Jun 19, 2005
Daily Life in the Empire
The Democrats have been grumbling that the US ought to close its prison-torture facility in Guantanamo, Cuba, because it poses a bit of an"image problem." Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, of course, defended the jail.
The Pentagon meanwhile announced that a fancier, air conditioned facility will be built there. Who will get the $ 30 million contract? Why, Halliburton, Dick's old company, naturally, a subsidiary of KBR. Wonder who else dared to bid on the deal, or if, as in so many past deals involving KBR, there was no bidding allowed? View Article Here
Bush's propagandists such as Max Boot(licker) and Victor Davis Hanson continue to spread the virtues of the Roman Empire as a model for the American one. Why"slow decline," don't you know, old chap, is good!
If Prof Hanson can pull himself away from such things as discussing the virtues of Total War as practiced by one of his heroes, William Tecumseh Sherman, who in his quest to serve that great Empire builder, Abe Lincoln, argued that killing the 300,000 or so hard core states' righters, would be a great start, perhaps Hanson might glance at such books as Ramsay MacMullen's Corruption and the Decline of Rome.
MacMullen does not see nearly as long a period of"decline," and I especially recommend his Chapter Four,"The Price of Privatizing Government." I am tempted to believe that Cheney read this somewhere along the line and used it as a"how to" book.
The decline of Rome, of course, goes back earlier than was discussed by MacMullen, and can be seen in such classics as The New Deal in Old Rome. or The Coming Caesars. Julius Caesar's biggest backers were from the Roman military-industrial complex, just as are George's, Dick's and Don's.
So also the American military-industrial complex goes back earlier than when Eisenhower called attention to it in 1961. Read, for example, Bruce Catton's The War Lords of Washington detailing his inside experiences in the home front during WWII. Catton soon found out it was safer and more lucrative to write about the Civil War.
In the meantime, not to worry, the War Machine has also announced it will spend $300 million on public relations to improve our"image" in the Islamic world. If genetics has any play in things, I would suggest as a part of that effort that Pentagon workers scrape up a bit of Goebbels DNA and clone the guy. But then, he was burned up with his idol back in the bunker in 1945, wasn't he? Anyway, some KBR subsidiary, or other Bush crony, will get most of that money as well.
The Pentagon meanwhile announced that a fancier, air conditioned facility will be built there. Who will get the $ 30 million contract? Why, Halliburton, Dick's old company, naturally, a subsidiary of KBR. Wonder who else dared to bid on the deal, or if, as in so many past deals involving KBR, there was no bidding allowed? View Article Here
Bush's propagandists such as Max Boot(licker) and Victor Davis Hanson continue to spread the virtues of the Roman Empire as a model for the American one. Why"slow decline," don't you know, old chap, is good!
If Prof Hanson can pull himself away from such things as discussing the virtues of Total War as practiced by one of his heroes, William Tecumseh Sherman, who in his quest to serve that great Empire builder, Abe Lincoln, argued that killing the 300,000 or so hard core states' righters, would be a great start, perhaps Hanson might glance at such books as Ramsay MacMullen's Corruption and the Decline of Rome.
MacMullen does not see nearly as long a period of"decline," and I especially recommend his Chapter Four,"The Price of Privatizing Government." I am tempted to believe that Cheney read this somewhere along the line and used it as a"how to" book.
The decline of Rome, of course, goes back earlier than was discussed by MacMullen, and can be seen in such classics as The New Deal in Old Rome. or The Coming Caesars. Julius Caesar's biggest backers were from the Roman military-industrial complex, just as are George's, Dick's and Don's.
So also the American military-industrial complex goes back earlier than when Eisenhower called attention to it in 1961. Read, for example, Bruce Catton's The War Lords of Washington detailing his inside experiences in the home front during WWII. Catton soon found out it was safer and more lucrative to write about the Civil War.
In the meantime, not to worry, the War Machine has also announced it will spend $300 million on public relations to improve our"image" in the Islamic world. If genetics has any play in things, I would suggest as a part of that effort that Pentagon workers scrape up a bit of Goebbels DNA and clone the guy. But then, he was burned up with his idol back in the bunker in 1945, wasn't he? Anyway, some KBR subsidiary, or other Bush crony, will get most of that money as well.