The Disconnects Of The Roman Empire

 Chateau Ausone, the one-time estate of Ausonius, c. 395 B.C.E.

I have been reading about the financial system and the 2008 Unpleasantness, and one lesson I have drawn is that things are going pretty wrong when important institutions of a Society have goals and interests that are at variance from the welfare of the whole Society.

The Praetorian Guards come to mind under the Roman Empire.
Possibly the Roman Army; I need more study in that area.
Possibly the Senatorial and Patrician classes, which allowed the gap between their wealth and the poverty of the rest of the populace to widen and widen until it yawned open, gaping like a Ginunga Gap of Armageddon.

We have liked to think that Rome was done in by decadence and luxury and bread and circuses, but I think it was more the disconnections that fractured it mortally.

Within the shelter of the social fractures grew the alternative societies: Christianity, Mithraism, an tendency to escape from society as shown in such disparate lives as those of Anthony and Ausonius.

Franz Joseph I of Austri-Hungary

I have also been reading Oscar Jaszi's study (1929) on the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
It is a great joy to learn about the world of Central Europe, an area about which I was very much ignorant; I mean, how can one hope to understand Franz Kafka without an exposure in some depth to the verities of Prague under the Hapsburgs?
In Science, how do we properly appreciate Von Neumann, Szilard, and Teller without knowledge of the Hungary part of the Dual Monarchy?

How do we understand the background to the history of the Jews in Europe with only a cursory acquaintance with Jewish life in Central Europe? Life was not all Tevye-style.

Furthermore, it is Jaszi's thesis that the only thing which could have saved the Austro-Hungarian Empire from disaster was a serious attempt to extend democracy to the vast motley of nations within its power, even though this action would tend to increase the flight from the Vienna center.

The choice was Revolution and Violence, or Democracy and possibly eventual a loosening of the imperial reins into a confederacy or independence in time.

Victoria, Empress of India

The United Kingdom accomplished just this outcome with varying degrees of success.
Many people complain and bemoan the disappearance of the British Empire; they think that more soldiers and more compulsion would have preserved the Empire.
That is an illusion.

The question now is what is happening?

People are seeking to cast a democratic vote for their governance, whether they cast a ballot or shoot a gun.

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A Horrible And Costly Lesson

 Aqueduct to Nowhere

Weakness is measured not by not having "boots on the ground", as our media and politicians love to say, but by not having a clear purpose, not a clear idea, no clear principles. And that fecklessness sums up the USA in 2015.

A new report by ThinkProgress.com unearthed disturbing figures when it came to the number of police-related deaths that occurred in America in the month of March alone.
Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.

When did we lose control of ourselves?
Why did we not care until now? Or, do we care even now?

And,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-19/american-justice-fbi-lab-overstated-95-forensic-hair-matches-including-32-death-senthttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-19/american-justice-fbi-lab-overstated-95-forensic-hair-matches-including-32-death-sent

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.

Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison.

“These findings are appalling and chilling in their indictment of our criminal justice system, not only for potentially innocent defendants who have been wrongly imprisoned and even executed, but for prosecutors who have relied on fabricated and false evidence despite their intentions to faithfully enforce the law,” Blumenthal said.

– From the Washington Post article: FBI Overstated Forensic Hair Matches in Nearly All Trials before 2000


And to this we may now return to "boots on the ground", and why that is not even an idiot's definition of World Leadership:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-19/credibility-bubble-bursting

US primacy seen ebbing at global meet

As world leaders converge here for their semiannual trek to the capital of what is still the world’s most powerful economy, concern is rising in many quarters that the United States is retreating from global economic leadership just when it is needed most.

The spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have filled Washington with motorcades and traffic jams and loaded the schedules of President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob J Lew. But they have also highlighted what some in Washington and around the world see as a United States government so bitterly divided that it is on the verge of ceding the global economic stage it built at the end of World War II and has largely directed ever since.

