TalkingStickTV - Michael Parenti - The Assassination of Julius Caesar

tonight I want to I want to go back 2,000 years if that's okay with you but try to bring him home to you and give you the feeling that that there were real people struggling about real things then two very relevant still I mean no when you think about ancient alone what's our image Hollywood right these guys walking around in togas and and making pronouncements instant Orion tongues and asking how the emperor is feeling and all that I'm going to talk about a period before all those Emperor's is the period known as the late Republic it goes roughly from about 133 BC - I will say 44 BC which is when Caesar was was assassinated so roughly with more emphasis on the latter part of that period I want to say something about history first because our images of the past are created largely by history's winners the voices of the losses are muted or if they come to us they're through very carefully tuned filters and I agree with Catherine Morland she said quote it's rather odd that history should be so dull since a great deal of it must be invention the struggle to lay claim to the labor the land and the wealth of society which is so much the motive force of history that struggle is called class struggle and carries over into the writing of history itself the writing of history has long been a privileged calling undertaken within the church the royal court the affluent town house the government agency the University and the corporate funded foundation the powers that be not only try to control events but they try to control our memory and understanding of these events which is part of controlling the events themselves the social context in which history is written greatly influences the commodity that's produced and distributed Edward Gibbon author of their monumental work the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire back in the late 18th century was himself perfectly aware of the class realities behind the writing of history can everybody hear me okay does anybody having any trouble is it no echo or anything okay he talked about how history had to be written by gentlemen an interesting gentleman who had the means the leisure to pursue such a calling in his words wretched would be the work of those whose scholarly efforts whose daily efforts are stimulated by daily hunger given himself produced what I would call gentlemen's history as a genre heavily imbued with an upper ideological perspective antiquity all through antiquity going back to those early times gives us numerous gentlemen historians with a ruling class or upper class perspective and Prejudice homer Herodotus Thucydides Polybius Cicero Livy Plutarch Suetonius Appian Josephus Tacitus was the ones I've read almost all of whom had a rather low opinion of the common people maybe pluie talk as an exception I will partially exempt him he sometimes is capable of a halfway sensitive comment about them Gibbon given was a member of parliament he was a firm supporter of the British Empire he voted against extending extending liberties to the American Colonials he hated and abhorred was horrified by the egalitarianism of the French Revolution given this Gibbon had no difficulty conjuring the fairytale pastoral image of the Roman Empire we're all the Vanquish nations blended into one great people this is paraphrase of Gibbon with no desire to regain their independence enjoying the benefits of Rome's rule directed by both absolute power virtue and wisdom I mean really do we hear about an empire built upon sacked towns burned crops shattered armies enslave prisoners Murli impoverished and overtaxed populations one imminent 20th century British historian Cyril Robinson offers the familiar and fanciful notion of an empire achieved stochastically stochastic ism is the theory that all things happen by chance without deliberate intent by the actors above without conscious design I quote Robinson it was perhaps almost as true of Rome as of Great Britain that she acquired her world domination in the fit of absence of mind Yeah right again a fairytale image and imperialism without imperialists isn't that remarkable well what do you have a conspiracy theory you think they actually built this Empire planned and went out and did things and calculated and raised armies and decided that was a profitable area to conquer you think the actually thought about that it was absent-minded it just kind of got up and said let's see who are going to fight today what I'm going to do today and that theme by the way is very familiar to us we hear that the United States for half a century I have heard the United States was thrusted onto the world arena reluctantly had to assume the role of world leader to meet the challenges of the 20th century we never told who did the thrusting for whose interests at what cost of the people at home and abroad nor why it still remains such an imperative even without the Bugaboo of world communist conspiracy to use as an excuse along with his class bias the gentleman historian is likely to be a male supremacy surprised anybody surprised they're given for instance Gibbon describes one emperor's wife as quote United to a lively imagination a firmness of mind and strength of judgment seldom bestowed on her sex usually left unnoticed was the plight of ordinary Roman women who tended to die younger than their male counterparts because of childbirth exhaustion mistreatment and undernourishment women who usually lived under the rule of some male be it the Pater familias the husband or the Guardian and who were expected to defer to the male while remaining decorous chaste and of sweet disposition surely this is something familiar about that isn't there in recent decades by the way there's been an emergence of some feminist scholarship and the study of Roman women has improved somewhat some gentleman historians let slip a noticeable ethnic bigotry or ethnic class bigotry Cyril Robinson asserts that quote the purity of Roman blood began to be contaminated by proletarians of Greek and oriental origin persons of feeble character incapable of assimilating the national habits of decency and restraint although not all Greeks of course were vicious or unwholesome characters it's always nice when that when the bigot tries to smuggle in his bigotry under a balanced kind of statement moderated qualified you know some of my best friends right are feeble and incapable characters the great Theodor Mommsen you know who remember Mark Twain's description of that the enthusiastic reception that momsen got when Twain was visiting in Germany and whom we might have expected better Momsen scornfully describes the Roman Forum the great open-air assemblage as a shouting fest for everyone in the shape of a man Egyptians and Jews street boys and slaves Freedman and Greeks it gets better or I should say worse Jerome Carr kopi know and other eminent classicist writes that interbreeding between Roman aristocrats and their female slaves or freed women created a hybridization similar to that which has more recently contaminated other slave owning people's it strongly accentuated the national and social decomposition of Rome unquote no segregationists or not see blood theorists could have said it better these are all the reputable historians the progenitor of all gentlemen historians of the late Republic the fount the source of all gentlemen history of the late Republic who himself was a major participant Cicero who has been worshipped worshiped by professors and Latin teachers throughout the ages Cicero railed against the Greeks and Jews who rallied to the side of the Democratic leaders impoverished individuals they often throw our assemblies into confusion the Greeks are given two shameless lying the Jews to barbaric superstition