The Difference Between Old-Timey Fascists and What We Got Today

Hitler? Mussolini? Franco? Salazar? NONE of them are here?  #$%@!

There are fascists and then there are fascists, just like there are Baptists and then there are Baptists.  You know what I mean- the Baptists with the nice, big, whitewashed churches and friendly congregations of about 100-150 regulars don't have much in common with the Mega-Churches, which in turn have almost nothing in common with the strip-mall storefront "churches," who all look down their noses at the donated-trailer-with-the-misspelled-sign-on-wheels-just-off-County-Road-114a.  Oh sure, they all profess similar beliefs, are all lead by charismatic figures who do their best to support their ministries  by any means possible --my Dad used to call it "fleecing the flock" --but besides that, they differ by class, race, degree of involvement in their respective communities, reach of ministry, etc.

Likewise with fascists.  The tiki torch-carrying Proudboys of today really don't have much in common with the originators of the fascist brand.  And who and when and where were those proto proud boys of old, Ex Prof? -I hear you cry?  Come with me to Europe before, during and after The War To End All Wars, which totally almost was except for the fact that human beings are basically apes who wear clothes and really really reeeeeely like killing each other.  We will meet fashionistas who wear black shirts, fasionistas who wear brown ones, Italians, Austrians, Germans, and may even have a surprise visit from Babu Frik.

He-Heeeey, I Babu-Frik!*

*Babu Frick is a copyrighted character by Disney (who owns every-frik-in thing)

 and has NOTHING whatsoever to do with fascism, past, present, or a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

Umm, ok, let's go to Italy where all this fascist stuff started. In the early to mid 20th century, Italy's Fashista party emerged from an unlikely alliance between the Christian right, corporate elites, and ultra-nationalists. Their message of a "Mutilated Peace" found fertile ground in the hearts of Italian nationalists who were dissatisfied with the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, particularly with the disposition of the city of Fiume, an absurdly complicated problem which will be the subject of my next 40 pound book.  Out of this morass, a glib journalist and ex-socialist named Benito Mussolini emerged, and fascism was born.

Mussolini had a couple of talents that made him the ideal guy to drive the relatively new country of Italy --only in business since the 1870's --completely red-eyed, mouth-foaming, stiletto-stabbing bat shit crazy.  For one, he was a journalist who followed in the footsteps of Count Camillo Bensi di Cavour and the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, both of whom had a knack for inflaming the hearts of people already awash in nationalistic rhetoric.  What Mussolini brought to the table was fear- specifically, fear of a Bolshevik takeover in Italy.  After all, the Bolsheviks had taken over in Russia after the Great War, followed by a horrendous civil war; Communist parties in the former Turkish Empire, the United Kingdom and the United States had been founded and were proving very popular with their respective proletariat populations; and a Red revolution was expected daily in Wiemar Republic Germany.  So who would keep Italy safe? Mussolini and his Blackshirt followers answered: they would.

That would be the other thing Mussolini brought to the table: Il Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, a.k.a the Blackshirts (guess what color shirts THEY wore), a paramilitary group that included pissed-off retired soldiers, pissed-off unemployed guys, pissed-off guys that like beating other guys up, and one dude named Luigi Verconti who liked cannoli filled with sweet ricotta and thought that Mussolini's March on Rome in March in 1922 was just a bunch of guys on the hunt for better cannoli than could be found at his local pasticceria -which had run out of them anyway --so he just tagged along with them for the next 23 years.  Actually, the March on Rome was the critical confluence of fear, hatred,violence, ultra-nationalism, militarism and blind obedience.  Once it was over, King Vitorio Emanuel III cashired the current prime minister and asked Mussolini and his Fascist party to form a government.  The wolf was now in charge of the sheep.

It's-a me, Benito, back whenna I had-a
hair!  Woo-Hoo!

If you were an average Italian in March of 1922, you might have seen things differently.  You would have been really afraid of the violent strikes that shut down the Fiat automobile plant and saw workers occupy major factories in Rome, Turin and Milan during the so-called Red Two Years (1919-1920).  If you were a practicing Catholic, the prospect of atheistic Communists ruling Italy was especially appalling.  You might also have had a problem with the Versailles Treaty.  Itally did not get nearly as much as France and Britain did, yet they did most of the dying along the Austrian front during the war.  You may have liked the talk of reviving Italy's greatness (remember the Roman Empire?) and you probably would have welcomed those Blackshirts with their long knives as saviors.  Really.

