| Frightening information about the
history of the Pledge of Allegiance is at http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html
For fascinating information about symbolism see http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-swastika.html Hear audio on worldwide radio at http://rexcurry.net/audio-rex-curry-podcast-radio.html Fan Mail http://rexcurry.net/pledge_heart.html |
| The Roman
Salute on Film The raised-arm salute is one of the best-known symbols of Fascism, supposedly based on a classical Roman custom. But no Roman work of art displays this salute, nor does any Roman text describe it. |
Professor Winkler's article begins strongly,
and with only one big problem foreshadowed and that is Winkler's hackeneyed
use of the term "Fascism" which shows Winkler's fixation and it might
explain why Winkler was unable to make the discoveries that were made
by Dr. Rex Curry. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-lawyer.html
There appears to be no example on the internet of Winkler ever
using the actual correct name of the "National Socialist German Workers'
Party." If he had, his research might have also led him to national socialists
in the USA who promoted the straight arm salute as part of the early
pledge of allegiance (to the USA's flag) going back as far as 1892, before
the salute was used by German national socialists. |
| Well before Fascism, the salute
frequently occurs in films set in antiquity, such as the American Ben-Hur
(1907) or the Italian Nerone (1908), although such films
do not yet standardize it or make it exclusively Roman. In Spartaco
(1914), even Spartacus uses it. In imitation of such historical films,
self-styled “Consul” Gabriele D’Annunzio appropriated the salute in its
now familiar form as a propaganda tool for his political aspirations upon
his occupation of Fiume in 1919. Earlier, D’Annunzio had been closely involved
in Giovanni Pastrone’s colossal epic Cabiria (1914), in which variations
of the salute occur several times. Notable other examples of the salute,
by now a standard part of ancient iconography in the cinema, appear in
Ben-Hur (1925) and in Cecil B. DeMille’s Sign of the Cross
(1932) and Cleopatra (1934), although the execution of the gesture
is still variable. |
It is unfortunate that Winkler leads
his second paragraph with the term "Fascism," reinforcing the point
made in the analytical paragraph of criticism above. Winkler is implying
a link to Benito Mussolini. Mussolini worked with D'Annunzio and Mussolini
was aware of the 1914 film Cabiria which used variations of the straight-arm
salute. But Winkler did not seem to be aware that the use of the salute
in the USA's pledge pre-dated the 1914 film. Mussolini was also aware of D'Annunzio's Charter of Carnaro for his Regency of Carnaro in the city of Fiume. Yet Winkler's "fascism" fixation prevents Winkler from realizing that from 1914 to 1919 (and before) Mussolini was a self-described socialist, a well-known socialist leader who was respected among socialists at that time (that time when he found the socialist salute). Between 1912 and 1914, Mussolini was the editor of the Socialist Party newspaper, "L'Avanti." In 1914 he started his own socialist newspaper "Il Popolo d'Italia" ("The people of Italy"). He was a staunch proponent of revolutionary rather than reformist socialism, and actually received Lenin's endorsement and support for expelling reformists from the Socialist Party. He was first dubbed "Il Duce" (the Leader) when he was a member of Italy's (Marxist) Socialist Party. Later, Mussolini adopted a new label for his tired old socialist dogma. The new label worked and from 1922 to 1945 (23 years) Mussolini ruled Italy. |
| The salute was supposed
to have been used in the Roman republic, but there is no clear evidence
of this. Indeed it is not known whether salutes in the military sense
existed at all in Roman culture. However, a number of images showing similar
gestures exist from the Imperial era. These depict Roman leaders addressing
their troops ("adlocutio" scenes). Usually the leader has his arm raised
in a rhetorical gesture. In some images a few troops are also depicted with
raised arms, possibly suggesting acclamation of the leader. Several such
scenes appear on Trajan's column. |
Winkler states that the is no clear
evidence that the salute was ever used in the Roman Republic. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html
Different parts of Roman history are mentioned (the Roman Archaic
Period was a Devlopmental Era 1000 BC- 509 BC; the Roman Republic Era
is considered the True Character of Rome 509 BC - 27BC; the Roman Imperial