you know how they stick together how influential they are in informal assemblies unquote does any van have a familiar ring to it while Republican form how democratic was the late Republic in actual social content at the very bottom of the social order was a large slave population about one third of the entire population was slaves many of whom will work to death in the mines and on the plantations or let a fun diya as they were called on the next rung was the great mass of free Romans the proletariat many of them ex slaves or the descendants of slaves who lived at the barest subsistence level in the impoverished towns of Italy or they lived crowded into thousands of Pooley ventilated disease ridden tenements within Rome flimsy structures some of them eighth and ninth floors high that frequently burned down or collapsed and kill their occupants no running water no ventilation not good a rung above the property list proletarians were the farmers and small landholders around the outskirts of the city and beyond a step above them was a small middle class of minor officials merchants and light industry employers and now looming above this multitude was a few thousand multimillionaires the class known as a quick test or equestrians because their property historically qualified them to serve in the cavalry in the elite cores although by the late Republic most of them had probably never even been on a horse the equestrians were state contractors bankers traders tax collectors and landowners at the very apex of the social pyramid where the wealthy landed aristocrats who populated the Roman Senate who also invested in business and speculation and banking along with the equestrians but who had vast lands and who lived in obscene luxury and ostentation the difference between the equestrians and the aristocracy was really more one of lineage than of wealth they were absentee owners of vast led of India which will work by huge slave populations and they did little very little for the land except work it with slave labor and exploited squeeze it for profits they themselves lived on vast estates even Cicero who is not maybe the very richest among them owned more than eight villas along with numerous inner-city tenements by the way very few present-day historians of ancient Rome mentioned the fact that Cicero was a slumlord who bragged about how profitable his tenements were they were profitable one of the ways they were profitable the rents was so high the proletariat couldn't afford those rents they would have to double and triple up so there was massive overcrowding in these places to be able to scare up enough money to pay the rent the aristocracy grew still Richard by usurping the agel Publius this was an event that took place a process that took place say the 3rd century BC right up to the 2nd century BC in this process they took the there was these vast fertile state-owned lands outside of Rome that for centuries before for generations had been formed by farming collectives small farming collectives of independent free labour farmers and they fed the entire city of Rome and during times of war when the small farmers were away in the army and the farms couldn't be kept up the aristocrats bought them up at Bar prices or they used increasingly what started happening toward the second century they would use hired thugs to go in and drive the families off the public land and replace them with slave labor and that process was pretty much completed by the second century let's say by 199 BC or something hmm or maybe a little later this process of agrarian displacement by the way continues to this day in many parts of the world including the United States itself it reinforces the thesis that I've presented in dirty truths which is that wealth creates poverty we always don't think of it that way they think of it as a distribution problem but in fact it's an inter relational it's a dynamic there Rome was a republic more informed than content by the way nor was the form all that Democratic almost all major political decisions were taken by the Senate and aristocratic non-elective oligarchy numbering about 600 all men of wealth the Senate determined foreign policy appointed provincial governors and control the purse strings of the Republic the Senate controlled the deployment of army units and the appointment of top military commanders the Senate was elected by nobody who was an oligarchy self-appointed self-selecting along with the Senate there were two and then three assemblies organized on the basis of tribal associations and property qualifications in these assemblies many more voting units were allocated to the rich in the in the in the tribal assembly the proletariat got one one unit of vote and the very rich got something like fourteen or something or twenty and so the rich prevailed on most issues those attending the assemblies could vote only on proposals submitted by one of the higher magistrates with only a gay or nay and without the right to amend any clause it's called fast-track they could select candidates only from a list drawn up by public officials usually Senate appointed an assembly debate was limited to those who were invited to speak by the summoning magistrate Robinson finds nothing wrong with this arrangement he writes quote those who bore the chief burden of fighting and financing the city was Wars should also possess the chief voice in directing the city's course well in fact the very rich did not bear the chief burden of fighting that dangerous task fell mostly on the shoulders of the common yeoman in fact the rich senators did not carry much if any of the financial burden they paid no taxes they lent money to the state that was paid back to them with interest from funds of the state raised by taxing others at home and abroad so you had this combination of deficit spending and regressive taxes that amounted to an upward redistribution of income does that sound familiar to run for election one had to be either wealthy or have the support of wealthy backers the buying of votes was widespread rarely did candidates represent discernible principles or programs so to distinguish themselves from each other they emphasize their personal qualities their integrity and leadership the prestige of their family name their association with important personalities of the day their past public service and their heroic War records does any of that sound familiar the only thing missing was television I would say within the Senate itself control was concentrated in an inner struggle of 20 or so aristocratic families both of patrician and plebeian origin the thing we always heard about the patricians versus the pavilions was over at least by two centuries that was rich plebeians were now in the Senate and they were part of the aristocracy so if you had enough money after a while after enough generations you move in although of course there was still genealogies and people were perfectly aware who was in the patrician who wasn't but many of the many of the people many of the richest senators were plebeians and reactionary and arch conservatives the elite this elite group in the Senate the Senate it was it by the the middle of the second century by the time of Tiberius Caracas I'm going to talk about later it divided into two groups the larger one being the Optimates literally they would be the best men as they modestly called themselves they were the Conservatives devoted to expanding the political economic privileges of the rich and the well-born the smaller faction in the Senate of this elite group will call popular raise and they will reformers with Democratic tendencies who sometimes sided with the common people against the Senate itself the popular assemblies were not entirely without influence on exceptional occasions