Missy has some of us thinking of a an old leader in Café. Lux was his handle.  You can see Missy's blog here:  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/b/a/barefoot/2010/02/lux-umbra-dei.php

All she was doing was highlighting one of Lux's posts from '08 when I first found Café. Read his post. Take the time.  Lux was discussing our push/pull toward democratic rule and a dictatorship.

I mean the Constitution is only ratified because the first Ten Amendments were included; even though those 'rights' would only be applied to individuals with regard to Federal Action. And of course, shortly after Washington leaves office, we ended up with the Alien & Sedition Acts.

Ancient legends and myths spurred on our Founding Fathers. The South loved to allude to the Roman Model of things, as I call it. I mean the few ruled over the many, the free were not that free and the slave class was large in number. The plantation just fulfilled all of the hopes and dreams of that myth.  If you do not grasp these models, you can never understand how the South came to be. The South, after all, never felt they were 'doing something that bad.'

Lux discusses in the subject post, a division between intellectuals during the establishment of our Republic.  He quotes a Lord Macauley who has some real issues with Jefferson. I am telling you this is an illuminating read, no lingua Latina pun intended.

I did a series of posts on De Toqueville months and months ago. He was enthralled by the American Experiment. And he notes that people were misled in their Classical Educations two hundred years ago.

Greece was not a Democracy in our sense of the term. A very small percentage of Athenians for example ruled Athens. There was a huge slave population as well as a large number of people who had no say in government at all even though they considered themselves free men.

Rome was not a Republic in our sense of the term. If one reads of the Brothers Gracchi in the Second Century BCE, you could come to the conclusion that the Romans were divided into the Patricians and the Plebeians.  De Tocqueville points out that this p division only represented a small portion of the population at the time. 

The Patricians ruled Rome on the mythical basis of 'blood' and 'land'. The Plebeians, or many of them, represented the new mercantile class that was amassing a lot of big bucks through the new trade created through Roman infrastructure.  Good roads properly guarded and good vessels speeding through protected seas amounted to a great infrastructure. Cicero for instance came from this new moneyed class and that is why he was referred to as Novus Homo; a New Man. His ancestry did not go back to the old blood and the old landed class. His folks were plenty rich.

But the Plebeians certainly did not represent THE PEOPLE. And De Tocqueville would travel from shire to shire, township to township, and he found men with dirt on their hands actually voting...taking part in the decisions of their communities. It astounded this young Alexis.  But he clearly saw different models in the South. People with dirt on their hands had little to do with the goings on in Virginia or South Carolina.

I have a Classics background of sorts and somehow a discussion of Sulla and the pendulum of Roman Politics just washes over me like a nice warm shower on a winter's day.

The Classical Roman Model for government involved a Senate. The Senate was membered with blooded, landed and rich people. They were appointed for life.

Their executive branch involved the appointment/election of two Counsels who served as leaders for one year and one year only.

In times of trouble you would have the Counselships nullified and one dictator was appointed until the threat to the Republic was abated. 

This all has me recalling the legend of Cincinnatus that becomes the myth which is at the heart of the American sense of history. You see the problem is that Classics are not taught anymore in this country. Nobody really gives two shites what was going on two thousand years ago unless it related to the series of myths we refer to as the Bible.

So the concepts of Athenian Democracy and the Roman Republic morph from being history, to becoming legend and then myth. These two models become unconscious paradigms. But they have great force in Modern Politics whether we like it or not.

And I feel, anyway, that referring to these internal models may be illuminating at times.  It may give us insight as to how our propaganda network actually functions. There are symbols being infused in our political speak all the time. Symbols that we do not even recognize anymore. But symbols that have deep psychological and therefore sociological significance.

Cincinnatus was the farmer and was made dictator...Commander-in-Chief on a temporary basis. Following the destruction of those dirty Sabines and such, Cincinnatus hands back all power to the Senate and goes back to plowing his fields after destroying the enemies of Rome.

It is the myth of George Washington, the absolute Commander-in-Chief who relinquishes power once the dirty Brits are sent whimpering about their fates as they return to England. When you think about it, you also recall the myth of Abraham Lincoln who took a dictatorial type of power and would speak of relinquishing it once the Republic was reestablished.

