Chris Hedges on Aristophanes, Lysistrata, and the present moment

[villager]

One doesn't always see Aristophanes referenced in op-eds (and certainly not in school curricula anymore -- though not by accident):

<snip>

His play “Lysistrata,” written after Athens had spent 21 years consumed by the Peloponnesian War, is a satire in which the young women refuse to have sex with their men until the war ends and the older women seize the Acropolis, where the funds for war are stored. The play called on Athenians to consider radical acts of civil disobedience to halt a war that was ravaging the state. The play’s heroine, Lysistrata, whose name means “Disbander of Armies,” was the playwright’s mouthpiece for the folly and self-destructiveness of war. But Athens, which would lose the war, did not listen.

The tragedy is that liberals and secularists, like Obama, are not viewed as competitors by the corporate forces that hold power, but as contaminates that must be eliminated. They have sought to work with forces that will never be placated. They have abandoned the most basic values of the liberal class to play a game that in the end will mean their political and cultural extinction. There will be no swastikas this time but seas of red, white and blue flags and Christian crosses. There will be no stiff-armed salutes, but recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. There will be no brown shirts but nocturnal visits from Homeland Security. The fear, rage and hatred of our dispossessed and confused working class are being channeled into currents that are undermining the last vestiges of the democratic state. These dangerous emotions, directed against a liberal class that as in ancient Athens betrayed the population, have a strong appeal. And unless we adopt the radicalism held by Aristophanes, unless we begin to hinder the functioning of the corporate state through acts of civil disobedience, we are finished.

Let us not stand at the open gates of the city meekly waiting for the barbarians. They are coming. They are slouching towards Bethlehem. Let us, if nothing else, like Aristophanes, begin to call our tyranny by its name.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/how_democracy_dies_lessons_from_a_master_20101011/

[CTyankee]

1. I have been comparing our situation today a bit with 5th century Athens for

a while now. Athens went into Sicily, bringing them "democracy," and got their butts whipped at Syracuse where the Spartans sank their once indomitable fleet in the harbor.

A reading of Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian War" is instructive. It is horrifying, but at the same time, you see parallels with what has gone on here (most especially with Bush's "spreading democracy" foreign policies).

[villager]

2. ...and the inevitable "bankrupting" of the democracy, in the face of permanent war..

We've all been comparing our current situation to Rome. Perhaps we're Athens, about to crumble, and there's a "Rome" out there, to rise next, out of our own implosion...

[CTyankee]

3. we'd be lucky to BE Rome...it's empire lasted a pretty long time!

By comparison, our empire has had a pretty short tenure...

[villager]

4. even Athens outlasted us, yes?

By comparison to either, our rise and fall was much swifter...

[CTyankee]

5. It's amazing, isn't it? You'd think we'd have gotten at least a couple of centuries out of it...

we have the advantage of a vast country with vast amounts of natural resources. But we return again and again to FAILED policies in the past...and not even the distant past, really...it's incredible when you realize that repealing Glass-Steagel was only a decade or so ago...what were we thinking?