I recently read Michael Parenti's new book, The Assassination of Julius Caesar. The point the author makes is that plutocrats who wanted to maintain the status quo killed Caesar. Caesar, they thought, was more of a populist. War, however, suited the rich. It allowed them to amass wealth at the expense of the middle class and poor while enslaving the conquered peoples.
The technique was simple. First tax the middle class and tie them to heavy citizenship obligations. Male Roman citizens owed the government 20 years of military service. As a result, the middles class, craftsmen, and small farmers couldn’t pass their skills or businesses to their heirs who were overseas fighting foreign wars. Over several generations the middle class was squeezed into poverty.
That’s not much different than what happened in the US months ago. The government was using the cost of the Afghani and Iraqi wars to transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich. Over $200 billion had been moved from the civilian sector to military companies. Meanwhile schools across their country closed libraries and cut back arts, music, and sports programs.
Empires use wars to accumulate wealth. The Romans collected resources and captured slaves, which were so cheap a source of labor that owners kept the sexes separated. It was cheaper to buy slaves than to breed them. Rome, or at least its wealthy, grew rich from the country’s foreign adventures.
When Britain invaded using force and diplomacy, it systematically looted the country of its wealth. In fact, just the jewels remove from the Taj Mahal mausoleum paid the costs of running the British government for several years. The Soviet Empire lasted seventy years, until the conquered peoples were drained dry and couldn’t support the Russians. The standard of living dropped precipitously, and the empire imploded.
Empires come and empires go. The Egyptians lived in relative peace for more than 3,000 years. Anthropologists think that there was an early empire in South America that lasted three millennia, too. Their achievements are forgotten and their remains have been covered by jungle. We have seen the death, birth, and death of many empires in the last century. Just a few that you might remember: the six-year reign of the Nazi’s 1000-year empire, the ending of the French, Dutch, and British empires, the Soviets, and now the sole superpower, the US.
My History professor last year told us that he was glad to see America waste its resources on trying to secure Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that these were unwinnable wars because there was no front. There was no demarcation of enemy and friend. Instead, every time you turn your back, someone can be aiming at you. That’s exactly how the Americans fought against the British and their mercenaries, the Hessians, in the 1770s. They didn’t confront the regiments in battle, but picked them off. The rebels had the advantage because it was their home territory, they knew the land and they had the support of much of the population.
This morning in Creative Writing class, the professor told us that the Bush regime may cause the abortion of the nascent American Empire. There is no way for the US to take wealth from either Afghanistan or Iraq. All efforts will be subject to sabotage and will be doomed to failure. This is what pleased my CW prof so much. He views these wars as the exploits of a fool who is using up the nation’s resources. Voila! End of the empire just as it’s digging in its feet.
Minutes ago, Atom was saying that America’s the world’s most dangerous country: The real evil empire. He would be glad to see it implode or fade into the dustbin of history, and sooner rather than later. The longer the US tries to impose itself on the world, the more the world will suffer for it. Bush’s invasion is a great failure and will use up the country’s wealth. It will be a boon to the world if it hastens the fall of this empire.
I thought back to my quick study of Portuguese history last summer. In the early 15th century Prince Henry the Navigator, started a navigation school in Portugal. It was the rocket science center of the time. The Portuguese started exploring the coast of Africa and began the slave trade in 1434, selling them in Europe. At the same time they invaded Morocco on a religious crusade. They were defeated so badly that they were only allowed to retreat when the Portuguese king’s younger bro was left as a hostage. (He was never ransomed.) In 1947 Portugal went through another depression, when it chased out the Jews, who comprised a great proportion of the artisans, traders, and intellectual class. They immigrated to Holland and helped it become a great trading nation.
Portugal recovered. During the next century it grew richer with foreign trade and conquest. Since the navigation school had made them so rich, you’d think they’d have devoted more money to science, tech, and education. That would be my thought, too.
A century passed and another especially fanatical king decided that it wasn’t trade and colonizing that made them so blessed, it was God. Therefore they should finish the job and invade North Africa. In 1578 his band of 18,000 ill-prepared men, boys, and nobles invaded. The men boiled in their metal armor under the African sun. The wagon wheels were caught in the sand. There were no provisions. Almost all were killed, lost, or enslaved. The one silver lining was that Sebastian the Regrettable died in the fiasco.
Bush is following in Sebastian’s footsteps. He de-funded the Hubble Space Station, blinding our eye on the universe and letting cosmological science fade away. He has cut back spending on education, higher ed, basic science and civilian technological research. These are the aspects of their industry that keep US society dynamic. Without cultural and scientific innovation, the true Am Empire, based on tech, will shrivel.
The Egyptians, Chinese, Portuguese, and many after them had the most vital, advanced civilizations with high tech that surpassed others. Times changed and the hotspot shifted. The US Empire may turn out to be one of the shortest. It really doesn’t matter. After all, who will know that we existed in one thousand years?
Next millennium, humans probably won’t even look the same. In a few years the keys to genetic engineering will be available to the rich and the middle class. Order up your kid: A girl, five foot eight, greenish blue eyes, outgoing, medium large busted who has modified risk orientation, enjoys music with a beat, … order ‘em up and we’ll modify your little baby to make it just the way you want it.
If these changes include the reproductive organs, each generation will modify permanently. Humans will evolve faster than ever. A thousand years, forty generations of directed genetic modification, will certainly result in a different form of human in ways that might now all be anticipated. Not only will year 3000 English be undecipherable to a 21st century dude, but the creatures will be the product of intentional evolution. Something new under the sun.
I usually make an entry like this private, but whatever it would be funny to read all of it again tomorrow morning when I’m back to the usual.