We can go onto FDR and even to Eisenhower if you take the myth further.

w bush thought himself this kind of man. There he was basking in the sun on his 'ranch' awaiting the call for arms against the foreign menace.  I really feel that w bush was reelected to a second term because of this rube sentimentality of the citizen/farmer that never existed.

W bush was not a farmer or a rancher. Hell, his accent was made up for chrissakes.  But when the attacks of 9/11/01 came, his administration, the real powers behind the throne, had two choices.

Either the bush administration is seen as a group of idiots sleeping on the job, golfing as Rome burns...or bush is seen as Cincinnatus being called to lead and away from his duties as a common farmer.

That is how this PATRIOT ACT was passed.  Abolishing most individual rights in the mode of the Alien & Sedition Acts.

That is how we ended up in Afghanistan so quickly.

This is how we ended up in Iraq so quickly with hardly a whimper from the loyal opposition.

That is how corporations like cheney's company ended up with hundreds of billions of defense contracts.

You see, Sulla knew that real power could be had in the first century BC by coming to power during a threat from outside barbarians. Sulla was able to take power as dictator rather than just a co-Counsel subject to vetoes from the Senate.

Caesar learned from watching Sulla. He discovered how things were done. Caesar had the blue blood. He would team up with another blue blood, Pompeii. But he knew he needed Crassus,  the guy with the money. Caesar knew he needed the mercantile class, the Plebs, to grasp real power. 

Our Republican Party is filled with blue bloods and very rich members of the mercantile class.  They have become masters as manipulating symbols...conscious and unconscious.

This phenomena described as Teabaggers, is something else all together. I mean the peasants are really revolting. They are mad and threatening war. And, well, to me anyway, they are revolting.

These idiots led by the palins and tancredos have no idea who George Washington was let alone Cincinnatus.  They do not really have any concept of the Patriot Act let alone the Alien & Seditions Act. They have no idea what WWII was about let alone WWI. They do not understand the Miracle of Europe and the European Union.

The repubs have gone right into the pig sty and rolled around with these animals in the excrement.

Birthers? Hell, I don't know, responds the repub. Was he really born in this country?

Death Panels? Hell the government wishes to kill your grandma.

Taxes?  Hell you people attempting to raise two kids with fifty grand are being put upon by our taxing system.

Education? The elites wish to teach your children that parents do not matter, that the bible does not matter, that your opinions do not matter.

Teen pregnancies?  The elites wish to keep your kids fucking till the end of time, fucking like rabbits and refusing to obey your rules as parents.

Unemployment?  The fucking minorities have taken your fucking jobs and the elites smile at your plight.

The democrats have got to figure out how to use the propaganda system to their benefit. You do not argue with propaganda.

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN PROPAGANDA.

What we need is a Huey Long. We need a rustic rube leading these animals to our side.

Are there risks?

Sure. Huey Long scared the shite out of FDR at times.  We need our own Glenn Beck.

The model of a new improved Cincinnatus must be implemented.  One of their own must be chosen to lead with a promise that once the work is done, he shall return to his roots.

This has nothing to do with reason. This has nothing to do with 'truth'.

There's a hundred-thousand Frenchmen in New Orleans
In New Orleans there are Frenchmen everywhere
But your house could fall down
Your baby could drown
Wouldn't none of those Frenchmen care

Everybody gather 'round
Loosen up your suspenders
Hunker down on the ground
I'm a cracker
And you are too
But don't I take good care of you

Who built the highway to Baton Rouge?
Who put up the hospital and built you schools?
Who looks after shit-kickers like you?
The Kingfish do

Who gave a party at the Roosevelt Hotel?
And invited the whole north half of the state down there for free
The people in the city
Had their eyes bugging out
Cause everyone of you
Looked just like me

Kingfish, Kingfish
Everybody sing
Kingfish, Kingfish
Every man a king

Who took on the Standard Oil men
And whipped their ass
Just like he promised he'd do?
Ain't no Standard Oil men gonna run this state
Gonna be run by little folks like me and you

Kingfish, Kingfish
Friend of the working man
Kingfish, Kingfish
The Kingfish gonna save this land

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Eb3FiebTs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmFQu_8u1TU