THE CLIFF JONES COLUMN

THE CLIFF JONES COLUMN

As a teenager interested in politics I thought I would read Capital and Mein Kampf. People in the bookshop looked at me as though I had just used the foulest of language, Hitler’s book?

Hitler’s book was impossible to obtain but I managed to get Capital by listing it for a school prize.

Took me years to get Mein Kampf.

And then, one of those ‘academia moments’.

I had written, “We are not citizens. We are subjects”.

I was asked if my statement, the beginning of an argument, was original, or had I ‘borrowed’ it.

I thought it was original, but had to check.

It was not original. It was the title of a chapter in Mein Kampf, 1924.

To think I had not cited him.

Then I had to read the chapter. Hitler was helped in his writing by Rudolph Hess. Despite the way the U.K. presents him when it does history Hess was anything but stupid. Also helping was Hitler’s publisher. He knew a bit about putting words into sentences.

But the chapter is written in fluent gibberish.

Apparently you can get an annotated version of the book and perhaps I ought to do that. But as it stands I cannot see how it promoted the Nazi cause. Unless, of course, discussing the book with your mates you did not want to be the only one admitting that you could not understand it.

I think of it as The Emperor’s New Book. No-one dared to shout, “It is rubbish” in front of their mates.

I agree that I am not in a position right now to attempt any serious literary criticism, but I am prompted to think about the extent of the rubbish we are fed and swallow. On an everyday basis our politicians and our media have no qualms about this.

While searching my shelves for Hitler’s smash hit I came across my copy of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion. Forged and known to have been forged in 1903 this tiny book had a massive effect. Why? How? It is clearly garbage so why and how?

My guess is that the key to the effectiveness of falseness is the degree to which it aligns with prejudices that are not subject to being questioned.

“Do you like foreigners?” “Of course not, they steal our jobs.”

There are times when all the facts in the World and all references to the internationality of humanity will have zero impact.

Jews? Definitely part of a conspiracy. So many things wrong with society. Someone has to be blamed.

By the way, who are the ‘US’ that we identify with? Does it matter as long as we can label others as ‘THEM’?

Today we ‘subjects’ in the U.K. are ruled by people I regard as strangers.

I cannot connect with Sunak and I cannot connect with Starmer.

And yet I am fed all their bullshit.

We have to do better than this.

A message to members of Starmer’s New Management Party, “Your Emperor has no clothes.”

No, I am not a citizen. I am a subject. But I am working hard at being an unruly subject.