Across the Alps, Germany was desperately trying to come to terms with some rough terms.  Under the Treaties of Versailles, Germany had to give up quite a lot: her overseas colonies, air force, big-ass battleships, most of their army, and- here was the bitter pill- the province of Alsace-Lorraine on the French border.  Ok ok, Germany had gotten this real estate originally from France after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, but hey, most of the people who live there spoke German and wasn't it a part of the Holy Roman (i.e. German) Empire back in the day?  But to the proud Germans, the very worst term in the whole treaty, the part roundly hated by Bavarians, Prussians and Holsteiners alike, had to be the so-called "war guilt" clause.

Article 231 of the Treaty stated:

"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Any student of history will tell you that history class really sucked.  They'll also tell you that there were a bunch of causes for WWI including three wars in the Balkans, colonial rivalries, pan-Slavism, militarism, socialism, social-Darwinism, antidisestablishmentarianism, and plagiarism (ok maybe not the last two).  The point is that the Allies were total dicks in putting this clause in when they were just as much to blame for WWI as the Central Powers were.  Add this rage to the post-war German zeitgeist of fear, disillusionment, anger and resentment and you've got a toxic social/political cauldron just bubbling away.

...and furthermore, we shall all use Article 231 as bum-wadden for our Scheisses

Into this morass drifts an Austrian national, Adolph Hitler.  Everything about his early career had "Future Loser of the 20th Century" written all over it.  He hated school because he was constantly beaten for breaking the strict rules.  He hated his father for beating him because he broke school rules.  He hated the technical school his father later enrolled Hitler in because he wanted to be an artist.  He hated Vienna because he failed to get into the Arts Institute so he could become a painter.  He hated the menial work he did; hated the flophouses he lived in.  The only things he seemed to like were operas by Richard Wagner (the composer of Die Valkuri, the opera that gave us the immortal expression, "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings")  Lucky for Hitler, WWI was about to give him something else to like, and lots of someones  to hate.

"Laaaaaa...! Nope, not yet! Laaaaaa!"

For some weird reason, Hitler served in the German army during WWI instead of the Austro-Hungarian army -remember he was an Austrian citizen -but Germany let him anyway.  A brief aside here: the Austrians are often called the smartest people in the world because they made Beethoven (German) an Austrian, and Hitler (Austrian) a German.  But I digress.  In the army, Hitler's job was a dispatch runner, carrying orders and official stuff from headquarters to the forward trenches.  He saw action in some pretty hairy battles, was wounded, got awarded a couple of medals,  and by all accounts liked being in the army.  Which is why Germany's defeat hit him pretty hard.  It was about this time that Hitler probably began to believe the "Stab in the Back" conspiracy theory, which ran something like this:

1. Germany is great, so Germany always wins; but
2. Germany lost WWI; so
3. Germany must have been stabbed-in-the-back by
   a. Communists
   b. Jews
   c. degenerates
   d. Jews
   e. Jews

To be fair, lots of people believed this and lots of people were talking about it, and Germany had a long, well entrenched history of hating the Jews ever since the Jews first wandered into Germany probably as slaves or Roman mercenaries or merchants or bakers specializing in bagels, rugelah, challah bread, matzohs, chocolate babka -pardon my drool -so that makes it ok, right?  Nope, hating someone hard and long enough eventually makes you think it's ok to hurt or kill them, so STOP  HATING EVERYBODY RIGHT FRIK-IN NOW!

He-Heeeeyy, I Babu Frik*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character from the Star Wars universe which Disney owns (yup, a whole frik-in universe)

 and is in NO WAYat ALL associated with hate against any sentient being(s) in the entire multiverse, 

even the bits that Disney doesn't own -yet.

Still in the army and living in Bavaria after the war, Hitler came across a political party that didn't have any members -it only had a board of directors- called the National Socialist German Worker's Party (the DAP).  Tasked by the army to infiltrate its ranks, Hitler discovered two things: one was the DAP shared his antisemitic beliefs; the other was that he had a way with words.  My Arizona cousin would tell you that Hitler "could talk a buzzard off of an entire Interstate's worth of roadkill."  This was exactly what the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei needed more than anything: members.  After hearing Hitler speechify, the crowds in the Bavarian beer halls where the DAP did most of their recruiting literally fell all over themselves joining up.  The time seemed right for bold and divisive action: The DAP would overthrow the Bavarian state government and... I guess take over the world next?  What could possibly go wrong with such a brilliant plan?  -are you thinking the same think I'm thinking, Pinky?

