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[wg-review] New Athens or Washington.


Dictatorships of the Right are no different than ones of the Left.  Washington or Moscow?  Athens or Sparta?  The story is an old one, shall we learn from past mistakes or are we condemned to repeating them? 

The piece below is excerpted from "The Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides... this quote details events of circa 411BC and deals with the Oligarchic coup in ancient Athens. 

I have chosen to stress certain points in the text, thus all underlines/bolds/asterisks/brackets were added by me.

..."However, the Assembly and the  Council chosen by Ballot still convened,
although they discussed  nothing that was not approved of by the conspirators,
who both supplied  the speakers and reviewed in advance what they were to say.
Fear,
and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed the mouths
of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was presently
put to death in some convenient way, and there was neither search
for the murderers nor justice to be had against them if suspected;
but the people remained motionless, being so thoroughly cowed that
men thought themselves lucky to escape violence, even when they held
their tongues. An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the conspirators
also demoralized the people, rendered helpless by the magnitude of
the city, and by their want of intelligence with each other, and being
without means of finding out what those numbers really were. For this
same reason it was impossible for any one to open his grief to a neighbour
and to coordinate measures to defend himself, as he would have had to
speak either to one whom he did not know, or whom he knew but did
not trust. Indeed all the popular party approached each other with
suspicion, each thinking his neighbour concerned in what was going
on, the conspirators having in their ranks persons whom no one could
ever have believed capable of joining an oligarchy; and these it was
who made the many so suspicious, and so helped to procure impunity
for the few, by confirming the commons in their mistrust of one another.
(Now is this relevant or what?!)

At this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no
time in doing the rest. First they assembled the people, and moved
to elect ten commissioners with full powers to frame a constitution,
and that when this was done they should on an appointed day lay before
the people their opinion as to the best mode of governing the city.
(Wait till you hear what they proposed!)
Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed the assembly
in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile outside
the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this single
  motion, that *a
ny Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure
he pleased, heavy penalties being imposed upon any who should indict
for illegality, or otherwise molest him for so doing.
* (how's that for disregarding corporation codes!?!
The way thus cleared, it was now plainly declared that all tenure of office and
receipt of pay under the existing institutions were at an end, and
that five men must be elected as presidents, who should in their turn
elect one hundred, and each of the hundred three apiece; and that
this body thus made up to four hundred should enter the council chamber
with full powers and govern as they judged best, and should convene
the five thousand whenever they pleased.


The man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout
the chief ostensible agent in putting down the democracy. But he who
concerted the whole affair, and prepared the way for the catastrophe,
and who had given the greatest thought to the matter, was Antiphon (Joe Sims?!),
one of the best men of his day in Athens; who, with a head for contriving
laws and a tongue to recommend them, did not willingly come forward
in the assembly or upon any public scene, as he was  mistrusted by
the multitude owing to his reputation for cleverness
; and who yet was
the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly,
the suitors who required his opinion. Indeed, when he was afterwards
himself tried for his life on the charge of having been concerned
in setting up this very government,
when the Four Hundred were overthrown
and harshly dealt with by the commons, he made what would seem to be
the best defence of any known up to my time.
  (I wonder what the rest did?)
Phrynichus also went  beyond all others in his zeal for the oligarchy. Afraid of Alcibiades,
and assured that he was no stranger to his intrigues with Astyochus
at Samos, he held that no oligarchy was ever likely to restore him,
and once embarked in the enterprise, proved, where danger was to be
faced, by far the staunchest of them all. Theramenes, son of Hagnon,
was also one of the foremost of the subverters of the democracy- a
man as able in council as in debate. Conducted by so many and by such
sagacious heads, the enterprise, bold though it was,  succeeded;
although it was no light matter to deprive the Athenian
people of its freedom, almost a hundred years after the deposition
of the Tyrants, when it had not only
been free from any during
the whole of that period, but was accustomed during more than half of
it to rule over subjects of its own
."...

Does any of the foregoing sound familiar?  Make no mistake about it, history repeats itself, if we allow it!

The Enemy Within is always more dangerous than those outside your walls..

Sotiris Sotiropoulos
         Hermes Network, Inc. 
 









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