On My Signal, Unleash Hell

[K Gardner]

Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

"On My Signal, Unleash Hell"!

To watch the GOP candidates for President this year, it would seem that is exactly what has happened. We pride ourselves on being a civilized nation. We look with disdain on ancient Rome, when blood lust turned people into cheering participants as men and women lost their lives in the brutal sands of the arena. When a man went down, cries of Habet, Hoc habet! (he's had it!), and shouts of Mitte! (let him go!) or Iugula! (kill him!) could be heard.

Roman society was a deeply divided, hierarchial and class-conscious society. They felt that undeserved rights could be rectified only by public degradation and death. In publicly witnessing such punishment, citizens were reassured that the proper social order had been restored. In this display, the games reaffirmed the moral and political order of things. In the arena, civilization triumphed over the wild and untamed, over the outlaw, the barbarian, the enemy. The threat outside society was overcome, the order of things was reasserted and death, itself, conquered.* – (James Grout, Essays on Rome,paraphrased)

We don’t need to put Gladiator into the Blu-Ray player or read essays on ancient Rome to be part of such carnage today. Just turn on any GOP Debate, watch and listen to any Republican crowd as they are thrown the red meat of racism, bigotry and intolerance. They don’t even bother with a low dog whistle this season. It is blatant. It is overt. It is in-your-face and it is tolerated, even cheered, by spectators in the audience who are thirsty for blood.

In ancient Rome, only Seneca protested the carnage of the arena.The other notables of the day advocated with their silence. Today, not one candidate for the highest office in the land objects to the vilification of the least, the poorest, the most helpless and victimized among us.

Just last week, a crowd cheered as Newt Gingrich demeaned a black journalist. “Juan”, Newt called out dismissively, and waited for the cheers of the crowd, which came right on cue. Later, a woman from South Carolina praised Newt’s action by thanking him for “putting him (Juan Williams) in his place”. Williams had the audacity to question the former speaker about repeated comments about the poor, saying poor children lack role models for work, and calling President Barack Obama a "food stamp president”. He has repeatedly said that poor children don’t know anyone who works and could be put to work in the schools as janitors.



"Will we be able to buy IPads like your granddaughter"?


In September, a Tea Party Express Audience at a CNN Debate cheered at the prospect of letting a healthy young man without health insurance die:

Blitzer: “What’s going to happen if he goes into a coma? Who pays for that”?

Ron Paul: “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody…”

Blitzer: “Are you saying society should just let him die?”

The audience enthusiastically shouted “Yes! Yes”!

"Are you not entertained"?

At the Reagan Library on September 7, Brian Williams questioned Governor Rick Perry about the death penalty. Texas leads the country in wrongful death convictions. Perry has recently condoned U.S. troops urinating on the corpse of an enemy combatant even though the Geneva Convention forbids it.

Williams: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you (the crowd begins applauding) struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?

Perry: No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. <snip>

Williams: What do you make of…(continued applause) What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?

Perry: I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of cases, supportive of capital punishment. <snip>

"Kill him"!

Also in September, in Orando, a Republican crowd loudly booed a United States soldier, who is on active duty in Iraq, after the following question: “In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was, because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?”

“What we’re doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. And that’s tragic. I would just say that, going forward, we would reinstitute that policy, if Rick Santorum was president, period. That policy could be reinstituted.”

The crowd in Orlando cheered wildly at Santorum’s answer.

“I will win the crowd. I will give them something they have never seen before”.

Newt Gingrich used the following line in this week’s debate: “As close to despicable as anything I can imagine”. Of course, Newt was talking about the media, and the crowd was on its feet.

The brutal display put on by this year’s crop of GOP candidates, is indeed, as despicable as anything I can imagine. In a country already torn by two wars, a recession, record unemployment and foreclosures, the gap between the “have’s” and the “have nots” grows wider every day. And yet the raw meat of human misery and suffering is tossed into the audience, and they go after the bloody bones of their fellow human beings like a pack of wild dogs. This is only the beginning. The bloodsport will grow ever more divisive for this country as we near the general election. The sacrificial lambs will be offered up to the waiting crowds.

One wonders how far, really, we have come from the days of Gladiators; when people roared in triumph over the spilling of blood, innocent or otherwise. These crowds, the supposed “Christian right” – do they ever ask themselves, would Jesus be cheering for poverty, bigotry, racism, death, torture, executions, illness, starvation, homelessness and inequality?

When the games in ancient Rome were finally banished, it was largely prompted by the death of a monk, Telemachus, who had entered the arena to try to stop the fight. He was stoned to death by the indignant crowd.

Many months remain between now and November. Let’s hope someone has the integrity and courage to step into this godless and bloody gladiatorial arena the Republican Primary has created and say “enough - have you no decency, Sir"?

Greater empires have fallen over less.

[font color="blue" size="2" face="Verdana"]There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter. Let us whisper now, together, you and I.[/font]

(All quotes from Gladiator)

*James Grout –
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/circusmaximus.html

[broiles]

1. An apt comparison.

What ever happened to Rome anyway?

[virgdem]

2. It fell in 476 AD.

[K Gardner]

3. Newt fiddled while Rome burned, I think.

[roguevalley]

9. someone did a comparison about income inequity in Ancient Rome and modern America

Income inequity among other things caused the fall. After scouring all written and spoken sources they calculated it was high castes owned 16% of everything. I believe the 0.1% owns what? 54% of everything now?