I think so Brain, but what would
Megan Markle do with so many
pounds of  Gorgonzola? Narf! Poit!

It turns out, everything that could have gone wrong actually did go wrong.  Hitler and his DAP buddies were arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison.  Seems that the Bavarian police were competent enough to notice an armed coup happening in broad daylight, and the state prosecutor agreed to finish his beer and schnitzel after Hitler was locked up, so now Hitler had plenty of free time to write a book, Mein Kampf, wherein he planned in horribly specific detail how to take over the world.  Cue the "Pinky and the Brain" theme music.  

It was also partly now, partly later, that Mussolini and Hitler both begin to actively work out just what it means to be a fascist.  Mind you, lots of other people from lots of other countries had a hand in fleshing-out this new 20th Century abomination, but let's give credit where it is due.  Fascists are, first and foremost, nationalistic, way-way-way too nationalistic in fact.  Not only would they die for their country --they'd kill for it too.  Lots of people.  All people who weren't as ultra-nationalistic as they were.  Or were different, either racially or ethnically.  Fascists were thus really crazy about identifying just who is US and who is THEM.  This is an important distinction, because the US are the masters, and the THEM are the slaves.  In Italy this played out mainly in North and East Africa where Italian armies tightened their grip on Libya and defeated Haile Selassie's less mechanized army in Ethiopia.  

"So what if the Italians have tanks and planes? We've got... wait, what?  I'm out."

German fascism took the US and THEM distinction further, however and added a new category: NOBODY.  This group of people didn't even count as people.  They included Jews, Romani, homosexuals, mentally and physically retarded people.  German fascists held that these were not people in the strict sense- they were corruptions of humanity -and as such should be exterminated less they pollute the so-called pure Nordic Aryan race that German fascists believed were humanity's master race.

Fascists were also expected to do their duty with unquestioning loyalty.  The fascist state, through its supreme leader, is what informs people of what their duty is, and also what punishes people for not doing their duty.  In order to accomplish this task, the fascist state must be able to know what its citizens are doing at all times, and must be able to communicate to its citizens constantly.  It does this by using lots of police, both regular and secret police, and a larger network of domestic spies and informers.  Communication is done on a massive scale and is usually one-way, using print, photographic, cinema, architecture and the arts.  A society that exercises such a great deal of control over its citizens has been termed Totalitarian; however, not all totalitarian societies have fascist governments.  China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union are communist totalitarian countries, whereas Germany, Italy, Portugal and the puppet-states that Nazi Germany created all over Europe were fascist totalitarian states.  

What differentiates the communists from the fascists is macro-economics.  Fascist governments enforce private property rights, even though productive capacity may be called on to serve state ends.  In Germany, Alfred Krupp's vast iron works made all the heavy armaments the fascist state used during WWII, but the iron works themselves stayed in Krupp's hands.  And yes,l Krupp got obscenely rich as a result of all those munitions orders.  In communist USSR, the state owned all means of production and distribution, so no individual factory owners got rich off of Society Red Army tank orders.  But neither did the workers, either- they made just enough to keep them alive and working.  

No bourgeois exploiters of the proletariat were enriched by these lovely weapons.

Now, onto the difference between today's fascists and those of yesteryear.  Today's fascists really like the pageantry and a lot of the rhetoric of mostly German Nazi fascism.  Try as I did, I wasn't able to find much love for Mussolini amongst the 8-chan and dark-web hate group crowd.  What the current crop falls for are all the bogus racial theories and antisemitism.  In the USA, African-Americans and Latino-Americans have been added to the list of sub-humans, as well as practicing Muslims of whatever racial background.  Some groups also hate on Indians (East and Native), Chinese, Mongoloid Asians, and Pacific Islanders.  Extermination isn't as popular a solution, however; contemporary hate groups are down with individual murders, mass deportations and wholesale exclusions.  Thankfully (?) their "Final Solution" features a big-ass wall between the U.S. and Mexico instead of gas chambers.  21st Century fascists also like alpha-dog leaders, which helps to explain the appeal of Donald Trump and the current rogue's gallery of  tin plated dictators around the world.  