with enough unity and mass mobilization they could pass measures contrary to the dominant faction in the Senate but that was not often the case modern-day historians are perfectly aware by the way that the Senate enjoyed a near monopoly of power undemocratic power and yet they're filled with praise for these oligarchs describing them I'll give you a composite of quotes here bred to a strong tradition of cautious sanity and self-restraint stout-hearted level-headed and patriotic historians look very kindly on this republic for the few for them senatorial plutocracy is more acceptable and less threatening than proletarian egalitarianism they embrace Cicero a self enriching slaveholder slumlord ruling class mouthpiece executioner and senatorial oligarch they embrace Cicero as a champion of Liberty who opposed Julius Caesar and who refused to live under a tyranny and when I say they I mean really about 95% of all present-day historians of ancient Rome or Cicero supporters only a handful arthur caplan GM de san Croix me my guava is historian a few others only a handful are sympathetic to the popularities and the Democrats what does that say about our educational systems in our universities Cicero that great champion of Republican Liberty deplored such things as the secret ballot he said the secret ballot makes it easier for the common people to act independently and do mischief a year after Caesar was murdered in 44 BC Cicero who was by the way not among the assassins but fully applauded the deed fully supported it he wrote to Brutus and two other associates calling for a ruthless bloodletting a final solution against the Democrats I do not admit any doctrine of mercy there should be a salutary severity for if we are going to be merciful civil wars will never cease we need extreme measures unquote one is reminded of Cicero's own role as consul twenty years earlier in 63 63 BC when he whipped up an anti subversion witch-hunting campaign against reformers in the Senate and then ordered without trial the summary execution of five people he charged with conspiracy against the state it's called the Cataline conspiracy on the basis by the way a very dubious and trumped-up evidence few modern-day historians pass severe judgment on this atrocity HH s-- colored a leading classicist sets the tone by a allowing that cicero may have been quote over hasty but he had good reason to feel he had done his duty indeed he had saved his country unquote behind this willingness ladies and gentlemen to repress popular forces is a chronic fear of the democratic excesses of the people I'm not talking about sister I'm talking abouts colored in his it's we understand Cicero he's an aristocrat and all that but there's that same fear of democratic excesses there is fear of the people mobilizing and agitating they need to be curbed by upper-class men of moderation and probity upper-class moderation and probity are ingredients I would suggest that exist more in the minds of gentlemen historians than in actual history nothing said about who curbs those at the top who those who actually have the actual power and are continually abusing it the best-known and probably the greatest popularise leader was Julius Caesar although thanks to the way history has retailed a few of us know of him in this role here are some of the things Caesar did in his six or seven console ships and then later on after the Civil War once in power as consul he founded new settlements for veterans of his army and for 880 thousand of Rome's proletarians he distributed some of the best lands near Rome and elsewhere to 20,000 poor families that had three or more children Caesar sent many unemployed proletarians to repair ancient cities in the colonies or he slated them for employment on public works within Rome he directed large land holders to have at least one third of their laborers to be freedmen Freeman rather than slaves so they had so every every letter fundo owner had to have one-third of his workforce had to be free labor rather than slave labor and this was a rule that would compel payment of wages and thereby thereby somewhat diminished the landowners high accumulation rate and it would also reduce unemployment in crime in an attempt to secure affordable housing for poor tenants caesar remitted a whole year of rent for low to moderate dwellings following Gaius Gracchus and other popularise caesar instant I'm sorry Caesar increased duties on luxury imports first that was to encourage Italian domestic industry and second to make the rich pay something for the for the pay something to the state for the obscenely lavish lifestyles they were enjoying Caesar attempted to impose honest administration in the provinces we're subject peoples were prey to rapacious governor's and visiting senators he saves some of the provincials from the pitiless tax collectors he kept he kept the tax rates he fixed the tax rates and he eliminated the self enriching middlemen he ejected from the Senate all those associated with provincial plunder he eased the desperate burden of a vast debtor class by allowing repayment of debts at lower pre-war prices he abolished the fines that were put on debtors when they couldn't meet their payments he ordered that all the interest people had already paid was to be applied to reducing the principle they owed if only we could get banks to do that today he cancelled all debt interest that had accumulated over several years this last measure alone Suetonius estimates erased one-quarter of all debts a serious loss for rich creditors by the way there are two theories as to why people fall into debt one of them is that many are deprived of adequate income and are subjected to heartless taxes and so unable to earn enough or keep enough of what they earn they're forced to borrow on their future labour as their debt obligations accumulate and more of their income goes into interest payments they have even less for their own needs and they're forced to borrow still more caught in this deepening cycle they're forced to sell their small holdings and sometimes even themselves or their children into servitude by the way he abolished that individuals could no longer sell themselves into servitude if they were dead a human natural right and sovereignty could not be treated commensurate with property such was the plight of many by the way in the late Republic and such has been the case throughout history today we witness whole nations caught in a deepening cycle of debt selling off the land and labor of future generations to international investors at very unfavorable terms to the debtor nations there's a second theory the second theory tells us that people in go into debt because they're irresponsible spendthrifts who try to live off thrifty creditors in that scenario the role of credit of victim and victimizer are reversed the creditor is seen as the victim and the debtor is seen as the victimizer the only thing wrong with that model by the way I think it does explain some forms of debt the only thing wrong with it is that it's applied to the wrong social group the poor in fact there are usually some profligate few who come from socially esteemed backgrounds and who live in a grand style who cultivate that magic art of borrowing forever and ever and paying back never and never as it's called such limitless credit though is more likely to be extended not to the poor farmer or laborer it's going to be extended to those of gilded heritage Caesars efforts at easing the debt burden was designed to help not the profligate few but the laboring masses Cicero for whom such reforms were tantamount to subversion and revolution voices the fears of many of his class quote I foresee a bloodbath an onslaught of on private property the return of exiles and cancellation of debts Caesar believe