Our political campaigns debate regulation, austerity and stimulus. The multi-millionaires and billionaires funding super-pacs to elect Republicans and Romney abhor taxes and regulations, whether it's building codes, global warming gas emissions or casinos.
Why, they could be on their way to earning trillions if it weren't for "job-killing regulations" and taxes! The Kochs, fossil fuel producers, have been cited over and over for emissions pollution, have paid large fines (small compared to their incomes), and legal fees that probably dwarf the fines: their pac funding dwarfs both. A Texas billionaire is a builder of shoddy developments; he's been sued repeatedly for using inferior materials, and not surprisingly, he's for "tort reform" that would cap jury awards for damages. So, he, the Kochs, and many others donate millions to Romney or GOP-supportive superpacs.
Why do they do this? Simple, in each case, they "donate" to get what they want through Congress and the President--the Congress and President they are buying. And while the money advanced is almost small change to the super-rich, it floods the election process.
What does this have to do with global warming? Warming increased last year faster than expected (3.5% over 2010), and the world is on track to warm 3.5 degrees Celsius; Earth will be a much warmer place than it has ever been since humans evolved. Earth was as warm eons ago, but it's not clear that people can survive it without major disruption and mass die-offs. The reason the earth is warming so rapidly, according to Climate Action Tracker(CAT), is because no nation has even met its (inadequate) targets for cutting emissions, and even if they did, none would be enough to slow global warming. The US's inability to adopt carbon emission reduction programs like cap and trade is symptomatic: Brazil's and Mexico's gestures, according to CAT, are ineffectual or worse. But the world as a whole is even more so: nations appear unable--or unwilling, like the US--to meet their climate change pledges.
The reason for the puny response is political. There is no lack of technology to battle climate change. But private interests are donating funds to prevent its use, and persuade others it's unnecessary. The Kochs, for example, have a stake in preventing programs to ameliorate climate change. Citizens United has opened the financial floodgates, rendering billionaires even more effective at blocking positive action.
The flood from the super-rich parallels the near monopoly of wealth and power of Rome's Senators in the fifth century. Then, everyone else was driven into serfdom; now its wage slavery and debt--if you're lucky enough to get a job--but now the world's people will be corralled into an overheated ditch.
Maybe the billionaires think they can create their own climate-controlled havens to survive?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Attila as Told to his Scribes Just Published
Copy and paste the link I'll provide below and you'll go to Amazon's listing of the Kindle book, Attila as Told to his Scribes.
It's $5 for a very long read. If you like historical fiction, romance and adventure and a deep exploration of a charming megalomaniac, this book is for you.
Attila begins his tale (yes, he tells it to his scribes, it's an autobiography), when he's on the cusp of adolescence, already a warrior, when his father is killed before his eyes. It ends with his death, told by his last scribe and his last bride.
http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337727607&sr=1-1
It's $5 for a very long read. If you like historical fiction, romance and adventure and a deep exploration of a charming megalomaniac, this book is for you.
Attila begins his tale (yes, he tells it to his scribes, it's an autobiography), when he's on the cusp of adolescence, already a warrior, when his father is killed before his eyes. It ends with his death, told by his last scribe and his last bride.
http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337727607&sr=1-1
Memorial Day: Molasses Monday
I'm a vet, lucky to be in and out of the Army between our various "Wars," officially "military engagements." Formally, I'm a Vietnam Era Vet, since we began messing with the natives there while I was in the Army, and our "intervention" escalated while I was in the (luckily for me) "Inactive Reserve."
Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, inaugurated by freedmen after the Civil War, celebrating their freedom from slavery, and memorializing the fallen soldiers who helped make that happen.
To me, Memorial Day is a three-day weekend. Even that is less meaningful to me, now, because I'm "retired." No one but Social Security pays me anything for work rendered. So, I'm no more off work on Memorial Day than I was today, Sunday, when I mowed for several hours just to insure that people who come here--a small event space with land--won't be overwhelmingly infested by disease-bearing ticks. On Memorial Day, I'll finish mowing the trails.
All Memorial Day means to me in practical terms is that I won't get mail, and any official business I have to attend to, will have to wait until Tuesday.
But a friend of mine, who's running for Congress as an Occupy-Democrat against a more traditional Democrat in a primary next month, sees Memorial Day as an opportunity to appear to a lot of people in town parades all over the district.
However, there is a military dimension to Memorial Day in larger cities, where military units will parade down main streets.