There are a number of frightening developments, however.  Remember the alliance between capitalists and fascists in Germany and Italy?  Those industrial capitalists were at their collective wit's end in the 20's-30's with the Great Depression.  Today's capitalists personally hold more wealth than even our friend, Albert Krupp had if you adjust for currency inflation.  These capitalists have enacted laws, bought lawmakers and judges, and even launched their own propaganda blitzkrieg.  In America today, there is an attack underway against legitimate media outlets, an attack lead by the current President.  At the same time, low-level fascist messaging and authoritarian rhetoric is spewed-out on talk-radio and cabel tv's Fox News.  The President's lies and attacks on American democratic institutions are aided and abetted by so-called conservatives and the so-called religious evangelical community. 

"F is for FOX News.  -and for Frickin' Democrats and f*ckin' lying CNN"

HehHEYYY!  I Babu Frik!*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character
totally frik-in owned by Disney and
has NOTHING to do with FOX "News"
or Don "The Con" Trump

Just as in Germany and Italy, the U.S. President came to power in an election, with one important difference: he had the advantage of Russian intelligence help.  While there was already a groundswell of support for Trump's brand of authoritarianism, there are doubts as to whether or not he would have been as successful without Russian aid.  There are parallels here to V. I. Lenin getting material help from Germany in 1916-1917 for his return to Russia which ultimately lead to Russia pulling out of the Allied side in WW I.  Although this German success did not end in ultimate German victory, it was a success nonetheless.  And while Trump has not given Russia as free a hand in the world as they would like, he has succeeded in tying up U.S. aid to the Ukraine, a move that resulted in his impeachment.

Trump also has allies in Congress and the Judiciary.  House and Senate Republicans mostly toe the Trump line because they are afraid they'll get tweeted-at and face political backlash at home from FOX News-brainwashed voters.  Trump's judicial support stems from the great number of federal judges he has appointed, all of whom were vetted by the ultra-conservative pressure group, the Heritage Foundation.  And since the Senate, which is Republican controlled at the moment, has the power to confirm judicial appointments, an alarming number of judges within ultra-conservative credentials and authoritarian leanings are in place at a number of levels within the federal judiciary.  This fact alone will influence American civil life for a generation to come.

More puzzling is our fascist dog-whistler's popularity with Evangelical Christian groups.  One would think that a political figure with his documented moral lapses would have no religious support at all.  If one digs a little deeper into these insular, authoritarian-friendly groups, the picture becomes clearer.  Evangel Christians in the U.S. are even more splintered than the Baptists at the beginning of this post, but they have a few core beliefs in common.  The first and foremost is an abiding distrust of the U.S. government, which they see as either in the thrall of zionists, or is at least unfriendly towards their brand of Christianity.  While this is not new --Mormons fought pitched battles against U.S. soldiers in the 19th century --the degree of distrust has broadened and deepened.  Another core belief is in forgiveness.  The way this plays out with Trump is they see a massively flawed figure who needs only to confess his sins, act contrite, and then then, through the grace of God, he will be worthy to lead them.  Fascist dictators are adept at exploiting this simple faith: as long as they parrot religious rhetoric and declare opposition to, say abortion, then he can count on their support.  Evangelicals also feel threatened by the science and education communities- science because it contradicts their literal reading of the Bible, and public education because of their inability to teach the Word.  This is a feeling shared by fascist dictators.  A citizenry of well educated people are difficult to control.  And scientists are just as difficult, because they are really good at seeing through a dictator's lies.  

"And while it IS true I hate educated, sciencey dipshits, I love Liberty U. because it's just a diploma mill for idiots"

Lastly, evangelicals believe in a flaky scenario called the End Times.  We supposedly live in those times right now.  Essentially, it's John of Patmos' scary pop-up Book of Revelations come to life.  I encourage you to read it while smoking weed.  All kinds of strife and turmoil will happen, as well as some crazy A.F. shit straight from the special effects department, all ending in Jesus Christ coming back and ruling (over a vastly depleted human population and a totally destroyed planet Earth) for a thousand years.  And Trump figures into this frickin' nightmare somehow.

Finally, old-timey fascists were all confined to Europe, but today, thanks to the Internet, fascists are spread out all over the world.  The good news is that fascism is still an unpopular political belief- that whole WW II thing.  The bad news is that with the growing rise of authoritarianism in the West, fascists are feeling emboldened to come out of the shadows.  It is beginning to feel more and more like the end of the world just MIGHT be at hand, what with an authoritarian leaders in Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and the United States all having the ability to launch nuclear missiles.  I'm pretty sure that even the neo-fascists of today don't relish the prospect of dying in a hydrogen bomb blast.

