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casE study 1: moral disEnGaGEmEnt throuGhout history

pompEys war on piracy, 68BcE


Exhibit a:

its all just a littlE casE oF history rEpEatinG

thE crusadEs

Exhibit B:

thE witchhunts oF thE middlE aGEs

Exhibit c:

thE spanish inquisition

Exhibit d:

goal: war of conquest

goal: war of conquest

goal: social control

goal: social control

Demonising the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Dispossessed of Roman society proscribed as pirates Pirates fault for challenging Roman trading monopoly Defending Rome necessitates aggression Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons! Calling attention to them threatens security of Rome

Demonising the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism:

Muslims living in the Holy Land are infidels Muslims at fault for not submitting to papal autocracy Muslims are hurting Catholicism by existing Killing is Gods will. Kill them all; God will recognise his own. Only those who love Satan draw attention to them

Demonising the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Free-thinking women are Satan-loving witches Women at fault for not obeying religious heirarchies Lack of submission to Christian dogma is an attack on it Upholding Gods love means persecuting what we fear Only satan-worshippers draw attention to them

Demonising the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim:

Those who dont think the same defined as heretics Converted Jews at fault for not wanting to conform Lack of submission to Christian dogma is an attack on it Upholding Gods love means persecuting what we fear Only satan-worshippers draw attention to them

Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Ignoring the consequences:

scapegoat de jour: the dispossessed, or pirates


Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/opinion/30harris.html

scapegoat de jour: muslims, or infidels


Sources: http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/index.html

scapegoat de jour: free women, or witches


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

scapegoat de jour: conversos, or heretics


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

nazism

Exhibit E:

communism

Exhibit F:

thE cold war

Exhibit G:

thE war on tError

Exhibit h:

goal: world domination

goal: social control

goal: world domination

goal: resource control

Demonsing the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim:

Jews are subhumans, are trying to take over the world Jews at fault for existing Nazis are threatened because Jews arrogantly choose to exist Not being of the aryan race makes you a subhuman Just following orders, your honour, nothing more

Demonsing the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Independent thinkers are counter-revolutionaries Independent thinkers at fault for not idolising Stalin Thinking for self defined as attack on workers state Criticising tyranny means that you love injustice Calling attention to them is counter-revolutionary

Demonsing the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Resisters of aggression are part of Soviet conspiracy 3rd worlds fault for wanting to develop independently Refusal to submit to conquest seen as act of war Defending against Red tyranny requires aggression Questions are the thin end of the commie wedge

Demonsing the enemy Blaming the victim: Playing the victim: Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

Muslims want to bring the benign west to its knees Muslims put their land on top of our oil Muslims responsible for fallout from US foreign policy Those who are not for us are against us Anyone who asks questions is soft on or aiding terrorism

Black and white moralism: Ignoring the consequences:

scapegoat de jour: jews, or subhumans


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism

scapegoat de jour: libertarians, or counter-revolutionaries


Sources: libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group

scapegoat de jour: rebels, or reds


Sources: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199011--.htm

scapegoat de jour: muslims, or terrorists


Sources: http://www.chomsky.info/talks/200202--02.htm

Pirates Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons! - Pompey the Great, (106 BC 48 BC)

Crusades From the confines of Jerusalem and from the city of Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth and has repeatedly been brought to our ears; namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race wholly alienated from God, a generation that set not their heart alight and whose spirit was not steadfast with God, violently invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part have they have killed by cruel tortures. They have either destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of their own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them and has been deprived of territory so vast in extent that it could be traversed in two months time . . . . . . Let those who have formerly been accustomed to contend wickedly in private warfare against the faithful fight against the infidel, and bring to a victorious end the war which ought already to have been begun. Let those who have hitherto been robbers now become soldiers. Let those who have formerly contended against their brothers and relatives now fight against the barbarians as they ought . . . When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God! [Deus vult! Deus Vult!] - Pope Urban II, 1095, according to the chronichlers Robert the Monk and Fulcher of Chartres.

Crusades (cont.) Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own. - Arnaud Amalric, Papal legate, Inquisitor and leader of the Albigensian Crusade, 1208. This was the answer given to a knight of the Crusade during the siege of Beziers, a town in what is today Southern France, who asked him how distinguish the Catholics of Beziers from its Cathar population against whom the Crusade was directed. The Witchhunts They say that there are three things in the world, the Tongue, an Ecclesiastic, and a Woman, which know no moderation in goodness or vice; and when they exceed the bounds of their condition they reach the greatest heights and the lowest degrees of goodness and vice. When they are governed by a good spirit, they are most excellent; but when they are governed by an evil spirit, they become the most wicked . . . All (Witchcraft) comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable . . . More such reasons could be brought forward, but to the understanding it is sufficiently clear that it is no matter for wonder that there are more women than men found infected with the heresy of Witchcraft. - Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches Hammer)

The Spanish Inquisition Despise the weak for they shall flock to the call of the Daemon and the Renegade. Pity them not and scorn their cries of innocence - it is better that one hundred innocently fall before the wrath of the Emperor than one kneels before the Daemon. - The First Book of Indoctrinations Some may question your right to destroy ten billion people. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live! - In Exterminatus Extremis One cannot consider the fate of a single man, nor ten, nor a hundred, nor a thousand. Billions will live or die by our actions here, and we have not the luxury to count the cost. - Inquisitor Kryptman

Nazism Naturally the common people dont want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. - Hermann Gering, during the Nuremberg Trials, 1946. "The death of five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction." - Adolf Eichmann

Communism We must bear in mind that the growth of the power of the Soviet state will increase the resistance of the last remnants of the dying classes. It is precisely because they are dying, and living their last days that they will pass from one form of attack to another, to sharper forms of attack, appealing to the backward strata of the population, and mobilizing them against the Soviet power. There is no foul lie or slander that these have-beens would not use against the Soviet power and around which they would not try to mobilize the backward elements. This may give ground for the revival of the activities of the defeated groups of the old counter-revolutionary parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, the bourgeois nationalists in the centre and in the outlying regions; it may give grounds also for the revival of the activities of the fragments of counter-revolutionary opposition elements from among the Trotskyites and the Right deviationists. Of course, there is nothing terrible in this. But we must bear all this in mind if we want to put an end to these elements quickly and without great loss. - Josef Stalin, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan (1933).

Communism 1. Investigative agencies are directed to speed up the cases of those accused of the preparation of execution of acts of terror. 2. Juricidial organs are directed not to hold up the execution of death sentences pertaining to crimes of this category in order to consider the possibility of pardon, because the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider as possible the receiving of petitions of this sort. 3. The organs of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs are directed to execute the death sentence against criminals of the above-mentioned category immediately after the passage of sentence. - Decree issued by the Bolshevik authorities in Soviet Russia on 1 December, 1934. Abolishing what few legal guarantees remained for enemies of the state, this decree followed hot on the heels of the assassination of Sergei Kirov, regarded by many as a potential challenger to Stalin, the same day. The murder of Kirov, commonly accepted now as being planned and orchestrated by Stalins agents in the NKVD, gave Stalin a pretext to crack down on internal opposition in the name of combating terrorism and bourgeois counter-revolution and laid the foundation for the Red Terror and show trials that followed.

The Cold War We have about 50% of the worlds wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. - George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning, US State Department, 1948 Vietnam We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it. - Unnamed US Army officer, February 7, 1968 War on Terror Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. - U.S. President George W. Bush, 2001

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