The Italian Job

A religion of empire.

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After yet another week of chaotic travel, Jonah can’t resist recording a Ruminant to settle his addled mind. Coming to you from the seas of Southern Italy, today’s offering is marginally less excessive than usual, as Jonah focuses his ornery energy on the Israel-Gaza war and how America’s political parties are reacting to it. Other, equally grim topics include the limits of the United Nations, the state of the Ukraine conflict, and Russian collaboration with Iran.

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    Even Hitler at first was circumspect about the Night of Broken Glass because of his political considerations. He understood that his rising power rested, in part, on his political legitimacy. I’d like to say “If only he had modern western apologists for air cover” but he had them then also if Churchill is to be believed.

    This is what’s so maddening about the veneer of Hamas excuses clouding far too much of the mainstream media coverage (never mind the UN). All this moral equivalency is not only intellectual flatulence but also dangerous for innocents whether they be Palestinians or Israelis, Jews or Arabs.

    As for democracy, if 6 robbers break into my house of 5 and then take a vote to murder the dog, that doesn’t make it legitimate. Democracy alone cannot provide legitimacy.

    Majority considerations are responsible for everything from Sunday Night Football Taylor Swift cutaways to the election of Hamas. By itself, it is simply might makes right and I think Americans too often misunderstand this.

    Democracy only has value in the context of a system that provides due process, protection of minority freedoms, checks and balances, etc. There obviously has to be a balance but pure majority rule is garbage. To quote my favorite Jonah Goldberg comment:

    “As we all know, democracy is not the best form of government. In pure democracies — which thankfully do not exist — 51 percent of the people can vote to atomic-wedgie 49 percent of the people.”

    It’s important that the people retain their power to fire their government. It is less important that the people retain the power to direct various details of everyone’s private life. Just because a majority of Americans are for or against abortion does not make the wholesale banning or availability of it right.

    The good thing about America (still) is that we continue to have those fights mostly without violence. That’s the value: the peaceful settling of differences. I wish we remembered that more often.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This stuff about Soviet propaganda informing conspiracy theories and arcane academic theories (but I repeat myself) in the West is always real fascinating.

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      The Bell Tower

      I’ve been plowing through an old book called The Hurricane by Zhou Libo (not the famous comedian but the communist propagandist). The Chinese communists took a lot from the Bolsheviks, obviously.

      So much familiarity in the way he characterized how to “awaken” the masses. A lot of patience, a lot of Festivus type airing of the grievances. Class and racial consciousness is not new and anytime I hear “consciousness” or “awakening” I’m ready for the bullcrap.

      You’ll hear that baloney everywhere from Hitler to Mao to Alex Jones to that MyPillow ding dong. It’s always “If these normies just understood how oppressed they are!” Even Catiline in Ancient Rome, as Adrian Goldsworthy notes:

      “When challenged in the Senate by the consul, Catiline spoke of two republics - the great mass of the population were a powerful body without a head to guide them, while his opponents were a head without a body since there was no real substance to their support. He declared that he would become the head that the mass of the population so urgently longed for.”

      This is Trump’s appeal also. If you only understood what “they” are getting away with doing to you, you’d join us in our sacred quest for utopia. Politics has become a populist contest for who can seize power first but more importantly, last.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Ben Connelly

        Very insightful. I’d forgotten that bit about Catiline. More evidence that so much of what passes for “new” ideology is merely old impulses with new wordsmithing justifying them.

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        1. Avatar photo
          The Bell Tower

          Always and forever. It’s never exactly the same but human nature hasn’t really changed since the first monkey said:

          “Bro! I need loincloth here. I should make one.”

          And the monkey next door said:

          “Why does HE get a diaper and not me? Let’s kill him and take it.”

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            Ben Connelly

            Hahahaha

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  3. Samuel Mpona

    Patrice Lumumba was not “a character”. He was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was assassinated under particularly cruel and inhumane condition with US and Belgium’s complicity.
    Jonah shouldn’t be so callous and glib about those events and that man.

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  4. Denishealy

    As an Irish citizen, I envy the fact that the Trotskyite post-colonial nonsense discussed in the podcast appears to be isolated in the US to campuses and the political fringe.

    Here in Ireland, our President recently refused to answer a straight-up question about whether he believed Russia's invasion of Ukraine was an example of imperialism ('imperialism', or at least his understanding of the word, being something that he frequently criticises).

    He also waited two days after the 10/7 atrocities to release a statement that was carefully worded in order not to directly criticise Hamas.

    He is, imo, bringing shame on our country, but unfortunately there is a big constituency here for his views.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      I definitely hear a little of it filter down to the average person, but not in any extraordinary detail. Every once in a while someone I know will say something that I have to convince them is a bit of Soviet (or recently Putin FSB) propaganda. Had a professor tell me one time that the CIA invented the crack epidemic.

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      Narwhal

      How much of the support for those views do you think is reflexive because of Ireland’s history with the UK? How much is principled and due to being informed or persuaded?

