H
Harry Hope
Guest
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/5/7/162028/3677
05/07/2007
The Bush Calamity So Reminiscent of Rome
By Bill Hare
Historians have recently trained their analytical insights on the Bush
American calamity alongside the collapse of an overly bloated,
calamitously extended Roman Empire and the comparisons are numerous
and demonstrably apt.
A few years ago alarm was expressed over the "dumbing down" of America
and rightfully so, with a film like "Forrest Gump" achieving multiple
Oscar status while the romps of "Beavis and Butthead" gained wide fame
on television.
That was over a decade ago and many would argue that we moved from
"Forrest Gump" in a movie to occupying the Oval Office of the White
House with George W. Bush's emergence on the national scene.
Politically well-informed people I am in touch with from other
countries, as well as those I have visited on trips out of the United
States, all ask the same question.
While the Bush Administration attempts to put its spin on such
concerns by alleging that people from other countries plainly hate
America an opposite interpretation emerges from talking to people
outside America.
These individuals stress a bygone period when leaders such as Franklin
D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy commanded wide respect from the world
citizenry.
These individuals now ask how we could plumb to such depths as the
Cheney-Bush nightmare with all its national and international
repercussions, notably starting a war in Iraq that should never have
been launched, and that stands in open defiance of international law.
"I don't think that Bush can even deliver a thoughtful, well
articulated sentence," one well-informed person living in a country
that has been notably friendly toward the U.S. wrote in an e-mail.
"How can he get away with all that he has? Why hasn't he been
stopped?"
The aforementioned question has perplexed many of us.
As lobbyists pay placeholders to stand in long lines leading to
offices of U.S. Senators and House members, the same mentality is at
work that was so reminiscent of Rome at the end of that empire's
calamitous collapse.
Emperor Nero fiddled while Bush poses as Big Brother out of George
Orwell's prescient futuristic novel "1984" and appears with great
frequency on television to assure us that all is well.
In the June issue of Vanity Fair an excerpt appears from a timely
historical work by Cullen Murphy that is being released this month,
"Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America" and it
perceptively addresses striking similarities between the empires past
and present.
For me the most searing and perceptive point raised of all that I read
in that excerpt was the sharp contrast to be drawn from two messages
from early America and the current nation collapsing under the weight
of corruption and appalling ineptitude at the highest levels of power.
Cullen Murphy correctly saw "idealistic sensibility" in a letter of
introduction written by Benjamin Franklin to George Washington in 1777
on a matter of public business:
"The Gentleman who will have the Honour of waiting upon you with this
Letter is the Baron de Steuben ... He goes to America with a true zeal
for our Cause, and a View of engaging in it and rendring it all the
Service in his Power. He is recommended to us by two of the best
Judges of military Merit in this country."
The sharp contrast between early America and Benjamin Franklin's
communication to George Washington is revealed in an e-mail sent by
Jack Abramoff concerning the reopening of Speaking Rock Casino in
Texas in return for millions of dollars in fees and political
contributions.
Here is the message from Abramoff to a lobbying team member:
"Da man! You iz da man! Do you hear me?! You da man!! How much $$
coming tomorrow? Did we get more $$ in?"
The Abramoff communication is less than a prose masterpiece, but what
can we expect?
After all, the leading radio political commentator for years from the
standpoint of number of listeners has been self-admitted drug addict
Rush Limbaugh.
Drug-addicted Limbaugh is so confident that his message is getting
across to his audience of an estimated 30 million listeners that they
are referred to as dittoheads and seem to be proud of the designation.
While some 56 Nobel Prize scientists have recognized and addressed the
tragic potential consequences of global warning, Limbaugh laughs off
the Greenhouse effect and tells us that a few loony left wing radicals
are trying to alarm the world citizenry when there is nothing to worry
about.
As Cullen Murphy points out, the dollar "democracy" is in full swing.
Privatization was in full swing in the Roman Empire and it has
certainly made a strong impact in Cheney-Bush America.
Outsourcing is the order of the day and before a war is launched the
major figures of the most powerful multinational corporations, headed
by Dick Cheney's own Halliburton, meet in his office, study a map of
Iraq, and divide their prospective booty long before the first "shock
and awe" assault was launched by Donald Rumsfeld.
We engage in self-delusion to claim that an American democracy is
currently in place.
After all, when all else fails there are willing consorts such as
Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell to alter the real electoral
results.
When asked what form of government the new nation of America had
wrought following its historic constitutional convention in
Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin famously answered, "A Republic if you
can keep it."
Currently the answer to that same question must be, "A Republic if you
can reclaim it."
___________________________________________________
"Stupid is as stupid does."
