Ugo Bardi's Blog, page 7

The theorem that leads from pacifism to war

A guest post by Miguel Martinez who goes to the core of the current situation. Our leaders are madmen interested only in personal gains and aggrandizement, and they can use their control of the media to turn most of the population as mad as they are. It is nothing new, it happened in the past, and it is happening now. Martinez’s report on how Mussolini turned from a socialist arguing for peace into a bloodthirsty monster, developing a complete ideology based on hate and war. He was following the path that our modern Greens are following — the German Greens led the turn toward war, while the French Greens have announced that they are abandoning their traditional pacifism just a few days ago. A warlike mentality is more infectious than the coronavirus. You can read here my personal interpretation of how things went with Mussolini and his British sponsors.

The Satanic Theorem of Benito Mussolini

From Kelebekler Blog by Miguel Martinez

What is Fascism?

It's simpler than what you may think: it's an organization that was officially established in 1919, but which actually came into being on November 15, 1914, when a brilliant left-wing journalist, Benito Mussolini, thanks to the silent funding of an English NGO and contributions from the Agnelli family, whose heirs today finance La Repubblica, published the first issue of Popolo d'Italia.

Il Popolo d'Italia was created to take a radical stance on the issue of the First World War.

Let's not forget that Italy was still theoretically allied with Germany and Austria, and therefore Mussolini - who had distinguished himself in the campaign against the war in Libya - had initially launched himself, as a pacifist, against the possible alignment alongside the Central Powers.

But from here begins a fascinating shift, especially if we think about the times we are living in today.

At the time, Mussolini wrote lively editorials in the socialist newspaper L'Avanti!

And already there we can glimpse the theorem that leads from pacifism to war, which we can summarize as follows:

We are for peace, obviously – to not want it, one would have to be crazy.

And in fact there is a Madman (in this case a certain 𝔎𝔞𝔦𝔰𝔢𝔯, which kappa fits us well) who is leading his people to commit the horrible crime of War.

The Fool's victims look at us with pitying eyes. Can we look the other way, or are we willing to be so generous as to fight for them?

But, since the Fool threatens us all, perhaps we must defend ourselves as well…

Indeed, since we are internationalists, we believe that a great war would also liberate the poor Germans and allow everyone to live in peace!

This feverish theorem spread like typhoid in a few days among millions of Europeans on both fronts. But clearly it was also the founding theorem of Fascism, the reason why Mussolini is not remembered as just another socialist orator of his time.

From the Theorem, everything else follows.

The Theorem is the key that opened the gates of hell, with the millions of deaths in the First World War, then, consequently, with the massacres of the Russian revolution, the upheaval of Europe, the rise of Nazism, the extermination of the Jews (which led to the genocide in Gaza), the millions of deaths in the Second World War, the endless aftermath that we are still experiencing today from Bosnia to Ukraine...

For this reason, we define it scientifically as the Satanic Theorem: with reference to Vernon Lee's Satan the Destroyer.

Now let's read the Satanic Theorem in the very words of Benito Mussolini, first in L'Avanti! and then in Popolo d'Italia.

At the risk of saying that fascism did something good, it must be noted that he was really good at writing, and it's still readable over a century later.

If you feel even the slightest inclination to agree with his ideas, in changed circumstances, don't despair: I know an excellent exorcist, approved by the diocese of Florence, who may be just what you need (The Exorcist is also very likeable as a person).

Avanti!, June 18, 1914 - two weeks before the Sarajevo assassination, and Mussolini is a perfect Comrade pacifist and internationalist:

We received a phone call from Turin, last night:

A nationalist rally was held this evening at the Crocetta.

While lawyer Bevione was speaking, Prof. Mussolini arrived, having spoken in Borgo S. Paolo. Despite the huge crowd, the debate went quite smoothly and allowed our comrade to assert the truth and beauty of the socialist ideal before the working class. Mussolini was very happy to attack the nationalists and clerics, and the Libyan war, and to praise the international ideal and the workers' movement that culminated in the general strike. The rally ended with enthusiasm and warm applause for our Director, and after it there was a procession of several thousand people singing the workers' anthem that accompanied Mussolini to the Casa del Popolo.

After the Sarajevo attack, a character suddenly appears whom Mussolini had never mentioned before, the 𝔎𝔞𝔦𝔰𝔢𝔯 with the Kappa. Obviously insane.

