The Fall of the Roman Empire - Is America Taking the Same Path?

In the two hundred years since the American Revolution was fought and won, our country has gone from a band of rebellious colonial upstarts that defeated British rule in 1781 to becoming the world’s last remaining Superpower by the 1990’s. As remarkable as that story is it will pale in comparison to the story of our current race to commit national suicide. While the Progressives began their assault on the Constitution over a hundred years ago, the decline of America really began to accelerate twenty years ago and we are now challenged with making the decisions that will either restore America to sanity and prosperity or will complete the destruction. The day of reckoning is here and we can no longer delay the choices. The big question is what choice will we make?

One would think we would turn to history for some insights. After all, history is replete with examples of other societies and civilizations that were faced with similar challenges. Most chose poorly and as a result, we now study the ruins they left behind; examining the documented history of how their choices collapsed their society. One perfect example is the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire had its roots in a small agricultural community on the Italian peninsula. The legends claim that twin brothers, descended from a Trojan Prince, founded the City of Rome in 753 BC. The brothers, Romulus and Remus were purportedly conceived when Mars, the God of war, raped a vestal virgin named Rea Silvia who gave birth to the twins. Because Romulus and Remus were fathered by the God of war, they were considered half divine. As the story goes, their Grandfather and King of Alba Longa, Numitor, was deposed by his rival Amulius. Fearing the twins would recapture the throne, Amulius ordered them drown. A she-wolf would save the boys from death and raise them. Once grown, Romulus and Remus returned to Alba Longa and restored Numitor to the throne before departing to found their own city. In a dispute over who would rule the new city, Romulus killed his brother and assumed the crown. Now that his throne was secured, the City would be named Rome in honor of its king, Romulus.

For the following two hundred and fifty years, Rome would prosper as a Monarchy led by seven successive Kings. Just as the American colonists revolted against the British crown, Rome revolted against King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in 509 BC. Superbus was noted in history as a tyrannical dictator but revulsion turned into open revolution after Superbus’s son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped Lucretia, who was an important noblewoman in the Kingdom. The people of Rome succeeded in their revolt and deposed the tyrannical King, replacing the Monarchy with an Oligarchic Republic.

The Roman Republic was a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority through the imperium, or military command. The consuls had to work with the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power over time. While there are many differences between the Roman Republic and America, there are also a number of parallels, particularly in the forces that worked against the Republic.

See if this sounds familiar? Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival Senators, intimidated the electorate through violence. The situation came to a head in the late 2nd century BC under the Gracchi brothers, a pair of tribunes who attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians or working class. Both brothers were killed, but the Senate passed some of their reforms in an attempt to placate the growing unrest of the plebeian and equestrian classes.

Curiously, that sounds like our own radical fringe that would eventually become today’s “Community Organizers”. Rome’s community organizers also had their sympathetic Senators that brought about reforms to redistribute Roman wealth with land instead of cash. Just as today, the sympathetic Roman Senators forced the rest of the Senate to pass some of these reforms just to prevent civil unrest. It almost sounds as if the Gracchi brothers were the ancient equivalent of Cloward and Pivens that proposed the poor work to overwhelm the system and punctuate those efforts with threats of violence in order to bring about social justice. Rome’s sympathetic Senators could quite easily be paralleled with today’s Progressives in Congress on their quest for redistributive policies.

To continue; the Republic grew through a series of wars, allowing Rome to occupy much of the Italian peninsula. Of course with growth comes power and with power comes corruption. In the mid-1st century BC, three men, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, formed a secret pact—the First Triumvirate—to control the Republic. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, a stand-off between Caesar and the Senate led to civil war, with Pompey leading the Senate's forces. Caesar emerged victorious, and was made dictator for life. While we haven’t had a dictator assume power in the United States, it is a well known fact that we came very close to just that in the early days of Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency when there was a secret pact among the Democratic hierarchy that actually urged FDR to assume dictatorial powers to combat the depression. Fortunately, that never happened and the Constitution survived both the depression and FDR.

The Roman Republic however, would not survive. Caesar was assassinated in the 44 BC attempted Senate coup to restore Constitutional government. The aftermath created a Second Triumvirate, consisting of Caesar's designated heir, Octavian, and his former supporters, Mark Antony and Lepidus that took power. However, this alliance soon descended into a struggle for dominance. Lepidus was exiled, and when Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, he became the undisputed ruler of Rome.

