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And I've thought more about the parallel to the later part of the story, AFTER the great emperors--the famous "decline and fall of the Roman Empire" that occurred in circa 500 AD. This was the period during which the early Christians, the real ones, were systematically anathematized and purged, and their gospels burned, and the ascendance of fascist males who called themselves "patriarchs," who cemented an institutionalized "church" with state power (power of the Roman emperor), and created a dogmatic and intolerant church, that put prison bars around the human mind and soul, and was especially hostile to women and to Goddess worship. What followed was one thousand years of darkness and misery, and ignorance and social immobility, throughout Europe, Scandinavia, England/Ireland, north Africa and most of the Middle East--with the exception of the great Persian and Islamic learning centers, which were, despite great scholars and public works, not happy places for the poor, with social immobility and tyranny by the rich their biggest flaws.
What was lost throughout Europe was the egalitarianism of ancient Roman culture, which was based on what was, essentially, Roman secularism. Despite their many "gods," Romans were essentially secular, tolerant of differences, multicultural, and very practical, and created a vast civilization that incorporated many advances from Greek civilization (particularly Greek medicine, science and philosophy), and added to that Romans' extraordinary organizational skills, a vast new transportation system (Roman roads), protection for travelers, a comparatively fair legal system (the 'rule of laws not men' significantly advanced), acknowledgment of the rights and sovereignty of the "plebes" (the poor and middle classes, who had a VOTE in Roman affairs). Education was widespread at all levels of society. Leaders and persons of learning and ability in conquered provinces could become Roman citizens (though they may never have visited Rome, they were protected by Roman law and entitled to Rome's protection). And although Rome practiced slavery, it was not based on racial hatred. Slaves were often highly skilled, including highly literate and educated, and were often beloved members of families, and slaves could buy their way out of (or be bought out of) slavery. It was not the racist and socially immobile institution we have seen in our own and some other cultures. The slaves in the rural areas (ag workers) had the hardest lot--but were no worse off than the serfs in the Middle Ages (essentially owned by the lords and barons of the land). And the slaves in Rome often led privileged lives, and could acquire considerable power. Greek doctors, scholars and teachers were initially "slaves" of the Romans who conquered them. And most Roman slave owners were careful with this highly valued "property" and did not routinely brutalize slaves.
This is not to say that Rome's conquests were civilized or fair. They were bloody awful. My own ancestors--the Kelts and the Gauls--suffered tremendously from Rome's warfare. However, once Rome conquered a region, and set up systems to satisfy its own needs for raw materials, food, tribute and land, it was a relatively benign ruler, and local people benefited from all of the above (roads, transportation, fair laws, local religions and customs largely respected, education, social mobility, and "Pax Romana"--Rome keeping the peace among potentially bloody-minded tribes and against invaders).
Perhaps the most brilliant institution the Romans created--besides their legal system--was the Alexandria Library in Egypt, repository of virtually all knowledge in the vast empire, which contained at least 700,000 manuscripts, gathered from the Mediterranean and far into Asia. Here, scholars from every religion, and from every school of thought, including many secular philosophies, and from every country, could proceed with their work, unmolested by government censorship or interference. It was the first "university." Not that Romans were ever very censorious (until the emperors became 'Christians'). They were not. But Alexandria (also influenced by the Ptolemaic kings--Greeks and Macedonians, descended from Alexander the Great's generals--who stressed tolerance) was especially notable as a city of learning and unfettered inquiry. And the destruction of the Library--and murder of its last philosopher, a woman named Hypatia--by the 'Christian' patriarchs, for me marks the true "fall" of the Roman Empire. The date, 415 AD. This was 50 years before the fall of the last emperor of the west. But the moral, legal and intellectual failure that it represents, so typical of the 'Christian' patriarchs' rule for the next thousand years, signifies the death of a culture, which often precedes the death of a government or political system.
There are some bitter ironies for those of us with Keltic blood. For the one culture that Rome had no tolerance for--and utterly smashed and destroyed--was the Druid culture in England and Wales, and in some areas of "Gaul" (the west). (They never got to Ireland.) The Druids did not write anything down. It took young Druid students twenty years to memorize all that the Druids knew--of astronomy, medicine, metallurgy, navigation, literature, history, music, philosophy and other fields of knowledge. So, in effect, with every Druid skull that the Romans bashed in, a portion of the "Alexandria Library" of the Druids was destroyed. Their brains were their Library. And probably the best thing that could have happened, as to the preservation of remnants of Druid culture, was the fall of the Roman Empire, which resulted in Rome's abrupt abandonment of the British Isles. The oral culture then experienced a revival--which has come down to us as the Arthurian legends and their underlying Keltic "myths," which no amount of 'Christian' missionizing, or Viking or Norman invasion, has ever been able to extinguish.
Further, the Irish and the Welch held out for centuries, for a gentler form of Christianity, that mixed Keltic and early Christian beliefs. It was called Pelagianism, and was eventually deemed a "heresy" by the patriarchal Roman church (and stamped out). Pelagian monks lived poor lifestyles, among the people, and were as much "magicians" (Druids, healers) as they were Christians. They were undogmatic, and egalitarian. And they worshiped nature. The early Keltic saints were more Pagan than Christian. They were the last people to attempt to peacefully combine the old and new religions. And I believe that Hypatia, in Alexandria, was of a similar mind, and was the leader of a movement to combine Greek philosophy with early Christian beliefs, in a peaceful, common religion. (She was a "Pagan"--a neoplatonist--but was also the beloved teacher of many Christians, including Christian bishops of the non-patriarchal variety. Her primary interest was mathematics, but, in those days, mathematics was a religion, or, in any case, a spiritual endeavor.)
