From history, we can glean more than just the bare facts of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. First, one has to understand that before Rome slowly toppled into dust, it was a very prosperous place. There was distinct upper, middle, lower and slave classes and, all in all, there was more than enough to eat and time to spare for numerous sports. Also, the Roman Legions were the largest and strongest, best trained and fed, best equipped with hardware aplenty of any nation-state-empire in the world at that time. Very similar, in fact to the U.S.A. (less a lot of technology).
Like all civilizations, once in a position of being fairly rich, having food aplenty and the good life, the better classes of Roman citizens got bored with it all. I mean how often can you discuss the latest conquest of some unknown and barbaric place, long removed from Rome or a new and flavorsome dish imported for some outpost of the Empire, or the latest dalliance of the current Emperor with some Egyptian babe.
So, what to do. A bored lower, middle and upper class of citizens tend to get into mischief when not productively employed and, with having slaves in good supply, can afford a minimal workload. As time progressed and the spoils of Empire Building and Conquering, Inc. flowed into Imperial Rome, there was a natural impulse on the part of the ruling elite to pass along a bit more of the spoils to the populous lest they become jealous or perhaps a bit rowdy at the obvious top-heavy distribution of the goodies. The elites lived very well in Imperial Rome.
But food and trinkets will stretch only so far—ah, what to do after you’ve eaten your fill, tummy full and had a nap? Well, you play, that’s what. You need something to fill those idle full-stomached hours and so the elite once again come to the rescue.
Let’s have some circuses come to town. Starting out with traveling entertainment groups, shows were put on of many sorts from dancing and singing to – ah – traveling trollops who entertained in their own inimitable way.
And another thing. We’ve got plenty of captured enemy soldiers, why don’t we built a pit, toss a few into it – well armed with, perhaps, some novel weapons like nets and forks and cudgels and see who comes out alive! What a wonderful idea. While we’re at it, there are a few pesky Christians we have to house and feed, perhaps they might like to play with some of those marvelous feline creatures our Legions have captured and sent back from places afar. We’ll starve the kitties for a few days, put a small group of trouble making religious bigots into the pit and see if they can play with a hungry cat or two. Such fun!
The smell of blood, guts and glory in the afternoon would be just the thing to entertain those bored citizens and keep their mind off the fact that we (the elite) are robbing them blind while doling out just enough for the lesser classes to keep them quiet, satiated and out of trouble.
And so the grand Colosseum and other assorted playgrounds were constructed to provide a location for circuses while markets were built to provide free food and handouts to those of lower wealth and standing.
Does anything about this description ring a faint bell?
Let’s pop our trusty time machine forward a few thousand years to, let’s say, 2012 CE. (for those who wonder about the “C.E.”, that’s scientific notation for “Current Era”. Prior to year zero, it becomes “B. C. E.” for “Before Current Era” thereby erasing any Christian influence from our dating system. This is in wide and accepted use now in scientific circles.)
In 2012 in the Nation called “America”, we have some interesting and disturbing parallels to ancient Rome.
Such as, you ask? Oh, let us do a few comparisons.
In America, as in Rome, the elites are promising the middle and lower classes more and more bribes (food stamps, welfare, disability, housing subsidies, unemployment checks, social security, free medical care and so on and so on) to stay quiet and behave.
As with Rome, this was only successful until the food, circuses, graft, and thievery caused such a drain on the treasury that the Roman Legions found themselves running short of funding and consequently shrank a bit, thereby reducing the booty shipped back home. This, in turn, reduced the freebies to be distributed to the “needy”. A viscous circle was then in place in which each cut to the military caused a drop in booty that caused the military to shrink and Rome itself to become a Lesser Power with Lesser Influence on its world. After all, we can’t cut the freebies to the “needy” so money is diverted from other activities (can you spell “clipping” and dilution of gold and silver from the coinage or as we might say, “inflation”?) to cover the ever increasing costs of bread and circuses and military.
In our miserable case, American elites can only promise and pay for freebies to the masses as long as other nations of the world keep buying Treasury debt and the purchases of Federal debt by the Federal Reserve do not become so excessive that the rest of the world (and American citizens) lose confidence in our veracity and begin to think of the U.S. Government as merely a group of thieves and knaves, unworthy of their further donations of hard earned (or printed) cash. Which, of course, they already are and just are not branded as such. But they are about to be.
At the same time, American circuses are in full swing across the land of the not-so-free and the home of the responsible-no-more.