Rome under the absolute rule of Octavian and his successors would become a vast Empire and eventually ruled over two and a half million square miles of the ancient world. The Empire dominated the entire Mediterranean coast including northern Africa, most of the European continent and even most of the British Isle. Of course the Roman economy was only an illusion that relied on a steady flow of loot from its wars of conquest and the taxes collected in the occupied territories. Hmm? That sounds like the illusion of our own economy. Instead of tribute collected from conquered lands our government spends borrowed money on the promise that future generations will somehow find a way to pay for the debt. The problem with economies based on conquest or credit is that they both ignore the hard work needed to sustain the spending and are therefore, both doomed to fail. Rome took all there was to take and by the time captured cash stopped pouring into Rome, the Roman people had forgotten what it meant to work for themselves and that sounds familiar too. Even more familiar are the chief causes listed for the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor
Decline in Morals
Political Corruption and the Praetorian Guard
Fast expansion of the Empire
Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending
Barbarian Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics
Failing Economy
Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)
The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'
Decline in Ethics and Values
Slave Labor
Natural Disasters
Christianity
Barbarian Invasion

Tomorrow we will discuss the causes for the fall of the Roman Empire and how our society is now enganged in the modern equivalent of many of the same things.

Paul

Scott Brown verus the Progressive Agenda

Democrats are struggling to regain their composure after the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat to Republican Scott Brown. The infighting began nearly immediately as the moderates recognized the danger signs issued by an aware and angry public and many have begun to walk and talk “moderate”. Of course the Progressive left, including the President, have attempted to counter that by claiming that loss was simply the people’s Pavlovian response to unemployment and the faltering economy. In fact, many Progressives and their lap-dogs in the Liberal Press are trying to convince Democrats in volatile States that it was Congress’s inability to pass sweeping healthcare reform legislation containing a strong public option that has angered America and that their seats are only in danger if they don’t press on and get the job done.

The President knows this isn’t true and even though he is still pressing for the passage of his full agenda, he realizes that it means the loss of the Democratic majority in November’s elections. To Obama, the loss of the majority means little as long as the Progressive agenda is put into play because he knows once it is enacted, it can not be rescinded; that America will be saddled with these new programs for all of eternity, that is, until the real Progressive goal post is reached….the collapse of Capitalism.

Progressives have had a grand strategy for decades to slowly infiltrate society so that they can frame the arguments and create the conditions that will forward their agenda. If you read my article on Saul Alinsky that was posted to this blog yesterday, you can see that strategy enunciated in his own words; words that Barack Obama taught to unsuspecting students at The University of Chicago Law School; words that Obama put into practice in the streets of Chicago as a community organizer. I know that the media denigrates anyone that tries to make the Obama – Alinsky connection or questions the President’s motives as being anything more that just run-of-the-mill liberalism but this President’s career and first term in office have been a carbon copy of Alinsky’s game plan and can be followed line by line in Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals”.

The President ran a campaign based on the need for change. He made the case based on the nation’s anger with George Bush’s policies and the out of control spending policies of a partisan Congress that what we needed was a “fundamental transformation” of America. He stood on a platform of hope and spoke to the best ideals of the American people.

Well, Alinsky’s strategy begins with the notion that radicals should not wear fatigues and shout obscenities; they should wear suits and “speak the language of middle America”. He also believed that organizers, when properly trained, could create anger in the poor communities and that these angry citizens would then become the “foot soldiers of change”. Alinsky believed that organizers must infiltrate churches, schools, organizations and yes, even politics, so that they then would be in a position to steer the national conversation to Progressive matters. He felt that if you were in a position to frame the questions that you could illicit the answers you want and make you believe it was your idea; that false support for a coerced agenda would make people feel that they were finally making a difference; that it was their hopes that were shaping policy and be blinded to the truth that the organizers were shaping them. He truly believed that the Progressive revolution was a revolution of small steps and that by achieving these small goals, the ultimate goal could eventually be reached; the demise of Capitalism.

So now we have Obama, the champion of change, the organizer that speaks the language of Middle America. He has capitalized on a healthcare crisis created in Congress and now has us all discussing the changes that must take place to correct the problem. Just to refresh the facts, the healthcare system would be fine if Congress hadn’t assumed the responsibility for 50% of all healthcare expenditures in the United States through Medicare and Medicaid. They not only spend half the health dollars in America but are in fact, the most corrupt of all insurers, routinely short paying doctors and hospitals for their services. That is why private insurance has skyrocketed. Hospitals must shift the portion of the bill that Congress won’t pay to someone who will. Since they can’t charge Medicare and Medicaid more, they charge you.