I'm sorry Cicero believed that Caesar would show no mercy in killing off the nobility and plundering the well-to-do unquote in fact Caesar showed remarkable clemency toward his enemies after the Civil War in some instances he spared the lives of those who then participated later on in the plot against his life a number of historians argue that Caesars intent was to retain was to attain and retain autocratic power and so we even have that term Caesar ISM it's not used at all for now very much in vogue in the 19th century to mean autocracy well actually while he accumulated power we should also look at how he used it toward what ends cooee bono who benefited I just gave you plenty of examples Caesar himself said quote I am sated with power and glory the important thing is to get things done and he also was concerned about avoiding another Civil War I don't know what Caesar would have done had he lived but I can give you some indications this treatment of Athens suggested that he might have eventually taken steps to democratize the Roman Constitution after the Civil War he pardoned the Athenians for siding with Pompey and he introduced a democratic constitution for that city Athens had not had a democratic constitution because had been on the Roman suzerainty that in a democratic constitution in a century more I think and by the way that's probably why athens sided with pompeii it was run by aristocrats who themselves saw a common class interest with the forces that were backing pompeii which was the senate oligarchy caesar attempted to strengthen democratic forces by in franchising the population in the parts of goal that he had conquered certainly an enlightened move early in his career he helped undo suez reactionary legislation sulla was this military commander in 80 82 to 80 BC who came in took over and murdered and murdered about 1600 equestrians about 50 senators of thousands of other Democrat people who had been sympathetic to the Democratic cause and did everything to instill the Senate oligarchy was the Pinochet of the late Republic he abolished the popular assemblies it was actually brought he actually brought the Roman Constitution if he didn't abolish them he really practically strangulated them he brought the Roman Constitution back at least two centuries mmm-hmm and Caesar came in and he and he undid and he undid all the various reactionary legislation that sulla had put in stripping the people's Tribune's of their ancient Authority and the light Caesar began to regularly bypass the Senate and deal only with the assembly that's moving in a democratic direction but that by the way is what elitist historians from Cicero to this day have seen as his autocracy his violation of constitutional procedures Caesar granted citizenship to all medical practitioners and professors of liberal arts to encourage them to stay in Rome he said about to provide Rome with the finest possible public libraries he guaranteed to Jews the right to practice their religion and it probably was one of the very first leaders of antiquity to to get to extend a a guarantee to religious freedom hmm and these two actions that suggest something other than the undemocratic tyrant one of Caesars first acts upon becoming consul was to have the proceedings of the Senate and the assembly published and posted every day so that make them more accountable to the general public also to embarrass the Senators if he could during his first consulship he regularly disregarded senatorial vetoes he updated and streamlined the voter registration rolls after the Civil War he arranged that half the magistrates be popularly elected and half appointed by himself thereby completely bypassing the Senate he decisively terminated Cicero's political witch-hunts against the Democrats driving Cicero into exile and rousing panic within reactionary ranks as part of his war against the Optimates he substantially expanded Senate Senate membership filling its ranks with equestrians with nobility from Gaul and if that wasn't enough he even made senators of a small number of libertine II the libertine II were the sons of liberated slaves who had risen to distinction on their own merit all these appointees by the way it goes without saying were totally snubbed and scorned by the Senate oligarchs and Optimates so it's no surprise that Caesar was supported by the Roman proletariat and accepted by many prosperous upper-middle class people and entrepreneurs who were satisfied with his orderly administration some of the Democrats in Rome saw a total social revolution a redistribution of wealth among the poor some even thought to free the slaves and extend citizenship to foreign residents Caesar found their support useful but he was a reformer not a social revolutionary he abolished all workers gills that had a lot of new gills were being formed new worker unions and such he abolished them except for the very ancient ones and he would not go all the way with the Democrats by eliminating all debt payments and he did accrue extraordinary honors and power to himself he had himself appointed Imperator of Rome Imperator has been translated by too many historians to mean dictator both Imperator and the other Latin word dictate or which is spelled entity like the English word dictator Imperator dictate dictate or were akin to commander-in-chief or supreme commander they usually were appointed for limited six-month terms although it's doubtful that he would have stayed only six months Plutarch reports that Caesars predominance caused the Senate and nobility to fear that quote he might now urge the people to every kind of insolence unquote and the worst insolence was for the people to demand a larger portion of the pie Caesar was assassinated as he presided over the Senate in March 15 44 BC the Ides of March as it was called on the Roman calendar by a dozen or so senators he actually knew about there were all sorts of assassination plots against him and he never acted against the conspirators he just let him know that he knew about it and they would shrink back when the light went on and the story goes is told by Suetonius Appian Plutarch they're all vivid descriptions of this he was walking into the Senate and he had he had he had dismissed his Spanish guard he had a Spanish bodyguard of of crack warriors who could have taken out the whole Senate let alone a dozen assassins but he had dismissed them and he went in unarmed as he walked in someone handed him a piece of paper saying beware that there's an attack imminent about to happen the story goes and he just put that into a pile of sheets of paper that he had and when he went in the very first senator came up to him with a bill proposal then hit him with a dagger and the others came around him and got him and he there's a description of how he gathered up his toga bunching it up like this leaving his legs bare probably has a protective gesture on his chest and tried to fight them off and then fell ironically right at the base of the statue of Pompey which the Senate oligarch insisted on having theirs there since then there's been speculation for 2,000 years as to why Caesars dismissed the Spanish God and went in like this Appian concludes that he just wanted to die and I just was getting old he just wanted to die I don't think so at all that's not it I think I think he didn't think that would happen right there in the Senate and I think he did not want to show a fear by having a guard around him right in Senate historians who are willing to consider any interest except class interest explain away the assassins in terms assassination in terms that are oddly kind of unsettlingly favorable to the assassins so we're told that the conspirators had a strong distaste for dictatorship and refused to accept one-man rule that they wanted to