What Didn't Silence Cicero Won't Silence Julian Assange

[Matariki]

http://dogobarrygraham.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-didnt-silence-cicero-wont-silence.html

<excerpt>
It was inevitable that Assange would be personally targeted in this way - but the immorality of those persecuting him is eclipsed by their stupidity and arrogance. Whatever they do to Assange, they have already lost the battle to silence him.

After Mark Antony had Cicero killed, he cut off his hands - which had written the Philippics against Antony - and his head. He had them displayed at the forum, declaring, "He will write and speak no more."

More than two thousand years later, Cicero is still being heard. This is always the way of it, and it is the way it will be with Assange, whatever is done to him. Wikileaks, and its many mirror sites, cannot be silenced, and neither can the morally resolute people who pass along the documents. In their attacks on Assange, those who think they are in power are simply engaging in terrorism, and they are doing it out of fear and desperation.

[bemildred]

1. Well, I have thought from the beginning it was a mistake to make it about him.

But sometimes all the choices are bad. And Lord knows our national security apparatus can make a mistake now and then

[JVS]

2. Assange doesn't have the backing of all the insane Latin teachers.

;-)

[Tunkamerica]

3. I should not have to know that Cicero means little bean

damn you Mr.Merrill!!

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[Pavulon]

9. so who is representing manning?

that is not how I read that article.

[Luminous Animal]

11. WikiLeaks defendant chooses civilian lawyer

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/08/ap-manning-wikileak-lawyer-083010/

"Spokesmen for the Army and the soldier's supporters said former military attorney David E. Coombs, of Providence, R.I., will represent Pfc. Bradley E. Manning against charges he leaked video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a Reuters news photographer and his driver. The self-proclaimed whistleblower website WikiLeaks posted the video in April.

...

Beside Coombs, whose fees will be paid by Manning supporters and WikiLeaks, Manning has been assigned three military lawyers.

[DearAbby]

6. The lengths they will go to silence him speaks volumes..n/t

[laughingliberal]

10. K & R nt

[GrpCaptMandrake]

12. Cicero's no model

He was a pathetic social climber, forever plagued by his own sense of social inadequacy. He threw Rome into tumult over a "conspiracy" that only formed after he compelled it (Catalina), and, with the connivance of the execrable Cato (piss on him) forced the war between Caesar and Pompey that resulted in total civic chaos.

Cicero may be said to have laid the first foundation stones for the death of Republic and the rise of Empire.

I just hate it when people play blithely with history that's there for the reading.

Unrec (and I seldom do it, but in this case feel compelled) for utterly inaccurate comparisons.

[Elmore Furth]

13. He as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and subsequently murdered in 43 BC.

Cicero supported Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and urged the Senate to name Antony an enemy of the state. The speech of Lucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, delayed proceedings against Antony. Antony was later declared an enemy of the state when he refused to lift the siege of Mutina, which was in the hands of Decimus Brutus. Cicero’s plan to drive out Antony failed. Antony and Octavian reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Second Triumvirate after the successive battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina. The Triumvirate began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals immediately after legislating the alliance into official existence for a term of five years with consular imperium. Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, and reportedly, Octavian argued for two days against Cicero being added to the list.<47>

Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted among the proscribed. He was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public and many people refused to report that they had seen him. He was caught December 7, 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia.<48> When the assassins – Herennius (a centurion) and Popilius (a tribune) – arrived, Cicero's own slaves said they had not seen him, but he was given away by Philologus, a freed slave of his brother Quintus Cicero.<48>

Cicero's last words are said to have been, "There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly." He bowed to his captors, leaning his head out of the litter in a gladiatorial gesture to ease the task. By baring his neck and throat to the soldiers, he was indicating that he wouldn't resist. According to Plutarch, Herennius first slew him, then cut off his head. On Antony's instructions his hands, which had penned the Philippics against Antony, were cut off as well; these were nailed and displayed along with his head on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum. Cicero was the only victim of the proscriptions to be displayed in that manner. According to Cassius Dio<49> (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch), Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.<50>


Cicero