Private insurance can’t ignore 40% of the bill the way the Federal government does so it must raise what it charges you. Alinsky said organizers must frame the questions to get the answers they want and President Obama has done just that, forcing all of America to argue over what industry reforms are needed rather than whether reforms would be needed at all if it were not for an irresponsible government.

Obama taught Alinsky theory in college and after a brief three years as the Junior Senator from Illinois, the Progressive machine grouped behind him and he was elected President. If that is not a classic example of the infiltration of the political process that Alinsky inspired, I don’t know what is. Obama has his foot soldiers too…the poor communities that he inspired through his organizing efforts. The ACCORNs and other Cloward-Pivens type organizations that were also founded to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Obama has also tried to infiltrate the schools several times; the latest attempt is through his website, “Organizing for America”. They have an intern program for high school student to teach them….well, organizing and wouldn’t you know, one of the books on the suggested reading list is “Rules for Radical” by Saul Alinsky. How much more of this needs to be seen before we stop asking how people can claim that Obama is a radical socialist and start asking how did we not see this before?

Of course the President cannot do this alone and that is where the Progressive movement comes in. Congress already has 80+ openly Progressive members that regularly attend meetings in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and there are more in the shadows. To tell you the truth…I would like to see C-Span cameras in those meetings more than I would in the healthcare debate. If we could see the real intent of those minions of Marx, the healthcare reform and cap and trade (energy bill) agenda would be exposed for what it is and would be rejected without adieu.

There are Democrats, there are Republicans and there are Progressives. Progressive is not a nice word at all. It was founded during an age when the enlightened (the old Progressives of the Progressive Era) believed in eugenics; that you could breed a perfect human being. Having perfect human beings would give you the right to eliminate “less than perfect” human beings and many in the Progressive movement of the 20’s and 30’s believed just that.

No, the Modern Progressives don’t believe in breeding perfect humans or the notion exterminating the rest but they do believe in educating an elite class of rulers that will shepherd the masses because the non-educated and politically ignorant “peasant class” cannot possible be capable of making those decisions for themselves. That is why they are crafting legislation that will allow the government to make your must fundamental choices for you; what kind of healthcare you will receive, how much energy you will consume and even what kind of foods you will eat. There will be no mandates to enforce these things; those will come after the collapse of Capitalism. All of this will be achieved through the liberal use of the existing tax structure that will force you to make the choices they deem are good by making bad choices beyond your ability to afford. They already know they can because we sat still for the myriad of “sin” taxes they have already put in place on tobacco and alcohol. Why should cheeseburgers, gasoline and electricity be any different?

The one thing Progressives cannot do is carry out their agenda in public. Every time the Progressive agenda was made public in the past, it drove them underground until the political climate changed again. To be victorious, they must keep their real goals secret. I challenge you to read Alinsky and study Cloward and Piven. You will be as shocked as I was to see the parallels between the President, our most liberal members of Congress and the strategies laid out by Saul Alinsky. It’s time to turn the flood lights on the Progressive agenda so the American people can assume their rightful place as the leaders of our nation again. The intent of the founders was a citizen legislature that bowed to the will of the people; not the creation of a ruling class of elitist socialists.

Paul

Who is Saul Alinsky?

MSNBC’s Chris Mathews calls him “one of our heroes from the past”; Barack Obama taught his theories in college; Hillary Clinton even wrote her college thesis about him. So who is Saul Alinsky and why should we be suspect of anyone that doesn’t grimace at the mention of his name?

Saul Alinsky was born to Russian-Jewish parents in Chicago in 1909, and while he never had clear associations to any political party but instead, as Alinsky biographer David Horowitz puts it, became an avatar of the post-modern left. Alinsky was a Communist/Marxist fellow-traveler who helped establish the dual political tactics of confrontation and infiltration familiar to anyone that lived through the 1960s.

His tactics have remained central to all subsequent revolutionary movements in the United States. He identified a set of very specific rules that ordinary citizens could follow, and tactics that ordinary citizens could employ, as a means of gaining public power. Alinsky, in essence, created a blueprint for revolution under the banner of "social change" that is the main underpinning for modern Progressives. His motto was, “The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results” which is little more than a rewording of the Marxist doctrine that the ends justify the means.

Alinsky studied criminology as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, during which time he became friendly with Al Capone and his mobsters. Ryan Lizza, senior editor of The New Republic, offers a glimpse into Alinsky’s personality: “Charming and self-absorbed, Alinsky would entertain friends with stories -- some true, many embellished -- from his mob days for decades afterward. He was profane, outspoken, and narcissistic, always the center of attention despite his tweedy, academic look and thick, horn-rimmed glasses.

