"Newspeak" and John Pilger.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

The great Australian journalist John Pilger, posing as a possible customer at a British arms fair. He is enquiring about a "multi purpose" cluster bomb.

"I asked one of the salesmen what it did."

" I beg your pardon, he said"

"What does it do, I said you know whats it for."

" Just a moment he said, public relations will have to handle this."

A PR man arrived, and my question was wispered to him, "Is there a problem here" he said.

" No" I replied, "I would like somebody to explain to me what the multi cluster bomb does."

" I shall need that in writing" he said "all inquries must go though the MOD, a reply from me may be taken out of context, we have had that problem before, context is important, and policy is policy."

At this point I realised I was talking to an incarnation of Major Major from Hellers catch 22.

"What does the BL755 do" I tried again.

"Thats classified" said Major Major, " Why" I asked "Thats classified too..........

[Steve Ulman]

If you have to ask what it does you have no right to know what it does.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Hey Steve. The arms industry likes to use euphamisms to describe the destructive nature of their product, for example they talk of "units removed"or "clean field option" its as if, psychologically speaking,if you dont really mention what your selling(death) its OK. The cluster bomb that Pilger is talking about is particularly destructive, as most of the "bomblets" are not designed to explode on impact, but pepper the ground, this particular devise takes a hard toll on Children. I believe things like this transend political stance, their just plain wrong...