Roman Empire

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

Edmund Burke’s Statement “Those Who Don’t Know History Are Doomed To Repeat It” May Be True

I was going to stay out of politics this week, but the weird happenings at the Tea Party Debates for the Republican nomination for president have changed my mind. When the Tea Party audience cheered Texas Governor Rick Perry’s fervid support and energy for executing Texas death rowers, the audience cheered and clapped. When moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Texas Rep. Dr. Ron Paul whether he would let a 30-year-old man die if he had no health insurance and went into an intensive care unit for six months due to an accident. Paul paused and stumbled in his answer, finally saying that churches and local charities would cover his expenses. Someone in the audience yelled, “Let him die!” I guess he was outlining the Republican national health insurance program. The crowd cheered wildly again.
Suddenly I was transported to the Roman Colosseum where the fate of a mediocre gladiator or a slow Christian being chased by a lion would be decided by the thumbs down of the fans.
“The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Historian Edward Gibbon was published in six volumes in 1776 through 1789. (Important dates for us.) He explains from early Roman records why the most powerful country in the world 2,000 years ago hit the skids. Gibbon blames the gradual loss of civic virtue among Roman leaders and citizens. He writes: “They had become weak, outsourcing their duties to defend their empire to mercenaries.” In other words, the poor also fought Rome’s wars like our poor do. Gibbon blames the direct collapse on the military, mainly because they wanted ever-increasing pay and expensive military equipment. Does that have an Eisenhower “military-industrial complex” ring to it?

Harry Truman: “Where The Hell Are All The One-Armed Economists?”

About 70 percent of the economists in the U.S. are supporting the Obama administration in its attempt to stimulate the economy. There seems to be a general consensus that we may be in the worst decade in our history. Harry Truman was totally frustrated with predictions made by economists. He joked he was always looking for one-armed economists so they couldn’t say: “On the other hand…”
The unfunded Bush-Cheney adventures in ignorance in Iraq and Afghanistan, the failure to enforce economic regulations restraining Wall Street bankers and real estate developers from the overpowering addiction of greed, and the housing bubble which is going to blow up the housing market for decades have caused the median income to dive and unemployment to soar. We presently have fewer people working at jobs today than we did in 2001. With one political party employed and dominated by the rich and the other one confused about whom they are representing, it appears the “decade of decline” will turn into permanent decline and failure. The evidence is becoming overwhelming.

The Net Worth Of The Middle Class Has Dropped 26 Percent In Two Years

Our media seems paralyzed by the fact it works for and is owned by multinational corporations, so it covers celebrities and minor political conflict instead of investigating and covering the great issues of the day. Sometimes it takes a foreigner like Paul Harris to shed light on our economic disaster. In his 14 September article “The Decline and Fall of the American Middle Class” in Great Britain’s “Guardian”, he summarized our plight: (1) “The heart of our political malaise is that the middle class, so long a powerhouse of US prosperity, is being crushed like never before,” (2) “Missing from the political debate…is the single biggest issue facing the country: the destruction of the middle class,” (3) “America is bifurcating into haves and have-nots, with precious little in between,” (4) “The net worth of the middle fifth of American households has plunged by 26 percent in the last two years…and is lower now than in 1998,” and (5) “The ranks of the poor and low-income earners are growing and the rich are doing just fine.”
Harris also reports that the marketing strategies of large corporations are changing because of the disappearing middle class. Proctor and Gamble and Heinz are two corporations with a new strategy: advertise and sell only to the poor and the rich because there is no one left in the middle to sell to. Twenty percent of the U.S. population now controls 84 percent of the wealth and America’s richest 400 families now have the same net worth as the bottom as the bottom 153 million people. Dollar Stores are now stealing sales from WalMart. That should tell the economists something. The rich are now consuming 70 percent of what is consumed. The middle class used to do that number. Now they don’t have any money.

