"So ancient Athens, we are taught, was a democracy and a model for all of Greece. And America, we are told, is a democracy and a model for all the world. Which is why US foreign policy makes it the most hated nation on earth."

"I have never yet feared any men who have a place in the center of the city set aside for meeting together, swearing false oaths, and cheating one another, and if I live long enough, [the Spartans] will have troubles of their own about which to converse, rather than those of the Ionians." Cyrus [the Great] thus insulted the Hellenes because of their custom of setting up agoras in their cities for the purpose of buying and selling, which is unknown among the Persians, who do not use markets and, indeed, have no such place as an agora in any of their cities. [1]

It would be surprising, I suppose, for a ruthless conqueror, in control of a vast army, landmass and treasure, to fear a little-known people on the periphery of empire with a cultural preference for agoras. At this point in history, however, we may say that men who create and use institutions known as free markets to lie, cheat, steal and deceive for economic gain, ought to be feared, prosecuted and legislated out of existence. For they are the sociopaths of high finance and multinational corporations who revel in the destruction of whole economies, countries and ecosystems. Whose greed, and contempt for humanity, are so pathological, they would sooner destroy society than see working-class people benefit from functioning government, good jobs, education, healthcare and retirement.

Though the idea of a free market may trace back ultimately to the melee of commercial activity in the ancient Greek agora, only billionaires and idiots could possibly believe that "caveat emptor" is sufficient protection for the modern world, and that capitalist industry will regulate itself. The great social discovery of the Greek agora was certainly not free market economies. It was the magical civic power that thrives in the creation of public space - exactly what neoliberal doctrine now seeks to eradicate.

The reference to the Greek agora in the quote above dates to the mid-sixth century BCE, predating by almost forty years the political reform that led to democracy in Athens. The best-studied and most famous agora in the Greek world was also in Athens. In the last decade of the sixth century, a prominent Athenian clan drove the last tyrant out of the city, and its leader wrote the reforming legislation. Seven years earlier, two gay youth had already slain the tyrant's younger brother in a plot which included both, and then paid with their lives. A pair of bronze statues honoring the tyrant-slayers, as they became known, was commissioned and paid for with public funds after democracy was established.

If Athens was becoming a dangerous place for autocrats at the end of the sixth century, it was the energy and spirit of the Athenian agora that made it so, not the new legislation per se. The magical power of a public space, where citizens could gather, converse, interact, and above all recognize the profound truth that all citizens deserve equal rights, kicked opened the door to democratic reform. It happened elsewhere in the Greek world, but not everywhere.

In Athens the wide-open area bisected diagonally by the Panathenaic Way on the north side of the Acropolis emphatically belonged to the people. And they enjoyed and developed it for a wide range of activities - social, cultural, political, economic, religious. Here they discovered truths so powerful, that they challenge the very limits of human intelligence and creativity to resolve. Truths which they themselves could not fully recognize, much less embrace: that all people deserve dignity and free speech; that all people deserve equal rights, protection and opportunity under law; that there is nothing in human experience that can qualify one person to be the sole ruler over many.

These are but some of the truths inherent in the Athenian democratic revolution. Unfortunately, it only went as far as the citizens: a jealously guarded category which did not include everyone, not even most people. Who were "the citizens?" They were free-born Athenian males, aged eighteen and over - a fraction of the population, not even twenty-five percent. Women, slaves and permanent immigrants were all non-citizens, disenfranchised, without political rights. In a society partitioned by such rigid lines (male vs. female, free vs. slave, native vs. immigrant, rich vs. poor) anything called democracy must necessarily be a deeply qualified term. One could even say Orwellian. How could it be that the overwhelming majority of people who lived, worked and died within the city walls had no rights under a new political reform named for the people and called the people's government?

Suddenly we find the new reform to be excruciatingly narrow. Now we discover the invisible roots of injustice and inequality - including fear, violence, ignorance, greed, racism, sexism, classism - underpinning early Western society, and still largely in place. "Get real!" says Mr. Man-of-the-World, "you can't expect the ancient Athenians to have freed their slaves, liberated their women and naturalized immigrants in the sixth century BCE." An insidious statement if you think about it. It says if you were part of the overwhelming majority in the sixth century, you had no right to expect justice.

