Anarchists are a revolutionary sect or body setting forth as the social ideal the extreme form of individual freedom, and holding that all government is injurious and immoral, that the destruction of every social form now existing must be the first step to the creation of a new world (Anarchy). Their recognition as an independent sect may be dated from the secession of Bakunin and his followers from the Social Democrats at the congress of the Hague in 1872, since which they have maintained an active propaganda. Their principal journals have been La Revolte published in Paris, the Freiheit published in New York, Liberty published in Boston, and the Anarchist published in London. The Anarchist congress held at London in 1881 decided that all means were justifiable as against the organized forces of modern society. Research Anarchists
Anthropophagy is the scientific term for man-eaters, cannibalism Little is known of the history of cannibalism, but there is no doubt that it was practised in very ancient times, and claims of its practice have long been a popular propaganda tool in effecting public opinion against a race of people. Superstitious ideas are often associated with cannibalism among those who practise it. The Caribs were cannibals at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the word 'cannibal' is derived from their name. Research Anthropophagy
Propaganda (fully the Congregation of the Propaganda, College of the Propaganda) was originally an association established in Rome in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of Roman Catholicism throughout the world.
In modern times, the term 'propaganda' refers to the systematic dissemination of selected or incorrect information for the purpose of propagating a particular idea or doctrine. In this sense, propaganda was popularised by the Nazis during the Second World War and quickly adopted by western corporations to oppose the threat to their continued exploitation of the masses presented by Socialist thinking and particularly Communist revolutions that took place during the early 20th century. A popular example of disinformation propaganda spread by the west was of communist Russia's intention to invade the west. In reality, Russia had no such intentions, rather the west, notably Britain and America were keen to invadeRussia - Britain had already sent an army to fight the revolutionaries in Russia some years earlier. During the 1990's propaganda was used to persuade public opinion in Britain and America of the justification for removing Iraq's socialist government, claiming it's leader - Sadaam Hussein - to be a brutal and repressive dictator. In reality, Iraq had a better human rights record than many of the other Arab countries which were friendly to western corporations, and under Hussein Iraqi women enjoyed freedoms and equality unheard of in Muslim-led Arab countries.
Industries also use propaganda. The pharmaceutical corporations have successfully used disinformation and misleading 'science' to persuade a gullible public away from natural health and into a dependence upon expensive drugs. So effective is propaganda, that in the 1980's people world wide were persuaded to take drugs already banned for their lethal toxicity to counteract a supposed virus which had never been proved to exist, which in turn people were persuaded did exist, even though it had never been proven and its effects were obviously caused by other factors, mostly excessive use of commercial pharmaceutical drugs and narcotics. Research Propaganda
Signal was a German propaganda magazine produced during the Second World War for the civilian residents of occupied countries. Signal was produced in various languages, depending upon the target audience, and pioneered the use of colour photography in magazines. Signal combined exaggerated stories of German military successes, accompanied by maps, graphics and photographs, with advertisements and pictures of attractive young women in bathing suits - a 1940's equivalent of soft pornography, and an original marketing idea at the time.
Originally, statistics was the branch of political science dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of numerical facts relating to the condition of a State or community. Now it is the study of numerical data, their classification and analysis. It embraces every department of activity and knowledge to which numerical comparison can be applied, but properly applies to social facts, and its greatest use is in economics and public administration.
The usefulness of statistics is seriously reduced by the ease with which they may be slewed. For example: statistically air transportation is safer than travelling by motor car when comparing accidents over the distance travelled, that is per mile travelled. However, when one compares the statistics of fatalities over the number of journeys made, irrespective of distance, then travelling by aeroplane is ten times more likely to be fatal than travelling by motor car (according to the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).
A further example of how statistics can be slewed is in the popular use of averages, properly the mean average. The reliability of a mean average in establishing the general value of a group of values is strongly dependant upon the large number of elements being compared. For example, if a government wishes to show that the average wage being paid to workers is far higher than it really is, they need only to include a few extraordinary high wage values in the set of figures to offset the more prevalent low values. For example, take a set of 1000 elements each of which has a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Obviously the mean average will accurately describe a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Now add a single value of 500,000 to the set and the mean average will rise by over 450, and yet the most common value will remain the same, between 18,000 and 20,000.