It was these true Christians, the Pelagians, who preserved western culture, in their rocky hovels on the west coasts of Ireland and Wales, penning their fabulously beautiful manuscripts--replete with innumerable Pagan nature symbols--while western Europe fell into chaos, upon the disintegration of the Roman Empire.
The new South American leftists have taken to calling us "the Empire." And they certainly have reason to feel something like the Kelts, and Druids, and Pelagians who suffered from both the secular and 'christian' Romans. And, from what I have learned in study of the new South American left, they are the true democrats, the inheritors of our most progressive and egalitarian beliefs--those little (and not so little) "third world" countries out there, at the edges of our Empire. And a most interesting thing is happening in this remarkable revolution--they are taking Christianity seriously, and it's NOT the Roman model. It is the egalitarian, nature-loving Pelagian model--a combination of indigenous wisdom with "love thy neighbor" and "give all you have to the poor, and follow me." People like Donald Rumsfeld (WaPo, 12/1/07) and the editors of the Wall Street Journal find this very aggravating--South Americans GIVING AWAY OIL PROFITS to the poor. And they are, for sure, out to smash it to pieces, and re-impose fascist/corporate (Roman) rule. They will not succeed. The South Americans are onto them, and are creating strong alliances of resistance amongst themselves, and strong institutions of resistance, such as the Bank of the South and independent regional trade groups. And they are putting us to shame, as to democratic ideals and the "Christian values" that our society is supposedly built upon.
We, the American people--especially the more perceptive among us--have an uneasy (or even alarmed) feeling of "the worm turning"--some kind of serious failure occurring in our culture. We look at this murderous clown, Bush, and his evil puppetmasters, and we don't recognize ourselves. This is some sort of stupid, degenerate, egocentric "Nero" of the late Roman variety. How did we end up with this? And the utterly hypocritical garbage coming out of his mouth about Jesus--and the hysterical, repressive, rightwing 'christian' minority that he encourages and favors with our tax dollars--makes us angry and sullen. Is this us? Is this what we have degenerated into? Of course, Bush is an artificial imposition on the American people by the corporate-controlled voting machines. But so was Theodosius, in a way--one of the last and worst Roman emperors (the one under whom the Alexandria Library was destroyed), who was imposed upon the citizens of the Empire by the increasingly powerful 'christian' patriarchs of that era.
Our oppressor is the Church of the Corporation. The 'christian' right thing is just a cynical tool they use--to scare us and brainwash us, and to promote the stupidest among us, as a sort of wrecking crew of our democracy (the stupid, incompetent rightwing 'christians' promoted within the Department of Justice being a good example). And I imagine that we feel much like the citizens of Alexandria felt, when these mobs of 'christian' monks, under the control of the local "patriarch," went rampaging through their city, inflicting pogroms on the Jews, and skinning the beloved head of the Library alive, and burning manuscripts. Invaded by alien thugs, whose madness is incomprehensible.
The madness of the slaughter of Iraqis, in the name of gentle Jesus, is incomprehensible. The madness of torture. The loss of basic human decency. The loss of all civilized values. The promotion of stupidity, and incompetence. The ascendance of thieves and liars. How did this happen? Yes, we feel much like those ancient Alexandrians must have felt, as their civilization crumbled around them. But our problem has a more direct and identifiable cause than the madness of God-crazed men. Our problem is the voting machines. Get rid of those Bushite corporate-controlled, non-transparent voting machines, and democracy will start working again, creakily at first but unstoppably. Really. That IS the problem--or, rather, it is the first problem that must be solved, before all the other problems can be addressed.
The fascist/corporate coup of electronic voting, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, is a RECENT coup: October 2002 (passage of the so-called "Help America Vote" Act by the Anthrax Congress), and the fast-tracking of these election theft systems all over the country by 2004. It is a coup that can be, and must be, undone, by citizen effort at the local/state level. "Trade secret" vote counting is not the only thing wrong with our election system, but it is the fatal blow that is entirely blockading change.
Democracy is a brilliant invention. It works. It provides the course corrections for foundering ships of state. And transparent vote counting, with full enfranchisement ("one person, one vote") is the method by which the majority gets together, in a collective action, and 'throws the bums out,' when they become corrupt and traitorous. It was the thing that Alexandrians lacked--full enfranchisement. They had free speech. They had a good legal system. They had a highly educated populace. But, when push came to shove, and the "Pax Romana" failed them, they could not summon the strength and wisdom of the majority to save their civilization. They fell to a minority--the God-crazed 'christian' patriarchs.
Our problem is NOT the decay of our culture. Our culture is actually alive and well, beneath the surface of Corporate Rule. Our problem is that the mechanism for achieving majority rule--and making the course correction that we so clearly need--has been taken away. Restoring it will not solve all problems all it once, but it will BEGIN to solve problems, and that refreshing, revolutionary, renewing vigor will help us catch up with our friends to the south, in re-creating democracy in the "new world."
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(And now I will post this one in my journal as well. The Roman Empire certainly provides food for thought.)
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