The state of the Empire and the art of deflection
During the recent State of the Union address, a reality-TV star-cum-president stood in the speaker’s podium and announced this country will never be “socialist.” He was met with thunderous applause.
On the walls of the chamber, flanking him on either side, framing the seat of representative power, were symbolic manifestations of a violent historical-political alternative to socialism. These are fasces — a bundle of rods wrapped around a large ax. “Fascist” — the political identifier which takes its name from the fasces — is too loaded a term to unpack here. I will limit myself to a discussion of the fasces themselves, considering their symbological use in the Capitol building predates historical fascism by over a century.
The fasces, like a great deal of our country’s infrastructural and governmental inspirations, originated with the Roman empire.
The praetorian guardsmen who accompanied Roman senators through public spaces would carry physical fasces as symbols of the power of the state, and the strength which comes from civic unity. The mythological nature of the symbol speaks for itself — if the senator felt threatened by the crowds, the guards could shed the ax of its communal rods. Naked violence would reinforce a primordial meaning of the fasces: might makes right.
In a sense, there is no symbol more fit to frame a flag that used to only have 13 white stars alongside its blue field, in a building which consciously echoes Roman architecture, in a country whose founders purposefully incorporated the ghosts of the first Rome into their young government.
Ask yourself, fellow plebian, because the president and the Congress will not and never will: What makes an empire “evil,” why might it deflect attention from its Roman-classical baggage, and how might we make it “good?”
LIAM MCMAHON
Prairie Grove
Author uses scare tactics
in warning on pot use
Referring to a Feb. 3 Perspective Section article, Alex Berenson wrote of the increase of violence with cannabis use. He presented an incorrect and biased view.
Schizophrenia, opioid addiction, psychosis and anger control issues all require specific treatment. Much of their treatment cannot be used with any other medicines. Many self-medicate with alcohol, opioids, legal or illegal drugs. Mr. Berenson didn’t quote any cannabis-only treatment results: CBD (not producing a high or addiction) for epileptic seizures, Parkinson’s disease? Maybe the THC helps anxiety or sleep disorders. What about relieving glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, organ transplant circulation, cancer chemotherapy effects? Those prone to murder, psychotic disorders, abuse of family members/ animals may use alcohol, meth, opioids with marijuana. It’s well known that pot-only users do not fight, abuse, or die from it.
It can’t be said that marijuana alone leads to more violence. We already know that medications come with warnings to avoid other drugs, alcohol or food and to avoid driving or operation of machinery. Medical marijuana should be used with similar cautions.
Mr. Berenson is a fiction author with history and economic degrees. Here is where we discover the real reason for the article: “Cannabis use is a personal decision. Whether cannabis should be legal is a political issue.” Really? “We need equally unambiguous and well-funded advertising campaigns on the risks of cannabis.” What lobbyists, right-wing politicians or activists or alarmists funded his scare tactics about a plant that has been used for thousands of years for medical purposes?
A friend, holding her husband as he was dying from Parkinson’s disease, heard him say he wished he could’ve lived long enough to get his medical marijuana to relieve his tremors, paralysis and multiple falls.
LINDA MONROE
Rogers