According to Lizza: "Alinsky was deeply influenced by the great social science insight of his times, one developed by his professors at Chicago: that the pathologies of the urban poor were not hereditary but environmental. This idea, that people could change their lives by changing their surroundings, led him to take an obscure social science phrase—‘the community organization’--and turn it into, in the words of Alinsky biographer Sanford Horwitt, ‘something controversial, important, even romantic.’ His starting point was a near-fascination with John L. Lewis, the great labor leader and founder of the CIO. What if, Alinsky wondered, the same hardheaded tactics used by unions could be applied to the relationship between citizens and public officials?"

After completing his graduate work in criminology, Alinsky went on to develop his concept of mass organization for power. In the late 1930s he gained notoriety as a master organizer of the poor when he organized the “Back of the Yards” area in Chicago, an industrial and residential neighborhood on the Southwest Side of the city. In 1940 Alinsky established the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), through which he and his staff helped “organize” communities not only in Chicago but throughout the United States. IAF remains an active entity to this day. Its national headquarters are located in Chicago, and it has affiliates in the District of Columbia, twenty-one separate states, and three foreign countries (Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom) which only lends credence to the notion that the ultimate goal of Progressives is the globalization of politics and the unification of the world under a single, socialist style government.

In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a cleaner, less threatening word for “revolution”. Not just any revolution but a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is a systematic cultivation of power by a supposedly oppressed segment of the population and the radical transformation of America’s social and economic structure. Isn’t it curious that Barack Obama chose the phrase that we were “five days away from fundamentally changing the United States” just before the 2008 election?

The goal, according to Alinsky, is to create enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted; a revolution whose foot soldiers view America’s Capitalist system as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation. Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than the current system’s complete collapse which would be followed by an entirely new system built upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal “changes” are needed. Can you think of any “charismatic radical organizers that profess to clearly understand what types of societal “changes” are needed”? Naw….Obama just said he’s not an ideologue so that must be strictly coincidence….right?

We are concerned,” Alinsky elaborated, “with how to create mass organizations (like ACORN?) to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which men have the chance to live by the values that give meaning to life. We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world … This means revolution.”

Alinsky did not mean the sweeping upheaval as was witnessed in 1917 Russia but instead, viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.” He advised organizers and their disciples to quietly, subtly gain influence within the decision-making ranks of these institutions, and to introduce changes from that platform. This was precisely the tactic of “infiltration” advocated by Lenin and Stalin who viewed the demoralization and eventual collapse of the West as best accomplished through a “Trojan Horse” tactic; rotting the mighty oak of Capitalism with a disease from within.

Alinsky stressed that organizers and their followers needed to take care when they first unveil their particular crusade for “change,” not to alienate the middle class with any type of defiant demeanor or menacing appearances that suggested radicalism or a disrespect for middle class mores and traditions. Alinsky added, “True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism; They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.” While his ultimate goal was nothing less than the “radicalization of the middle class,” Alinsky stressed the importance of “learning to talk the language of those with whom one is trying to converse.”

Alinsky taught that the organizer’s first task was to make people feel that they were wise enough to diagnose their own problems, find their own solutions, and determine their own destinies.

Alinsky explained, the organizer must employ such techniques as the artful use of “loaded questions designed to elicit particular responses and to steer the organization’s decision-making process in the direction which the organizer prefers. “Is this manipulation?” asked Alinsky. “Certainly!”; but to Alinsky, it was manipulation toward a desirable end: “If the common man had a chance to feel that he could direct his own efforts … that to a certain extent there was a destiny that he could do something about, that there was a dream that he could keep fighting for, then life would be wonderful living.

Alinsky viewed the role of the organizer as supremely important; a master manipulator, whose guidance was responsible for setting the agendas of the People’s Organization. “The organizer,” Alinsky wrote, “is in a true sense reaching for the highest level for which man can reach -- to create, to be a ‘great creator,’ to play God. Perhaps that explains the unbelievable statement Obama made during a campaign stop when he said that people would have an epiphany; that a light will descend upon on them and tell them that they must vote for Barack Obama.

I could go on for a week and still not be through with Alinsky but there is enough here to spell out who he was, what he believed in and the incredible parallels to the actions and words of Barack Obama. There are reams of information out there on Alinsky not to mention his books and writings that can complete the picture far better than I can. One thing I will add is that you must always remember that this man; this unapologetic radical, is the man that Barack Obama emulates; Hillary Clinton studied and Chris Mathews worships. If you do forget this, you forget not at your own peril, but at the peril of our nation.

Paul