Mussolini uses a magic word: the civilized world (today we would say the free world), which obviously means us: on the other side, the World of Darkness...

What is happening in Germany? All of Germany is locked in an iron circle.

It is isolated from the civilized world and the telegraphs and telephones are silent for us. It could also be that the German socialists see in this war-mongering madness of their Kaiser the end of his empire and feel the hour of the social revolution is near! (Prolonged applause).

Summary of the speech given in Milan, in the Modern Art hall located at 8 Campo Lodigiano, on the evening of August 4, 1914.

From the Kaiser who keeps his own people imprisoned, but ready for social revolution, the denunciation of criminal “Germany” comes just the day after. Note the title, with which one chooses to invoke the planetary massacre - the fault is always of the Other:

BRUTAL MILITARISM BEGINS ITS DEED OF BLOOD

With the aggression against Belgium, Germany has revealed its tendencies, its objectives, its soul.

To show solidarity, directly or indirectly, with Germany means – at this moment – to serve the cause of militarism in its most frenzied and criminal expression!

From Avanti!, No. 214, August 5, 1914, XVIII (a, 59/).

On the same day, Mussolini spoke about the French socialist Gustave Hervé, the most extremist of the French pacifists, who had decided to enlist as a volunteer.

And here Mussolini brings out the ultimate reason of all warmongers:

No. Hervé, who defines – as we also define – “war is filth” is not a “warmonger”, even if he goes to the border, just as the peaceful citizen who suddenly has to resort to a gun to defend himself from a bandit attack is not a criminal.

Prussian and Pan-German militarism, from 1870 to the present day, is the bandit lurking on the streets of European civilization!

A day later, the anti-militarism of the peaceful citizen turns to the memory of an extraordinary passage by another left-wing exponent seized by sudden belligerence. The “similar circumstances to the present” were the declaration of war by France against Prussia - Napoleon III's France asked Germany to give it Luxembourg, the Saarland and the Bavarian Palatinate. When Germany refused, the French launched into a suicidal war.

But it's interesting to note the evolutionary detail, according to which men with the hands of an ape would like to push us back a thousand years: the Enemy of Peace is always reactionary.

No one remembers the appeal that Blanqui launched from the columns of his La Patrie en danger 40 years ago in circumstances similar to the present ones:

"The Teutons have crossed the Rhine and threaten civilization once again.

The races of the South have winced at the sound of the footsteps of these ferocious gangs, who have come out of the forests of the North to enslave the Mediterranean to the kings and lords of the castles.... The Teutons are running through our fertile soils, these men with their flat feet and monkey hands, who claim to be the most beautiful flower of humanity: they who have always been its scourge, and who are coming to push us back a thousand years, into the dark mists of the Baltic. Oh, we, the great Mediterranean race, the race with the fine, delicate forms, the ideal of our species, we who have made all great thoughts, all generous aspirations germinate, hatch and triumph: on your feet, for the final battle! »

A few months later, Mussolini broke with the socialists and launched Il Popolo d'Italia (The People of Italy). And just before that, he gave a speech in Parma that deserves to be quoted at length.

Read it all. Try to relate it to the present day. If you feel a thrill of sharing, and dream of the blossoming of the new vermilion European spring, you too can feel like the authentic Fascists of the very first hour.

Between the two groups of Powers: the Triple Entente and the Austro-German bloc, Italy is …. remained neutral. In the Triple Entente there is heroic Serbia, which broke the Austrian yoke; there is martyred Belgium, which refused to sell itself; there is republican France, which was attacked; there is democratic England; there is autocratic Russia, but with a subsoil mined by the Revolution. On the other side, there is Austria, clerical and feudal; Germany, militaristic and aggressive.

Where are the fanfares that obsessed us in September 1911? The game is up and it should make socialists who are not imbeciles think: on one side are all the conservatives, all the dead forces of the nation; on the other side are the revolutionaries and with them all the living forces of the country. We must choose! Priests and bailiffs are for absolute neutrality.