Era was an Expansive changing era and includes the Pax Romana 27 BC - 476
AD). He states that images that might be mistaken for a type of salute
are actually images of leaders gesturing during speeches and sometimes
listeners pointing or gesturing in response. They are not salutes
and were not called salutes. |
|
Of particular importance for the visual record are two films by Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938). As is to be expected, the former regularly features the salute; the latter shows Hitler, German spectators and officials in Berlin’s Olympic stadium, and several victorious German and Italian athletes giving it. So do a number of athletic teams entering the stadium. In Italy, Carmine Gallone’s Scipione l’Africano (1937) uses the raised-arm salute as one of its chief visual means to turn Mussolini into a new Scipio. After the fall of Fascism, Hollywood made the Roman Empire familiar to filmgoers by presenting it as a precursor of recent enemy empires. A case in point is Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951), whose triumph sequence is modeled on Triumph of the Will, replete with the Fascist salute. In his 1959 remake of Ben-Hur, William Wyler, a Jewish émigré from Germany and a committed anti-Fascist, also shows a totalitarian Roman Empire but takes care to have his actors de-emphasize the all-too-obvious. With the 1960s, the visual iconography of Roman films begins to change. Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960) has less use for the raised-arm salute than did its precursors. Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), the only epic film that attempts to do justice to the greatness of Rome, shows a triumphant Commodus greeting the Roman people with a variation on the raised-arm salute from which obvious Fascist overtones are gone. When a new Commodus triumphantly enters Rome in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), the salute no longer occurs. |
Winkler states "Of particular importance
for the visual record are two films by Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of
the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938)." He would do well
to note that the visual record in those films never shows the word "fascist,"
nor does the audio record once state the word "fascist," and that the word
"socialist" occurs throughout, such as in Trumph of the Will, where the
speakers promote "socialism" by the very word ad nauseum. Winklers inability
to make such observations denied him the discoveries made by Dr. Rex Curry. Dr. Curry discovered why the 1936 Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens (featured in the 1938 film Olympia) gave the military salute from his victory stand. Winkler seems unaware that the military salute was not the standard salute for civilians in the USA, and that the "civilian salute" was the pledge of allegiance salute which merely began with a military salute and then stretched outward to the flag into the straight-arm salute. Mr. Owens did not want to do the entire USA salute because he did not want it misinterpreted as a salute to the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter1a1c1.html Dr. Curry also discovered the almost universally forgotten "Olympic salute" of which Winkler seems to be unaware. The Olympic salute was also the straight-arm salute and it also originated from the USA's pledge of allegiance. Winkler is unaware that one of the reasons why so many of the athletes appear to be performing the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party in the Olympia film is because they are performing the "official Olympic salute." The Olympic salute fell out of favor for the same reason as did the early pledge of allegiance salute. Winkler concludes his piece by even more repetitions of the term "Fascist" as if to emphasize why he overlooked the discoveries made by Dr. Rex Curry. Finally, Winkler explains how modern films with fictional Roman scenes are no longer showing the salute, as if to indicate that everyone is wising up to the fact that it was not an ancient Roman salute. |
1. Dr. Rex Curry showed that the USA's early Pledge of Allegiance (to
the flag) used a straight-arm salute and it was the origin of the salute
of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). Dr.
Curry helped to establish that it was not an ancient Roman salute, and
that the "ancient Roman salute" is a myth. http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html
The myth is still repeated in modern efforts to cover-up Dr. Curry's
discoveries about the Pledge's poisonous pedigree.