“It’s almost handing over legitimacy to the rising powers,” Arvind Subramanian, the chief economic adviser to the government of India, said of the United States in an interview. “People can’t be too public about these things, but I would argue this is the single most important issue of these spring meetings.”

Other officials attending the meetings this week, speaking on the condition of anonymity, agreed that the role of the United States around the world was at the top of their concerns.

Washington’s retreat is not so much by intent, Mr. Subramanian said, but a result of dysfunction and a lack of resources to project economic power the way it once did. Because of tight budgets and competing financial demands, the United States is less able to maintain its economic power, and because of political infighting, it has been unable to formally share it either.

The most brilliantly abject demonstration of total lack of any sense of leadership was this country's response to 9/11.
The invasion of Iraq demonstrated the fallacy that "boots on the ground" will necessarily accomplish our aims. Yet even now people like Senator Tom Cotton have not learned that horrible and costly lesson.

To be a Hawk today is to be a bloodthirsty scoundrel, who well knows that all the blood spilled will not serve his cause, nor will all the balm in Gilead bind up the wounds.

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Brava, Bella Katrina!

...and encore. Possibly the last, absolutely last thing the Republican Party wanted to see was a replay of Katrina during their convention. I mean, John McCain's determined effort to suck the wind from Obama's sails by nominating his great grand-daughter as VP pales in comparison to Howard Dean's efforts at meteorological disturbance.
I would like to see some security people try, just try and keep Hurricane Gustav in line outside the convention center.

My father was in hospital when Katrina struck. I believe he was in isolation, the staff thinking he had TB or something similar, something quite malign, something even old and ancient, possibly derived from WW II and time spent in tropical jungles. Navy man, you know. (Of course, he was not in the Pacific. He served in the Mediterranean. He was in the landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Anzio.

It turned out to be pneumonia which had not been properly cleared up in the spring of the year. He had pneumonia from spring to fall in 2005. It was quite memorable to drive to their place to escort them to hospital, and arriving to find him unable to walk the 30 steps to the auto without stopping a couple times to catch his breath.) I was in the hospital room on Sunday, as I recall. I went home later, making sure to fill up the gas tank, for we expected the price to go up due to the storm. Then we watched: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and on... As time wore on, Anderson Cooper, Shepard Smith, and eventually Geraldo Rivera remained in place. As time passed, these individuals began to display the stress they were feeling, a stress derived from seeing people being left to rot in a flooded city.

Then the Republican President flew over the area, finally having been prised from his Texas ranch to simulate some show of concern, desperation grew. It was Floodmaster G. and Brownie. It was their rap, the rap of pudgy white guys, secure in their sense of entitlement to money, power, security, and techno. Even though New Orleans was suffering, the Right Wing God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world; was it not obvious that the only white guys stranded there were ones who choose to be? That is, the journalists?

As Wednesday wore down and there was the real presentiment that we, the Cable TV audience, might actually have a chance to view the real-time deaths of hundreds by starvation, thirst, disease, lack of hygiene, and, most thrilling, cannibalism...(Indeed! What would the poor wretches eat, unless it be each other? The strongest surviving upon the flesh of the weakest!) things had begun to come apart.

It was during this time, Wednesday through Thursday, that the FOX News shills like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, safely far away from New Orleans, continued their usual smarmy and clueless charade. I remember Hannity speaking to Shephard Smith. Shephard Smith almost jumped through the screen, trying to get it through the great Blockhead's rather blockish looking head that people were dying and more would die...and the government was doing nothing. Too bad it's a Republican government, Sean. They are still doing nothing. Then Geraldo almost verbally skinned O'Reilly for his fatuousness. It was Modern Day Republicanism distilled to its essence: clueless and selfish greed combined with a rampant know-nothing-ism that is frightening.
It had nothing to do with Goldwater Republicanism. C-Span showed Barry's acceptanced speech from 1964 last night. One thing Barry Goldwater touched on was the fact that Private Property formed the base of our way of life, since private property allowed an individual to be his own master, and not be totally dependent upon the whims of government. Barry Goldwater was an elitist. That was back in the day when using all the smarts you could was not considered something shameful. Those Republicans knew what their philosophy was: they had fought and thought it out themselves. They did not need a half-baked, renegade evangelical whore-of-babylon-master from Dohickeyville, Texas, to tell them what they should think!

