Romney, Roman Senator

You wouldn't think that in 21st Century "democracy," one that has stood the test of two and a half centuries, that we would emulate the Roman Empire of the Fifth Century, but Willard (Mitt) Romney is the perfect Roman Senator, like the ones that ran the Empire in its dying days--ran it into the ground.

Perhaps, historically, he's most like Petronius Maximus, the Roman Senator who became Emperor after he arranged the assassination of Valentinian III. He was reputed to be the wealthiest of the wealthy, and Roman Senators (a legal class) had pretty much cornered the wealth of the Empire, in land, slaves, serfs and gold. Maximus lasted less than a year (455). He was literally ripped apart by the mob, in response to the Vandals landing at Ostia, before Vandals earned the meaning of their name, sacking and pillaging (vandalizing) Rome.

Just like those Roman Senators, Willard is to the manor (or manner) born, and just like them, he is a master at draining off wealth from those who have created it. He calls it "creative destruction," but the trail of ruined, looted businesses and lost or down-priced jobs, is a tale of predation. He hasn't made his case that he's created wealth--except his and his class, through financial wizardry and exploitation.

Willard is not the richest of the wealthy, but he's definitely high up in the modern senatorial class, at somewhere around a quarter of a billion dollars; he's not yet a billionaire. His candidacy, however, is emblematic of that class, and of its urge to take over this nation, and as much of the rest of the world as it can.

With Citizens United giving that corporate/senatorial class the perfect tool (its money) to take over, the only thing that stands in its way is Barack Obama and some Democrats, who may not represent the senatorial class quite so slavishly. There is the People, but with our modern version of Roman circuses, the people are lulled into passivity, or taught to follow their natural leaders. Only if Americans can awaken to what is happening in the United States, center of an undeclared, retreating global empire, can the people counterbalance the surge of money on the one side, and the weak reeds on the other.

Romney and the Republicans clearly represent the modern Roman Senators, what the OWS labels "the one percent." The Democrats, while partially bought off, still have some predilection to represent a larger portion of the population. The GOP is explainable in Marxist terms, as I pointed out previously: the party of the emergent super-rich, eager to wield their power.

It would take too much space, this time, to explore the likely results of a GOP takeover, but it could be like the destructive reactionary politics that drove the Empire in mid-Fifth Century Rome. The western Empire "fell" in 476.