Posted by
Far_view on Saturday, July 04, 2009 10:13:41 AM
I've been listening to a series of podcasts on the
history of Rome
by Mike Duncan. He does them in a very conversational style and so
they're very entertaining and informative as well. I've gotten up to
the time of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic. I just
see
so many parallels between
what's going on in America today and what was happening at the time
that the Roman republic fell apart. In Rome they had a breakdown in
their traditions and in their adherence to laws. We see that today in
America. You had the rise of demagogues in Rome (can you say Barack
Obama?). There was this fellow Clodius in Rome who was a populist and
had the support of thugs to get his way (again, can you say Obama and
ACORN?). Clodius also started the grain dole- giving out grain for free
to the mid and lower classes (look at Obama taking more people off the
income tax roles and trying to get nationalized health care which would
make everybody a ward of the state). Rome wasn't able to do anything to
halt its slide into dictorship and then imperium. Can we stop our trend
in that same direction?