My experience in the Army in Turkey (electronic surveillance of Soviet missile testing was our mission), led me to realize that our military institution was imperial by nature and racist in its relations to host nationals--unless they were white, like the Bavarians I lived amongst in my second tour. Turks were sufficiently foreign and dark enough that my fellow soldiers spoke of them much the way white southerners used to speak of black people. There was even an equivalent to the N-word to designate Turks: abie, a contraction of the Turkish word, agabey, meaning friend. That's not what it meant, then, to the American soldiers.
So, I'm chary of Memorial Day celebration: it has become a celebration of Empire, when politicians wax eloquent about our "heroic men and women" who paid the ultimate price for "their country."
"Their country" has not been in danger of military attack since Pearl Harbor. The last war in which American soldiers gave their lives really defending "their country," was the Civil War. Memorial Day celebrates war dead, who helped the US win Empire, which is now bankrupting us.
I mourn the war dead, though: what a waste!
Think how wealthy the US would be if we didn't spend about $750 billion a year on our military establishment, more than most countries in the world, combined.
Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, inaugurated by freedmen after the Civil War, celebrating their freedom from slavery, and memorializing the fallen soldiers who helped make that happen.
To me, Memorial Day is a three-day weekend. Even that is less meaningful to me, now, because I'm "retired." No one but Social Security pays me anything for work rendered. So, I'm no more off work on Memorial Day than I was today, Sunday, when I mowed for several hours just to insure that people who come here--a small event space with land--won't be overwhelmingly infested by disease-bearing ticks. On Memorial Day, I'll finish mowing the trails.
All Memorial Day means to me in practical terms is that I won't get mail, and any official business I have to attend to, will have to wait until Tuesday.
But a friend of mine, who's running for Congress as an Occupy-Democrat against a more traditional Democrat in a primary next month, sees Memorial Day as an opportunity to appear to a lot of people in town parades all over the district.
However, there is a military dimension to Memorial Day in larger cities, where military units will parade down main streets.
My experience in the Army in Turkey (electronic surveillance of Soviet missile testing was our mission), led me to realize that our military institution was imperial by nature and racist in its relations to host nationals--unless they were white, like the Bavarians I lived amongst in my second tour. Turks were sufficiently foreign and dark enough that my fellow soldiers spoke of them much the way white southerners used to speak of black people. There was even an equivalent to the N-word to designate Turks: abie, a contraction of the Turkish word, agabey, meaning friend. That's not what it meant, then, to the American soldiers.
So, I'm chary of Memorial Day celebration: it has become a celebration of Empire, when politicians wax eloquent about our "heroic men and women" who paid the ultimate price for "their country."
"Their country" has not been in danger of military attack since Pearl Harbor. The last war in which American soldiers gave their lives really defending "their country," was the Civil War. Memorial Day celebrates war dead, who helped the US win Empire, which is now bankrupting us.
I mourn the war dead, though: what a waste!
Think how wealthy the US would be if we didn't spend about $750 billion a year on our military establishment, more than most countries in the world, combined.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Goose Bumps
There are goose lakes up here, and people lakes. The two often don't mix. If a lake is big enough, it can accommodate both, but if it's a small lake, or a large pond, it's one or the other.
A goose pair settled on our lake about three springs ago, and pretty soon they had five goslings swimming along between them. They looked very proud and were very protective of their brood. But seven geese (the goslings grew astonishingly fast) make a terrible mess for people also using the pond. Goose goo all over the beach, the surrounding lawns, the dock and the float made swimming or sunbathing unpleasant.
The lake wasn't safe for the geese, either. Only three geese survived to fly south. Foxes or coyotes must have killed the others. We have both.
Three geese returned, but if they came back for sentimental reasons, they were silly geese. There are lakes that are safer, with islands, inaccessible to predators. Those nearby lakes are also preferable, because people rarely use them, except to admire from afar.
Those three geese had more goslings, but this time they were lucky, in an ironic way. A film crew came to film a Fourth of July party, staged here before the Fourth, and of course, they shot off fireworks. Being careful, they set them off on the float in the middle of the lake.
That set off the geese parents and their nearly grown children--in an explosion of wings and honkings. They didn't come back.
Now I knew how to drive them off.