The Rancid Smell Of Decline And Fall Is Becoming Overwhelming

According to Gibbon and other historians the decline of Rome started with the increasing conflict between emperors and senators. The emperor had the legal power to rule the state’s religious, civil, and military affairs—with the senate acting as an advisory body. The emperor also had the power over life and death. But sometimes he was killed because he had such power. Think Julius Caesar and his close buddy Brutus. With such power the wealthy emperors succumbed to corruption, debauchery, and immorality. Think Nero. He was incestuous and once had a male slave castrated so he could take him as his wife. That certainly makes for a good case study. Tiberius pleasured himself with young boys and he wasn’t even in the Catholic heirarchy.
The Roman senators were not any better near the fall of Rome. Eventually bestality and other explicit sexual acts were used to entertain the unemployed and the poor in the Colosseum. Excessive consumption of alcohol destroyed the Roman rich and poor. (I see that National Football League owners are now going to “pat-search” fans from ankles to knees and from the waist up because of problems with alcohol and weapons such as Tasers brought to games. Attendance by families is way down because of drunk hooligans.)
Another major cause of the decline and fall was the constant wars and excessive military spending. The hiring of mercenaries to replace regular Roman troops in far-flung empire outposts often resulted in revealing strategy and war tactics to outsiders. The mercenaries later conquered Rome, often using information and field tactics learned from the Romans. Think of the $1million it takes to keep a soldier in Afghanistan for a year these days. Think of the cost of keeping the many dependents of our “volunteer” service moderately happy. Think of the $412 million F-22 fighter planes, the new $22 billion aircraft carriers, the new $8 billion submarines, and the $2 million anti-IED vehicles produced by the thousands, and the fact that we spend half of what the entire world spends on national defense. It’s sheer insanity.
So much Roman gold was sent to the Orient to buy luxury goods that all the gold coins used at home were gone. Counterfeiting and bartering caused heavy taxation and inflation. This was followed by high unemployment for the Roman middle class because of slaves brought from the empire as cheap labor. The income gap between the rich and the poor dramatically widened. Sound familiar? To keep the unemployed from creating civic unrest and perhaps revolution the government had to entertain the “Mob” as the poor and the unemployed were called by senators. Today think NFL, NBA, NHL, PGA, and LTA. Our rich spend a lot of money on those sports so the country is dominated by sports instead of political issues..

Are We Going To Follow The Mayans, The Aztecs, And The Romans Into The Dead Letter Box Of History?

I don’t think there is any doubt. Let’s take a look at the evidence coming in every day:

:: The National Association of Counties announced on September 16 that many poor families across the U.S. cannot afford to bury their dead so counties have to conduct funerals. Cremation is the cheapest form. The coroner of Montgomery County, Pa. Said: “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

:: The National Association for Business Economics has revised its predictions from early 2011. Now they think a double-deep recession is just around the corner.

:: The McKinsey Global Institute reports that a survey of 2,000 employers reveals that two-thirds have made changes to achieve the same output with fewer employees, 44 percent have increased their use of part-time, temporary, or “peak scheduling” employees. Very few are hiring full-time workers.

:: In 1961 U.S. corporations paid 40.6 percent of their profits in taxes. In 2010 they paid only 10.5 percent. Since 2001 three-fourths of the corporations increased profit margins by firing workers or cutting salaries. Since 2005 U.S. white families have had a 16 percent decrease in household wealth.

:: Over 18 percent of Americans reported they did not have enough money to buy food during 2010. Visa reported that the average amount left by the tooth fairy in 2010 was $3. It has fallen to $2.60 in 2011.

:: The rich are consuming again. They are buying suede and glitter Miu Miu Booties designed by Miuccia Prada at $890. They also love the python leather and velvet Bottega Veneta satchel purse displaying intreciato (a signature weaving technique) for $3,450. Neither can be kept on the shelves.

:: The typical American family got seven percent poorer in the last decade. Over 15 percent, or 46.2 million, now live in poverty. The poverty rates would be higher if so many 25 to 34-year-olds weren’t living at home with their parents. The U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the 52 years the statistic has been recorded.

:: Twitter has announced that when Beyonce’ revealed she was pregnant with her first child such news reaped nearly 9,000 tweets per second. The death of Osama Bin Laden drew only 5,000 per second. I wonder if a military draft for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would have made any difference…..

:: More than 17 million women in the U.S. lived in poverty in 2010. Over 7.5 million lived in extreme poverty, which is below half of the federal poverty line. The black child poverty rate is now at 39 percent, the Hispanic rate is 37 percent, and whites are at 12.4 percent.

:: Month-old babies in the U.S. now have a higher risk of dying than babies born in 40 other countries. Just five years ago we ranked 19th. A few of the countries that outrank us: Cuba, Malaysia, South Korea, Lithuania, and Poland.

:: Science News has reported that out of 43,000 corporations, 147 control nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations. Their power in the world is virtually limitless.

:: The state of Arizona, home of many rich and many poor and a few middle class, just put in a $25 fee for family and friends who wish to visit their family members in prison. This scheme won’t bother the rich much.

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