Thanks to the ever advancing thing called technology, clever humans have invented virtual circuses; circuses that require no tents, no clowns, no bearded ladies, no strong men or midgets, no motordrome with motorcycles roaring, no ferris wheel or tilt-a-whirl or cotton candy or too heavy bottles to knock over with a too light a ball. Real gladiators need not apply.
Oh no!! Our circuses are virtual in that you carry them around with you, by the hundreds, in your pocket or purse or have it on your desktop. You are now – whether rich, middle class or poor, working or not – always within instant reach of your virtual circus.
Within that virtual circus lies unlimited feasts of every kind: games, blogs, movies, tweets and books of faces, bank accounts and grocery stores, every retailer on the planet, Russian TV and – horrors – blogs (for those who yearn for news not to be found on our toothless and pap-filled U.S. mass media), maps and translators, idiots and morons, sages and teachers of every level and veracity.
It is an infinite circus, running 24 hours a day, 8 days a week and you can spend an infinite amount of time browsing the sweet and bitter end of it at no charge. (Those sites that have the temerity to charge admission can safely be ignored.)
Now, does that beat a Christian being munched by a tiger or two hulks beating each other to the death? Well, perhaps not the later as professional wrestling is one of the most popular events for the masses to gobble – so maybe even totally fake and choreographed gladiators still have a place in the proletariat heart.
I personally believe that the ever evolving circus (next comes 3D! and perhaps a touch screen that works in reverse?) beats the living bejeebus out of a Roman version and is, as a consequence, contributing to the destruction of the human spirit. Why work when your food and cave are furnished to you by a benevolent nanny Government which leaves you to be entertained by your virtual circus (access to which is probably paid for by that nanny caregiver as well)???
Why become self-sufficient and independent amid all this largess? Paid for, of course, by borrowing from foreigners and a generation or two down the line who won’t know what hit them until far too late. Such fun!
Perhaps we are indeed on the cusp of a Romanesque disaster, a slow motion collapse that took Rome several hundreds of years to do, getting poorer and poorer and more violent and less populated as time goes on.
History will certainly repeat, but never the same way twice.
This time, the very framework of those circuses – what they exist on and in – will enable the fall of the current empire(s) to be much swifter and just as violent and deadly. Our ability to communicate worldwide in a flash at the the speed of light enables information – both good and bad – to be heard and seen round the Earth in mere milliseconds and the only delay is the relative slowness of citizens to find, read or watch and comprehend the disaster that will tip it all into the pit.
So here we stand, on the edge, citizens mostly well fed, clothed, housed and most of all, thoroughly entertained.
What happens to all of us when the plug is pulled?
Here recently a very prominent man stated that nations who actively waged war actually increased their GDP by doing so.
The problem with that system is that it is not self-sufficient, and has absolutely zero room for contraction. Its an exponential growth, as you conquer more land and divert its wealth to your own nation, your people become complacent and demand more and more hand outs. Pretty soon the handouts exceed the booty, and civil discord occurs.
This also happened to the Mongol empire (much larger than Rome’s). Genghis was brilliant in many ways, but long term sustainable politics/economics was not one of them.
Moving on to our current issue:
In a strange twist of circumstances the US wages war as a supplement to the circuses. You see, we do not conquer for booty anymore. We take no slaves, we do not take their land. In fact, we quite frequently help them rebuild. In essence, we wage war for the sake of making war under the thinly veiled pretense of “liberty for all.”
We have been at war constantly for 11 years now, and if you count drone strikes we have been at war in several different countries. The circus is boring the populace (See: America’s Forgotten War), but the politicians don’t know how to do anything else.
So they will spend and war until there is nothing left. The chance that some sane individuals will gain nation attention/influence is slim at best.
The Romans never could conquer the Germans. Pussies!!
There has been no shortage of theories as to why Rome fell.
The one that make the most sense to me is all the “in-sourcing” of barbarians to do all the manual labor, farming, building, and even fighting in the army. The Romans became lazy fatfuk Boomers, in a sense.
Another interesting theory is that their aqueducts carried a lot of lead … and they actually became dumber and sicker. A whole book was written about it, but I can’t remember the title.
When we get a holodeck with 72 virgins, and like with Gilgamesh we will become peaceful, well until the plug is pulled then we should probably start building the Mote museum in some agricultural region to remind our ancestors not to take from the tree of knowledge..
Thanks, Muck. I am no roman scholar, that is for sure. But I do wonder if the Roman lower class looked like this:
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Or is tht an uniquely American thing?