preserve their beloved Republic and its long-standing traditions many like Cicero supposedly had a profound respect for the law and could not forgive Caesars usurpation Cicero would didn't was not invited to join with a dagger they you really had these super aristocratic elites Brutus and Cassius whether the two main perpetrators but I mean they were like mine like Cicero others supposedly felt a personal jealousy and rivalry because they were so overshadowed by this truly remarkable man and by the way Caesar was a man of outstanding qualities he was said to have been a commanding and inspiring figure uncommonly intelligent handsome and utterly charming when he cared to be he was abstemious and his alcohol consumption didn't touch alcohol that much unlike other members of his class and unlike most of them he was not given to some Schori indulgences although there was something of the dandy and his personal attire he was the son of one of Rome's leading aristocratic families he was a brilliant and fearless military leader who really inspired his troops he was highly regarded for the quality and clarity of his writing and was considered one of the great prose stylists of his day his intellectual interests encompassed a wide range of subjects he was considered one of Rome's greatest public speakers he could stir his audience with the force and persuasive clarity of his words and usually avoided the the flowery oratory you know the purple style passage style that was the style of the day even a great orator and bitter rival like Cicero was forced to admit that he knew of no more impressive speaker than Julius Caesar and by the way this was in an age when public speaking and rhetoric was very very very important public speaking in rhetoric our lost arts today in public life in this age of a TV sound bites and image engineering Caesar also possessed some less-than-perfect traits most notably like other military commanders of his day he was a conqueror and plunder of lands and he also extorted huge sums from rich Kings I can't get too exercised about that one actually well really have said what really upset the Senate oligarchs was not Caesars accumulation of power but how he used the power like other popularise before him he attempted to deal with unemployment he attempted to deal with poverty he tend to deal with unfair taxes he attempted to deal with debt relief land redistribution and aristocratic greed and those who are unforgivable things a ruling class will forgive anything except if you just tiptoe on their interests and smudge the edge of their interest one bit that's what they don't forgive if the aristocrats long to protect the Constitution which by the way was an unwritten one of custom and practice it was not out of some abstract commitment to Republican principles it was because the Constitution fortified their oligarchy it was their law their constitution it was their republic and was made to accommodate their quote traditional class interests aristocratic freedom is not meant to serve a popular ruler or a democratic constitution it's meant to serve no ruler except the aristocrats themselves and when they were talking about freedom they're talking about their free to do what they want unaccountably to any other social groups aristocratic freedom is the freedom to maintains one's own enormous class privileges to enjoy every prerogative of power and wealth without restraint it was and it still is to this day antithetical to popular democracy aristocratic freedom continues to be pursued today by corporate elites with their ma I GATT and NAFTA the aristocracy of international global finance to devise means of making giving them power that is unaccountable to popular sovereignty Julius Caesar was the last of a long line of popular race I want to talk about some of the others a little bit not too much is this too dense too much of you you following me okay okay not too many are now you're all awake yo look one of the first was Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC he was the one who put that great land reform program to give the land back to the small farmers he was assassinated he was followed by his younger brother the brilliant really the brilliant leader Gaius Krakus and then there was some 10 or 12 others down the line ending with Caesar and a few others after Caesar less notable and almost all of them were murdered God both the grotty brothers were murdered along with thousands of their followers by the aristocratic death squads other leaders met sudden and untimely deaths sometimes under suspicious circumstances we're talking about here almost a century period 133 to 44 remember the numbers go backwards now or in BC in case you what all these leaders had in common was they challenged the rigged oligarchic system even if they broke no laws they were branded by the nobles and by the gentleman historians of that day and today as provocateurs his a sort of who gave affront to sacred custom by unlawfully encroaching on the Senate's domain ill-judged and short-sighted transgressors a cut of this composite quote from various writers according to some historians these of popular leaders had to share the blame for their own deaths because they acted in such a in such a rash and provocative way especially the Gracchi and this business of blaming the reformers for the homicidal violence that's delivered on them by conservative forces is a time-honored practice I'm reminded of how a modern-day popular leader President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 in the early 70s attempted egalitarian reform in the face of an entrenched military and corporate power only to be murdered along with thousands of his supporters and shortly after the military coup Pinochet is COO the New York Times editorialized quote a heavy share get that a heavy share of the blame for the disaster must be assigned to the unfortunate dr. IND himself a blame for the disaster of all these killings and the defend and the murder also of Chilean democracy a heavy share must go to the unfortunate dr. IND himself for pushing a program of socialist reform for which he had no mandate unquote in fact IND had a sizeable plurality he'd won two major national elections and he had a growing mandate that's why they had the coup he was it is his his percentage of votes in the second election was even higher I mean for his Popular Front but assuming he didn't have a mandate does that become grounds for giving him a heavy share of the blame for his own murder the last to be blamed by the New York Times and most of the US press the last to be blamed for the mass killings were the killers themselves the Chilean military Finance trained advised by the u.s. national security state for the many historians getting back to Rome in whom the ghost of Cicero lives and breathes the senatorial oligarchs of ancient Rome are not to be blamed at all for the massacres and assassinations they perpetrated listen to scholars of polemical gymnastics quote the prudent senators were forced to confront the overzealous reform he's talking about Tiberius Gracchus in 133 the urban mob that throng the assembly in Rome was becoming increasingly irresponsible that this whole vocabulary here that they can roll out you know Tiberius was threatening to turn the tribunes into agents of the popular will imagine that [Music] this would have given the assembly greater responsibility than it could properly wield unquote so of course they had to kill him by the way like every ruling oligarchy in history the Roman Senate had a long tradition of violating its own traditions in its own Constitution when when necessity dictated when class interests dictated and this brings us to parenthese second iron rule of politics don't ask me with the first is I just like to call it the