Last year and this Spring, I did. A 22 rifle wasn’t loud enough, but a 20-22 makes a loud bang, and the rifle has a telescopic sight. So, shot precisely between the goose pairs, they take off. Serially, there must have been ten or fifteen pairs landing. Only one threesome--the original one?--needed a second shot to be persuaded. A few ducks wouldn't be a problem and wouldn't overwhelm the lake: two geese that become seven would seriously do so, just as the exploding global population of humans overcrowds the ecosystem.
Am I like the anti-immigrant vigilantes that patrol the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico? In contrast to the geese, immigrants contribute a lot. If there is any hope of maintaining Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs, it is immigrants: they bring youth, new energy, new muscle, inspiring cultures and pride in their new country.
Without immigration, our population would decline and our economy, as well. The US has gained from both the initial exploitation and the ongoing energy of new arrivals since before its founding. The only huge financial success I know who did not inherit, is a naturalized immigrant.
In this way, the US could be just the opposite of fifth century Rome: newcomers could reinvigorate it, instead of destroying it.
A goose pair settled on our lake about three springs ago, and pretty soon they had five goslings swimming along between them. They looked very proud and were very protective of their brood. But seven geese (the goslings grew astonishingly fast) make a terrible mess for people also using the pond. Goose goo all over the beach, the surrounding lawns, the dock and the float made swimming or sunbathing unpleasant.
The lake wasn't safe for the geese, either. Only three geese survived to fly south. Foxes or coyotes must have killed the others. We have both.
Three geese returned, but if they came back for sentimental reasons, they were silly geese. There are lakes that are safer, with islands, inaccessible to predators. Those nearby lakes are also preferable, because people rarely use them, except to admire from afar.
Those three geese had more goslings, but this time they were lucky, in an ironic way. A film crew came to film a Fourth of July party, staged here before the Fourth, and of course, they shot off fireworks. Being careful, they set them off on the float in the middle of the lake.
That set off the geese parents and their nearly grown children--in an explosion of wings and honkings. They didn't come back.
Now I knew how to drive them off.
Last year and this Spring, I did. A 22 rifle wasn’t loud enough, but a 20-22 makes a loud bang, and the rifle has a telescopic sight. So, shot precisely between the goose pairs, they take off. Serially, there must have been ten or fifteen pairs landing. Only one threesome--the original one?--needed a second shot to be persuaded. A few ducks wouldn't be a problem and wouldn't overwhelm the lake: two geese that become seven would seriously do so, just as the exploding global population of humans overcrowds the ecosystem.
Am I like the anti-immigrant vigilantes that patrol the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico? In contrast to the geese, immigrants contribute a lot. If there is any hope of maintaining Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs, it is immigrants: they bring youth, new energy, new muscle, inspiring cultures and pride in their new country.
Without immigration, our population would decline and our economy, as well. The US has gained from both the initial exploitation and the ongoing energy of new arrivals since before its founding. The only huge financial success I know who did not inherit, is a naturalized immigrant.
In this way, the US could be just the opposite of fifth century Rome: newcomers could reinvigorate it, instead of destroying it.
Friday, May 18, 2012
A Looming Minority: Demographic Angst
White people will become a minority in the US, since white births have fallen below 50% for the first time in US history. The white majority is past childbearing. That's huge; it may explain a lot of things, like America's political polarization, the extreme anti-immigrant politics of the South and West, the conservative urge to cut funds for services like education--increasingly, they'll be spent on minority kids.
As a New York Times (05/17/12) article pointed out, the younger and older generations won't look like each other, and working together will get harder. It's already hard. There is, now, a split between older voters and younger over education budgets, for example: seniors vote against and vote them down regularly. In one of my towns (I pay taxes in two), the school age population is already markedly more minority than those of voting age, and the budget is voted down more often.
A good portion of the radical right-wing social agenda could be explained by the fear of becoming a minority. Anti-women: yeah, it's those young women of color who are having all those babies, and that's probably because of the breakdown of marriage and the family, which is why they've got to stop gays, too. Stop Obama, too, the black President. Cut government spending, cut jobs and gut public employee rights: sure, minorities and women work for governments disproportionate to their share of the population.
Terrorism and wars abroad? Terrorists are seen as foreign and dark-skinned, even though we've had our own homegrown WASP terrorists, like the Oklahoma bomber, the Washington snipers and so many school shooters. So, we launch a war on Terror, or the mealy-mouthed alternative the Obama administration came up with, and increasingly, it seems, Muslims are targeted and recruited (through sting operations), which somehow translates into Brown people--the ones who are threatening to take America away from the desperate grip of older, "conservative" un-brown people, who want to "take America back."
