The Sorrows Of Empire by Chalmers Johnson
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, September 5, 2026 02:32
VIEWED: 6083
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Finn,
I wish I have a better way to put this, but obviously I know all this already. But it took much of a century before the Praetor of Rome became an Emperor of Divine Rite. But you missed the part where the Roman empire promised land, which often it didn't have, and so the need to gain more land, and the fact that rome was constant on campaigns to add territory, many of which, like the german and russian campaigns, never succeeded.
The US oil quest is similar. The roman senate, which I mentioned was not democratic, which is why I said pure-republic, vs democratic republic, was very similar in its function and the way in which that function was superceded by the praetor.
Timeline, for those who cared about the republic, was very important, and the republic disolved immediately. But where the differences end, I think is that the US doesn't have a millenium of empire left, because unlike rome, which was unchallenged for supremacy in its economic system, the US is getting trampled by China.
I was never suggesting the situations were identical, but that historical analogies are always useful, and if they weren't, we wouldn't study history. Learn from your mistakes. Or, in this case, don't, and do exactly what we're doing now, what the romans did. The other thing is, parts of the patriot act, the tax structure, all of that, resembles not the exuctive power jump of the end of the republic, but the time just before the sacking of rome in 476.
If one actually used what one knew, one might decide not to make those mistakes rome made which caused or led to its destruction. I thought it was a simple logical step. Of course, when in doubt, perpetual denial will keep you company until the collapse arrives.
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Quote:Or caused or lead it to last for ~1800 years. You’ve decided that the comparisons stops where the Roman Empire/Republic lasted 9 times longer then the US has been a nation, because that’s not the result you want the comparison to produce. It’s a contrived comparison designed to elicit a preconceived notion. There’s no real similarity between the Roman Empire and the US. If for no other reason then that the Roman Empire was a hell of lot more successful, but that’s not what you want to focus on, I think.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
If one actually used what one knew, one might decide not to make those mistakes rome made which caused or led to its destruction. I thought it was a simple logical step. Of course, when in doubt, perpetual denial will keep you company until the collapse arrives.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Finn, the Roman Empire was high on itself; that's the most relevant comparison. Other comparisons timewise concerning longevity are out the window, as information exchange moves at the speed of light when measured against the past. Get with the curve, and apply your admittedly extensive and awesome knowledge thusly. The rules are changing as we type.
Respectfully, Chrisisall
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Quote:
DT- you are a smart guy...but i think you are underestimating the collective knowledge of the ancients. i realize that in your opinion, there is no difference between christianity and occultism(pagan idol worship), because they are both based off of abrahamic theological principles, and you consider them both to be equally distorted, mythological fables. since you dont believe in an all powerful God, you consider this history to be a result of imagination, forced will, and essentially unsubstantiated, right?
WHAT?!?!?!
Err. No, I didn't say that.
Pagans worship a different faith. I personally think many of the modern crowleyites are misguided, because they take a christian reconstruction of their faith for the real thing. They originally had no connection to Abraham. They are not related to the ancient ME civ.
The history of the religion is history, most of the bible is more or less historically accurate, even if it's full of spin.
Quote:
i disagree with your premise, because i do believe a creator God exists, above the multi gods that visited early man; only neither of us can prove what the truth behind these stories were..whether they are purely myth(and the ensuing history of man was an effect of these beliefs), or a literal example of events. that it is true is the premise that i work with, because IMO the bible gives the best encompassing explanation. i would sumbit to you just for consideration, that idolatry, occultism and satanism, is the worship of multi-deity gods, or the rebellious fallen angels, such as the Samarians record, with the goal of decieving man to worship them over the Creator.
The belief in a creator is one belief.
The belief that that belief in a creator effects other beliefs is another belief
The belief that Yhwh is that creator is yet another belief.
These three beliefs are not closely tied to one another.
I believe most stuff can be shown through a balance of evidence, and proof is not needed. Evolution is real, evidence is there and the smart learn that and move on, design their beliefs around that, and hopefully learn that evolution is a powerful god. The stupid block out new knowledge in spite of the overwhelming burder of support for the idea, and remain ignorant, learn nothing, and effect nothing, and become like a stone at the bottom fo the sea.
The part you are missing is where euro-paganism and chinese mysticism are NOT a twisted form of western faith but developed in its utter absence, and in fact, before the existance of said so called western faith. Moses is circa, what 1350, 1400 bc? Pagans were well into being pagans in the UK, and early taoists, proto-taoists, had begun to figure out the way, the ancient ariens of
Kashmir had spawned Sindu (shin-du aka Hinduism) as a faith, and it was already a thousand years old, and native american animal worship had grown to a great civilization and then crumbled, and then morphed into animal-human hybrids, like the egyptians, whose cults were already older then than christianity is now.
Quote:
i only bring this up, because ive heard you say that Yahway is evil, and that is contrary to everything ive learned; i know that Satan and his angles(demons) are the ones with the agenda. this is also why i regard the occult as more insidious and legitimate than yourself, because in my mind this is proof of a religion based on Satan, with the goal of a global government/currency/religion. you dont believe in God, or Satan, so this is just outward expression to you, but their is visible evidence in the real world of such a conspiracy..so i believe this all to be fullfilling prophecy
Read the book, God's book. Yhwh, the 'hero' is a real sob. Leads his people to hate, torture, genocide, ecocide, etc. Satan is only mildly annoying. This is perfectly fitting, since Yhwh was the Herbrew's own war god, and Set was just a rival deity of a rival culture.
You've learned everything you've learned through a tinted lense. I tries my best to gather everything objectively from a historical persp
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Finn,
Actually, I know something about history, and know where and when to draw parallels, I'm not citing convenient examples to sway the feebleminded.
