corporate taxation. This was a nominal and readily evaded 17% on profits over 2 million. I am setting corporate tax at an non-evadable 50% of profits over 1 million.
Additionally I am setting a minimum wage of 12 dollars an hour, 540 dollars a week for a 45 hour week or 28000 a year.
Rent increases are capped at 10% for landlords with 5 or fewer tenants and banned for thos with more than 5 tenants..
Concerning the cost to the State of this measure, Kadun is now free of the millstone around her neck the cost of government and to some extent the cost of the State. Krarlik’s expenses alone in the last year came to half a million. Outside the Army, all of us are either working for free or funded from sources other than the State. I am very fond of Den-Sibol, Kadun Representative at Zur, Ban-sedin, Kadun Representative at Maona-Pri, and Ban-jaizat stoan, Kadun Representative at the City, all of whom I may now say were kind enough to show me their books some considerable time before they were required to do so. The haemorrhage of public money has just abruptly ended. It is not my desire, I may say, that the Kadun Rep Centres be utilitarian, only that they cease to pay spies and Cult-sympathisers, attempt to buy supporters and pay outlandish expenses. Then there are all the torturers and secret police and their outlandish expenses. The number of things Kadun is no longer paying for is large. Those whose work is now superfluous to requirements are being redeployed if they so wish.”
The State has for the moment and for the foreseeable future enormous need of everyone’s skills and talents and any who are unfairly laid off is sure of work with me. It may be recalled that these days we have employment tribunals.
The State also has unrealized potential to generate its own income but that is still on the drawing-board.
“The little bugger,” said Zulagan in tones of enormous affection.
Undoubtedly, continued Sarat, there will be those who will insist Kadun will collapse under these preposterous measures. I point out now that 15 bucks is the minimum in Fidub and Dabida. In Vasucula it is 13.50. In Ciletij it is 17. In Harn it is, at the current rate of exchange, 16.30. Southerners of course have lower energy bills, though other costs may be higher. These are interim measure and we intend when the economy is brought into line with that of our neighbours to adopt the Ciletij minimum of 17 dollars.
That’s the plot so far, folks. Any questions?
“And you are taking nothing, zilch, the big O.”
“I am taking nothing, zilch, the big O, except what is mine, that being all former imperial residences, which I shall live in or open to the public as I see fit. Cho is footing the bill for what we trust are the non-outlandish expenses of all foreign personnel currently present in Kadun.”
“What’s in this for Sohenoil?”
“Competition,” suggested Sarat, “keep them on their toes. There is a great deal of unrealized potential in this country, meaning we can play with the big boys. Certainly we aim to create a wider market for consumer goods. There is no reason why they should not be our own, no reason why we should not make them better and no reason why we should not export them. This isn’t some little island off the coast of Dabida. We should stop seeing Kadun as the underdog.”
Sarat, wrote Sorg, aware that his every comma is open to dissection, may occasionally be a little difficult.
Then there’s hope for you yet, replied Asdinan.
Cut to the Chairman of Kadun Steel.
“I really think only Ban-varna’s grandson would dare.”
I don’t know about that, thought Zulagan.
General uproar, only no-one told the young man he had no idea how business works. Funny, that.
Nonetheless, to Cho and Cho alone, Sarat confessed. I have no idea what this will achieve. I followed my instincts. I know where I want to go. If it’s the wrong road, we’ll find a new one.”
 
So you think women are punchbags, do you, women exist to serve men, women are animals and it is unnecessary to speak to a woman or pay any attention to anything a woman says.