Corporate conservatives are using all of the above to fund a politics that is all about establishing corporate dominance: eviscerate regulations and workers' rights, and reduce already low, loop-hole-ridden corporate taxes. But they also want to insure they get Government's business, including more and better wars.
Scott Walker of Wisconsin isn't their hero; he's their employee.
However, corporations aren't American; they don't hold any special allegiance to the US. They can be just as exploitative of the US as oil and mining companies have been to nations like Ecuador and the Congo. Corporate money flows to Republican extremists not because corporations are anti-gay, or anti-minority, but because right-wingers will toe the corporate line and most are true laissez-faire believers.
Barbarians ripped off Rome in the fifth century; corporations want to do it here, now.
As a New York Times (05/17/12) article pointed out, the younger and older generations won't look like each other, and working together will get harder. It's already hard. There is, now, a split between older voters and younger over education budgets, for example: seniors vote against and vote them down regularly. In one of my towns (I pay taxes in two), the school age population is already markedly more minority than those of voting age, and the budget is voted down more often.
A good portion of the radical right-wing social agenda could be explained by the fear of becoming a minority. Anti-women: yeah, it's those young women of color who are having all those babies, and that's probably because of the breakdown of marriage and the family, which is why they've got to stop gays, too. Stop Obama, too, the black President. Cut government spending, cut jobs and gut public employee rights: sure, minorities and women work for governments disproportionate to their share of the population.
Terrorism and wars abroad? Terrorists are seen as foreign and dark-skinned, even though we've had our own homegrown WASP terrorists, like the Oklahoma bomber, the Washington snipers and so many school shooters. So, we launch a war on Terror, or the mealy-mouthed alternative the Obama administration came up with, and increasingly, it seems, Muslims are targeted and recruited (through sting operations), which somehow translates into Brown people--the ones who are threatening to take America away from the desperate grip of older, "conservative" un-brown people, who want to "take America back."
Corporate conservatives are using all of the above to fund a politics that is all about establishing corporate dominance: eviscerate regulations and workers' rights, and reduce already low, loop-hole-ridden corporate taxes. But they also want to insure they get Government's business, including more and better wars.
Scott Walker of Wisconsin isn't their hero; he's their employee.
However, corporations aren't American; they don't hold any special allegiance to the US. They can be just as exploitative of the US as oil and mining companies have been to nations like Ecuador and the Congo. Corporate money flows to Republican extremists not because corporations are anti-gay, or anti-minority, but because right-wingers will toe the corporate line and most are true laissez-faire believers.
Barbarians ripped off Rome in the fifth century; corporations want to do it here, now.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
JP Morgan Chase F..ked Up
Jamie Dimon must be furious! His minions f..ked up. His argument for weakening the Volcker Rule and other regulations just got quashed by the "sloppiness" of his own trading unit.
Maybe Bank of America is too big to be humbled by such a monumental loss, but this was just one trading strategy, supposedly to "hedge" risk of another trading strategy.
Why shouldn't banks be allowed to make bets with their own money? This's why. It's why Glass-Steagall, or something very similar needs to be re-enacted: banks should not be allowed to gamble; only trading companies, without individual depositors should be allowed to gamble like this--and allowed to fail.
Why would that make a difference? BOA wouldn't be so big if it didn't have millions upon millions of depositors, insured by FDIC. If BOA were to fail, because of further "sloppy" gambles, the whole financial system would again be in danger of implosion, a revisit to the disaster of 2008, but probably worse, since BOA is much, much larger than Bear Stearns, etc.
Why shouldn't the federal government regulate these combination banking and trading institutions? Why shouldn't it regulate to minimize risk of another collapse? Is it really good policy to allow these hybrid institutions to maximize risk for the whole economy?
The very fact that this is still a question, says a lot about our political economy. We have only recently climbed a little way out of the hole caused by this kind of financial speculation, yet the power of money is such, that someone like BOA CEO Jamie Dimon, strongly connected to that aforementioned collapse, still has the credibility to argue against increased regulation--and to be listened to, until his own institution proves him dramatically wrong.
The game our elites are playing is dangerous. Banks gamble with money; oil and gas companies gamble with our climate and our water. Isn't that what exploitation of Canadian tar sands, gas and oil fracking in the Northeast US and oil exploration in newly melting Arctic Ocean waters all represent?
