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Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.
David Craig Simpson, the cartoonist of I Drew This wrote a really good article yesterday. For those unwilling to go to the site and read, I reprint it here.
In Robert Graves's Claudius the God (and in the Derek Jacobi TV miniseries "I, Claudius," and probably in actual Roman history), Claudius, who became emperor by an accident of history, never stopped believing that Rome should return to being a republic.
During the early years of his rule, he governed as well as he could, and Rome did pretty well. But Claudius came to realize that if things went all right under an imperial government, the people were never going to rise up and demand the return of the republic.
Reasoning that things had to get worse before they got better, Claudius chose as his successor his stupid, fat, lazy, egotistical nephew Nero.
Graves has Claudius say (or maybe he actually said) "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out." Claudius reasoned that if things were good in the short term, they would never get better in the long run.
True to form, as emperor, Nero would be most famous for fiddling while Rome burned.
I've been struck by the parallels, lately. I think it's about time for those poisons to make an appearance.
A lot of Democrats have been going around saying that now that the election's over, it's time for us all to support Bush, wish him well, help make sure his term goes well, etc.
I am not one of those Democrats.
It's clear to anyone who's been paying even a little bit of attention that Bush's plans include rolling back environmental protections, rolling back regulations on big business, further severing international ties, further eroding the wall between church and state, further eroding the protections of the fourth amendment, shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle (and from wealth to wages), and basically dismantling the New Deal.
It's equally clear that Bush's plans don't include doing anything at all about the health care crisis that's left millions of children uninsured, the escalating bloodbath he's created in Iraq, or the budget deficits that are spiraling out of control.
Actually, I think that last one is part of a Republican strategy. I think the idea is to run up huge deficits, then claim the only solution is to slash popular social programs, because that's the only way the public would ever stand for it.
In short, they plan to remake the government in some sweeping, and rather unpopular, ways. Because these ideas are unpopular, they intend to implement them gradually; if they did it all at once, people would raise hell. But if they do it gradually, we'll get used to it. A frog dumped into boiling water will hop out, but a frog placed in cool water that's gradually brought to a boil will acclimate, stay there, and die.
So I confess, I'm rooting for the next four years to be a disaster. I won't enjoy seeing it, but...it's better than living in the country this will become if everything Bush has in store goes smoothly. We're talking four bad years instead of two bad generations.
What I'm hoping for is a Watergate-style catastrophe. Something big and showy and messy, traumatic for the country even, but also something that doesn't directly harm most people. Something that will discredit these people and everything they're trying to do to this country.
Rome never got its republic back. But we still could. Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.
In Robert Graves's Claudius the God (and in the Derek Jacobi TV miniseries "I, Claudius," and probably in actual Roman history), Claudius, who became emperor by an accident of history, never stopped believing that Rome should return to being a republic.
During the early years of his rule, he governed as well as he could, and Rome did pretty well. But Claudius came to realize that if things went all right under an imperial government, the people were never going to rise up and demand the return of the republic.
Reasoning that things had to get worse before they got better, Claudius chose as his successor his stupid, fat, lazy, egotistical nephew Nero.
Graves has Claudius say (or maybe he actually said) "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out." Claudius reasoned that if things were good in the short term, they would never get better in the long run.
True to form, as emperor, Nero would be most famous for fiddling while Rome burned.
I've been struck by the parallels, lately. I think it's about time for those poisons to make an appearance.
A lot of Democrats have been going around saying that now that the election's over, it's time for us all to support Bush, wish him well, help make sure his term goes well, etc.
I am not one of those Democrats.
It's clear to anyone who's been paying even a little bit of attention that Bush's plans include rolling back environmental protections, rolling back regulations on big business, further severing international ties, further eroding the wall between church and state, further eroding the protections of the fourth amendment, shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle (and from wealth to wages), and basically dismantling the New Deal.
It's equally clear that Bush's plans don't include doing anything at all about the health care crisis that's left millions of children uninsured, the escalating bloodbath he's created in Iraq, or the budget deficits that are spiraling out of control.
Actually, I think that last one is part of a Republican strategy. I think the idea is to run up huge deficits, then claim the only solution is to slash popular social programs, because that's the only way the public would ever stand for it.
In short, they plan to remake the government in some sweeping, and rather unpopular, ways. Because these ideas are unpopular, they intend to implement them gradually; if they did it all at once, people would raise hell. But if they do it gradually, we'll get used to it. A frog dumped into boiling water will hop out, but a frog placed in cool water that's gradually brought to a boil will acclimate, stay there, and die.
So I confess, I'm rooting for the next four years to be a disaster. I won't enjoy seeing it, but...it's better than living in the country this will become if everything Bush has in store goes smoothly. We're talking four bad years instead of two bad generations.
What I'm hoping for is a Watergate-style catastrophe. Something big and showy and messy, traumatic for the country even, but also something that doesn't directly harm most people. Something that will discredit these people and everything they're trying to do to this country.
Rome never got its republic back. But we still could. Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.
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Last I checked, the cries to disband the Electoral College are distinctly non-republican.
So are desires for reduction of self defense and the current opposition to reforming the tax code.
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Fascism 101
That's first-year despotism...
Engineer an unfavourable situation such that there remains only one option for its remedy, no matter how distasteful or repugnant said option might be.
Then, call for a vote (or just let the pressure of public opinion be your jackboots).