We burnt a guy - of Donald Trump
Clowntown
Fuck-the-World Shitshow
I was unaware of the bloody guts of the Industrial
Revolution,
how slavery nourished my English childhood. Boarding
school
continued the charms of empire which I’ve been unable to repay.
What Did I Do to
Deserve This? I Always Tried to Be a Good Person Is This Because I Stole Candy
Once in 4th Grade Please Stop Punishing Us
Germans suffered from Allied bombing, Russian rape
tactics
secret police and defeat, but ordinary Germans also benefited
from an artificially induced higher standard of living.
I Don’t Even Believe
in Past Lives, But I Must Have Done Something Really Fucking Terrible in a Past
Life to Deserve This I’m Sorry I’m Sorry I’m Sorry
Hitler introduced huge tax breaks and social benefits,
never once raising taxes for working people. He rewarded
his soldiers with more than double the salaries of allied
troops.
America’s 3-D Imax
Shit-Fit Dumpster Fire
Like Greek mercenaries, looting was encouraged.
The Leningrad front sent home over 3 million packages of
plunder
in the first three months of 43 alone.
The Shit-Filled
Cornucopia That Just Keeps on Giving
Without conquest, a bankrupt war-mongering state, couldn’t nourish
the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, or build
the Acropolis and new Agora. Imperial tribute funded arts and poetry.
the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, or build
the Acropolis and new Agora. Imperial tribute funded arts and poetry.
The Electoral
Equivalent of Seeing Someone Puking, so You Start Puking, and Then Someone Else
Is Puking, and Pretty Soon Everyone Is Puking
Perikles’ great achievement, the Athenian Age, the
Classical Age
was democratic reform within the bounds of the few against
the many, and this shocked and unnerved enemies and allies.
Oh, I Get It: We All
Died, and This Is Hell, and Satan Has Cursed Us to Live Out This Nightmare for
All Eternity
Athens saw itself as a democracy when it was really ruled
by one man,
Perikles who stripped Athena's sacred treasure for the first
modern war.
Herodotus thought earlier conflicts were decided by heroes and the gods.
Herodotus thought earlier conflicts were decided by heroes and the gods.
America’s Shit Salad
Fuckstravaganza
Socrates fought bravely at Poteidaia, Delion and
Amphipolis,
was chair of assembly at the trial of the generals after
the naval battle
of Arginousai and was summoned for collaboration by the
Thirty.
The Fiery Two-Party
Pileup on the Hellbound Fuckspressway
Aristophanes hit the mark, Socrates was ugly, walked
barefoot in rags,
argued loudly and was a troublemaker for twenty-five
years.
Athens was ordinarily tolerant of such eccentric citizens.
America’s Fucktastic
Cirque de Dismay
Athenian democracy had some commitment to free speech and
diversity
of culture which worked against the totality of the
majority. You were one
of the 500 jurors, ordinary Athenian men over 30 - no
women or slaves.
A Horrifying Glimpse
at Satan’s Pinterest Board
Slaves were commonplace in ancient Greece, foreign barbarians
who spoke no Greek and suited by their nature to be slaves.
The enslavement of Messenia set Sparta apart. It just takes one
who spoke no Greek and suited by their nature to be slaves.
The enslavement of Messenia set Sparta apart. It just takes one
Lice on Rats on a
Horse Corpse on Fire
Notes:
‘. . . having room for far and near,
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it body and Soul to himself, hanging on its
neck with incomparable love,
Plunging his Semitic muscle into its merits and demerits,
Making its geography, cities, beginnings, events, glories,
defections, diversities, vocal in him.’ Walt Whitman, Poem of Many in One.
The word democracy is dangerous. As of 2010, The UN claimed
that ‘six countries are more democratic (Togo, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan,
Thailand and Montenegro) and eight are less democratic (Gabon, Lesotho,
Mauretania, Senegal, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain and Jordan).’ You can see
how quickly things change.
Balkin means by ‘transcendental terms like ‘justice’ or
‘democracy’:
1. a
value that can never be perfectly realised and against which all concrete
examples are incomplete;
2. a
value that appears as a demand or longing. It calls out for us to enact it in
our culture and institutions;
3. a
value that is inchoate and indeterminate, which is articulated through culture
but never fulfilled.
J. M. Balkin, Cultural Software, Yale UP, 1998
J. M. Balkin, Cultural Software, Yale UP, 1998
And long before Balkin, de Tocqueville had stressed the limitation
of ‘general ideas/abstract words’ arguing that an ‘abundance of abstract terms widens
the scope of thought and clouds it.’
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840
Not everyone is a fan. Borges supported the military
dictatorship of Videla and even Pinochet: "In and of itself a dictatorship
doesn't seem reprehensible, one has to consider the particular circumstances.
In itself empires don't seem to be wrong. The Roman Empire and the British
Empire did a lot of good. . . . For a long time I believed in democracy. Now I
don't believe in it; at least not in my own country.’ Speech made in Chile,
1976
Quotes in italics by John Oliver 2016
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