2. The original Pledge began with a military salute that then
stretched out toward the flag. Historic photographs are at http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html
and at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html
In actual use, the second part of the gesture was performed with a straight
arm and palm down by children extending the military salute while perfunctorily
performing the forced ritual chanting. Professor Curry showed
that, due to the way that both gestures were used sequentially in the
pledge, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is
an extended military salute via the pledge. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html
3. Francis Bellamy (author of the "Pledge of Allegiance") and
Edward Bellamy (author of the novel "Looking Backward") and Charles Bellamy
(author of "A Moment of Madness") and Frederick Bellamy (who introduced
Edward to socialistic "Fourierism") were socialists. Edward, Charles
and Frederick were brothers, and Francis was their cousin. Francis and
Edward were both self-proclaimed National Socialists and they supported
the "Nationalism" movement in the USA, the "Nationalist" magazine, and
the "Nationalist Educational Association." They wanted all of society
to ape the military and they touted "military socialism" and the "industrial
army." Edward’s book was an international bestseller, translated into
every major language (including German) and he inspired the "Nationalist
Party" (in the USA) and their dogma influenced socialists worldwide (including
Germany) via “Nationalist Clubs.” http://rexcurry.net/bellamy-edward-german-connections.html
The Pledge was the origin of the Nazi salute. "Nazi" means "National
Socialist German Workers' Party." A mnemonic device is the swastika.
Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, Professor Curry discovered
that it was also used sometimes by German National Socialists to represent
"S" letters for their "socialism." Curry changed the way that people
view the symbol of the horrid National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Hitler altered his own signature to use the same stylized "S" letter for
"socialist" and similar alphabetic symbolism still shows on Volkswagens.
http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-swastika.html
Many Bellamy policies were followed in the USA and still are followed
in the USA and they helped to cause the USA’s big, expensive and oppressive
government.
The government in the USA and the government schools hide those
facts from people in the USA and from people in other countries.
Olympic salute http://rexcurry.net/olympic-salute1936.jpg
Olympic salute
1. Dr. Rex Curry showed that the USA's early Pledge of Allegiance (to
the flag) used a straight-arm salute and it was the origin of the salute
of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). Dr.
Curry helped to establish that it was not an ancient Roman salute, and
that the "ancient Roman salute" is a myth. http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html
The myth is still repeated in modern efforts to cover-up Dr. Curry's
discoveries about the Pledge's poisonous pedigree.
2. The original Pledge began with a military salute that then
stretched out toward the flag. Historic photographs are at http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html
and at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html
In actual use, the second part of the gesture was performed with a straight
arm and palm down by children extending the military salute while perfunctorily
performing the forced ritual chanting. Professor Curry showed
that, due to the way that both gestures were used sequentially in the
pledge, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is
an extended military salute via the pledge. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html
3. Francis Bellamy (author of the "Pledge of Allegiance") and
Edward Bellamy (author of the novel "Looking Backward") and Charles Bellamy
(author of "A Moment of Madness") and Frederick Bellamy (who introduced
Edward to socialistic "Fourierism") were socialists. Edward, Charles
and Frederick were brothers, and Francis was their cousin. Francis and
Edward were both self-proclaimed National Socialists and they supported
the "Nationalism" movement in the USA, the "Nationalist" magazine, and
the "Nationalist Educational Association." They wanted all of society
to ape the military and they touted "military socialism" and the "industrial
army." Edward’s book was an international bestseller, translated into
every major language (including German) and he inspired the "Nationalist
Party" (in the USA) and their dogma influenced socialists worldwide (including
Germany) via “Nationalist Clubs.” http://rexcurry.net/bellamy-edward-german-connections.html
The Pledge was the origin of the Nazi salute. "Nazi" means "National
Socialist German Workers' Party." A mnemonic device is the swastika.
Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, Professor Curry discovered
that it was also used sometimes by German National Socialists to represent
"S" letters for their "socialism." Curry changed the way that people
view the symbol of the horrid National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Hitler altered his own signature to use the same stylized "S" letter for
"socialist" and similar alphabetic symbolism still shows on Volkswagens.
http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-swastika.html
Many Bellamy policies were followed in the USA and still are followed
in the USA and they helped to cause the USA’s big, expensive and oppressive
government.
The government in the USA and the government schools hide those
facts from people in the USA and from people in other countries.