I know that I sure don't.  And probably that frikkin guy down there doesn't want to go that way either.

"HehHeyyyy, I Babu Frik!"*

*Babu Frik is etc.  etc.  yadda-yadda
and is definately NOT Jesus the Christ.
Really.  wink-wink

Don't Mess With Pro Sports!

For the LAST TIME,  football players ARE NOT EXEMPT from exams!

Today's post is a cautionary one for any orange-tinged, extravagantly combed-over so-called political leaders that might --just might --try messing with professional sports in their country in an attempt to distract the citizens from the things that matter most: good government, competent leaders, pro sports, and drinking beer while watching pro sports.

Soooo, how long HAVE you been a Broncos fan, Mr. Incredible Hulk?

You see, people the world over are really attached to their professional sports teams.  They enjoy the social aspect of gathering together in a huge crowd, watching athletes play a kid's game and almost murder each other in the process.  Sports were big in ancient times, too.  Take the Ancient Romans for example.  They enjoyed horse racing, gladiator fights, public executions and animal-on-human fights to the death.

Public games were initially associated with funeral rites for important people but, over time, these public spectacles became an integral part of Rome's political life.  Rich people and powerful politicians would sponsor the games which also included free food for Rome's poorest citizens.  The games served an important social purpose, as they were used to distract the plebeians, Rome's working class, from their humdrum existence so that they wouldn't revolt (to read what happened when the plebeians DID revolt, click here).  On one memorable occasion, games were used to try and "spin" an assassination.  Brutus was one of Julius Caesar's assassins.  To get the people of Rome to forget that and just move on, he sponsored a lavish series of games.  Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, sponsored an EVEN MORE KICK-ASS series of games so that the Romans WOULDN'T  forget and forgive.  Since Octavian became Rome's first Emperor and Brutus did not, one is left to conclude that the games had a pivotal role in shaping public opinion.

  As Roman society began its long period of moral decline, writers like Juvenal had occasion to lament the popularity of the games at the expense of civic engagement: 

"...the public has long since cast off its cares;

 for the people that once bestowed commands,

 consulships, legions, and all else, now cares no 

more and longs eagerly for just two things:

 bread and circuses."

-Juvenal, Satire #10

Rome also had a very robust tradition of professional equestrian sports, including individual horse racing, chariot racing, and one combined event that started out as a horse race, but halfway through, the jockey dismounted and finished the race on foot.  Chariot racing was a hybrid of individual and team effort.   The chariot itself had only one driver, but was supported by chariot wrights, wheelwrights, stable owners, horse trainers and such.  As a sport, it was  really exciting to watch --more so than today's NASCAR races -- and each racing team had its own fan base, or demes, which were identified by the color uniform the charioteer wore.  In Rome, the demes were the Blues, Greens, Reds, and Whites.  By the time of Rome's successor empire, the Byzantines, only the Blues and Greens had any real influence on the sport or on Byzantine society.  And it is with the sport of chariot racing at the Constantinople Hippodrome that I turn to next in this cautionary political tale.  

"Swan boinked my baby!"

In A.D. 532, Byzantium's Emperor was Justinian I.  To say he was an unpopular political figure was putting it mildly.  The empire struggled under taxes that were so high because of Justinian's foreign wars against the Persians; Byzantine nobles hated Justinian because of his hostility towards them and his supposed love for the common people; the commoners hated him because he had married a woman whose father was a circus animal trainer, and who herself was a prostitute/exotic dancer whose act was so raunchy that even I won't describe it here.  Suffice it to say that she presented an artistic and anatomically correct interpretation of Leda and the Swan, a story from Greek mythology where Zeus changes into a swan so he can boink the lovely and mortal Leda on the down-low.  Not being judgey or anything, but the Byzantine Empire was supposed to be officially Christian, and if immortal-on-mortal bestiality was okay with Justinian, maybe there was a problem at the top.  

On January 13, 532 a large, pissed-off crowd assembled at the Hippodrome to watch the races --yeah right, they were there to cause trouble.  By the 14th race, the crowd had given up all pretense of cheering and had instead taken up the cry of "Nika! Nika!"--Greek for Victory! or Conquer! --hurling insults at the Royal Box, then hurling rocks and small children.  They then set a bunch of fires, killed a bunch of soldiers, and attacked the palace.

"Yay team! Good race!  Now: who wants to riot in the streets?"

