<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: [lbo-talk] too little too late?</title></head><body> <div>"R" wrote:</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>gore deserves a lot of credit for giving two excellent speeches, one on the<br> heels of the other. a refreshing change.   one can tell they've hit home<br> because the right wing echo machine is calling him "insane" and "crazy."<br> <br> if he'd demonstrated this kind of spine four years ago, US history would be</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>very different...</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>A generally fine speech indeed, but marred by an egregious bit of</div> <div>historical ignorance:</div> <div><br></div> <div>"...<font face="Charcoal" size="-2" color="#000000">democracy disappeared in Rome when Caesar crossed the Rubicon in violation of the Senate's long prohibition against a returning general entering the city while still in command of military forces. Though the Senate lingered in form and was humored for decades, when Caesar impoliticly combined his military commander role with his chief executive role, the Senate - and with it the Republic - withered away. And then for all intents and purposes, the great dream of democracy disappeared from the face of the Earth for seventeen centuries, until its rebirth in our land..."</font></div> <div><br></div> <div>Without a long lecture, let me point out a few of the many errors</div> <div>crammed into these short sentences.  Firstly, the Roman republic</div> <div>was no democracy in any respect--the votes of the majority</div> <div>of citizens (just like in the USA) counted for nothing.  Secondly,</div> <div>the Senate, an unelected body, was a narrow, though factionally</div> <div>divided, oligarchy.  Thirdly, Caesar had overwhelming popular</div> <div>support and would have prevailed easily--despite the effective</div> <div>disenfranchisement of the majority of citizens--in any fair</div> <div>election under the established rules.  Fourthly, Caesar's opponents,</div> <div>the Powells, Cheneys, Ashcrofts, and Scalias of his day, conspired</div> <div>openly, and in violation of established law (the "Law of the Ten Tribunes"),</div> <div>to deny Caesar the right to stand for office as Consul.  Fifthly, those</div> <div>oligarchs physically assaulted two Tribunes of the People--in violation</div> <div>of a central principle of the Roman Constitution--forcing them</div> <div>to flee for their lives to Caesar's camp.  Sixthly, when Caesar, under</div> <div>the greatest provocation, moved a force far smaller than that commanded by his enemies into Italia proper, the whole peninsula welcomed him as a liberator and the oligarchs fled the city in panic fear of a popular uprising</div> <div>although Caesar was still far from Rome.  And finally (leaving aside</div> <div>minor errors) the rebirth of "the great dream of democracy" after seventeen centuries (this at least is correct) must be credited to</div> <div>the "Levellers" and "Diggers" of the English Revolution, and certainly</div> <div>not to Gore's fetishized slaveowning Founding Fathers, more than a</div> <div>century later, none of whom even pretended to be a democrat.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Shane Mage<br> <br> "Thunderbolt steers all things."         <span ></span >           <span ></span >           <span ></span >           <span ></span >           <span ></span>    <br> </div> <div>Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64 </div> <div> </div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> </body> </html>