SSS – I apologize if that creature on the left is female, as I could not tell for sure, and decided to show its nipples anyway.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. I’ve been thinking lately, however, that our “end” will be manufactured. Purposeful, in order to usurp the additional power neccessary to further breakdown and securitize the world. Yeah, it’s the whole NWO shit, but its pretty goddam logical. There’s an abundance of Central Banks and “Free” “democratic” nations that are in need of an ever growing supply of cheap shit to keep themselves fat and entertained. If only there were a way to securitize the differenct tranches of human society… ya know, your AAA tranches, like Europe and the US. Your AAs like russia and some parts of South and Cen America, your BBBs like the M.E. and China, ur junk bonds like DPRK, Africa and Michigan. Well, I’ll stop there b4 I get too insensitive.
I cant see blaming it all on the so called elites. I think its just human nature and these things will continue until mankind finally stops repeating the past. Often we think we know better than those that came before us, and will do things differently….this time around, only to realize we realized our mistake too late to alter the course so we start passing out blankets and pillow, lower the lcds from the overhead panel, turn on the fasten seat belt sign and offer free drinks.
Nice article, Muck. Thanks.
“What happens to all of us when the plug is pulled?”
Well Muck, no matter what happens, there will be a brand new goat rope.
And boredom will not prevail.
Erasing any christian influenc e from our dating system and schools and state and society.Every problem we have goes back to this .”For although they knew GOD , they neither glorified him as GOD nor gave thanks to HIM,but their foolish hearts WERE DARKENED .Although they claimed to be WISE THEY BECOME FOOLS….IS THIS YOU MUCK? …..WHAT will be left ? A violent,bloody,rotting,collapsing america and home of the very desperate…
TO STUCKY ,,Erwin Lutzer has a book out called WHEN A NATION FORGETS GOD ..7 LESSONS WE MUST LEARN FROM NAZI GERMANY…It about the nation rejecting its christian faith ,accepting nazi ideology and the judgment that followed .Its only 14.oo dollars.
@BB
Thats funny, I thought our problem was warefare and banksters.
I’ll be sure to pray it away. After all, it worked so well for Texas with the whole drought thing.
TO PC why are some on warefare.? ….why do some bankers steal? why do some think this is OK? I dont think it would you any good to pray,but in time you will pray and pray you will.Now why will you do this praying.THINK PC THINK.
MY PRAYER WILL MAKE OTHER PEOPLE DO WHAT I WANT THEM TO, ITS ALL SO CLEAR NOW
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Great article Muck! I often refer to us as Romans while trying to educate the sheeple. Now I can send them this!
The Romans and Nazis had something in common they spread themselves to thin.So were on the other side of the planet spending money we dont have to what end?Similar?
TPC ,im sure you well get what you deserve in the end.
Aaaahhhh, Muck, here we are in the New Rome. I was pondering this yesterday. Rome lasted a long time, but held many changes to its “life”. Republic, Dictator…. the Caesars. All different manifestations but yet we see it as “Rome”.
Along the parrallel, would one consider Great Britain as the “Greece” of the timeline? An empire of its own for a long while whose culture and religion, even philosophies developed remain deeply rooted in the New Rome?
Well, we have a Republic…. Await now the Caesar.
We stand on the brink of the Darker Ages.
I have read a lot about the Roman Republic/Empire, and have mixed views as to its’ contributions to civilization. One the one hand, the romans were an enterprising people who applied the knowledge of the greeks for practical purposes. They were truly on the cusp of an industrial revolution. Although there is no evidence I am aware of that they put Hero’s steam engine to use, they did use steam power (low pressure boilers) to heat their baths. On the other hand, they never exported their prosperity but rather simply looted, for the most part, conquered peoples. The empire died when it ceased to expand.
Being of an engineering bent, I am naturally drawn to Roman technical writings rather than histories of conquest or poetry. Unfortunately few texts have survived, most probably because the catholic church didn’t consider them useful for the education of priests. There is one fascinating one that did. De Aqueductibus Urbis Romae It was written in the first century by Frontinus, a civil engineer who held the title of “curator of the aqueducts.” He wrote it for a popular audience in order to gain popular support for civil engineering projects. Two of ancient Rome’s most ambitious aqueduct projects were constructed during his time, the Anio Novus and the Aqua Claudia. Both employed sophisticated methods of water treatment and the use of syphons, as opposed to bridges, to span chasms.
Well said!
…just curious though, this does seem to be the case
Thoughts on Roman Circuses (and ours)
By Mike Endres
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/mike-endres/america-us-roman-circuses
Mike Endres is MuckAbout
sorry anon was mine.
thanks admin….I did not know.
