Listen, Please, To Our History: Isegoria, Hemlock, How It Was Dispensed In Athens Then, Then A Warning Poem by Dennis Ryan

Saturday, October 22,2016 at 3: 25 p.m.; continued Monday, October 24 at 10: 55 a.m.,
and Thursday, October 27 at 12: 05 a.m.; Thursday morning, December 15 at 12: 26 a.m.

" ‘Isegoria' [Greek]In ancient Athens the right of all free male citizens to speak
in public settings and assemblies."
- James A. Herrick, History and Theory of Rhetoric

"In their personification of Peitho as a civic goddess of Persuasion, the Athenians
recast not only their religion, but their mythology and history... [Aeschylus] said
that death alone is impervious to Persuasion... There is no reference to Peitho as
a divinity anywhere in Xenophon or in Plato... The Platonic contempt for persuasion
and oratory as practiced in a democratic polity is summed up by Phaedrus in the dialog
that bears his name: ‘I have heard', he says, ‘that one who is to be an orator does not
need to know what is really just, but what would seem just to the multitude who are
to pass judgment, and not what is really good or noble, but what will seem to be so...
persuasion comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth.' "
- I.F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates, On Peitho

"Since it happens that any given thing usually has good and bad consequences,
another line of argument consists in using those consequences as a reason for
urging that a thing should or should not be done..."
- Aristotle, The Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter 23, "Lines of Positive Proofs"

Listen, please, to our history: "The equal right of expression"
had been lost, abandoned.The law abrogated. How then
were the men to defend themselves in public? Other laws?
The Thirty, holed up in The Tholos, dispensed the laws—
hemlock and disappearances, more than one hundred men
disappeared every month.In that year,1,500 Athenians
died, and thousands more—metics, slaves, dwellers of Piraeus.
Disappearances, doses of hemlock—that's how they stifled dissent
and free speech.Harassment.Intimidation.Constant threats,
and carrying them out.A fatal dose of hemlock had been perfected—
dispense a quarter of an ounce at a time, a little less—it kills quickly.
Herbalists.Toxicologists.Whatever you want to call them...
All were at the government's beck and call—read between my lines.
They had learned to skin, grind and sieve the plant, the poison then
becoming "particularly efficacious... terminal chemistry, " to quote
one chemist.Very soon after, the men were forced to drink it,
forced to die at home behind closed doors, denied proper burials.
Nightmare followed nightmare.News of Lysias prosecuting
Eratosthenes for the murder of his brother Polymarchus proved
hopeful at first, then all for naught.In the end, even Socrates
wasn't spared—but only because of a change in government.
The democracy proved his doom.The advocate of"The one
who knows" didn't know enough to shut his mouth.And so it goes.
There's that old saying about not educating your children
to become wise, lest others despise them.Wisdom? Well...
Socrates spoke well in self-defense, in front of 500 judges,
swayed many, and nearly prevailed.Nearly.But he wanted
the dose.That's the thing.He consciously chose it—his perversity.
The advocate of "The one who knows" could not countenance
democracy, ours, limited as it was to the few, to the propertied
and slave owners.And the thing is, the strife continued unabated,
pitted polis against polis, confederation against confederation,
aristocrats against democrats, until Philip took full advantage, prevailed,
sweeping down upon us from Pella, Macedon—and that was that!
(As Isocrates had warned, our inability to unite became our downfall.)
If only we knew then...Now, we live in complete subjugation.
A final warning—if you are listening well, following the thread
of my argument, you realize people really do get what they deserve
in governments, politicians included! .(It hurts me to say this.)
Take this hemlock or that! Chose one poison or another.It makes
little difference.Here, we have no choice—it's Philip or chaos.
Our democracy has been sold out."If you get to choose between
only two ", a wise friend once said, "that isn't democracy, freedom—
that's illusion, sleight of hand.It's leading us to believe- it's peitho."