second iron rule of politics which I first in the first edition of democracy for the few back in 1974 I enunciated this rule and it goes like this when change threatens to rule then the rules are changed and faced with challenges from democratic forces the oligarchs repeatedly invoked martial law repeatedly suspended their own constitution suspended all rights appointed a dictator and an abeyance fate phrase quote found salvation and absolute power all the Emperor's who came after Caesar wielded substantially more power than he and yet the Senators went along with them what about that there then followed you know with starting with what the Caesars grand nephew Octavius later called Augustus and then called Caesar Augustus the first emperor really and a host you centuries of emperors after this the Senate never complained about their power they will it absolute power like way beyond anything Caesar had but the Senators went along with them because the Emperor's destroyed whatever power the popular assemblies once had they initiated regressive taxes and attempted no economic redistribution on behalf of the masses the Senate too is reduced in power it was reduced to a kind of House of Lords you know a lot of prestige but very little power with where these guys go in in dog and sit around and debate but the important thing was that during the Empire the aristocrats grew still wealthier in short when their class interests were at stake the Senators like elites today had no trouble choosing political dictatorship over the palest traces of economic democracy no more than did the Chilean elites in Chile have any trouble siding with Pinochet even if it meant an end to their own oligarchic rule when push came to shove their vast holdings meant more to them than their quote republican principles their fortunes meant more to them than even their power as long as they knew that state power was in the hands of someone who was protecting their fortunes the description or Elias Victor gives several centuries after Caesar still remained pertinent quote him the Senators glory in idleness and at the same time trembled for their wealth the use and increase of which they accounted greater than eternal life itself mmm throughout history popular leaders people who have used power to affect some kind of redistribution institutionally politically constitutionally and economically leaders who have done that throughout history they have been branded as demagogues and adventurers motivated primarily by personal ambition they know that it's not that they wanted the power to end hunger it is that they just hungered for power this is the image we get and this accusation is still leveled today against Communists and other revolutionaries and reformers even by some illustrious people who inhabit the left interestingly enough gentlemen historians seldom raise any question about power hunger in regard to the oligarchic elites as I already said before those who actually have state pen what was it these popularities were doing listen to what Tiberius graças says in 133 describing the plight of landless commoners many of whom were Army veterans quote heartless and homeless they must take their wives and families and the roads like beggars they fight and fall to serve no other end but to multiply the possessions and comforts of the rich [Music] when the groggy brothers and other popularise I mean what were the groggy brothers and other popularise with a self-promoting adventurers or did they use power as a means of advancing mass well-being my view is that popular leaders it's not it's not an either-or formulation it's a little more complex than that popular leaders want the opportunity a to pursue policies that benefit the common people as well as B win mass support and gain some power because it's needed to challenge the ruling class power and get their policies into operation and at the same time see they might enjoy the personal gratification and glory that accompanies such a risky but popular undertaking few leaders are either entirely impervious to popularity or motivated exclusively by its pursuit likewise likewise no leader can afford to be indifferent to considerations of power and hope to survive as a leader I mean of all the oh of course they all have to worry about their power base they got to be concerned about developing a power base and that that that concern and that genius to develop a power base among powerless people does not automatically make a popular leader a demagogue especially when these leaders are moving against tremendous odds against the existing power structure rather than speculating about leaders motives and personality I think it's better to inquire into his actual course of action we need to ask what social forces thrusted these popularise to the fore in Rome when such social force was the much-maligned proletariat if we're to believe present-day bushwa historians the proletariat played absolutely no creative role in in developing democracy in ancient Rome in fact in fact the proletariat exercised a long-standing antagonism toward the nobility their support helped to bring these leaders forward in 82 BC they actually resisted they actively resisted the reactionary dictator sulla czar me entering the city there's the description of just thousands of these of these Romans throwing rocks and throwing things down everything they get their hands on setting up such a barrage that Sulis soldiers stop they stop they stop the Roman legions from coming into Rome first of all it was a it was a historic crime that is the rule had been for centuries that no regular Roman army troops not whole legions can come into Rome proper and sulla was bringing them in to in fact carry out the massacre and those people knew it and they knew him as the enemy in 50 BC they gave enthusiastic support to Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon with his legions and returned to Rome from Gaul with his legions to see the Senators wanted him back the same senators who have been contriving and plotting with his enemies there's some German kings and tribal people that that that Caesar was fighting in Gaul the gold the Gauls actually cited with the Romans as the lesser of two evils against the Germans coming down and and Caesar got evidence the fact that by testimony when the Kings that there are people in Rome your enemies in Rome would love me if I could kill you confabulation so they were already committing treason they were taking a Roman military commander and trying to get him set up for getting killed and then they invite him back and tell him he has to leave his army there right as the last thing he was going to do at that point so he came back with the army and when he crossed the Rubicon which is that northern River right into Italy proper that's the phrase we have in our language crossing the Rubicon meaning you know really throwing down the gauntlet or whatever something like that in 48 the proletariat engaged in mass as agitation when oligarchic magistrates tried to obstruct the implementation of Caesar's debt relief law after the civil war between Pompey and Caesar the city crowds pulled down and smashed the statues of Pompey and sulla now this is three decades after su this is 30 years after sulla has almost 40 years after sulla has gone off to the worms and they still remembered these people had a historical memory and hated him Plutarch offers a glimpse you see I'm taking these little scraps because this one-sided record of history we have very little we have very little from down there and so but these are indications of what actually was happening there Pluto and most of the most historians have ignored these these passages in Pluto Pluto offers a glimpse into the mass support that propelled the grotty brothers when