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    Charley Warns

    It could be worth noting that I'm resting my head on my brand new Mike Lindell autographed pillow; it previously auctioned off by former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn; given that prior it follows that it was me as the highest bidder; all of which (of course) is contingent on the accuracy of aforementioned narrative. So that noted, consider what it must be like to be in Ukraine or Israel and not knowing if your nation will exist in a year. That would qualify as an existential crisis. Given our increasing lack of gratitude on what we've got, it's not that hard to visualize that happening here in the U.S. Yet in our case, it will be 100% our fault.

    Ramesh (Editors podcast) made a pithy point re how society should decide what's cancel culture and what's justified: It's a matter of sound judgement.

    Justified: An attorney in Illinois comptroller’s office was fired for this comment: “Hitler should have eradicated all of you.”

    Cancel Culture: Getting rebuked or fired for simply commenting that Lia Thomas shouldn't be competing in women's swimming as it seems unfair.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Narwhal

      Hamas isn’t an existential threat to Israel. Neither is Hezbollah. Neither is Syria. Neither is Iran (for now).

      However, Hamas clearly would be if they had the capability to be so. There is no question now if there ever was. Israel does have the capability to commit a genocide of Palestinians and despite what some may claim they have not. The Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza has increased dramatically over the last fifty years (even with significant emigration). One side of the current conflict has a government with the stated goal of genocide and the other doesn’t. (A government which only received a plurality of the total vote tally and hasn’t held an election since then.)

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        Charley Warns

        In response to the opening sentence in your second paragraph, let me just say, "no ****, Sherlock!" Obviously the president figures Iran to be an existential threat right now given he immediately put 2 aircraft carriers in the vicinity. DeSantis is organizing flights out of Israel. You just contradicted yourself by adding "(for now)" in that opening line; if you're thinking Iran is an existential threat tomorrow or in one year from now, that makes it one now given the nature of the word, "threat." Hamas and Hezbollah are part of Iran's network of proxies (i.e., they're on the same team) which makes them part of that same existential threat. If Iran's intent is to build a nuclear arsenal to destroy Israel (there's broad agreement that many in the region desire that result given recent events) that could happen in several months. Add to that scenario Goldberg's suggestion that Russia is working with Iran. Given Trump's response, who knows what he'd do?!

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        1. Avatar photo
          Narwhal

          If we were planning to strike at Iran directly then they wouldn’t both be in the Eastern Mediterranean. Those are there for Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria. (All of which take direction from Iran to some degree or another.)

          None of them are an existential threat to Israel. All are threats to Israel and Israelis.

          Edit:

          Update- I read that as of today we have moved a carrier group near the Persian Gulf. May be routine but probably isn’t.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Narwhal

    Jonah, you obviously needed more coffee.

    Your moat example doesn’t work, at all. May I suggest this: Hamas are feral dogs which Iran feeds and has trained to fight and encourages to roam about the neighborhood mauling people. Hezbollah are pit bulls Iran owns, has also trained to fight but keeps on a leash until they want someone mauled.

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    Marianwcates

    I love the ruminants and this was no exception.

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  8. Michael.Mcchesney

    So Jonah is in Italy, cut off from the real world? Finally, someone admits that Italy is an imaginary place!!!

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    Dr. Livesey

    I don't know where I read it or any of the details (or if memory actually serves here) but I thought the Romans insisted that subjects across the empire acknowledge some Roman emperors as gods. This would be one of the cultural things Romans insisted their subjects would have to change. I think people were supposed to bow down or something. A lot of Christians and Jews wouldn't do that, and that was one of the reasons they were persecuted. Maybe somebody else reading this has a better handle on it.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Narwhal

      “In the 250s, under the reigns of Decius and Valerian, Roman subjects including Christians were compelled to sacrifice to Roman gods or face imprisonment and execution, but there is no evidence that these edicts were specifically intended to attack Christianity.”

      “In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors (Galerius with the Edict of Serdica in 311) at different times, but Constantine and Licinius' Edict of Milan in 313 has traditionally marked the end of the persecution.”

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution

      Wikipedia isn’t the best source but it is often a great place to start because it links other sources.

      Constantine the Great ended the persecution, most famously of the Christians but not just of the Christians as the persecutions didn’t only target them.

      Here is a link to the History of Rome Podcast (Ep. 110, when Decius enters the narrative.)

      https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/2010/09/110-a-gothic-horror.html

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      CynthiaW

      Recent archaeological research has suggested that imperial cults were adopted in the provinces on the initiative of local elites, rather than imposed from the center. The hypothesis is that leaders of Romanized cities in, say, Syria believed that adding the name of a deified emperor to their city's handle and building a nice temple to Augustus would get the late emperor spiritually on their side. This was important in a part of the world that was vulnerable to geopolitical and geological chaos.

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    Daniel.Standage

    Lasers with sharks on their heads 😂😂😂

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