The priests do not want war with Austria because it is the Catholic nation par excellence, where the emperor follows the canopy in the Corpus Domini processions bareheaded, and where, at a congress attended by the archduke killed in Sarajevo, unofficial votes were cast for the re-establishment of temporal power. If we remain neutral, Pope Benedict XV, who combines the trinity of his physical defects with disturbing intellectual and moral qualities, will find a way, directly or through a third party, to raise the Roman question at the next peace congress. We will go back: to discuss a fait accompli, irrevocable and we will owe it in part to the conservative attitude, absolutely anti-revolutionary and anti-socialist of the Italian socialists.

Those who admit this also admit the need to arm ourselves. You are not going to open the doors of Italy to the Austrian army so that they can come and loot your houses and rape your women. Oh, I know very well: there are some vile worms who criticize Belgium for having defended itself. They say it could have pocketed the Germans' gold and left the way open, while by resisting it was subjected to the systematic and scientific destruction of its cities. But Belgium lives and will live because it refused the vile bargain. If it had accepted it, Belgium would have been dead for all time! (Great applause; everyone shouts “Long live Belgium”, waving their hats. The impressive demonstration lasts several minutes).

When will you defend yourselves? When you have the enemy's knee on your chest? Or isn't it better to anticipate the defense? Isn't it better to intervene today because it may cost us little while tomorrow it could be a disaster? Do you perhaps want to maintain splendid isolation? But then we must arm, arm, and create a mammoth militarism.

Those who refuse to go to war today are Kaiser's accomplices, they support Franz Joseph's shaky throne, they are partners of the priests and the fanatics. Do you want Bismarck's drunk, mechanized and Americanized Germany to become the free and unprejudiced Germany of the first half of the last century? Do you want a German republic from the Rhine to the Vistula? Does the thought of the Kaiser, a prisoner, relegated to some distant island in the Ocean, make you smile? Germany will only renew its soul with defeat. With Germany's defeat, the new vermilion European spring will blossom.

The Collapse of Belief

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Guest post by Gregoire Quartier

I still find it funny to think that we now have proof that we have been lied to about Covid, about Ukraine, about Libya, about NordStream, about our own values, about democracy, censored on social media, and yet that we have to think climate change is something that is absolutely true and that we should definitely not doubt.

I have my doubts when proven liars give me speeches that they don’t put into practice. into practice.

I'm not saying that the climate isn't changing.

I'm saying that what you're being told about the changing climate isn't necessarily true, and that the solutions to climate change, in addition to being new industries, don't solve anything at all.

At a certain point, you have to ask yourself the following question:

Should I do everything I can to avoid something that nobody is trying to avoid?

Should I feel guilty for not doing anything?

Should I let other people call me guilty when they earn more money than I do, and therefore pollute more through their income?

Etc.

Living in sadness is not a virtue.

To play the victim of other people's actions is above all to admit that you are dependent on them (and that you are doing nothing to avoid being so).

70% of the Swiss do not want their own country to respect planetary boundaries (or at least what is referred to as such).

That's fine with me. I'll do my thing, for myself. And so be it.

At best, I will have lived my experience of neo-rural hipster to the full, and it will have inspired people.

But I'm not going to cry because I can't convince anyone that if everyone doesn't do what I do, we're all going to die.

Spoiler alert: we're all going to die.

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Gregoire Quartier

Je trouve quand même marrant de penser qu'on a maintenant les preuves qu'on nous a menti sur le Covid, sur l'Ukraine, sur la Lybie, sur NordStream, sur nos propres valeurs, sur la démocratie, censuré sur les RS, et qu'on pense que le climat, c'est qqchose qui est absolument vrai et qu'il ne faut surtout pas douter.

Moi je doute, quand des menteurs patentés me tiennent des discours dont ils ne mettent absolument rien en pratique.

Je dis pas que le climat ne change pas.

Je dis que ce qu'on vous dit du climat qui change n'est pas forcément vrai, et que les solutions au changement climatique, en plus d'être de nouvelles industries, ne résolvent rien du tout.

A un moment donné il faut se poser la question suivante :

Dois-je tout faire pour qu'on évite une chose que personne ne cherche à éviter?

Dois-je me sentir coupable de ne rien faire?

Dois-je laisser d'autres gens me traiter de coupable alors qu'ils gagnent plus d'argent que moi, et donc polluent plus par leur revenu?

Etc.

Vivre dans la tristesse n'est pas une vertu.