They gamble with our future, not just financially and environmentally, but the future viability of US power. If the oil and gas companies have their way, not only will the seas rise by over 50 feet, according to James Hanson, but the US will be stuck in a dinosaur economy, when the rest of the world is racing to create alternative energy.
Maybe that's comparable to Rome's inability to adjust to the new cavalry-driven warfare practiced by Huns and Germanic tribes. For about two generations, the Romans were able to buy them off, buying their services--until they were driven into bankruptcy.
"Patriots," our drive to pump--and burn--even more hydrocarbons--and billions of dollars, will not only destroy the climate, it will bankrupt the Empire! We'll need an even larger military to protect our dependence on imported oil.
Maybe Bank of America is too big to be humbled by such a monumental loss, but this was just one trading strategy, supposedly to "hedge" risk of another trading strategy.
Why shouldn't banks be allowed to make bets with their own money? This's why. It's why Glass-Steagall, or something very similar needs to be re-enacted: banks should not be allowed to gamble; only trading companies, without individual depositors should be allowed to gamble like this--and allowed to fail.
Why would that make a difference? BOA wouldn't be so big if it didn't have millions upon millions of depositors, insured by FDIC. If BOA were to fail, because of further "sloppy" gambles, the whole financial system would again be in danger of implosion, a revisit to the disaster of 2008, but probably worse, since BOA is much, much larger than Bear Stearns, etc.
Why shouldn't the federal government regulate these combination banking and trading institutions? Why shouldn't it regulate to minimize risk of another collapse? Is it really good policy to allow these hybrid institutions to maximize risk for the whole economy?
The very fact that this is still a question, says a lot about our political economy. We have only recently climbed a little way out of the hole caused by this kind of financial speculation, yet the power of money is such, that someone like BOA CEO Jamie Dimon, strongly connected to that aforementioned collapse, still has the credibility to argue against increased regulation--and to be listened to, until his own institution proves him dramatically wrong.
The game our elites are playing is dangerous. Banks gamble with money; oil and gas companies gamble with our climate and our water. Isn't that what exploitation of Canadian tar sands, gas and oil fracking in the Northeast US and oil exploration in newly melting Arctic Ocean waters all represent?
They gamble with our future, not just financially and environmentally, but the future viability of US power. If the oil and gas companies have their way, not only will the seas rise by over 50 feet, according to James Hanson, but the US will be stuck in a dinosaur economy, when the rest of the world is racing to create alternative energy.
Maybe that's comparable to Rome's inability to adjust to the new cavalry-driven warfare practiced by Huns and Germanic tribes. For about two generations, the Romans were able to buy them off, buying their services--until they were driven into bankruptcy.
"Patriots," our drive to pump--and burn--even more hydrocarbons--and billions of dollars, will not only destroy the climate, it will bankrupt the Empire! We'll need an even larger military to protect our dependence on imported oil.
Friday, May 4, 2012
The Scream, Icon for Our Era
Edvard Munch's The Scream, or the last privately owned version of it, sold for $119,922, 500.00 yesterday, or just a hair under $120 million, at Sotheby's auction. It is the most expensive painting ever, since the previous priciest, a Picasso, Nude Green Leaves and Bust, sold for "only" $106.5 million in 2010. As someone commented, several of the world's billionaires (there are now 1,226 of them) must have been competing for the canvas. The buyer, so far, remains anonymous.
The Scream is iconic and it is also emblematic of the era. While the US economy grew at an anemic rate, while unemployment is still above 8% (8.1 in April, 2012), the money paid for Munch's canvas beats the world record.
The fastest growing crop of billionaires come from the fast-growing economies of the BRIC countries, not surprisingly, but the US still leads with the most (425) and both China's and Russia's shares slipped from over 100 last year to 95 and 96 respectively, this year, due to the world's slowing economy. The world's richest man, by about a 9 billion dollar margin, is Carlos Slim from Mexico.
So, there are 1226 billionaires in the world, but most people in the world's richest nation, the US, are economically insecure and getting poorer, while Europe is sliding back into recession and has reached depression levels of unemployment in Greece, Spain and Ireland.
The price for The Scream is therefore symbolic of the huge inequalities growing in the world economy, not just the US's. Some people can spend that kind of money on a piece of painted canvas, while the majority of humanity is struggling. I could think of a lot of other uses for $120 million (like jobs for 2400 people), but the painting in question is also emblematic of what's wrong with this picture.
