Your comment is incorrect.

When Tacitus speaks of Livia's manipulations, he is talking about the situation when Augustus is in old age and feeble. That is, Tacitus is describing Livia's attempts to control the succession so that one of her sons takes power.

Tacitus says nothing to indicate that Livia had any power in the first few decades after Augustus took power. Indeed, Tacitus suggests otherwise --by noting that Augustus made descendents other than Livia's sons into princes and potential successors.

If you think Tacitus is merely prejudiced, look at other Roman sources for that period.
Suetonius etc.

Or consider what Clodia did to Cicero as payback for his gossip about her love life
during legal proceedings.
A useful anecdote for the next conference of the American Bar Association.

Posted at February 1, 2007 3:55 PM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

Re MCS's comment "Ultimately, I think, Americans don't really oppose "overreach."
--------
I think MCS is wrong. How about the National Rifle Association? They have always argued that we need to accept 10,000 homocides per year as the cost of Freedom. They argued that we need to keep guns so as to deter a rogue President from ever trying to become a dictator.

During the Clinton Administration, I remember the NRA President waving a gun in the air and saying that federal agents could have his gun when they pried it "from his cold dead hands" Plus NRA lobbyist Wayne LaPierre denounced federal law enforcement as "jackbooted federal thugs" after they executed a judicial warrent at Wace.

Sounds like those guys could be shock troops for the resistance. After we got them likkered up , of course.

Who did the NRA support in the last two Presidential campaigns, by the way? Sound like Howard Dean supporters to me.

Posted at February 1, 2007 10:37 AM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

"while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws. "
-------
I dunno. That sounds like "I'm the decision-maker" to me.

Maybe we could have Attorney General Gonzales come to this board and explain
the legal doctrine known as "the divine right of kings".

Posted at February 1, 2007 10:11 AM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

Re Ernest Wilson's statement "But there are domestic forces of resistance
trying to keep America democratic."
-----------
Yes, but how much resistance have our Members of Congress shown in the past 6 years?

Remember how the Roman Republic fell??

"Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the
Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.

He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion....

...Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators, knights. The higher a man's rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery."

---Cornelius Tacitus "The Annals of Imperial Rome"

Posted at February 1, 2007 9:55 AM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

"Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and
all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.

He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest
spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining
nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion....

...Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators,
knights. The higher a man's rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while
he mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery."

---Cornelius Tacitus "The Annals of Imperial Rome"

Posted at January 31, 2007 8:09 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

"To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth.

The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed."

--Edward Gibbon "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

Posted at January 31, 2007 7:53 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

"The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other, by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind.

A modern tyrant who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of allies, and the apprehension of his enemies.

The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge.

But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies.

The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. (58)

To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly.

..."Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror." "

---Edward Gibbon "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

Posted at January 31, 2007 7:49 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

It should be noted that the ULTIMATE sources of campaign spending are not always clearly defined by the FEC records.

In many communities around the USA, the local economies are dependent upon the defense contractor to bring in "outside money" into the local economy which is then enlarged by a factor of 5 or 6 by the economic "multiplier " effect as defense employees spending is passed on to butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.

The local power elite know that -- so you often see contributions offered up by clients of defense patrons -- real estate companies, law firms, etc. There is an enormous and intricate system of mutual logrolling.

Nonetheless, much of this economic activity is an illusion. Defense spending is CONSUMPTION -- it in not investment. A basic minimum is necessary but anything beyond that minimum --in peacetime and lacking a reasonable threat -- is waste.

Our federal debt in 2008 will be $ 4 TRILLION more than what Bush projected it would be just back in 2001. And what have we bought? An array of productive new technologies? No A new Interstate Transport system? NO. An array of new medical technologies? NO

What's true hilarious is Bush's deceitful claim that his tax cuts were needed for employment. Anyone who looks at where the capital from the tax cuts went knows that it went to create jobs in CHINA -- not here in the USA. Just look at US statistics for domestic investment vice our foreign direct investment.

Ever see Fox News or Rush Limbaugh talk about that?

Posted at January 31, 2007 7:39 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

Our "involvment" in Korea was driven by the fact that (a) we were gearing up for a Cold, possibly Hot, war with nuclear armed USSR (b) we needed massive amounts of tungsten to make special steel (c) the only sizable deposits of tungsten outside the USSR and Red China were in Korea and Thailand (yes the Thailand next to a little country called Vietnam).

Of course, we didn't tell the civilians that. Instead, we did what we always do -- pull the wool over their stupid eyes with a bunch of bullshit about "national honor" and "spreading democracy". Plus making sure those fucking reporters didn't get any photographic closeups of those napalm drops.

Citation and excerpts available on request.

Posted at January 29, 2007 11:33 AM in response to From New Republic: Preparing for War With Iran

Actually, I should say that the current version of the game started in the early 1990s.

Actually, I seem to recall that a Jew named Sidney Reilly started the game back around 1904.

Then CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt continued the game in the 1950s when he overthrew the elected government of Mossadagh and installed the Shah on Iran's Peacock Throne.

In his memoir, Countercoup, Kermit indicates that the idea for the coup came
from the British Anglo-Iranian oil company -- nowdays know as BP. Of course, US oil companies got their cut and Iranians got --well, short rations and a visit with the Shah's SAVAK torturers if they complained.

We're not known as "The Great Satan" for nothing. That, our nuclear bombs, and Israel's nuclear bombs go some way to explaining why the Iranians don't want to sit down and sing Kumbaya.

Posted at January 28, 2007 10:10 PM in response to From New Republic: Preparing for War With Iran