At about this point in the narrative, you might be asking yourself, "Why was the crowd so pissed-off in the first place --I mean besides the fact that Justinian was such a dick?" Well, during a small, regular, normal riot earlier that month, a bunch of Green and Blue demes had murdered each other and the survivors got arrested.  One of the arrested Greens and one of the Blues escaped on January 10, ran to a church and claimed sanctuary.  In an attempt to kiss Green and Blue ass, Justinian commuted the escapees' punishment to life in prison instead of death, which only further enraged both factions, because they wanted charges dropped entirely.  Add this to the high taxes and the trampy Empress, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

By now, with his palace under siege, his army defecting and his Senate backing a replacement emperor, Justinian quite sensibly grabbed a bunch of gold and jewels, loaded up a boat with anything valuable that wasn't bolted down, and was just about ready to sail when Theodora barged in and delivered the performance of her life:

"Oh, and did I mention that I look
bitchin' in purple?

"In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud."

Thus fired-up, Justinian gathered his remaining loyal troops and slaughtered about 30,000 people, but none of that would have been necessary if Justinian didn't mess with sports fans in the first place.

We live in a world today where the President of the United States picks fights with the entire National Football League, with winning basketball and baseball teams, with college teams, with individual star players --hey, I'm waiting for him to tweet some smack about my nephew's middle school soccer team next. He'd better cut it out now --not just for the good of the game or for the good of the nation, but for his own good too. Because if he doesn't, Trump could be chased from the Oval Office by a bunch of pissed-off fans. And I don't see Melania doing anything about it a la Theodora.

"I'm outta here, losers!"

Relax. It's Not the End of the World

Evangelical Christians, who I have a lot of fun with only they don't know it, believe that Donald Trump's election is one of the heralds of something they like to call "The End Times."  Based on a totally sideways reading of the Book of Revelations,  it's a time when the world will be divided up into warring nations all following false prophets, the environment gets wrecked, some kind of beast shows up (Roseann Barr?) as does Jesus, everybody living and dead will be judged, and 1,000 years of peace and prosperity will follow -no word of what happens January 1 of year 1,001.  To answer this claim, I quote the late 20th century philosophers Frankie Goes to Hollywood and say, "Relax."  Sure, things aren't too spiffy now, but we -as in humanity -have been here before.  And we've pulled through.

It's me, Akhenaten, and really not an alien

Take the New Kingdom period in Egyptian history.  Things were finally looking up for the Two Lands: foreign invaders had been repulsed, monumental building projects resumed, the weather cooperated, and all looked peachy keen.  Until the reign of Amenhotep IV.  Five years into his rule, the Big A got this crazy idea that Egypt's polytheistic religion was a bunch of water buffalo poop and decided to do something about it.  He closed all the temples except the sun god Aten's,  moved the capital from Thebes to a city he was in the process of building, changed his name to Akhenaten (Everything's Great with Aten), and spent all his time bonking his wife, the fabulously beautiful Nefertiti.  Well, you can imagine what happened next! All the out of work priests were pissed, the people were terrified of offending the traditional gods, the new capital at Samarna royally sucked, and Nefertiti got bored with the Big A and took up papyrus origami.  If it wasn't the end of the world, it was pretty darn close.

Luckily, Akhenaten died and after a fumble or two the throne wound up in the hands of an eight year old boy called Tutankhamun -King Tut to you and me.  Now the Egyptians were really screwed, right?  It turns out no, because Tut's vizier was a capable career civil servant named Ay who really had a knack for ruling.  Under Tut/Ay, the capital was moved back to Thebes and the temples reopened, which earned the priestly class' undying gratitude.  And so things went on swimmingly on the banks of the Nile, right up until the 1180's BC, the next time the world turned into a festering pool of excrement.

For many reasons way too obscure to go into here, the entire greater Mediterranean world fell completely apart in the late Bronze Age.  How bad was it?  The Egyptians were totally whupped by a bunch of nasties collectively called the Sea Peoples, but that's not all.  Troy fell -for the fourth or fifth time, I lose track -Mycenaean Greece entered the Dark Ages, the Hittite Empire vanished, Assyria and Babylon were trashed, and even the mighty Phoenicians left town for Carthage, safely far away in present-day Tunisia.  Not one, but several end-of-the-world scenarios were being played out during this time.

Hey, we're the Sea Peoples.  So, Egypt... wassup?

