http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cultural-Barbarians-Storm-by-Robert-S-Becker-110215-428.htmlSo, imagine how besieged Romans felt, incredulous that marauding 5th C. Goths and Vandals could raze the greatest Empire of all time -- an inventive civilization once overflowing with arts, theatre, technology and public forums. That tribal mayhem by under-educated, backwoods "populists" turned out well, didn't it -- ten centuries of decentralized, fragmented European government, awash with early "states rights." The result: what some call the "Dark Ages," with stagnant progress in science or technology; and while top feudal lords and churchmen lived well, serfs made up the vast majority and their lives were nasty, brutish and short.
Or consider legendary Trojans, whose impregnable walls fell to sneaky, but clever Greeks -- brilliant masters of "Early Wooden Horse Art." Yet Greeks, so the myth goes, took a decade to demolish Troy, carried off the spoils and grew one of the most sophisticated civilizations ever. Less heroic by far are today's GOP cultural barbarians, whose love of destructive conquest comes with remarkable obliviousness to the lessons of our own western history. Is the rightwing today really blind to the direct, unarguable correlation between the patronage of learning -- seeding the life of the mind -- with every sort of human advance, moral and pragmatic?
Republican brilliance was hardly necessary this season, considering inept, punch-drunk Democrats surrendered the field after "08. Despite the bombshell of Obama toppling Clinton, then McCain, the Democrats' refusal to fight for systemic change devolved into equating "leadership" with mimicking entrenched GOP mindsets on big issues. It's becoming a tragic tale, as if told by an idiot -- and there will be idiots aplenty after a century of calculated culture wars.
Hating Government Fills Void
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