“The empire died when it ceased to expand.” —– Zara
Wow! I just read that about two weeks ago. I drove my mom to the doctor’s office, and the only decent magazine in the office was an ancient copy of National Geographic, with a story about the fall of Rome. (Why can’t doctors afford current subscriptions? It can’t be because of Obamacare.)
Anyway, the premise was this; when you see a map of the Roman Empire (as Muck provided), very few lands of that vast empire was conquered in the last 100 years (I believe). They were actually losing territory they could not longer maintain with their legions.
It said maintaining an army to defend the border of the Empire was a constant drain on the government. In turn, military spending left few resources for other important activities; providing public housing. maintaining quality roads and aqueducts, etc.
In time, Romans lost their desire to defend the Empire. The empire had to begin hiring soldiers recruited from the unemployed city mobs … and even worse, from foreign counties. This led to an army that was unreliable and very expensive. This snowballed into forcing the emperors to raise taxes frequently which, in turn, led to increased inflation.
The flow of gold into the Roman economy decreased when the inefficient and expensive Roman army stopped conquering new lands. Yet, gold was being spent by the Romans to pay for luxury items … and their circuses. What followed was the debasement of gold … as there was less gold to use in coins …. which, of course, meant the coins were less valuable.
Since the gold coins lost value, merchants raised the prices on the goods they sold. The populace stopped using coins and began to barter for necessities. Soldiers’ salaries were paid in food and clothing. In the latter years, even olives, fruits, and other foods were taxed. It seems to me they should have invented The Fed and fiat money. Lol
The final blow came when the Romans pulled back from Rhine-Danube frontier to fight the civil war in Italy …. which left the border open to attack . Around 450AD some German dude defeated the last Roman Emperor, and the western part of the Empire was no more; roads crumbled, bridges were left in disrepair, fields left untilled, bandits made travel unsafe …then trade and business began to disappear. And Rome – at least the Western Empire — was no more.
A 20 page article I read in a doctor’s office condensed to a few paragraphs. I’m sure, 1) I left shit out and, 2) I got shit wrong. I fully expect our resident Wiki experts to give me an ass-kicking promptly.
@flash – “I’ve seen the seeds of discourse and debt spread throughout rural local communities when the college educated liberal arts/business majors come back from college full of high and lofty ideals, take over the administrative arm of local government from the hayseeds and hog farmers and proceed to run the government in the ground.”
All too true I’m afraid. College is less about knowledge and less about partying and more indoctrination.
Luckily I went to school in the Midwest/Plains schools, where even the PhD’s are fairly rural conservative.
I began to get the similarities between us and the Romans when I read “How the Irish Saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill.
His thesis is that taxes were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Tax collection was a “privatized” job in the Roman Empire….a nice political plum that could be had for price…and then it was a license to extort money from anyone who owned land. The tax system got so corrupt that eventually an awful lot of people were put off their land.
I see modern parallels, like letting police deparments keep assets forfeited by criminals and paying IRS ‘bounty hunters” on commission.
If and when a revenue strapped U.S. starts increasingly privatizing police and tax collection, I think the end days will really be upon us…and it could happen…perhaps could be argued that it’s happening already.
In a world of energy decline, we might learn quite a bit from the Roman engineers. They understood passive heating and cooling pretty well, and had some pretty ingenious low tech systems that are applicable for an off-grid lifestyle, imho.
Thanks for the piece, Muck. Niicely done.
@ Stucky::: What a marvelous thought about importing barbarians to do the scut work!! If you fall across the title of the book or source, I’d love to have it (send it to Jim and he’ll forward it).
We have done the same damn thing from the start and are now dealing with the descendants of those barbarians who are no smarter or more responsible and, when opportunity presents itself, just as savage as those we used to import in the past to pick cotton and furnish the Massa with jolly firm bouncing fun and games.
I wish I had thought of that as it would have been another parallel… Thanks for the info..
MA
@MA
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“They understood passive heating and cooling pretty well, and had some pretty ingenious low tech systems that are applicable for an off-grid lifestyle, imho.”
Now that would be a fun little project. Create a “modern” home blending Roman era engineering and today’s (relative) technological advances.
I say relative because in the absence of the infrastructure to support modern conveniences, the Roman era stuff might damn well be better.
@Z and Stucky: Actually empires (Roman or American) fail when they cease to grow.. Expansion can be physical (in the Roman case) or economic (in the American case). When an economy starts to stagnate as ours is/was and will be, economic expansion stops and things, never being still of quiescent begin to shrink.
