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Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

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Re: Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

#3
This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to persuade people to support those in power, about how misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrorists and criminal elements behind it stopped for the sake of all the good people of China.

Of course in the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power. You may have humor and charm, you may be well-behaved and your claims may be correct, but if you are an impediment to the agendas of those in power, they will silence you in whatever ways they can unless others in society restrain them.

It is the lesson of history that Noam Chomsky shouted from the rooftops: when you use your power to silence speech you don't like, you are corrupt, regardless of how you try to disguise it, and the more power you have to do it, the more corrupt, until absolute power corrupts absolutely or society refuses to allow it and restrains you.

Re: Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

#6
post #3

This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to persuade people to support those in power, about how misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrori…

> Of course in the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power.

The conflict between Cicero and Mark Antony is a splendid case study of influence versus power and how that conflict ends when power chooses to play its hand.

Re: Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

#7
post #3

This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to persuade people to support those in power, about how misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrori…

> the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power.

This is a spin on the fact that he was a participant in the murder of Caesar. Cicero was trying to take back power that had been lost to a very popular Leader by participating in the murder of said leader.[0] The killers and conspirators involved were all hunted down and killed.

[0] - for those not up on Roman institutions, Dictator had a different role than we would ascribe today, albeit with many similarities.

Re: Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

#8
post #7
post #3

This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to persuade people to support those in power, about how misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrori…

> the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power. This is a spin on the fact that he was a participant in the murder of Caesar. Cicero was trying to take back power that had been lost to a very popular Leader by participating in the murder of said leader.[0] The killers and conspirators involved were all hunted down and killed. [0] - for those not up on Roman institutions, Dictator had a different role th…

The historical consensus seems to be that Cicero, while probably amenable to the plot, was a witness only, and not involved with the conspirators until after the deed was done.

Re: Cicero used humor to charm audiences–and humiliate opponents

#9
post #7
post #3

This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to persuade people to support those in power, about how misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrori…

> the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power. This is a spin on the fact that he was a participant in the murder of Caesar. Cicero was trying to take back power that had been lost to a very popular Leader by participating in the murder of said leader.[0] The killers and conspirators involved were all hunted down and killed. [0] - for those not up on Roman institutions, Dictator had a different role th…

Cicero wasn't murdered for any connection with the assassination of Caesar. He was murdered because Marc Anthony personally hated him for having denounced Anthony in a series of speeches known as the Philippics. When Octavian and Anthony were setting up the Second Triumvirate, Cicero's life was one of Anthony's demands.
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