But okay, let's play along for the moment and forget about the slaves, women, immigrants of antiquity; that was a long time ago. What about the native peoples of the New World? Can we expect the Europeans to have treated them fairly, two millennia after the first democracy appeared in Europe? "Get real! No room for savages in the expanding empires of Christendom. Too many heathens to kill and continents to steal." Okay, what about the Armenians in Asia Minor and Jews in the heart of civilized Europe, only last century? Can we expect them to have been treated like human beings? "Get real! No room for uppity Armenians in the moribund Ottoman Empire or for untermenschen in the Aryan Third Reich intended for a thousand years." Okay, what about the Palestinians in the democratic republic of Israel? Can we expect the Jews, whose own suffering was so acute, to treat them with dignity? "Get real! No room for Palestinians in the gloriously resurrected Jewish state. Semitic, but not Hebrew. Abrahamic, but not Yahweh-worshipping. There forever, but God never promised them the land." Okay, what about the constitutional republic of America the Beautiful, the world's oldest surviving democracy? Can we at least expect the US to respect other people in their own country by refraining from illegal invasions, bombing, torture, assassination? "Get real! No room for the rest of the world in US foreign policy. Too many terrorists to kill and resources to exploit."

A few questions, and we quickly learn that for Mr. Man-of-the-World injustice is timeless, a thing for all ages, having nothing to do with the date on the calendar (though he may pretend that it does). But couldn't we as easily build a world on principles of justice and equality, and make these values a possession for all time? We phrase that as a question, because the world's first democracy did not seriously challenge but incorporated the machinery of injustice from deep time. Ironically this has become the model for all subsequent democracies: the preservation of long-standing injustices, and not their resolution. Which is why, if you expect state power to adhere to principles of justice and equality, and treat all people with dignity and respect, there's always a "man of the world" in every culture who will say, "Get real!" Because he's heavily invested in the machinery of injustice, and benefits so nicely from it, and has no interest in a society of equal rights and opportunity for all. The roots of injustice and inequality running through Western society from ancient to modern times are deep, tenacious and unresolved because of him.

Nowadays Mr. Man-of-the-World may be anyone, anywhere at anytime: male, female, white, black, Christian, Hindu, straight, gay, PhD, high school drop-out, sitting president or squatting plumber. "Get real!" gives him a sense of power, experience and sophistication: he's a player just for saying it. Truth be told, he's a dangerous ignoramus. Has he any idea how much murder, fear, violence, ignorance, repression the machinery of injustice requires just to run and maintain itself? If not, he's certainly no man of the world. If so, he's deeply pathological. Identifying with institutionalized injustice and inequality, because it's backed by the seemingly uncontestable killing power of an organized group - government, corporate, military, religious - doesn't make you a man of the world with a higher-than-average IQ. It has rather the opposite effect of making you stupid, parochial, dishonest, cowardly.

Democracy was cultivated in Athens as an Orwellian term to accommodate the feelings of the overwhelming majority who were politically disenfranchised. Whether the leaders of the reform were conscious of making semantic adjustments in labeling doesn't matter for it to be true (though it's difficult to believe that they weren't). The term's greatest value today is that it functions in almost exactly the same way - accommodating the feelings of the vast majority who, if not technically disenfranchised, are largely without political influence and power.

A simple triangular analysis of the Greek word, demokratia, in combination with two other related Greek words, androkratia and gynaikokratia, may show how its use in ancient Athens anticipated Orwell by some twenty-four hundred years. Hereafter for the sake of simplicity we'll use their naturalized forms: democracy, androcracy, gynecocracy.

The -kratia suffix used in these compounds comes from the Greek word kratos, meaning strength, might, power. In Homer it chiefly refers to bodily strength; later by extension it means political power. The first half of each word respectively derives from a basic Greek word for people (demos), man (aner) and woman (gyne) creating in each case a compound word, which ought to have a clear and distinct meaning: a government of-by-and-for the people (democracy), or of-by-and-for men (androcracy), or of-by-and-for women (gynecocracy).

We say that these words ought to have a clear and distinct meaning, because cultures of betrayal and violence must betray and violate the true meaning of words, as much as the minds and bodies of people. "Legitimate power" only deriving from the "consent of the governed" is a truism. Yet how does one clarify this consent from the Orwellian mess that every culture of violence necessarily makes of its own language? The tripe soup of the mother tongue - in, by and through which consent is "offered." What percentage of any population bothers to deconstruct the cultural doublespeak of its own language before supping from an awful bowl of offal soup?

