[Peace-discuss] Venice & misleaders

Sun Jan 23 09:12:55 CST 2011

B that as it may, the task is to call things by their right names.

Our state-worship is such that we can be horrified by the killing of 
nine-year-old and others in Tucson and not even notice that the government we're 
supposed to be responsible for killed a child just like her at the same time.  
(But we were stopping terrorism.)

I'm not suggesting a new do(d)ge for restricting political responsibility.  I am 
appalled that Bush and Blair - and Obama, Clinton, et al. back to Reagan and 
Thatcher and many more are honored without recognition of what they've done.

But we misunderestimate the problem if we think a Blair Witch Hunt can solve 
it.  It's a peculiarly 20th-century infantilism to think that the crimes of our 
governments can be reduced to the machinations of a few evil people.  Were that 
true, the solution would be evident - but it's been tried, without notable success.

A now-forgotten historian wrote of a now-forgotten politician, "He had a head to 
contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief." Such people 
seem to turn up with a certain regularity. Chomsky said in the first speech I 
ever heard him give, "Unfortunately you can't vote the rascals out, because you 
never voted them in, in the first place ... these people remain in power no 
matter whom you elect and furthermore it is interesting to note that this ruling 
elite is pretty clear about its social role."

But I don't get the reference(s) in your last paragraph. Elucidation, please? --CGE

On 1/23/11 5:12 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> No doubt Sgnr. Faletro donated a few pints of blood along with his pounds of 
> flesh.
>
> Cry Havoc! and bind the Doges of War.
>
> It would betimes be behooving to behead bastards that behave as Blair, Bush, 
> and o'Bama,
> but once such a "Blair Witch Hunt" begins, there is some trouble in getting it 
> shut down.
>
> P. regina and her cousin Lucilia can do a nice job cleaning up similar rot,
> but her tactics can seem a bit repulsive,
> and sooner or later, she too must be evicted along with her little ones.
>
>
> On 1/23/2011 5:13 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> ["...one of the—maybe the most—elementary of moral principles is that of 
>> universality, that is, If something’s right for me, it’s right for you; if 
>> it’s wrong for you, it’s wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth 
>> looking at has that at its core somehow. But that principle is overwhelmingly 
>> disregarded all the time. If you want to run through examples we can easily 
>> do it. Take, say, George W. Bush ... If you apply the standards that we 
>> applied to Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, he’d be hanged. Is it an even 
>> conceivable possibility? It’s not even discussable. Because we don’t apply to 
>> ourselves the principles we apply to others." --Noam Chomsky]
>>
>> They used to behead men like Tony Blair
>> As former PM goes back before the Iraq Inquiry,
>> Crispin Black shares his thoughts on retribution
>> By Crispin Black
>> LAST UPDATED 7:49 AM, JANUARY 21, 2011
>>
>> Go to Venice to see how a vigorous state, proud of its democratic system of 
>> government, dealt with a ruler who sought illegally to concentrate supreme 
>> decision-making power to himself alone. To be precise, go to the hall of the 
>> Maggior Consiglio in the Doge's Palace.
>> Drag your eyes away from Tintoretto's astonishing Paradise, which covers the 
>> end wall, and look up to your left at the frieze of portraits showing the 
>> first 76 Doges.
>> Where there should be a representation of Marino Faliero (Doge 1354-55) there 
>> is instead a painted black veil bearing the words: 'Hic est locus Marini 
>> Faletro decapitati pro criminibus' - 'This is the place of Marino Faliero, 
>> beheaded for his crimes'.
>> The whole device was designed as a powerful and permanent warning, not to 
>> Venice's people - they were not allowed in the chamber - but to Venice's 
>> ruling elite.
>> Faliero was a distinguished military leader, elected Doge when 75 years old, 
>> but with a solipsistic contempt for the petty laws, customs and state offices 
>> the Venetian Republic had evolved in its first 500 years to limit the power 
>> of its elected head of state.
>> He judged that Venice would be better ruled by him alone as Prince, maybe 
>> with the help of one or two chums. The plot was uncovered by the Council of 
>> Ten (roughly equivalent to the modern cabinet) who in alliance with Venice's 
>> magistrates and its chiefs of police (the evocatively named Signori di Notte) 
>> moved with extraordinary speed and confidence.
>>
>> The conspirators, including Faliero, were arrested, tried and sentenced 
>> within 48 hours. In addition to the penalty for treason customary in the less 
>> politically correct 14th Century, the Republic saw fit to confiscate all of 
>> Faliero's considerable wealth, except for a small legacy of 2,000 ducats to 
>> his widow.
>> Fast forward 650 years to a United Kingdom trying to hold a political leader 
>> to account for deciding apparently by himself to prosecute a probably illegal 
>> war.
>> Along the way this leader concluded what amounted to a secret treaty with a 
>> foreign power to allow them unrestricted use of our armed forces - without 
>> the authority of either Cabinet or Parliament - but because, in his judgment, 
>> it was a good idea.
>> Where are the Signori di Notte when we need them? Instead we have the Iraq 
>> Inquiry - a group of establishment worthies who give 'soft cop' 
>> interrogations a bad name, backed by terms of reference so flaccid that it 
>> seeks only to 'learn lessons' not to 'apportion blame'.
>> It has no power even to order the publication of key documents, such as Tony 
>> Blair's letters to President Bush, let alone recommend prosecutions. Even if 
>> Sir Roderick Lyne, the only member of the panel with any forensic skill, 
>> manages to drive a stake through Blair's multiple evasions today, it won't 
>> amount to a hill of beans.
>> Blair will leave the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre at the end of the 
>> session, rejoin a security detail that would be over the top even in a banana 
>> republic, and be Range-Rovered off into the sunset to spend more time on his 
>> perma-tan and his millions.
>> And unless the current government is prepared to take things further, there 
>> is nothing anyone can do. Cameron and Clegg won't, of course, act against a 
>> fellow member of a political class more closed even than Venice's 14th 
>> Century elite.
>> But perhaps tonight, as David Cameron climbs the stairs at Number 10 past the 
>> photographs of his predecessors - our modern version of the frieze of the 
>> Doges - he will pause in front of the photograph of Tony Blair and 
>> contemplate the reckless damage he caused our country.
>> We can't expect a black veil over the photograph. But what about a small 
>> Post-It note, even if it just obscures Tony's self-satisfied grin?
>> For the rest of us - if you are anywhere near Manchester Square today, you 
>> might pop into the Wallace Collection and draw comfort from Delacroix's great 
>> painting of ex-Doge Faliero learning his lesson.
>>
>> Read more: 
>> http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/74017,news-comment,news-politics,they-used-to-behead-men-like-tony-blair-iraq-inquiry#ixzz1BncJyRkW 
>>
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