Tom Paine 1949
Diamond Member
- Mar 15, 2020
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Roman politicians started to murder each other (quite dramatically even in the Forum and Roman Senate) in actual massacres against the reformist Gracchi Brothers and their followers in 130-122 B.C. The Republic limped along for almost another century with Civil Wars and even a great slave revolt … until the “Empire” officially began in 31 B.C.
This political change was rooted in more fundamental changes as the Roman city state itself became a huge unwieldy Mediterranean-wide commercial slave empire. Rome (given available communication and transportation) of course could not maintain effective grass roots checks and balances or meaningful elections as its area of administrative control expanded. The Roman (and Etruscan / Italian) farmer yeomen — who had provided its martial soldiery for centuries — itself decayed and was gradually replaced by slaves working the land for corrupt ruling elites and a professional military serving state imperialism.
It was the final destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War (149-146 B.C) that gave Rome its monopoly control over the Western Mediterranean and set its goal directly toward conquest of the East … that doomed Rome’s Republic. The populist eloquence and reforms of the Gracchi Brothers, like the later elitist eloquence of Cicero, could not save or breathe life back into Rome’s increasingly empty and corrupt Republican traditions.
Donald Trump is a clown without even a populist reform program like the Gracchi, and he certainly lacks the elitist grandiloquence of a “New Man” like Cicero. But then again “the Donald” is just a moron. He is a dangerous demagogue, however, an empty narcissistic product of a crudely commercialized world.
We face complex but fundamentally different problems than those faced by the decaying Roman Republic. We may not have great and farsighted political leaders at present — but we need no Caesars.
Fortunately, the U.S. — together with its allies and the rest of the world — have far greater technical and scientific tools to overcome our problems, and to sustain democratic rights for all … if that is what we truly wish.
This political change was rooted in more fundamental changes as the Roman city state itself became a huge unwieldy Mediterranean-wide commercial slave empire. Rome (given available communication and transportation) of course could not maintain effective grass roots checks and balances or meaningful elections as its area of administrative control expanded. The Roman (and Etruscan / Italian) farmer yeomen — who had provided its martial soldiery for centuries — itself decayed and was gradually replaced by slaves working the land for corrupt ruling elites and a professional military serving state imperialism.
It was the final destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War (149-146 B.C) that gave Rome its monopoly control over the Western Mediterranean and set its goal directly toward conquest of the East … that doomed Rome’s Republic. The populist eloquence and reforms of the Gracchi Brothers, like the later elitist eloquence of Cicero, could not save or breathe life back into Rome’s increasingly empty and corrupt Republican traditions.
Donald Trump is a clown without even a populist reform program like the Gracchi, and he certainly lacks the elitist grandiloquence of a “New Man” like Cicero. But then again “the Donald” is just a moron. He is a dangerous demagogue, however, an empty narcissistic product of a crudely commercialized world.
We face complex but fundamentally different problems than those faced by the decaying Roman Republic. We may not have great and farsighted political leaders at present — but we need no Caesars.
Fortunately, the U.S. — together with its allies and the rest of the world — have far greater technical and scientific tools to overcome our problems, and to sustain democratic rights for all … if that is what we truly wish.
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