The fasces was the axe bound in a bundle of rods that the two lictors of ancient Rome had carried before them. The bundle signified their power either to chastise or to execute anyone they found guilty of having injured the people of Rome, for the lictors represented the population.
The Roman legions carried on their standards the letters SPQR, which stood for, not “small profits, quick returns” as might be supposed, but Senatu populoque Romano, by the Senate and people of Rome. Senate just comes from the word senex, an old man, and so the legions represented the people of Rome under the guidance of their wise tribal elders, as is the case in most communities. The lictors, however, who had the fasces carried before them were specifically the representatives of the people, the general population.
Benito Mussolini, the ruler of Italy during the second world war, adopted the fasces as the emblem, the symbol, the flag, of his political system, which he called “Fascismo,” signifying the power of that system to chastise or execute anyone it chose to. And implying, of course, some kind of link to the glorious days of ancient Rome.
Mussolini’s political system was a partnership between the government and the powerful industrial corporations, in which each supported the aims of the other. It is a system of immense destructive power.
The aim of the corporations is increased and ever increasing profit and profitability. They have absolutely no concern with the population, the environment, or even the continuing existence of the state or even of the earth itself. Although usually associated with extreme nationalism, that is merely Public Relations; their aim is the reduction of labor costs, and all other costs, with the subsequent reduction in living standards of the population that this creates. If possible, the corporations always wish to get as close as possible to the ideal of a human population living their entire lives in much the same conditions as cows, pigs, and chickens in their wire cages, piped in nutritious sludge keeping them alive for the optimum period.
The aim of any government is increasing and finally absolute power, in pursuit of which visible and demonstrated brutality is a great advantage, and the control of the military, the judicial system, and the media is a necessary foundation. The aim is no different from that of the war lords who have traditionally controlled human existence, forbidding the carrying of weapons – a helpless population is highly desirable – and having Buddhist monks create all the martial arts there are in response.
These are the aims of globalism, broadened to cover the entire earth. The ability of humans to survive like rats and cockroaches in the many open spaces on the planet is their defense, the culture of resistance and endurance.
If you go south through the Suez Canal, as the American convoy and one Israeli vessel recently did, and travel many, many miles through the Red Sea, leaving Yanbu and Mecca and Medina on your left, and passing the coasts of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea on your right, you will come to the narrow gate where the Red Sea opens into the Indian Ocean. It is called Bab el Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears,” and as you come out onto the horn of Africa, with Somalia on your right and southern Yemen on your left, with the Empty Quarter stretching north of it, you may understand why.
The UN sponsored government of Somalia controls a couple of streets and a few blocks in the capital Mogadishu. All the rest is in the hands of Eshabab, ‘the young guys,’ the ones who capture oil tankers and ransom them. We get our word chap, from the Arabic shab meaning a young feller. The last US attempt to enter Somalia had a sorry end, you may remember, though a fine video taped beginning, and what the US Marines can not subdue the US corporations can not profit from. Eshabab are in no mood to take nonsense from any one, and have recently warned any African Union peace keepers thinking of entering to stay out or get mown down, and all the world’s navies have so far failed to provide protection in the endless Indian Ocean. Gate of tears all right.
5 comments:
The main US rating agency, Moody's, is too busy doing sex and drugs with the companies it is "rating" to notice. For all the business people wanting a clear and reliable guide to national solvency, however, it has been replaced. "Dagong," the new Chinese rating agency has produced such a table, with all the advantages Moody's no longer has. (See the first section of Half the Tiger Year, below.)
Adopting fashionable attitudes to demonstrate one’s trustworthiness -- the world of politics is flush with such people hoping thereby to qualify for inclusion in some inner circle -- is akin to engaging in prostitution in exchange for promissory notes. It’s not only demeaning but downright foolhardy.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175290/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_how_washington_rules__/
Haiti, with its fertile soil and hardworking people, is a fair example of what the system can reduce a place to, given a couple of centuries to work on it.
It is no accident that Churchill’s bust occupies places of honor in the White House.
While Britain still owned India, Churchill transported an entire Indian harvest to Britain, which was short of food, leaving millions of Indians to starve to death. His reaction? “Serve them right for breeding like rabbits.”
Primitive tribes, he believed, meaning primarily the Afghans, should simply be gassed, eliminated, like so many rabbits suffering from myxomatosis. Current US slaughter in Afghanistan he would not only approve of, but insist on intensifying.
Churchill's description of the Taliban in 1896, “radical students living on bread and onions supplied by the local population” is useful in demonstrating how long the Taliban have been trying to get the foreigners out of their country. Pakistan did not exist yet at the time.
Contemporary Pakistan supports the Taliban, and its leader Mullah Omar, but the ISI did not create it. It was there, by Churchill’s witness when he was a war correspondent in Afghanistan, long before Pakistan was.
The Durand line, the border between the twenty million Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, and the twenty million living in Pakistan, drawn by a nineteenth century British administrative official, has always been ignored by both.
The USA insistence on segregating Mullah Omar from any negotiations, and refusing Pakistan any place in negotiations, is a hopeless attempt to conjure up a “moderate Taliban,” is doomed to immediate failure, and is invariably immediately contradicted by Taliban spokespersons.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175311/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_invasion_of_the_democracy_crushers/#more
Haiti, with its fertile soil and hardworking people, is a fair example of what the system can reduce a place to, given a couple of centuries to work on it.
It is no accident that Churchill’s bust occupies places of honor in the White House.
While Britain still owned India, Churchill transported an entire Indian harvest to Britain, which was short of food, leaving millions of Indians to starve to death. His reaction? “Serve them right for breeding like rabbits.”
Primitive tribes, he believed, meaning primarily the Afghans, should simply be gassed, eliminated, like so many rabbits suffering from myxomatosis. Current US slaughter in Afghanistan he would not only approve of, but insist on intensifying.
Churchill's description of the Taliban in 1896, “radical students living on bread and onions supplied by the local population” is useful in demonstrating how long the Taliban have been trying to get the foreigners out of their country. Pakistan did not exist yet at the time.
Contemporary Pakistan supports the Taliban, and its leader Mullah Omar, but the ISI did not create it. It was there, by Churchill’s witness when he was a war correspondent in Afghanistan, long before Pakistan was.
The Durand line, the border between the twenty million Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, and the twenty million living in Pakistan, drawn by a nineteenth century British administrative official, has always been ignored by both.
The USA insistence on segregating Mullah Omar from any negotiations, and refusing Pakistan any place in negotiations, is a hopeless attempt to conjure up a “moderate Taliban,” is doomed to immediate failure, and is invariably immediately contradicted by Taliban spokespersons.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175311/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_invasion_of_the_democracy_crushers/#more
Continuation and update to Fasces and to Haiti is at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2010/11/3teatandwaragainsthumanity.html of November 1, 2010
completing the triangle,Haiti, Fasces, #3Teatandwar.
Post a Comment