In early August 2011, the corporate media reported the single worst loss of American troops in the Afghan war, since the US-led war of aggression against that country began in October 2001. Taliban "insurgents" or "militants," as the media variously reported, shot down a Chinook transport helicopter carrying 30 US and eight Afghan troops, killing everyone on board. 22 of the 30 were elite Navy SEALs, members of Team Six, which in May 2011 carried out the illegal assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Though none of the 22 were part of that action, here they were coming to the aid of other special forces pinned down while executing a night raid in Wardak province.

The US president, the ISAF commander, the chair of Joint Chiefs, pundits and preachers alike buried them forthwith in a deep-cynical grave of meaningless praise. They were "true heroes" who "did not die in vain" but "paid the ultimate sacrifice" so "we can live in freedom." We must "draw inspiration from their lives," and continue the work of "securing our country and standing up for the values they embodied." We must get on with doing what they would want us to do - "keep fighting!" Family and friends of the fallen were brought before media cameras, this one saying "he loved protecting our country." That one saying, "he was a special kid" who died doing "what he loved doing." And another, "he is with the Lord now; I will see him again someday."

The injustice and hypocrisy - the sheer criminality - of this language is astounding. Imagine a foreign power invading the US, simply because it can. Because it wants to seize the resources of the land and impose neoliberal reform for its own benefit. It calculates that military invasion is the most direct if not the best way to achieve this end. Not being able to say this publicly, but needing cover for the high crime of a premeditated war of aggression, it declares the US government an international terrorist state, an undemocratic Christian corporate tyranny harboring and using at will weapons of mass destruction against the world, and therefore an unacceptable security risk to the planet. Unlike the US practice of black lies to malign countries rhetorically before destroying them militarily, this declaration would be true. Still it would not justify a unilateral preemptive military attack certain to have profound negative consequences for large parts of the civilian population.

But remember, the foreign power is invading simply because it can. So who cares? Quickly it seizes the US capital and other major cities, and sells off all state-owned enterprises, public services and utilities, and the natural resources of the land to multinational corporations with ties to its own culture. Upper-class resistance crumbles immediately. After all, it's largely the case that the ruling elite, the world over, have no principles and believe in nothing but their own phony wealth and privilege. The political class in Washington is now a puppet government doing the bidding of a foreign power. Truth be told, it will look, feel and sound very much like the one we already have. Instead of taking orders from a fascist corporate shadow-state of its own culture, it will take orders from a fascist corporate shadow-state of a foreign culture. For the depraved and craven ruling elite, this will be as easy as switching chairs at a banquet table.

The only question now for the foreign power is what will the people do? The great numbers of poor and working-class people who believed in a country governed by principles - in a country of democracy, justice and equality under law? Who believe that a foreign power has no right to seize the resources of their country, and exploit their land and labor to exhaustion. Will they be as brave as the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine defending themselves, against all odds, from a hostile takeover by a foreign power? Will they have the heart for a long and bloody war of resistance lasting decades? Let's say the people decide to fight on principle and with no illusions.

Now the foreign power will build a network of military bases throughout the American heartland, and bomb countless small towns and hamlets, and round up "Christian militants" and "Protestant insurgents." Certain troublesome cities may be completely razed to the ground, and no doubt sectarian divisions will be exploited to break the resistance apart. Staunch Catholics, for instance, may be played, and paid off, to fight against Protestants who vow to take their county back and establish a strict Anglo-Christian fundamentalist theocracy once and for all. "Only God, guns and guts can save us now!" one can hear the rally-cry, "Back to our roots! Back to the people who founded this country and made it great!" And the foreign power will firebomb and drone-attack from the sky, and the soldier-goons in its army will kick down doors in the night, and blow away the males and rape the women and girls just for kicks, and maybe even set them on fire when they're done. "Fuck 'em - they're all a bunch of bomb-throwing Jesus freaks with no regard for human life, worshipping the prince of peace one day, planting IEDs the next. God, they make me sick - too stupid to know we're here to save their sagging asses from Christian fascism. Time to kill all these paleface honky hypocrites before they kill us!"

And when the paleface see the sheer brutality of the enemy - their womenfolk being raped by soldier-goons flown in from a foreign land by the hundreds of thousands, and countless other innocent Americans being blown apart on their way to work, hospitals and shops, while attending weddings and funerals - they will go stark raving mad and want nothing more than to kill every foreigner who may have anything to do with the occupation of their country - soldier, contractor, journalist, relief-worker, tourist - nothing will matter, and the resistance will mount and the fighting will intensify. And the foreign power will target prominent leaders of the resistance for extrajudicial assassination. It will data-mine their communication networks, and unloose death squads to hunt down and kill anyone associated with them. And rogue kill teams will terrorize the population, murder randomly and take pictures of themselves laughing over the bodies of dead Americans. [2] Under these horrible circumstances, how long will it be before members of the resistance infiltrate the borders of the foreign power, bomb strategic targets and kill innocent civilians there?

