RESPECT PEOPLE WHO TRUST YOU, OR . . .

This is the shocking end to a man trusted to respect people in his country.

It was all good until it wasn’t.

Is there a lesson to learn?

The people he governed had had enough and voted him out?

Nooooo.

He made poor choices in friends and allies and ended up on the wrong side of the national mood.

From the looks of things in the picture, the mood changed from world domination, beginning with Ethiopia, to the biggest ‘fuck you’ act a leader never wants.

Chased down and strung up is something to avoid, but big dreams in big leaders take big chances.

Il Duce wanted to be seen as ‘bigger than life’ and finished as a cover model for ‘smaller than life.’

Imagine one of your friends coming up with wild ideas and ways to express them that’s not quite above board, but they make it work so you go along.

Maybe you like the company? Maybe you like the people drawn to the powerful man.

In this instance the big guy got discovered, summarily executed, which sounds less than legal in a civilized nation, and hung upside down in a public display I hope to never witness.

That’s the face of public ire and disappointment. But there are two others beside him.

The lesson I take from this image is ‘be careful who you associate with.’

If your best friend and his girl get the business, you might be joining them.

Lay down with dogs and get up with fleas? Itchy.

Leaflets three, let it be? It’s poison oak.

If the face is red lift the head; if the face is pale lift the tail. That’s heat exhaustion, or heat stroke.

Fuck your country over until they turn on you, quit on you, and your fellow friend for life says, ‘things happen?’

 

Things That Happen

From the National WWII Museum:

 

“The man who once boasted that he was going to restore the glories of ancient Rome,” wrote the Times, “is now a corpse in a public square in Milan, with a howling mob cursing and kicking and spitting on his remains.”

Indeed, the scene was grisly: the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci dangling upside down by their heels in front of a gas station in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto.

He called himself the Duce, from the old Latin word dux (“chief” or “boss”). He had a party behind him, of course, the Fascists, and he could call on squads of tough guys in blackshirt uniform (Camicie Nere) to beat down his opponents.

He built up an elaborate cult of personality around himself. News photos regularly showed him in a position of command, riding on horseback, flying an airplane, or driving a high-performance race car.

He would strip to the waist to address farmers in the hot sun or pose wrestling with a lion cub.

It was even forbidden to publish a picture of him smiling or to print the word DUCE in anything but uppercase letters.

A simple slogan summed it up: “Il DUCE,” the Italian people were told, “ha sempre ragione!” (“The Duce is always right!”).

Unlike traditional dictatorships, which demanded passive obedience, Mussolini’s total state demanded constant involvement, even enthusiasm, for the regime.

And if you failed to look enthusiastic enough or failed to conform in any number of ways, there was an all-seeing secret police force, called the OVRA, lurking in the background, arresting, beating, and killing opponents of the regime.

 

This describes the top picture in this section:

 

A maddened crowd howling epithets of hatred and derision. Cursing. Spitting on the corpses.

A woman stepping forward and pumping five bullets into his body—“for my five dead sons,” she said.

Some of these same folk had probably chanted “Duce! Duce!” once upon a time, perhaps not so long ago. 

 

PS:

What we know for sure is that fans are fickle and disappointment runs deep.

 

PSS:

Choose your best path forward with care.