VIEW ALL MARIMAR'S BLOG ENTRIES
The recent unraveling of the Tom DeLay machine, so instrumental in placing GB II in office, has underscored two important facts. The first is that the two-party system will forever be subject to such events and that selling us morality has nothing to do with the implementation of that morality.
The two party system, which increasingly becomes a Coke v.Pepsi or Wal-Martv. K-Mart ad campaign, will always invite the kind of insider-trading and bait-n-switch tactics that we have seen full force since the demise of Clinton.
Classics:
Cheney and his drive for war leading us into Iraq. We now are all pondering just how much smoke-and-mirrors we actually were subjected to, and coming to the slow and painful realization that it is very easy to high-jack an entire party and assume a position of quasi-dictator.
DeLay and the Moving Money. Now that the whole issue of campaign contributions has come down to the semantics of hair splitting, the politicians have once again proven that they can always find a way to evade the laws, although they do berate their enemies (v. The Other Party) for doing the same.
Murtha. A decorated, hard-working and caring Vietnam Vet steps up to speak his mind, opening the floodgates of criticism. Please note that Cheney did not call him a traitor, for fear of the very distasteful backlash he would have suffered had he leveled such an assault on Murtha. Apparently, in Washington only Murtha can have an opposing opinion and still be a Good Citizen. The rest of us cannot; we’re just “irresponsible” if we speak out.
Cheney and his Jingoism. Cheney likes to throw around words and repeat them over and over again, hoping that the feeble minds of the American people will believe what he is saying. He has yet to prove that he has been right about anything except his hatred of anyone who challenges him or tells him that they know better.
This reminds me of Republican Rome: As the Senators bickered about this and that, Cesar rode into town with his army and declared himself Dictator. Oops! There went the end of the Senatorial glad-handing and favor-taking, but it did give rise to a lot of beheadings.
Things that sound familiar: Cicero, aka Chick Pea aka Grumpy Old Man aka Pain in the Ass, railed against the enemy, Carthage, beseeching the Roman Senate to invade and destroy Carthage (Cartago dilenda est, or, Blast Them Back to the Stone Age).
His argument was that the Carthaginians
A) Might be assembling an army that could have the potential to invade Rome
B) They Weren’t Roman
C) They Had Money.
Putting it all together, Cicero argued that these rich, non-Romans were capable of possibly building up an army that might be able to attack Rome, thus posing a potential future threat. He went to drive home that any threat to Roman security, whether immeidtate, possible, real or imagined, gave Rome the right to take offensive action against such a potential threat. And so they invaded and destroyed Carthage utterly.
Hmmmm, sound familiar? (It was just after that the Dictatorship and then Imperium became the Roman political system.)
Differences: While Cicero was a well educated, eloquent statesman capable of expressing admiration for the physical world, Cheney is a flatulent bag of hot air so seething with hatred that even when he tries to be nice he remains positively repulsive.
I just wish he would shut up and leave us alone.
Tags:
blunder boulevard, carthage, cesar, cheney, delay, fascism, flatulence, repulsive, rome
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 11/22/2005
(
Permanent Link
)
Send to Friend
