ERZENGEL

Winston Smith
6 Victory Mansions
London
SW1
28/10/10

Dear Mr. Sheppard,

I have read the item that has led to your imprisonment by the thought police and I am astonished that anyone should have to spend years in prison for the piddling offence of giving offence. I am more astonished, still, that the state has so much time and my money to squander pursuing and imprisoning you when there are so many more worthy villains they could be chasing. How have we come to this? Your so-called hate crime has not resulted in anyone dying, being physically injured, raped, decapitated, double-parked, banged up, or married off to some distant relation in Pakistan. You have put unworthy thoughts into peoples heads; you have said things that others would rather you had not said and will not allow you to say – you are charged and convicted of thought crime. Worse still you have rejected the shibboleths of Orwell’s sheep who bleat constantly: four legs good, two legs are bad; if they know what is good for them that is: Do you not realise ‘Sir’ that the enlightened ones have no need of cogent arguments, only accusations? For example: Homophobia, Islamophobia, sexism, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism – any one of these magic incantations can destroy a man’s career. With such awesome power to play with, who needs reason? The chosen ones, or prigs as we used to call them in a civilised age, need no arguments when they have at their command such shining shibboleths! You try saying that with a skin full, as Ralph Ellis succinctly put it: “When they start calling you nasty names it’s because they have run out of arguments, e.g. You’re a Po-Po, so there! Nah-nah, your mother smells.”

Hate crime is, however, not a two-edged sword. Nick the Griffin was subjected to a barrage of hate and abuse when he appeared on Question Time. The followers of Muhammad, ‘Peace be up on him,’ worked themselves into a frothing rage outside the TV studio calling for his decapitation; they spat at him, threw missiles and the police, the upholders of law and order, just stood there and did nothing. Nobody was arrested and charged with hate crime and yet the hate was palpable and on camera. He, poor benighted Nick that is, was referred to as knuckle-dragging scum in the popular press and no one was charged with anything. All he was doing was standing up for his ethnic group, something others have been doing for years with the aid of government grants.

People who imagine that to call a man a nigger is wrong (and I agree with them Mr Sheppard as I am sure you do, there is no call for insulting language) will, nevertheless, not hesitate to call a man a racist because he objects to reggae blaring out of someone’s window at three in the morning. Calling someone a nigger is a hurtful thing to do, but it is not as damaging as calling someone a racist or a homophobe. Nobody will be sacked and face court proceedings because someone called them a nigger. Nor would a homosexual face disciplinary action and the sack, if some scoundrel called him a shit-stabbing, disease-spreading, degenerate mother-fucker, and rightly so. Unpleasant though these terms are, they only do damage to the person who uses them, not the recipient. Not so with terms like racism, homophobe or anti-Semitism which can be used just as maliciously; such accusations do not reflect badly on the accuser but they can do untold damage to the person charged in this way and very often for merely disagreeing with another’s point of view. Disagree with a woman, for example, and they will not hesitate to label one a ‘misogynist’ and yet women never tire of generalizing in public about men, nor do they see anything reprehensible in this. Take any female comedian and the butt of most of her jokes is invariably men and their cock size, which is fine, but make a joke about the size of her cunt and she won’t laugh. “Size of a dinner plate is it love?” It never fails to shut them up, they turn puce with fury.

And how diligently the good and the just adhere to the principles of the gammy Joe Goebbels when he wrote: “Propaganda must label event and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.” He would be so pleased to think that his life’s work was not in vain and the Fuehrer, no doubt, would be delighted to know that when he wrote: “Keep it simple and keep repeating it,” that his advice had been taken up by such worthy fellows.

I am sure that you have noticed that when our masters and opinion-setters want to invade our minds with some notion of theirs they wish to promote they float the concept and push it out into the world ready made though the media. Less than a dozen years ago, apart from the right-on brotherhood in Greenpeace, nobody knew what a carbon footprint was, and even less did they care. Now everyone is in an aroused state of neurosis over it. But never fear, our masters have the solution. Having brought the matter to our attention, they provide the answer – politically correct taxes! We’re saved! They are going to paper over the ozone layer with twenty-pound notes. You’ve got to hand it to them, it’s a masterstroke; there is no downside. If the world does not end, it asked [?], and if the world does end they will not have to give refunds. Then there is carbon trading. I wonder who thought that one up? The world will clearly be saved when carbon futures are traded along with sub-prime carbon bonds, junk carbon and a host of other packages not yet dreamt of Horatio.

And God help anyone who objects, they will be chastised with the ultimate shibboleth and likened to Holocaust deniers! That will bring them all into line, bleating together to save their careers and avoid the risk of missing their mortgage payment. Thatcher’s true genius was not only her de-skilling of the male population, turning us all into flexible labour – you do not have to negotiate with unskilled labour – she extended the dread of controversy to the working class who didn’t give a fuck what they said when they lived happily in council housing.