Also, you're 1800 figure is absurd. The Roman empire collapsed in the fifth century, and other insitutions ruled later, but they were not the emperor of rome, just as the roman republic collapsed in 55 or so bc. Actually, it first collapsed in 93 bc, but clung together a little longer.
This situation bears some similarity to both collapses. History never repeats itself completely, but the symptoms of collapse are evident, and there is more than enough here to have me worried.
I'm actually quite ticked off at the idea that I'm attempting to decieve. That's f^&king b^!!$#!+.
I'm trying to address what is one of the major concerns to me about what is wrong with Bush/Clinton, which is that they are steering us over a cliff, and this parallel is one of many places that initially led me to that now rather obvious conclusion that almost everyone on the board gets. These days, you could use anything to predict America's coming collapse, like the daily newspaper. The US, for example, is about to be passed by China, economically. But the thing is, a trend is a trend. We can correct our disasterous policy, and compete with china as an equal, we probably can never regain the high ground of the 80s when we were twice as rich as the second richest, which was the russia. But if we fail to change course, then we will follow the path of russia, and our economic competitor will quickly become brazil. Brazil, btw, is on the way up, economically, and the US is on the way down. I suspect, with people like bush or clinton at the helm, they could cross paths in 15 years. Let's look 30 years out. America now lives in the shadow of brazil, and has just been surpassed economically by mexico. It is dwarfed by the EU and China, and even by the unified Korea. This is what I see, and I think I'm not shooting in the dark here. This is America, brokeback cowboy style, where the ass is doing the driving.
And since this is a sci-fi board
45 year out or more, America is like today's subsaharan africa, subsaharan is like another planet, disease runs rampant, war is neverending. Israel no longer exists do to a nuclear war, and china controls most of asia and south america. The internal collapse of the EU renders it unable to assist the US in its spiral towards utter chaos. Mexico has sealed the border and is not letting any more Americans in. There is a govt. in washington dc, but nobody cares. Kids don't even know where washington is.
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The Roman Empire continued on well past the collapse of the Western Empire. In fact it continued into the 15th century. Although by that time it had been in its death throws for over 200 years and was composed of several successor states. But without a doubt the Roman Empire existed continuously until the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 AD.
The Roman states origins are lost to antiquity, but 509 BC is the establishment of the Republic of Rome. The Roman state then existed continuously 1713 years. I rounded up to account for discrepancies in Rome’s origins.
Also the distinction between Republic and Empire is generally set at Augustus' death in 14 AD. Though the power of the Senate had been failing long before that. From Sulla to Augustus there were several periods of dictatorial rule.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:The comparison probably means something to you and chris and others, but it doesn’t to me, because it’s not an historical comparison; it’s a political one and it’s designed to put forth a political opinion. In order to understand that comparison, one must first understand the political statement that is being made from it.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I'm actually quite ticked off at the idea that I'm attempting to decieve. That's f^&king b^!!$#!+.
I understand that you’re using the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West as an allegory for the direction you think the US is headed. Fine. I disagree, but I understand your point now.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Finn,
yeah, I know all this stuff about Bizantium, but that's a far cry from saying Rome. That's like saying America continues to exist because at some point, texas joins mexico, and after the collapse of america, mexico still exists.
You don't fully get my point.
It's not a political statement being made through clever disguise, it's a "look! someone tried this heavy spending, rights curtailing and aggressive expansionist strategy before in a republic. And look what happened. Hmm maybe we should think twice about doing the same thing."
It's like people like Chavez who look at the USSR and say "there was a good idea, let's do that."
History is there for a reason. Don't study it, which means not only read about it, but learn from it, condemned to repeat it.
So, sure, I politically oppose you're guys who do that thing that was already done and worked out terribly, because I don't want america to collapse.
And if I oppose a radical agenda of heavy taxation, heavy spending, and a large scale effort of interventionist military exansionism for the purpose of social re-engineering of conservative societies into a more liberal and large scale multi-national union.... Then what's the matter, that's not conservative enough?
Not part of a sercret political debate on the fall of America, or part of a doom saying circle which has been saying this for years because it hates the success of capitalism, I'm aware that such a group exists, and I see your rejection of the idea, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, specifically, we have recently made, and are making, some very republic-to-empire decisions, and some other fall-of-rome decisions.
The US was based in part on the Roman republic, and in part on Athenian democracy. Comparisons to the two are *always* fair. Just as it is fair to compare the USSR to Sparta, and the collapse of the USSR to the collapse of Sparta, which we did, you probably did it to. Which is totally valid because the Soviet Union stated right in its constitution that it was deliberately basing its society on Sparta.
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Quote:No. That’s not even close. The Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire are the same thing. “Byzantine” is a term applied after the fall of Constantinople and wasn’t in wide use to describe the Eastern Roman Empire until the 18th century. The political boundaries, the government and the people of the East Roman Empire, all referred to themselves as “Romans.” The Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire were an unbroken change of Roman Emperors. “Byzantium,” if you want to call it that, was in every way the exact continuation of the Roman Empire.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Finn,
yeah, I know all this stuff about Bizantium, but that's a far cry from saying Rome. That's like saying America continues to exist because at some point, texas joins mexico, and after the collapse of america, mexico still exists.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:I started making a long-winded response to this, then it occurred to me that I’m hijacking your thread and you don't like it. My apologies. .
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Finn, the Roman Empire was high on itself; that's the most relevant comparison. Other comparisons timewise concerning longevity are out the window, as information exchange moves at the speed of light when measured against the past. Get with the curve, and apply your admittedly extensive and awesome knowledge thusly. The rules are changing as we type.
Respectfully, Chrisisall
Back to your regularly scheduled programming... I won’t interject anymore discussion of Roman history.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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