When they shrink, the lower economic groups fall in a crack first and it works its’ way up the middle class and then collapse as the bill payer/tax payer base shrinks and can not longer support itself and the PTB elites. At that point, governments resort to printing money, issuing unbacked credit and playing accounting games, as ours is right now, to try and kick the bucket down the road and stay between the ditches.
The article is, by necessity, shallow. You can’t write a “Fall of the Roman Empire” compared to “Fall of the American Empire” in one post. But you can make a stab at some parallels for illustration and entertainment.
MA
Eddie, so the Romans were doing PPP’s long before it became the new and improved “capitalist way.
Well it stands to reason since the Roman were using the fasces symbology to denote Emperila power long before the Federal Thugacracy plagiarized it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-public-private-partnership-another-phrase-fascism
There just so happens to be two different forms of privatization. The first type is genuine privatization; that is the political class and bureaucrats completely removing their hands of any dealings with the offering of a service. Supporters of the free market should applaud this type of privatization as it means entrepreneurs and investors can freely enter into the industries the government has just vacated. As long as consumers demand the service in question, the opportunity will exist for businessmen to devise new and profitable ways in ensuring its delivering.
The other type of privatization shouldn’t be so appealing. That’s because it isn’t true privatization but a deceptive form of political patronage. These rackets are commonly known as “public-private partnerships” and tend to garner bipartisan support due to the crooked dealings which are almost always their sole impetus.
According to the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships, PPPs are
a contractual agreement between a public agency (federal, state or local) and a private sector entity. Through this agreement, the skills and assets of each sector (public and private) are shared in delivering a service or facility for the use of the general public. In addition to the sharing of resources, each party shares in the risks and rewards potential in the delivery of the service and/or facility.
In other words, PPPs result in the government still maintaining the final say over the delivering of the service. Taxpayers now have the noose of being forced to guarantee an “acceptable rate of return over the term of the partnership” to the contracted company around their neck.
Even though public-private partnerships are championed as cutting age methods to modernize the state, underhanded bribes on the taxpayer dime go back at least a century. Perhaps the biggest, most powerful public-private partnership around is the Federal Reserve System. The New York branch of the Fed, which has been given a monopoly on the supply of what has become the world’s reserve currency, is still technically a private entity that just so happens to have the guns of the state defending its open market operations.
Today, public-private partnerships are still offered as a way to mask ever-intrusive government. Recently Senator Rand Paul introduced a measure in the U.S. Congress to “privatize” the crotch fondlers in the TSA. “Privatize” is put in quotations because the bill would “require that the mostly federalized program be turned over to private screeners and allow airports — with Department of Homeland Security approval — to select companies to handle the work” according to Politico. Private screeners would still be under the guidelines of the Department of Homeland Security and be paid with tax dollars even though they would be employed by a non-government firm. Ironically, Rand’s father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, pointed out the flaw in his son’s proposal last July when he wrote:
What we need is real privatization of security, but not phony privatization with the same TSA screeners in private security firm uniforms still operating under the “guidance” of the federal government. Real security will be achieved when the airlines are once again in charge of protecting their property and their passengers.
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Joan Veon on PPP’s and the rise of neo-fascism
AGENDA 21 ALERT: PUBLIC- PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS Part 1 of 2
to TPC Your ignorance isnt iust astounding , its breathtaking, so pure ,so focused…..your own words mock you.
It’s incorrect to say Rome fell in 476AD …. even that specific date seems arbitrary. Only the Western empire did. The Eastern Empire stood for nearly a millennium after that.
Waxing philosophically for a moment ….
Is it fair to say Rome died, or fell? Or, even to refer to “the birth of Rome” via Romulus and Remus? People live and die …. and so we personify it for societies. But societies – although made up of people – do not live and die as humans do. The comparison seems flawed. It’s probably more accurate to say that societies (Rome) evolve.
So, how did Rome evolve?
It evolved by passing its culture, its institutions, its bureaucracy, to the growing Christian church … to be preserved in perpetuity.
Our (we, in the West) very own languages, laws, religions, customs and other cultural norms are fundamentally Roman.
Just look at Rome’s magnificent symbols—the eagle, the laurel wreath, the fasces, the triumphal arch and other Romanish architecture — it STILL dominates Western culture. Even Russia’s czars (and, Obama’s) and Germany’s Kaisars— are both rooted and derived from the name ‘Caesar’.