Forrest Gump
Harry
05/07/2007
The Bush Calamity So Reminiscent of Rome
By Bill Hare
Historians have recently trained their analytical insights on the Bush
American calamity alongside the collapse of an overly bloated,
calamitously extended Roman Empire and the comparisons are numerous
and demonstrably apt.
A few years ago alarm was expressed over the "dumbing down" of America
and rightfully so, with a film like "Forrest Gump" achieving multiple
Oscar status while the romps of "Beavis and Butthead" gained wide fame
on television.
That was over a decade ago and many would argue that we moved from
"Forrest Gump" in a movie to occupying the Oval Office of the White
House with George W. Bush's emergence on the national scene.
Politically well-informed people I am in touch with from other
countries, as well as those I have visited on trips out of the United
States, all ask the same question.
While the Bush Administration attempts to put its spin on such
concerns by alleging that people from other countries plainly hate
America an opposite interpretation emerges from talking to people
outside America.
These individuals stress a bygone period when leaders such as Franklin
D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy commanded wide respect from the world
citizenry.
These individuals now ask how we could plumb to such depths as the
Cheney-Bush nightmare with all its national and international
repercussions, notably starting a war in Iraq that should never have
been launched, and that stands in open defiance of international law.
"I don't think that Bush can even deliver a thoughtful, well
articulated sentence," one well-informed person living in a country
that has been notably friendly toward the U.S. wrote in an e-mail.
"How can he get away with all that he has? Why hasn't he been
stopped?"
The aforementioned question has perplexed many of us.
As lobbyists pay placeholders to stand in long lines leading to
offices of U.S. Senators and House members, the same mentality is at
work that was so reminiscent of Rome at the end of that empire's
calamitous collapse.
Emperor Nero fiddled while Bush poses as Big Brother out of George
Orwell's prescient futuristic novel "1984" and appears with great
frequency on television to assure us that all is well.
In the June issue of Vanity Fair an excerpt appears from a timely
historical work by Cullen Murphy that is being released this month,
"Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America" and it
perceptively addresses striking similarities between the empires past
and present.
For me the most searing and perceptive point raised of all that I read
in that excerpt was the sharp contrast to be drawn from two messages
from early America and the current nation collapsing under the weight
of corruption and appalling ineptitude at the highest levels of power.
Cullen Murphy correctly saw "idealistic sensibility" in a letter of
introduction written by Benjamin Franklin to George Washington in 1777
on a matter of public business:
"The Gentleman who will have the Honour of waiting upon you with this
Letter is the Baron de Steuben ... He goes to America with a true zeal
for our Cause, and a View of engaging in it and rendring it all the
Service in his Power. He is recommended to us by two of the best
Judges of military Merit in this country."
The sharp contrast between early America and Benjamin Franklin's
communication to George Washington is revealed in an e-mail sent by
Jack Abramoff concerning the reopening of Speaking Rock Casino in
Texas in return for millions of dollars in fees and political
contributions.
Here is the message from Abramoff to a lobbying team member:
"Da man! You iz da man! Do you hear me?! You da man!! How much $$
coming tomorrow? Did we get more $$ in?"
The Abramoff communication is less than a prose masterpiece, but what
can we expect?
After all, the leading radio political commentator for years from the
standpoint of number of listeners has been self-admitted drug addict
Rush Limbaugh.
Drug-addicted Limbaugh is so confident that his message is getting
across to his audience of an estimated 30 million listeners that they
are referred to as dittoheads and seem to be proud of the designation.
While some 56 Nobel Prize scientists have recognized and addressed the
tragic potential consequences of global warning, Limbaugh laughs off
the Greenhouse effect and tells us that a few loony left wing radicals
are trying to alarm the world citizenry when there is nothing to worry
about.
As Cullen Murphy points out, the dollar "democracy" is in full swing.
Privatization was in full swing in the Roman Empire and it has
certainly made a strong impact in Cheney-Bush America.
Outsourcing is the order of the day and before a war is launched the
major figures of the most powerful multinational corporations, headed
by Dick Cheney's own Halliburton, meet in his office, study a map of
Iraq, and divide their prospective booty long before the first "shock
and awe" assault was launched by Donald Rumsfeld.
We engage in self-delusion to claim that an American democracy is
currently in place.
After all, when all else fails there are willing consorts such as
Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell to alter the real electoral
results.
When asked what form of government the new nation of America had
wrought following its historic constitutional convention in
Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin famously answered, "A Republic if you
can keep it."
Currently the answer to that same question must be, "A Republic if you
can reclaim it."
___________________________________________________
"Stupid is as stupid does."
Forrest Gump
Harry