Tiberius Gracchus proposed his agrarian reform Pluto Crites it was above all the people themselves who did most to arouse Tiberius his energy and ambitions by inscribing slogans and appeals on porticos monuments and the walls of houses calling upon him to recover the public land for the poor unquote and when Gaius Kroc has put forth his reform legislation which was much more comprehensive and brilliant blue talk rights quote a great multitude began to gather in Rome from all parts of Italy to support him and this is a day before there were decent roads before telephone before communication and word got out all parts of Italy people came in looking for a better deal looking to gain and also to give their support to democratic reforms after the grotty were assassinated in third in 133 and 121 respectively public acknowledgement of their existence was officially prohibited by the Senate oligarchs so even then they were seeking to control historical memory and yet the common people continued to commemorate the Gracchi brothers Plutarch offers the following vignette the people were cowed and humiliated by the collapse of the Democratic cause but they soon show how deeply they missed and long for the Gracchi statues of the brothers were set up in a prominent part of the city offerings were placed there throughout the year many people worshipped their statues as though they were visiting the shrines of gods unquote this all went on despite police prescriptions in 44 immediately after Caesars death the people agitated for guarantees that his land redistribution plan would not be rolled back and the agitation was enough to compel Brutus to to reassure the demonstrators he gets up to the and tries to calm the crowd down and and he says the Senate will not tamper with the land reform program very grudgingly you know he says although that land really belongs to other people and all that will let you keep it don't worry you know Brutus by the way was the one who's dubbed by Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar the noblest Roman of them all you know act 5 the last scenes and this there lay the noblest Roman of them all well let me tell you about the noblest Roman of the all he he was a key conspirator with Cassius and the assassination of a great leader who loved him by the way Julius Caesar loved Brutus and his reason Julius one of one of Caesars many many many lovers was Brutus's mother had been for a while and there's reason to speculate as to whether there wasn't a closer linkage between them um the noble Brutus let me tell you something else about him he was a user of the worst sort he lent money to Cypriots at forty eight percent interest instead of the usual twelve percent 12 percent is usury - at least by traditional traditional church doctrine and then he requested that the Roman military come along and help him and his agents collect the money extracted from the Cypriots when they couldn't pay it back yet most historians don't think too ill of Brutus another conservative senator I'd like to mention to you is Cato now Cato is always praised he's always described as principled he was one of the most rigid the most unyielding although he could also use bribes in an election to defeat Caesar he was pumping money in and bribes and saying well sometimes it's necessary to do these kind of things but he always presented us so principled is so so virtuous you know and fat Cato is after Cato that the right-wing think-tank today the Cato Institute is named because Cato was supposedly was a defender of republican liberty and opposed caesar's tyranny now it's very interesting when and very principled as I say that keeps coming up again I'm get I don't I pick up another historian described Cato as principal I it's a very interesting you know when left leaders when left leaders are determinedly uncompromising ly dedicated to their class struggle to democratic reforms and such they're called dogmatic totalitarian even Stalinist that's a favorite term that gets thrown around all the more useful for being conveniently undefined when uncompromising conservatives like Cato rigidly adhere to their class interests that call principled some months ago I remember I was reminded of Cato I was sitting I've been working and I wanted to take a break and a lot of times want to take a break I I I relaxed by reading fiction so so I picked up the New York Times [Music] no it's true people ask me why don't you ever read fiction don't you read fiction I gave you that novel into the novel and I mean I can't get it's fiction I said I said I can't get into fiction I read I read Dickens I read Dostoevsky I read all that when I was like 18 I loved it I can't read any more and then I realized what the real reason is I read fiction every day New York Times Wall Street Journal Washington Post emsco cronic like a line read fiction so I was sitting there and I think of Kato you know I think of Kato because there's a story about Congressman Sonny Bono who who encountered a tree that stood its ground and they obit is saying he was a stalwart conservative with a solidly conservative approach solidly conservative is that a positive framing or isn't it young I mean when do we hear that someone being solidly radical solidly Marxist you know historians by the way historians who say that we must to understand an era we must immerse ourselves into the context of that era completely and see it through the eyes of its participants such historians often forget that when you do that uncritically so you chances are you are seeing it's the eyes of the dominant participants 90% of the primary sources we have on the late Republic come from Cicero that's why I'm quoting him so often Cicero you see the era through the eyes of its dominant class and you must be judge it therefore I mean how far does that work do you do you do that would not sysm for instance you say well I was two times you know this way it wasn't the thirties you just got to understand it you see and don't judge it in any from any critical perspective well this rule of contextual immersion never applies by the way to other people in wrong I never said I'm seen as historians for instance saying well there was this riot but let's understand this riot because these proletarians were were struggling for subsidized bread prices they were struggling for land reform public jobs they were struggling for the putting a cap on rents that that's why they write it listen let's look at them you know let's see what it was about this constitution and its liberties that were really horribly hypocritical and deficient instead the common people are really looked down upon again and again Cicero was part of an already established tradition when he repeatedly described the urban poor as quote the city dirt and filth the ex Orbis feces the scum from out of the city unruly and inferior a starving contemptible she admits they're starving and it's their fault that they're starving this is some something about them obviously and whenever the people mobilize against class injustice whenever they go into motion then they become in Cicero's mind that most fearsome and loathsome of all creatures the mob and that's a term used by gentlemen historians all the way through happy in writing a century after Cicero describes Caesar as quote introducing laws to win the favor of the mob and the mob he describes as the poor and the hot-headed in our own day today PA brunt refers to the city mom for Lily Ross Taylor it's the city rabble for Cyril Robinson the stupid Roman mob a selfish good-for-nothing parasitic mob don't hold back Cyril force colored it's the idle urban mob as if their idleness were purely of their own choosing and if they were so idle who did all the work it wasn't all slave labor nor even mostly in the ER in the urban