Wednesday, July 18, 2007

THE RAW, NAKED TRUTH

I have to admit that I can’t say I can recall everything discussed at the meeting, or afterwards when I caught up with the priests in the deep, plush, subdued luxury of the hotel bar. The snatches of conversation I report here might not be a hundred percent accurate, word for word, but their meaning is.

There had been joyless prayers recited and a hymn sung with a terrible piety and very little enthusiasm or music and the suits were dark grey or black and the faces were ashen and expressionless, the cardinals, bishops, priests and courtiers of The High and Mighty Church of John Doe were waiting on death and waiting on those waiting on death and their release into paradise like buzzards. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Cash on demand.*

The worn out chains of office weighed mightily heavy round each and every dog collared neck.

“Let John Doe be praised.”


“Now let us begin.”



Black briefcases, all the same slightly battered age, at exactly the same moment, spewed reams of officious documents onto dark, polished wooden tables.

“This is war and our highest priority is to manipulate, and so invade, the areas of consciousness still underexploited or unknown to our victims, subjects and potential converts. We must invade and occupy their ignorance.”

“And keep them ignorant.”

“Praise be to John Doe.”


Their words were a colourless litany chanted with the intonation of the dead, or how you might imagine the dead should intonate if they could actually get up and find anything to say, dusty and as dry as ash and they were not meant for my ears.

“Take note, however, that no religions with intelligent or well indoctrinated representatives actually desire to take the reins of earthly power, they stay just out of frame, for they have absolutely no desire to carry on their shoulders a burdensome responsibility for the material failures common to all of us human beings.”

“Let John Doe be praised.”

"John Doe?"

“Let the politicians and libertines, the scientists, let society take on its back and shoulders this burden of material inadequacy and our failures will become theirs alone and we shall control a system of absolute moral authority, have faith.”


Their words were predominantly negative and obsessed with evil and sin and the cooperation one might subscribe to with these evils and sins.

“Have faith? Keep one step aside, in the shadows. We shall be the puppet masters.”

"A door will be opened for our absolute moral truth, a truth above and beyond the laws of man. The door will be open to absolute power.”

“The raw, naked truth! Absolute power!”

“Absolute control. Praise be to John Doe.”


Two hours later I was picturing centuries of popes who all looked like the painter Francis Bacon’s pope innocent X’s demons, liturgies, processions, ceremonials, hierarchies, cathedrals and I smelt the incense and wax and the centuries of submission and blood as I sank into the red velvet armchair in the bar next to a tall sash cord window that looked out onto the main square and framed the renaissance spires of………



My trains of thought were interrupted by The Born Again Priest and his acolytes somewhere over to my right, as he slammed his empty beer glass onto the green leather topped table and exclaimed,

“John Doe be damned! The raw, naked truth. If we can’t screw them all down, ha! Damn them all, we’ll surely screw them all up.”


I felt sick for the future.









*This is a snippet of conversation that I have been unable to place into a definite context or strict timeframe, but which I have the suspicion I caught in the corridors of the hotel sometime late that evening.


“The politicians and libertines, the scientists, society, the John Doeless still insist on paying us for our efforts, can you believe that?”

“It’s a miracle.”

“No, it’s the raw, naked truth.”

“Damn them all, but, mark my words! Keep your hands out for their cash.”


Then I remember them crossing themselves. A lot of that had gone on all day.

“The Word of John Doe.”

"Who?"











This report is dedicated to the Spanish branch of John Doe Ltd, Blázquez, Camino, Cañizares, Rouco and company at the C.E.E., who have launched an all out war against the Spanish government’s introduction in schools, of a subject called “Civic Education”, or “Education for Forming Good Citizens”, (Educación para la Ciudadania).