A reasonable standard would lead us to conclude that Rome evolved ….. into us. Once all traces of Roman civilization and influence are forever extinguished ….. only then can we say, “Rome has fallen”.
The economic development racket is nothing more that taxpayer swindle ran by a collusion of banksters and corporatist and until State and local governments wake up to this fact, the taxpayers will continue to be robbed of their tax money.
Greg Leroy is also the founder of Good Jobs First which tracks corporations on the dole.
‘Jobs Scam’ Costs Taxpayers, Author Says
Greg LeRoy says cities and states spend way too much money trying to create new jobs.
LeRoy makes his assertions in The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation.
Introduction: Money for Nothing
Lurking within the records of most cities and states in America there lies a scandal. A tax scandal. A jobs scandal. A corporate and political scandal.
Look up the names of corporations that have received taxpayer subsidies in the name of jobs. Almost every big company has gotten them. In fact, the average state now has more than thirty economic development subsidies, many of which are locally granted by cities and counties. These subsidies include property tax abatements, corporate income tax credits, sales and excise tax exemptions, tax increment financing, low-interest loans and loan guarantees, free land and land write-downs, training grants, infrastructure aid — and just plain cash grants.
Chances are you will find companies -— many companies -— that have failed to create or retain as many jobs as they said they would. Companies that are paying poverty wages or failing to provide healthcare to their employees. Companies that are abandoning our cities and sprawling onto farmland and natural spaces. Even companies that are outsourcing jobs offshore.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll undoubtedly find companies that have not created any new jobs -— even some that have actually laid people off since they got the subsidies. Other companies that have gotten paid just to move existing jobs from one place to another, where they are proclaimed to be “new jobs.”
How can companies get away with this? Because the system is rigged. Corporations have it down to a science. They have learned how to chant “jobs, jobs, jobs” to win huge corporate tax breaks -— and still do whatever they wanted to all along.
That’s the Great American Jobs Scam: an intentionally constructed system that enables corporations to exact huge taxpayer subsidies by promising quality jobs — and then lets them fail to deliver. The other benefit often promised — higher tax revenues — often proves false as well.
This system has a long history and many moving parts. It can be traced at least as far back as the Great Depression, but it really matured by the 1970s. By then, most of the key actors were in place: secretive site location consultants who specialize in playing states and cities against each other; “business climate” experts, with their highly politicized interpretations of tax and jobs data; and an organized corporate network orchestrating attacks on state tax systems.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4807184
@ ThePessimisticChemist : No it isn’t racist. It simply tells the truth which is not politically correct. I have said a number of times, you cannot judge individuals except by their individual behavior and demeanor but you can make general statements about large groups if they are born out by facts.
Our local Sheriff run a “Wanted” poster in the paper every day with pictures of people wanted for jumping bail, battery, VOP(violation of parole), murder, assault, etc.. Usually about 12 pictures per half page.
Count the blacks, whites and hispanics (you NEVER see an Asian in the line up) and you will find roughly 7 blacks, 3 hispanics and 2 whites in the rogues gallery. Same, same, every time while the names and crimes change, the ration stays very much the same.
It’s as good a proof as I need to illustrate which race is contributing the highest number of animals versus other races. Racist labels do not need to be applied. The stinking MSM now reports murders and robberies, assaults and rapes by labeling the perp a “man” or “woman”.. No mention of race or physical characteristics. You could be a one eyed, hunch back with a club foot and black and they’d describe you as a male and perhaps describe an article of clothing.
But we wouldn’t want to annoy any black, one eyed, hunchbacks with a club foot, now would we??
What a crock of shit.. Call it like it really is or just shut up and go down with the rest of the sheeple.
MA
I never met a Roman ruin I didn’t like.There are Roman built structures in Europe that people still live in.
All that massive stonework is good thermal mass. In the Hadrian’s Wall ruins you can see how their central heat worked…the massive foundations are still strong and much of the wlall is intact after more than a thousand years.
We got….sheetrock.
The lack of expansion is true however it’s not the slowed expansion physical size of the empire it was the ability to expand the growth of debt, or rather lack thereof. Debt has been around for thousands of years and each time civilization expands it is the debt driving the growth. Once debt reaches its saturation point, i.e. there are not enough people to take on the proportionately larger amounts of debt necessary to keep up with the exponential curve, the economy collapses. Trade freezes up, famine and disease take hold and the weakened states are splintered and savaged by feuding warlords or civil war.
We are nearing the collapse point again.
Yes we look a lot like the Romans do before the fall but hey we look like a few other countries before their reset. How about this for a doomerporn thread.