How I long for the good old days when religion was the only opiate the masses indulged in. TV has replaced it, hosting the most fearsome weapon of propaganda ever developed, the soap opera. In these finely orchestrated microcosms of everyday life, the attitudes to be learnt are acted out before your very eyes. Look, there is the bitter racist, the benign homosexual, the un-stereotypical black who is persecuted by the stereotypical racist with swastikas tattooed on his forehead. “Boo-hiss!” Oh! and what’s this? Why it’s the lesbian lovers who are such good fun – if only your life could be like this, sponsored by Milk Tray. And here comes the attractive nurse who earns ten times more than a nurse by pretending to be one. Sleep now little ones, keep your attention fixed on the world we have programmed for your delight. Why, here comes a reality show, don’t ask why nobody is watching TV – just accept and swallow it whole. Reality, after all, is what we say it is. Be astounded by the antics of celebrity caterers, celebrity hopefuls, celebrity victims, celebrity gardeners and a host of other celebrity non-entities. You will find nothing in the media about the fate of Mr S. and his friend, nor about how our laws are being perverted, but if you want something to get worked up about here is a video of a cruel person who imprisoned an innocent cat in a dustbin – what kind of a society are we living in where such awful things happen to innocent cats? The woman should be put to death! Clearly, Mr S., if the Fat Controller does not want you to know something, you will not even know what it is that he does not want you to know. The ultimate dream of the capitalist West is of a world filled with a vast herd of docile consumers and they will bomb and imprison anyone to get it. This is what democracy has come to mean – the flies in the market place. Thus spake Zarathustra.

My God Sir, do forgive me, my spell-checker has just informed me that I have unwittingly, I do assure you, used gender-specific language. I said Brotherhood – how could I have done such a thing! I will say three Hail Mary’s before the thought police arrive to confiscate my computer and charge me with crimes against humanity. I thank God for the good people at Microsoft for striving to keep us all on the straight and narrow. Germaine Greer will be spinning in her grave or, rather, she would be if there were any justice in the world. I remember, long ago, in my youth, women used to accuse me of mentally undressing them. Now, thanks to the liberation movement, I do not have to bother; they have done it for me and provided me, into the bargain, with a plethora of tattoos to read. Women have gone from the female eunuch to welfare whore in the blink of an eye. One sees these stripped, sad creatures shivering along the front in Blackpool, exposing as much flesh as possible – yet they are curiously unattractive. They all have the same streaked blond hair and foul mouths, and they put me in mind of peeled prawns. They wander around in large groups, balancing on stiletto heels, occasionally meeting equally large groups of young males, whereupon there is an exchange of invective and both parties move on. It is all very sad and desultory.

It is awful the way faction has seeped into our culture. Does not a shibboleth like “strength in diversity” sound awfully like a variation of “divide and rule”? It does to me. One is left to ask – but nobody does – whom exactly, does it make strong? Employers certainly and manipulators in all their wondrous variety, the planters of disharmony, the vicious and mean-spirited people who have connived to lock you up because you disagree with them, but the once happy and irreverent people I grew up with do not seem to know who they are any more. Their women are shallow vacuous tarts, who think their wombs are the gateway to diversity – peeled prawns – and the men unskilled dogsbodies, with no culture to call their own, brought up by women and supported by a feminised, malignant state. Surely, unity is strength, not diversity. One might just as well say, strength in dissipation. A house divided against itself cannot stand. But nobody points out these simple truths any more. Where is George Orwell when you need him? We are told that we are fighting in Afghanistan to keep the peace here in Britain, therefore: WAR IS PEACE.

Whenever a terrorist bomb goes off, the apologists for threadbare diversity rush to inform us that the vast majority of Moslems are law-abiding as if this should comfort us, when it is the greatest danger we face. It is certainly true that the majority of people are law-abiding in most countries in the world. The vast majority of people in Moslem countries are law-abiding, but look closely at the laws they abide by. It is not surprising at all that most people are law-abiding, sheep always do what they are told, and they will abide by unjust laws as readily as just ones, as you have discovered to your cost, Sir. What matters is not the compliance of the masses, which can be taken for granted because they are cowards, but rather, who makes and enforces the laws. Make stoning legal and these good sheep will turn out in multitudes, and anyone who objects will be arrested and banged up as a criminal for stoning at some future event, sponsored by Everest double glazing.

Reason and truth are on your side, Mr Sheppard. You speak the truth when you say that there is no evidence that the gas chambers existed, if there were, people would be falling over each other to ram it down your throat, but they do not have it and so they cannot. Irving has offered a thousand pounds for such a proof, the crafty sod; there are organisations that would pay him millions if he ever managed to get his hands on anything that would prove the Holocaust beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, you are not a liar but it doesn’t help you. The truth perversely, is no defence, and this can be said in a court of law in England and nobody in the press has anything to say about it! Why is nobody screaming from the rooftops, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war; that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men groaning for burial! Truth is dead, and none avenge it!”

This is the unkindest cut of all. And again, from Friar Lawrence: “Women will fall when there is no strength left in men.”

Best of luck Mr. Sheppard. You are not the first man punished for saying things people did not want to hear. Galileo stands beside you and Jesus too, while Pontius Pilate washes his hands and says: “What is truth?” Now, at last, we know the answer – it is inadmissible! Meanwhile the Pharisees promote the interest of “poor little Bosam, the mugger, rapist and drug dealer – it’s not his fault honky!”

In my darkest moments, I fear that these people who have locked you away are the same people who, in Nazi Germany, would be stamping your passport to the labour camps having eaten their breakfast and taken the kids to school. They are the sort of creatures who never rock the boat, who go with the flow even when it runs in the gutter and down the drain. God protect us all from the career-minded law-abiding non-entities who are just a Saga holiday waiting to happen. I may be wrong about you but I think the Nazis would have shot you for being an iconoclast and a pain in the arse.