Meanwhile the upper-class puppets in Washington will become ever more odious, pretending to care about the extreme suffering of the people, while feigning independent political control. They will fly hither and yon for "high level meetings" with heads of the foreign power. They will claim to have brokered this or that agreement governing the withdraw of foreign troops and the return of the country to Americans. But wait, weren't they the same goons who sold off their country and consigned all its citizens to a living hell, so they could suck from the monstrous udder of the invading power and live in luxury behind its hateful security walls? Yes, and if they know anything, they know this much: if the foreign power withdraws or the resistance succeeds, they'll be lucky to receive a summary execution. So behind the scenes they must make common cause with the sworn enemy of their own people, and fully embrace a life of deceit, treachery and betrayal.

From its embryonic beginning in Jamestown to its colossal demise, when the American empire lies athwart the world in smoldering chunks of global ruin, this will have been the most stunning achievement of its "democracy" - the relentless cultural proliferation of imperial goons, at home and abroad at every level of operation, to betray, corrupt and destroy the life of the planet without qualm or query.

Back to democracy as an Orwellian term from its inception in ancient Athens. The argument is simple. If the powerful men behind the reform were concerned about truth in advertising, they might have called their government an androcracy. Which is exactly what it was: a government of-by-and-for men only (and native-free-born men at that). But guess what? The word is unattested in ancient times. Though morphologically sound, it doesn't exist anywhere in extant ancient Greek literature. [3] What a phenomenal display of ideological control that a civilization can come and go, and leave no record of a word that describes better than any other the historical reality of its own government!

Mum's the word, wouldn't you say? After all, could Pericles have declared Athenian androcracy to be a model for all of Greece? How about in a public eulogy at a state funeral for war dead, surrounded by town folk including disenfranchised and now bereaved and grieving mothers, wives, sisters, daughters? [4] For anyone in the crowd allergic to blatant propaganda the speech must have been crippling bad medicine. Just like the eulogies for war dead delivered by politicians today. Certainly praising androcracy would have been a disaster. Funny though how the brushed and collared class of professionals lap up the propaganda of every age like kittens round a bowl of warm milk. Indeed they'd be hard pressed to identify the man more responsible than any other in his time for precipitating a twenty-seven-year-long war that sealed the fate of the "classical period" - even as the culprit occupies the center stage of history before falling victim, along with thousands of others, to an unforeseen consequence of his own "political genius." How then can you expect them to recognize the same man's consummate bullshit? Improbable. So ancient Athens, we are taught, was a democracy and a model for all of Greece. And America, we are told, is a democracy and a model for all the world. Exactly. Which is why US foreign policy makes it the most hated nation on earth.

What about gynecocracy - the third angle in our triangle of analysis? Of course, a state government of-by-and-for women never existed anywhere in ancient Greece - certainly nowhere within the horizons of recorded history. But the Greek male mind is feverish, and for a detail like that to stop some creative genius with a pen from dreaming it up simply was not fated. Indeed you can count on Aristotle to snatch it from thin air in the fourth century, [5] and use it as a stylistic term of fear and reproach against Greek women who were struggling to survive, without formal power, political rights or education, the charnel house of patriarchy - replete with war, lies, rape, misogyny, violence and repression.

Little Big Pine: citizen, patriot, poet; may be reached at littlebigpine@gmail.com.

Endnotes

1. Herodotus, The Histories, 1.153, fifth century BCE; from The Landmark Herodotus, ed. Robert B. Strassler; trans. Andrea L. Purvis (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), 83.

2. In case it needs to be noted, there is nothing in this imaginary description which the US military has not done to other people in its wars of aggression over the last decade.

3. The basis for this claim is that the term does not appear in the Oxford Greek-English Lexicon (compiled by Liddell and Scott; revised by Jones and McKenzie), the most authoritative of its kind in the English language.

4. Otherwise known as Pericles' funeral oration, in Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, fifth century BCE, 2.34-2.46.

5. According to the lexicon cited in footnote 2, the term is first attested in Aristotle's Politics (as a verb at 1269b24 and a noun at 1313b33). It may be noted here, however, that the idea of gynecocracy is implicit in the plot of Aristophanes' comic fantasy, Lysistrata, first performed in Athens in 411 BCE (twenty-seven years before Aristotle was born).