[LiberalEsto]

4. Great post

You have to wonder if the lead in the Romans' drinking water caused brain damage sufficient to cause the collapse of their empire.

And you have to wonder if all the chemical pollutants in our air, water and food are also damaging us to the point of eventual collapse.

[K Gardner]

5. That's certainly something to consider, Esto, but I tend to think it has more to do with

stupidity, ignorance and bigotry. I think it will start feeling more and more like civil war as the months wear on.

Rome was highly stratified, classwise, as we are now. And that never leads to anything good, especially when the crowds seem to gloat over those sitting in the "lower tier".

[Shankapotomus]

6. If it were the pollutants

we'd all be conservatives. So it must be that some of us are just real slow learners.

[K Gardner]

7. You do have a point there, Shank :-)

[K Gardner]

8. This is NUTS ! Romney says OBAMA is guilty of class warfare... when

everything I put in the above post is just the TIP of the iceberg for class warfare.

How do they get away with this hypocrisy and no one calls them on it?!

[Samantha]

12. The right-wingers backed themselves into a political corner

Last edited Sun Jan 22, 2012, 04:23 PM - Edit history (1)

They were forced to choose between a Mormon (Mormonism is not considered a "Christian" religion by many Southerners) and a serial adulterer who they perceive can truly "take the fight" to President Obama in future debates. Casting aside all pretenses of religious purity, they were forced (in their own minds) to vote for the serial adulterer, touting the principle of forgiveness of sin as their excuse. In this process, they exhibited their own religious hypocrisy, shades of racism and willingness to disregard the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom to all citizens (despite their claims of being strict constructionists).

In short, most of these voters played the role of the emperor wearing no clothes, hoping no one would notice. Most of us did.

Sam

[K Gardner]

13. Samantha, this needs to be a post. If it already is,

show me where it is so I can K&R it. But really, this is the most succinct, accurate version of this debacle I've seen so far. Excellent writing. I love it.

[Samantha]

21. I wrote this response to your wonderful thread

in order to kick your thread. I was just so happy to see you posting again.

Some of these principles are very dear to my heart, and it has distressed me terribly for such a long time to see people, in the words of a minister who I heard briefly comment on this subject, "prostituting religion for political advantage." I share his opinion on this subject 100 percent. And now, that "prostitution" is on display for the whole voting electorate to see.

Thank you for your kind words. Keep up your great work here.

Sam

[Samantha]

24. I just posted this in General Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002202821

If a dialogue starts, I have a few other thoughts on this subject to share. Thanks for your suggestion.

Sam

[coalition_unwilling]

16. Excellent observations. More to the point, Gingrich is a Roman Catholic and

Southern Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have a tendency to view Roman Catholicism as a cult almost as evil and Satanic as Mormonism. I was frankly surprised to see Gingrich come out on top of Santorum, although I think Santorum is also RC.

[Samantha]

22. Newt Gingrich was a Southern Baptist for four decades and converted to Catholicism in 2009

First a Lutheran, then a Southern Baptist, and finally a Catholic. One might say he is as true to his religion as he is to his wives.

As for Santorum, I can hardly even discuss him. He is simply beyond weird. What is odd is that no one in campaigning against him has referred to his reputation as a Senator, during which time he was referred to as Senator Slash.

[K Gardner]

23. His conversion was convenient for him at the time. His main religion, however, seems to be

adultery and hatred, bitterness and discontent. And I'd never heard about Senator Slash !

[Samantha]

10. I heard recently football is this day's version of the old gladiator fights

I think football might be a distant second to our political campaigns in that comparison.

Sam

[gateley]

11. What an absolutely amazing post, K Gardner!

I'm in total agreement and view what's unfolding with horror and disbelief. It's unfathomable to me how my fellow human beings can disrespect and absolutely dismiss the worth of another.

I'm reminded of when Ted Bundy was executed and the people cheering outside the prison. It was a party! The next day a friend of my mother's mentioned to me and she had been affected similarly. She said "I prayed for Ted Bundy's soul". I said, "so did I". And I did. And I don't pray.

This breaks my heart.

Thank you for this.

[K Gardner]

15. Thank you, Gately. I understand the sentiments about

the soul's of those who are killed by the State, no matter what their crime. What I don't understand is the sociopathic narcicism that allows four white males to stand on a stage and whip a crowd into this kind of frenzy by objectifying half of our society.

No one seems to be talking about this. Or about the danger it represents. If we thought four years ago was bad, we ain't seen nothin' yet. Newt foretold this in his "they're not americans, Saul Alinsky" fear speech last night and the crowd went wild.

I fear its going to get dangerous. I really do.

But all the media can talk about is Romney's taxes.

"I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people". - Newt Gingrich.

[lonestarnot]

14. K & R!

My first bookmarked thread over here!

[K Gardner]

19. Thanks, lonestarnot.. I didn't even realize there was a "new" DU..

It's kinda different over here. I'm still trying to find my way around. Good to see you're still here !

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Emphatic K&R! - n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. Excellent post!

It is up to us to make sure that America is saved from these villains.

[K Gardner]

20. Thx Rosa and coalition, but it'd help if the media would LOUDLY

call out these guys, especially Newt, on his blatant fear-mongering and bigotry. He plays to the basest, vilest instincts, the crowd goes wild, and then they're proud of it. Really, MSNBC - Matthews, Maddow, Sharpton, etc., are the only ones I've seen denounce it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. Occupy the media

Trouble is that they are influenced by the corporations.