areas meanwhile the aristocratic idlers the real parasites who live in obscene opulence are not a harsh word from the great majority of these writers John Dickinson charges that quote caesar appealed to the cupidity of those who desire to be supported by the state the welfare freeloaders receive Dickinson repeatedly writes about Claudius and his mom now Claudius was a populist a popularise ally of Caesar and he sought to legalize the political Ward clubs he organized neighborhoods and guilds the political action he was aware of the of the Senate Tufts and and the rule of the clubs and so he or actually organize people in bands on with clubs of their own he outlawed executions without trial that was a direct jab at Cicero Claudius also extended the grain Dole all this is judged by Dickinson as attempts to quote tighten the control of the mob of a political life other historians describe Claudius as a demagogue and an adventurer he and a large number of his Democratic followers were murdered by a ruling class death squad operative body into the Senate House built the funeral pyre and burned down the whole Senate House and cremated his body during the early Empire the Roman writer juvenile spoke scornfully of the mobs preoccupation with bread and circuses and that phrase as echoed down to us through the centuries a phrase adding to the image of Rome's proletariat as a shiftless volatile mass addicted to endless hands out handouts of food and entertainment free food free entertainment now elite historians like all Elise all the elites are always alert to the corrupting influence that state assistance supposedly inflicts upon the poor a peon tells us that the coronation attracted the idly destitute and hot-headed elements of the Italian population to the capital and he contrasts them to those possessed of property and good sense eighteen hundred years later skullet writes that Claudius's law to change the subsidized distribution of corn into a completely free dole hastened the demoralization of the people by the way this image of an idle mob of layabouts sponging off the state is little more than a figment of upper class and upper middle class prejudice both ancient and modern alike it's really interesting to see how how many of those who have written about ancient Rome find is so disreputable so just so disgusting that the humble Romans should have been concerned about having enough food for themselves and their children oh they wanted bread can you think of it imagine that but this hardly makes the materialistic or degraded in any event only a very limited number in Rome received the regular corn dough often with the humble entitled to a smaller share than the more distinguished citizens furthermore man cannot live by bread alone not even at the physiological level the proletarians needed money for rent clothing and other necessities most of them had to find work low-paying and irregular as it might be the bread dough often was a necessary supplement it was the difference between survival and starvation but it was never a source of total support that allowed them to idle away their days in comfort and leisure and this raises another question who exactly was the mob it's the same question by the way that comes up in the French Revolution here again the mom the mom the mom there were some writers Stanley Loomis for instance I think in 400 page book I don't think everyone's called them the crowd the people the poor the mob it was the mob the mob the mob the mob cheered rose to the air Robespierre the mob opposed the aristocrats the mom who are they well what we hear is that they were lupins drifters and riffraff in fact closer study reveals that in both Rome of 44 BC and in Paris in 1789 ad the mob who are mainly artists craftsmen's shopkeepers day laborers respectable and hardworking proletarians in fact when there was a mass demonstration you only get hints of that all the shops were closed and the shopkeepers was summoned and the circuses who went to the circuses it wasn't just the poor a higher percentage of the equestrians and the rich and the aristocrats went to the circuses they had their well reserved of first chair seats where they can get the best look at all the bloodletting it was they it wasn't the poor people who created and financed the awful spectacles of the of the amphitheater the common people of ancient Rome like the common people of so many societies had scant opportunity to leave a written record of their grievances and aspirations but what little we know of them suggests that the proletariat could sometimes display a social consciousness that was definitely superior to anything possessed by their would-be superiors many of them worked next to slaves and with themselves and were themselves freedmen or the sons of ex slaves and many most of them were almost as poorest slaves in 63 during Cicero's witch-hunt several dissenting leaders urged workmen and slaves to take joint action against the oligarchs now such appeals wouldn't be made unless there was an understanding that there was some kind of community of interest between proletariat's and slaves in parts of Sicily the agrarian proletariat joined in common cause with slaves to rebel against big planters on several occasions I mean major rebellions - Spartacus and so we face this largely one-sided recording of what is called history Cicero Brutus and Cato come down to us as the defenders of Liberty when they was something quite the contrary and Caesar who did something for the poor and moved against privileged property comes down to us as an alien tiring and what you got here of course is this confusion of procedural democracy and substantive democracy that those who cloak themselves in the trappings of procedural democracy or procedural republicanism were definitely against any kind of class democracy or substantive democracy economic democracy and those who fought for economic democracy often because they faced a rigged system often might violate procedural democracy and are immediately labeled as tyrants power-hungry people this was true of Caesar Robespierre Lenin Castro Huey Long the Sandinistas we lived through that ourselves when are they going to have freedom in their country ruling elites in America weren't concerned about freedom they were as they were as hypocritical as the Senate oligarchs were about Caesar they weren't concerned about freedom they were concerned that the Sandinistas were actually making changes in the social structure and class structure of Nicaragua so what we must do is learn to read history against the grain and swim against the mainstream and try to keep connected to those who came before us certainly not the Cicero's nor the Cato's as were urged and trained to do and not even the Gracchi or Caesar or the popularise leaders rather the anonymous masses upon whose shoulders they stood the common people who struggled against all odds with all the courage and all the fears and all the inconsistencies of ordinary people who put themselves on the line whose names we will never know whose blood and tears we will never see whose words and cries of pain we will never hear and yet to whom we are linked in the past that is never dead and never really past in the future that never arrives but beckons us and keeps us going and so history never ends the last page is never written and the best pages are written not by princes presidents prime ministers Pope's or even professors but by the people for all their faults and shortcomings the people are all we have in fact we are they thank you ladies and gentlemen you

Channel: talkingsticktv

Views: 132,129

Keywords: Assassination, Caesar, Julius, Rome, Republic, History, Parenti

Id: _IO_Ldn2H4o

Length: 75min 51sec (4551 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 10 2008