Se victimiser des actions des autres, c'est surtout admettre qu'on en est dépendant (et qu'on ne fait rien pour ne pas l'être).

70% des Suisse ne veulent pas que leur propre pays respecte les limites planétaires (ou du moins ce qu'on nomme comme tel).

Pour moi c'est bon. Je fais mon truc, pour moi. Et tant pis.

Au mieux j'aurai bien vécu mes expérience de bobo neo-rural, et ca aura inspiré des gens.

Mais je vais pas pleurer parce que je n'arrive pas à convaincre que si tout le monde ne fait pas ce que je fais, on va tous mourir.

Spoiler : on va tous mourir.

Trump, the Unavoidable

He looks like an emperor, speaks like an emperor, acts as an emperor. Maybe he IS an emperor?

Julius Caesar, the first leader of the Roman Empire, is one of the best-known figures of ancient history, so much that we have a term called “Caesarism” to indicate those modern rulers who follow his example. Our calendar still includes a month called “July” in his honor. And up to about one century ago, we still had country leaders whose title referred to Julius Caesar’s rule in Rome: the Kaiser in Germany, and the Czar in Russia.

Julius Caesar was a successful general who added large swaths of land to the Roman state and defeated his enemies in battle. He reformed the calendar and was also an accomplished author and historian. But there were other successful generals in Rome in his times. Then, Caesar never held the official title of "emperor" in the sense of a hereditary monarch and, in any case, his rule lasted only five years before he was assassinated. What made him so immensely popular for more than two millennia?

Simple: he was the right person at the right time. Caesar was unavoidable.

At the time of Julius Caesar, the resources that had created the Roman state, mainly the gold mines of Spain, were starting to show signs of depletion. At the same time, the “easy” enemies, close by and not very strong, had already been plundered. All that was left to conquer were remote regions that couldn’t bring back as much loot as before. The economic return of conquest (you could call it the “EROI” of war) was falling. The Roman state was a classic example of what Joseph Tainter would call the “diminishing returns to complexity.” It had become too big.

At this point, a perverse mechanism started to kick in. For a Roman general, getting rich by plundering the state became easier than engaging in uncertain military campaigns in remote regions. That meant one thing: corruption. It was rampant everywhere, and the Roman armies were fighting more often against each other than against external enemies. The Numidian King, Jugurtha, kept the Roman Legions away not by fighting them but by corrupting Roman officers and senators. He is remembered for saying that Rome was "a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer." (as Sallustius Reports).

An entity that today we would call the “deep state” was devouring the Republic from within. Either the Romans could find a way to stop corruption, or they were doomed, as Jugurtha said. The only solution they could find was a ruling figure who couldn’t be corrupted since he already had everything he wanted: an emperor. Caesar was killed before he could have an impact. But he had shown the way.

The idea of an emperor is a practical implementation of the old saying that it takes a thief to catch a thief. At the beginning, Caesar was just one of the several warlords fighting for power in Rome. But once he became emperor, he had all the interest in eliminating the competition. Later, his successor Octavianus continued that policy and established a governing system that would last for four centuries. The rule was that a warlord is the best weapon we have against warlords.

Today, there are obvious similarities with what Donald Trump is doing. The American State is in the hands of oligarchs and warlords — the deep state — who are bleeding it nearly to death. They control the media and can easily sway the public, so they cannot be fought by democracy. So, people seem to understand that only someone who can concentrate power in his hands can stop them. Trump clearly is doing what he is expected to do. His recent spat with Volodymyr Zelensky shows he has no qualms in publicly showing that he holds the power and can wield it. It seems to work in terms of popularity with the American Public.

History clearly repeats itself, but in our times, it is moving fast. The decline phase of the Roman Empire lasted four hundred years. That of the American Empire is likely to last much less under the combined effects of global warming, resource depletion, and chemical pollution.

But, for the time being, is Trump’s rule a good thing? It is the wrong question: history knows no good or bad things. History just rolls onward, crushing whoever doesn’t respect its rules. At this stage of history, Trump was unavoidable.

Maybe in the future someone will take the term “Trump” as a title to define his imperial rule. Or, maybe, “The Donald” will become a coveted imperial title (it has a nice ring to it). Or, maybe Trump will fail so badly that his name will be consigned to the dustbin of evil rulers in history. As always, the future is a garden of forking paths.

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