Careful selection of values for inclusion in statistics can also be used to slew the results. A survey of members of the public sounds objective, and gives the impression of being representative of the populace. However, a survey of the public in which only men wearing business suits are selected will in all likelihood produce very different results to a survey in which equal proportions of men and women of varying ages, ethnic origins, and modes of dress are sampled.
Similarly, a survey on morality carried out among adults leaving church on a Sunday morning, should be expected to reveal a different result to a survey carried out among adults leaving a night club in the early hours of a Sunday morning, and yet both could be honestly described as a survey of adults.
The willingness with which the general public accept the findings of statistics, and the difficulty in establishing the objectivity of otherwise of such findings, has long been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of propaganda used by politicians and by advertising firms. Research Statistics
The Carthaginians were a powerful Phoenician people based in the city of Carthage. Carthage was the most famous city of Africa in antiquity, capital of a rich and powerful commercial republic, situated in the territory now belonging to Libya. Carthage was the latest of the Phoenician colonies in this district, and is supposed to have been founded by settlers from Tyre and from the neighbouring Utica about the middle of the 9th century BC. The story of Dido and the foundation of Carthage is mere legend or invention.
The history of Carthage falls naturally into three epochs. The first, from the foundation to 410 BC, comprises the rise and culmination of Carthaginian power; the second, from 410 to 265 BC, is the period of the wars with the Sicilian Greeks; the third, from 265 to 146 BC, the period of the wars with Rome, ending with the fall of Carthage.
The rise of Carthage may be attributed to the superiority of her site for commercial purposes, and the enterprise of her inhabitants, which soon acquired for her an ascendency over the earlier Tyrian colonies in the district, Utica, Tunis, Hippo, Septis, and Hadrumetum, Her relations with the native populations, Libyans and nomads, were those of a superior with inferior races. Some of them were directly subject to Carthage, others contributed large sums as tribute, and Libyans formed the main body of infantry as nomads of cavalry in the Carthaginian army. Besides these there were native Carthaginian colonies, small centres and supports for her great commercial system, sprinkled along the whole northern coast of Africa, from Cyrenaica on the east to the Straits of Gibraltar on the west.
In extending her commerce Carthage was naturally led to the conquest of the various islands which from their position might serve as entrepots for traffic with the northern shores of the Mediterranean. Sardinia was the first conquest of the Carthaginians, and its capital, Caralis, now Cagliari, was founded by them. Soon after they occupied Corsica, the Balearic, and many smaller islands in the Mediterranean. When the Persians under Xerxes invaded Greece the Carthaginians, who had already several settlements in the west of Sicily, co-operated by organizing a great expedition of 300,000 men against the Greek cities in Sicily. But the defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera by the Greeks under Gelon of Syracuse effectually checked their further progress (480 BC).
The war with the Greeks in Sicily was not renewed until 410. Hannibal, the son of Gisco, invaded Sicily, reduced first Selinus and Himera, and then Agrigentum. Syracuse itself was only saved a little later by a pestilence which enfeebled the army of Himiico (396). The struggle between the Greeks and the Carthaginians continued at intervals with varying success, its most remarkable events being the military successes of the Corinthian Timoleon (345-340) at Syracuse, and the invasion of the Carthaginian territory in Africa by Agathocles in 310 BC. After the death of Agathocles the Greeks called in Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to their aid, but notwithstanding numerous defeats (277-275 BC), the Carthaginians seemed, after the departure of Pyrrhus, to have the conquest of all Sicily at length within their power. The intervention of the Romans was now invoked, and with their invasion in 264 BC, the third period of Carthaginian history begins.
The first Punic war in which Rome and Carthage contended for the dominion of Sicily, was prolonged for twenty-three years, from 264 to 241 BC, and ended, through the exhaustion of the resources of Carthage, in her expulsion from the island. The loss of Sicily led to the acquisition of Spain for Carthage, which was almost solely the work of Hamilcar and Hasdrubal. The second Punic war, arising out of incidents connected with the Carthaginian conquests in Spain, and conducted on the side of the Carthaginians by the genius of Hannibal, and distinguished by his great march on Rome and the victories of Lake Trasimene, Trebia, and Cannae, lasted seventeen years, from 218 to 201 BC, and after just missing the overthrow of Rome, ended in the complete humiliation of Carthage. The policy of Rome in encouraging the African enemies of Carthage occasioned the third Punic war, in which Rome was the aggressor. This war, begun in 150 BC, and ended in 146 BC, resulted in the total destruction of Carthage.