However, eventually the Greeks got it together and invented philosophy, drama, democracy and baklava.  In Mesopotamia, the Persians put together the largest empire humans had managed to create up until that time.  It turned out that the move to Carthage was just what the Phoenicians needed, because they got staggeringly rich pedaling dye, grain, wine, olive oil and adult marital aids all over the known world.  And although Egypt wasn't the world-striding colossus it was during Ramses the Great's time, at least it turned into a peaceful backwater.

Let us next consider Rome, though let's skip the Grandeur part and go right into the Decline and Fall.  After Emperor Marcus Aurelius went on to join his family ghosts on the Elysian Fields, the Roman Empire lurched from one crisis to the next until the whole shebang wrenched apart and the Western half folded like a chump holding only a pair of sevens in a Texas hold 'em game.  Sure, the Eastern half would keep the lights on until the 1453, but for everybody in Spain, Italy, France, England and other smaller bits of Europe, life was shit that just kept on getting shittier.  Barbarians?  You bet: Huns, Vandals, Goths and Picts.  Disease? Yup.  Starvation and hopelessness? Ditto.  End of the world?  Not quite.

Know why it was called the Dark Ages? Because of all the KNIGHTS!!  Bwa-Ha-Ha!

For all the headaches of Western Europe's so-called Dark Ages, a vibrant culture emerged commonly called the Medieval world.  Knights, ladies, monasteries, great cathedrals and tales of chivalry were all hallmarks of this period.  Granted, life was difficult, but it went on all the same.  During this time, the seeds of all the wonderful qualities of Western Civilization were sewn: scientific inquiry, commercial capitalism, nation-states, engineering and exploration.  Democratic liberalism and rational medical treatment still had a long way to go, but at least they were on the right track.  The society produced was even strong enough to survive a series of events that, to their contemporaries in the 1300's, really did look like the end of the world.

In 1347, a merchant ship pulled into Genoa harbor from a trading post on the Black Sea.  The boat had left under fire from the Tatars who were besieging the port.  Among its cargo was the deadly virus Yersinia Pestis, a disease carried by the fleas that infest rodents like rats, mice, gerbils and hamsters, but can also attack humans.  The disease hit Southern Europe with the force of a bomb blast.  After several years of increasingly deadly outbreaks, 30-60% of Europe's population died.  For those that survived, their world view was warped by so much death, starvation, war and sickness that one wonders today how they found the strength to go on.  End of the world yet?  Close, but not yet.

Renaissance Man: six-pack abs and stone junk

Europe shook off the death shroud and donned a cloak of real radiance during the Renaissance
period.  Painters sculptors, poets, playwrights, businessmen, kings, princes, Popes, adventurers and even some ordinary people burst forth in an explosion of creativity whose echoes are still being felt today.  That's really what I admire the most about humanity: push us to the limit and we often show you human spirit at its best.  Granted, the Renaissance was mostly a cultural movement of Europe's political and social elites, but in cities like Florence, Italy, individual citizens were becoming important and valued for their contributions to society.  The years that followed were crowned by scientific achievements in industry and medicine, increasingly participatory governments and even greater artistic creativity, until it all almost destroyed itself in the 20th Century.


Starting with the Great War in 1914 and pausing at the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the blood-soaked 20th Century  actually had the ability to bring about the end of the world as we know it.  World Wars I and II brought industrial efficiency to the practice of killing soldiers and non-combatants alike, with  such crackerjack tech as the machine gun, attack aircraft, poison gas and submarines, finishing up with ballistic missiles and atomic bombs.  The ensuing so-called Cold War brought about a horrifying build-up and proliferation of ever more powerful atomic weapons and rocket delivery devices.  For the first time, humans had the ability to kill off entire populations within hours and to poison the whole planet with radioactive fallout.  Scientists even postulated a "nuclear winter" scenario affecting the climate, leading to mass species extinctions not seen since the KT-Boundary extinction event that wiped out the large land dinosaurs.  End of the world?  Believe it or not, no.

As of this writing, the world and humanity are open for business.  Since 1945, not one nuclear bomb has been used in war, although the USSR and USA came close during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I am also pleased to report that we have passed the dates for the end of the world set by the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mayans and the Heaven's Gate cult.  That said, there are some ominous signs: drug resistant diseases, climate change, the proliferation of radical politics, and the growth of intolerant hate groups.  But there are some hopeful signs as well: recognition of the human role in climate change and the first attempts to slow down and mitigate the damage; the growth of multi-racial, multi-ethnic nations and families; advances in communications technology that literally puts in your pocket the ability to talk to the whole world, at least one person at a time. 