Maybe WE will be the next Nazi try to destroy the world country of nutballs. Lets mark some checks shall we?
Dependent class of citizens beholden to one party .
Warrior ethos built into a substantial portion of our citizens.
A feeling of we deserve what we want when we want it.
An over reaching government that will need to distract the population very soon to the fact that we are fuked.
Lots of things that go boom and bang.
A willingness based on history to false flag to create conflict.
Perhaps we will be the next great threat to the world. Lies would be told and people will die and like every other thug country that tried to rule the world we would loose. But look at the bright side! Perhaps the winning side will have a Marshall plan for us!
Great parallel Muck. Americans find history almost as hard as math and critical thinking.
Katherine Austin Fits suggests that the preeminent business model is slavery – perhaps once the slaves are no longer all that “slavish” the business model (empire?) falls apart?
Maybe a business model not dependent on slaves – whether debt/wage/actual – would last a bit longer?
But then why on earth would the very people capable, powerful and influential enough in developing a “business model” for their nation-state not persistently choose the one that guarantees their own personal great wealth?
Seems like a vicious circle to me.
MA-off topic, but seeing as you’re a man of science, I’m sure you’ll be interested.
It’s seems that despite the “uninformativism” prevalent in modern day science, Immanuel Velikovsky renowned , but scapegoated scientist and author of Worlds in Collision may be vindicated after all
.”Actually, Charles Darwin, observing the destruction of fauna in South America, was convinced that nothing less than the shaking of the entire frame of the Earth could account for what he saw. But the introduction of the principle of uniformitarianism by Charles Lyell, a lawyer who never had field experience, and the acceptance of it on faith by Charles Darwin, are a psychological phenomenon that I observed again and again. Exactly those who, like Darwin, witnessed the omnipresent shambles of an overwhelming fury of devastation on a continental scale, became the staunchest defenders of the principle of uniformitarianism, that became not just a law, but a principle that grew to a statute of faith in the natural sciences, as if the reasoning that what we do not observe in our time could not have happened in the past can in any measure claim to be philosophically or scientifically true. ”
Immanuel Velikovsky writing in My Challenge to Conventional Views in Science
http://www.varchive.org/lec/aaas/challenge.htm
One can also peruse Velikovsky’s archives here:
http://www.varchive.org/itb/index.htm
and here:http://www.varchive.org/
Has the mystery of how the Moon formed been solved? Analysis of Apollo rocks finds telltale signs of massive impact when a body the size of Mars hit Earth
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2219217/Has-Lunar-mystery-solved-Analysis-Apollo-rocks-finds-telltale-signs-massive-impact-body-size-Mars-hit-Earth.html#ixzz29areWgqB
Researchers claim to have found fresh physical evidence the Moon was created when a body the size of Mars smashed into the early Earth in a cataclysmic collision.
Analysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo missions shows they have heavier forms of zinc – a telltale sign of the impact billions of years ago.
Without the Moon there may have been no life on Earth because it once orbited much closer to us than it does now causing massive tides to ebb and flow every few hours.
These tides caused dramatic fluctuations in salinity around coastlines which are believed to have driven the evolution of primitive DNA-like biomolecules.
Planetary scientist Dr Frederic Moynier says the zinc enrichment probably arose because heavier atoms condensed out of the cloud of vaporized rock quicker than lighter onces.
His researchers analysed 20 samples of Moon rocks including ones from the Apollo 11, 12, 15 and 17 missions – all of which went to different locations – and one lunar meteorite.
Dr Moynier, of Washington University in St Louis, said: ‘What we wanted were the basalts because they’re the ones that came from inside the Moon and would be more representative of the Moon’s composition.’
Asked how he felt when he saw the first results, Moynier says, ‘When you find something that is new and that has important ramifications, you want to be sure you haven’t gotten anything wrong.
‘I half expected results like those previously obtained for moderately volatile elements, so when we got something so different, we reproduced everything from scratch to make sure there were no mistakes because some of the procedures in the lab could conceivably fractionate the isotopes.’
The data, published in the Oct. 18, 2012, issue of Nature, provide the first physical evidence for wholesale vaporization event since the discovery of volatile depletion in Moon rocks, Moynier says.
flash
We are on tthe same page regarding the PPP’s . Thanks for the comment and the links.
“For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph – a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
George C. Scott as Patton
Here is a link to an article I wrote before TBP in 2009 comparing Rome and the U.S.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article12407.html
“The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.”