Now, just try and find a modern day Republican actually talk about such philosophy. Just try. I think that back in 1964, people actually used their heads and thought about important concepts. I really do not get the impression there's much of that done today. Tom DeLay...as in, could I get a delay in my trial date?...was all about graft. Larry Craig spoke about complex algorithms tapped out by one's feet in public toilets. President Bush spoke of the important patriotic function of SHOPPING. Phil Gramm spoke of Americans no longer having the back bone to stand up to adversity, not like the richest 2% which still did...at least we think they do from their havens in other countries.
...and the VP candidate says that when it comes to Pro Life, she's for it. No. The last thing Republicans want to see is replays of masses of poor people standing about the perimeter of a sign spelling out "H-E-L-P"... as the only government agency in sight is the Coast Guard helicopters... and there is not enough of those sweet chariots to swing low and save lives... while Brownie is doing a heck of a job... and Floodmaster G. goes...shopping. Republicans

The Origin Of The Presidential Species

Why do we not stop and consider the whole process of electing a President from the vantage point of a Darwinian process? Is it not, in our minds if not in reality, a bit of the old survival of the fittest? What are the characteristics of those running for President? What are the characteristics of those who lead in the beginnings? In the mid term of the race? What are those characteristics of the eventual winners? Consider this: WE have created a Darwinian process for electing officials. Let us describe this process. Money seems to be a natural to be in any list. The individual running for President must have ready access to money, and lots of it. Thus, we have a wealthy family, or wealthy friends, or wealthy corporations, or wealthy unions as supporters, plus a knack for the grubbing of the green. Since this same characteristic extends to Senators and Represenatatives, it is doubtful that they should ever enact meaningful campaign reform, thereby negating the traits they possess. Beyond the obvious, is there more in the influence of money? For example, in David Geffen's remark about the Bush and Clinton royal families, is there something else going on? Might we say that the monied interests are finding that it is better to have a limited range of potential candidates, thereby keeping a handle on the situation? (It did not work with Bush Jr., but the elite is not actually dieing in Iraq now, is it?) How else may we describe this eco-system? Information Processing is another facet. There appears to be a great need for feed-back loops. Most political opinion bloggers seem to be self-reinforcing feedback loops. There is a mighty feedback, but little or no input. The candidates have to be masters of this: no input, appeal to the squeaky loopsters. There has to be a constant repetition and a constant posturing. There are appeals to reason, but no actual reason. There are appeals to comity, but little or no friendliness. In short, all words need to be as empty of meaning as possible. The more empty the words become, the more self-reinforcing feed back is necessary to create the illusion of meaning, just as if a microphone placed too near a speaker will create a cacophony of noise...and we may pretend it is a concert of music. Race is important, as well as Gender. There have been observed certain individuals in the eco-system who appear to have mutated. The racial barrier seems to have been bridged by individuals with a multi-racial heritage. The Gender barrier still remains. Hmmm. I thought this would have been a great deal more interesting than it turned out.

Shall I Wear My Suetonius Today?

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus

Which hat will it be? Suetonius or Tacitus? Which historian of the Roman Empire shall I emulate? David Geffen has said recently about Senator Obama: "...he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family..." This, of course, refers to the interesting fact that since 1988, the US voters ( aided and abetted by the Supreme Court ) have only elected members of the said families to the Presidency, and have a chance to do so again. My, My. It has worked out so well, too. If we construe George W. Bush as Caligula, Little Boots, son of a war-time emperor, then who will Ms. Clinton be? It would be shameful to merely throw out the name of Agrippina, and it would not be to the point. Ms. Clinton will be Claudius. After her comes Nero.