Sorry my evangelical friends. Donald Trump, although he has a highly inflated opinion of himself, isn't the end of the world.  When or if it ever comes, the real end of the world will be way more bigly, really yuge, believe me!

Now?  Is it the End yet?  Ready for me?  Sigh...

It's Time to Go All-Roman

We have reached the point in the country's latest war --the war on everybody who doesn't make a million bucks net per year --where one side or the other has got to give in.  On the right, there is 1% of the population who owns, I dunno, about 22% of everything worth anything in the entire United States, including 90% of the Senate, 99.33% of the House of Representatives, and 5/4ths of the Supreme Court.  Just slightly to the left are the other 9% of the top 10% who own, according to CNN, about 65% of the rest of the country's wealth, including just about all the rest of government, industry, farming, manufacturing --you get the picture.  On the left, we have 90% of Americans (plus all those undocumented workers who work for the top 10% under the table) who own about 23% of America's wealth, including Senators Boxer and Sanders (D-CA and D-VT respectively), US Representative Nikki Tsongas (D-3rd Cong. Dist. MA) and maaaybe one other Congressman from either Ohio or Michigan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her more lucid days, President Obama, but not on his golfing days -or when he's busy making a speech after the latest mass killing -or when Michele, a.k.a. The Flotus, is bugging him about all the fat kids in America -or on days when he's forced to grovel before the Republican Congress to, like, KEEP  THE  UNITED  STATES  OPEN.  Oh yeah, and a Taco Bell in Fresno.  Oh, and a couple of late model Chevys and one Subaru.

To be fair, it looked a whole lot better back when I had a job

I know what you're thinking: if it was a tug-'o-war instead of a class war, the left would totally kick ass.  There is one small problem: this ain't no tug-'o-war.

"Over? Did you say it's over?"

You see, the right has managed to buy the media, government, legal establishment (except for one legal aid clinic in Newark, NJ), the police, the military, the health care industry, all the farms and grazing ranges, all the mines, oil wells, and even most of the other 90%, or at least the 90% who work for the 10% and are regularly cowed into silence by the ever looming threat of unemployment.

To put this in perspective, the unequal distribution of wealth in contemporary American society far surpasses even that of France's Ancien Régime just before Louis XVI literally lost his head during the French Revolution.  So is this our fate?  Must we set up la guillotine in places where Occupy America, um, protesters pitched their quaint camps and go 10% head huntin'?  I think not.  For one thing, Americans don't go in for killing people unless they do it with one or more of their legally owned, Constitutionally protected guns that take clips of 20+ rounds.  For another thing, the downtrodden of today can institute meaningful economic and social change by doing as the Romans did a couple thousand of years ago: leave.

The year was 494 BCE; the place was what was then modern Rome, but is in fact that which we today call ancient Rome (try translating that tortured syntax into Latin!)  The Roman underclass, the so called Plebeians, were sick and tired of getting shafted by the Roman 10%-ers, the so called Patricians.  I mean, they were paid literally in bread and salt, had no legal rights, couldn't even run off and join the army, and had literally had it up to here, when some wily Plebeian had a stroke of genius: let's all just fuck off and leave the stupid Patricians to fend for themselves.  Which they then proceeded to do,  The whole lot of them -men, women, children, old folks, transvestites and a dog named Rex -left Rome and set up camp on the nearby Sacred Mount.  Days, then weeks went by, Patricians in their nearly empty city, all eyes on the Plebeians, who in turn watched the Patricians, who finally freaked-out when somebody started a rumor that the Gauls were on the way to administer a little elective surgery upon the persons of the Patricians.  In short, they caved-in, gave the Plebeians rights, officials called Tribunes and welcomed them back with open arms.

So here's my plan for today: how about the entire 90% of America go on vacation for a whole month, all at the same time!  We could all go to Mexico, unless the undocumented bunch want to go somewhere else like, um, Canada.  We'll all pool our meager resources and rent a nice but not too expensive thousand square miles of Manitoba for the month, eat breakfast at Tim Horton's every day, watch hockey every night, say "eh" a lot, and watch the CBC for reports of how those spoiled rich bitches and bastards are doing back in the States.  I just bet that Paris Hilton will crumple in the first hour, Kanye West might make it a week, and that blow-hardest of the blowhards, Donald Trump, will be Donald-please-oh-please-come-home-you-losers by the end of week two.

So, who's with me?