Edward Gibbon – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“The decay of trade and industry was not a cause of Rome’s fall. There was a decline in agriculture and land was withdrawn from cultivation, in some cases on a very large scale, sometimes as a direct result of barbarian invasions. However, the chief cause of the agricultural decline was high taxation on the marginal land, driving it out of cultivation. Taxation was spurred by the huge military budget and was thus ‘indirectly’ the result of the barbarian invasion.”
Arthur Ferrill – The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation
“The supply of foodstuffs in the cities declined. The people in the cities were forced to go back to the country and to return to agricultural life. Consequently, the emperors made laws against this movement. There were laws preventing the city dweller from moving to the country, but such laws were ineffective. As the people did not have anything to eat in the city, as they were starving, no law could keep them from leaving the city and going back into agriculture. The city dweller could no longer work in the processing industries of the cities as an artisan. And, with the loss of the markets in the cities, no one could buy anything there anymore.”
Ludwig von Mises – Human Action
The bulk of the grain consumed by Rome came from overseas territories with Egypt being a major source. The grain trade across the Med was an expensive operation that was financed so when the debt blew up so did the grain trade.
@BB THE TROLL
“to TPC Your ignorance isnt iust astounding , its breathtaking, so pure ,so focused…..your own words mock you.”
Aw shucks, you are gonna follow me from post to post aren’t ya boy? You come fully trained, it took a week or so to teach my lab how to heel, but here you are volunteering!
Just don’t shit on the rug, then I have to get out the newspaper.
Actual photo of BB sitting on TPC’s desk staring in rapt adoration at his master (photo is to scale)
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@MA
I don’t think you are racist, I just thought the picture was perfectly (un)appropriate for the situation.
As the only remaining superpower on earth, America fell into the same trap that has befallen previous empires. Instead of concentrating on proactively confronting domestic challenges, such as unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities, and developing a comprehensive energy plan to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, we continued to intervene in costly foreign adventures.
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I posit that we didn’t “fall into the same trap” but were deliberately led here by those with power and influence whose business plan most assuredly does not incorporate “confronting domestic challenges, such as unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities, and developing a comprehensive energy plan to wean ourselves off Middle East oil”.
Very smart, very well connected people sat around a table and decided there was more money to be had by choosing to “intervene in costly foreign adventures” – that rebuilding and reforming America to self-sufficiency at all levels allocates wealth in a democratic manner and that is just unacceptable.
How they managed to drag the wage and debt slaves along with perpetuating their own slavery is for Eddie Bernays to discuss.
@INTJ_4
I think that the hubris of human greed has led us here, not careful planning on the part of the “NWO”. The elite always lobby for more power and money for themselves. The lay person always lobbies for more benefits without pay.
100 years ago the banksters didn’t get together and say “Lets start a Fed to crash the economy and destroy America” they said “Lets start a Fed so we can get more rich and powerful”.
As narcissists one and all they are incapable of seeing the picture that extends past their existence, and they plan accordingly. The wealth they leave behind for their scions is purely meant to extend their own power, as a future reflection of how successful they were in the past.
I wish this was the result of a RL League of Shadows, as elimination of the league would then allow mankind to flourish.
Alas, our societies are self destructive, and I sincerely doubt that we will ever change.
The Roman Empire did come to an end – maybe more slowly rather than suddenly – but I imagine many of the elite and wealthy got out alive and went on to their country estates to live and propagate another day.
Their descendants most likely had sufficient material advantages that allowed a greater percentage to make it through the dark and middle ages – and perhaps genetically they are still with us today.
So the fall of the Roman Empire didn’t necessarily negatively impact everyone equally – for some it was merely a bit of downsizing, more body odor and disease, a loss of technology they soon forgot about anyways and an opportunity to continue to exist at the top of a much depreciated heap.
The “landed aristocracy” of Europe didn’t erupt within a vacuum – they came from somewhere. So the slavery loving PTB that are not at all interested in any sort of democratic allocation of wealth will be there on the other side, perhaps reduced and degraded, but still at the top of the heap and looking to continue their preferred business model, slavery.
Eddie,
Jesse nails PPP’s here.
“When the power of greed in business finds a suitable match in the lust for power in the political arena, that partnership can seem almost unstoppable for quite some time. It becomes increasingly difficult to effect reform from within because so many of the more effective elements of society become corrupted and cynical to the point of apathy.”
Jesse @ http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
From JH Newman service..be careful what you ask for.
http://www.conventhill.com/endtimes/newman1.htm
Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of CHRIST as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and saviour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination,-he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.