The constitution of Carthage, like her history, remains in many points obscure. The name of king occurs in the Greek accounts of it, but the monarchical constitution, as commonly understood, never appears to have existed in Carthage. The officers called kings by the Greeks were two in number, the heads of an oligarchical republic, and were otherwise called Suffetes, the original name being considered identical with the Hebrew Shofetim, judges. These officers were chosen from the principal families, and were elected annually. There was a senate of 300, and a smaller body of thirty chosen from the senate, sometimes another smaller council of ten. In its later ages the state was divided by bitter factions, and liable to violent popular tumults. After the destruction of Carthage her territory became the Roman province of Africa.
Twenty-four years after her fall an unsuccessful attempt was made to rebuild Carthage by Caius Gracchus. This was finally accomplished by Augustus, and Roman Carthage became one of the most important cities of the empire. It was taken and destroyed by the Arabs in 638. The religion of the Carthaginians was that of their Phoenician ancestors. They worshipped Moloch or Baal, to whom they supposedly offered human sacrifices; Melkart, the patron deity of Tyre; Astarte, the Phoenician Venus, and other deities, which were mostly propitiated by allegedly cruel or lascivious rites, though these accounts are most likely exagerated propaganda by enemies of the Carthaginians. Research Carthaginians
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a French writer on American history, archaeology, and ethnology. He was born in 1814 and died in 1874. He entered the priesthood, was sent to North America by the Propaganda, and lived and travelled here and in Central America for a number of years, partly in the performance of ecclesiastical functions. Among his works are Histoire du Canada (1851), Histoire des Nations civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique Centrale (1857-58), Gramatica de la LenguaQuiche (1862), Monuments anciens du Mexique (1864-66), etudes sur le Systeme graphique et la Langue des Mayas (1869-70), etc. Research Charles Brasseur de Bourbourg
The most famous Cleopatra was Cleopatra VI, who was the last Queen of Egypt. According to Roman propaganda and legend she was born in 69 BC of Macedonian descent and became joint ruler with her brother, Ptolemy XIV in 52 BC. Exiled by her brother she retired to Syria and secured the aid of Julius Caesar. Ptolemy XIV was killed and Cleopatra was made Queen whereupon she returned to Rome with Caesar as his mistress.
On Caesar's death in 44 BC Cleopatra returned to Egypt and declared Caesarion, her son by Caesar, joint ruler. Mark Anthony now became her lover and put Caesarion to death. Cleopatra killed herself with the bite of an asp after failing to win favour with the new Roman Emperor Octavius and fearing capture.
It is far more likely that the Arabic accounts of Cleopatra are more accurate than the Roman, as Cleopatra was a political enemy of the Roman Empire. The Arabic accounts describe Cleopatra as an accomplished and effective ruler, scholar, alchemist, scientist and physician who effectively challenged Roman rule in the Eastern Mediterranean and who was the antipathy of Roman values.
Whether Cleopatra committed suicide or not is not known. The Roman propaganda, so popular with the Victorian British would have us believe so, but modern scholars researching Cleopatra consider it unlikely that Cleopatra would have killed herself. Research Cleopatra
Giambattista Bodoni was an Italian printer. He was born in 1740 at Saluzzo and died in 1813. In 1758 he went to Rome, and was employed in the printing-office of the Propaganda. He was afterwards at the head of the ducal printing-house in Parma, where he produced works of great beauty. His editions of Greek, Latin, Italian, and French classics are highly prized. Research Giambattista Bodoni
He declined Mazarin's invitation to France in 1644; and though for a short time neglected after the death of his patron Urban VIII, he speedily regained his position under Innocent X and Alexander VII.
In 1665 he accepted the king's invitation to Paris, travelling thither in princely state and with a numerous retinue. After his return to Home he was charged with the decoration of the bridge of St. Angelo, the tomb of Alexander VIL.
Abbreviations
Research Anarchists