The Scream is disturbing; it doesn't impart good feeling, at all. It may have its own kind of beauty, in its evocation of anguish, but it ain't warm and fuzzy. I don't think I'd want to display it on my living room wall, nor even in an office dedicated to psychological counseling. Its seller, Petter Olson, a Norwegian businessman, said of it:
"For me, (it) shows the horrifying moment when man realizes his impact on nature, and the irreversible changes that he has initiated, making the planet increasingly uninhabitable."
Certainly, the colors of the painting evoke both the anxiety of the figure, and the irreversible damage we are causing to the planet, but it is the power of the figure itself that expresses what humans are beginning to realize: the horrible future that seems to await us.
It's likely the 1200+ billionaires believe they will escape the worst of these changes, but then the Fifth Century Roman Senatorial class assumed that Rome would be eternal, and their exalted place in it would always be secure: obviously, they were wrong.
The Scream is iconic and it is also emblematic of the era. While the US economy grew at an anemic rate, while unemployment is still above 8% (8.1 in April, 2012), the money paid for Munch's canvas beats the world record.
The fastest growing crop of billionaires come from the fast-growing economies of the BRIC countries, not surprisingly, but the US still leads with the most (425) and both China's and Russia's shares slipped from over 100 last year to 95 and 96 respectively, this year, due to the world's slowing economy. The world's richest man, by about a 9 billion dollar margin, is Carlos Slim from Mexico.
So, there are 1226 billionaires in the world, but most people in the world's richest nation, the US, are economically insecure and getting poorer, while Europe is sliding back into recession and has reached depression levels of unemployment in Greece, Spain and Ireland.
The price for The Scream is therefore symbolic of the huge inequalities growing in the world economy, not just the US's. Some people can spend that kind of money on a piece of painted canvas, while the majority of humanity is struggling. I could think of a lot of other uses for $120 million (like jobs for 2400 people), but the painting in question is also emblematic of what's wrong with this picture.
The Scream is disturbing; it doesn't impart good feeling, at all. It may have its own kind of beauty, in its evocation of anguish, but it ain't warm and fuzzy. I don't think I'd want to display it on my living room wall, nor even in an office dedicated to psychological counseling. Its seller, Petter Olson, a Norwegian businessman, said of it:
"For me, (it) shows the horrifying moment when man realizes his impact on nature, and the irreversible changes that he has initiated, making the planet increasingly uninhabitable."
Certainly, the colors of the painting evoke both the anxiety of the figure, and the irreversible damage we are causing to the planet, but it is the power of the figure itself that expresses what humans are beginning to realize: the horrible future that seems to await us.
It's likely the 1200+ billionaires believe they will escape the worst of these changes, but then the Fifth Century Roman Senatorial class assumed that Rome would be eternal, and their exalted place in it would always be secure: obviously, they were wrong.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Attila as told to his Scribes
Attila the Hun, the most powerful man in Europe for almost a generation (circa 433-453), evolves in his account, from romantic young prince betrayed by his uncle, to ruthless conqueror. To his followers, he was famously generous, yet his stay in the Empire as a Roman hostage, he claims, taught him all he needed to know about cruelty and torture. His Roman interlude also motivated him to avenge his father, and to overcome all odds: he became the greatest king of all the Huns and war-leader of a huge confederation of steppe peoples.
This is a fictional autobiography--yes an autobiography …as told to his scribes: what he tells them, what they think, and what he thinks, or sees, when he's telling them. He's not a nice guy, although his tale (based on history and folktales) begins when he is an attractive boy on the cusp of manhood--when he witnesses his beloved father's murder. Attila is a lover and a megalomaniac, an attractive one--up to a point.
Sigidinum and Ravenna taught him to despise urban living; later, nothing pleased him quite so much as destroying Roman cities like Acquilea and Sigidinum (modern day Belgrade).
Of course, Attila's greatest weakness was his thirst for conquest. He was not an imperialist, like Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, nor like the conquistadors Cortez and Pissarro. Nor, like the Europeans and Americans after them. He was partly driven by a prophecy, only half remembered, from his youth. He wasn't interested in holding a piece of land; he only wanted to assert his will, and to carry off the wealth of settled lands. He believed (with some justification) that Roman wealth had been stolen already, anyway. He depopulated a whole region north of the Danube, and kept people out--a buffer for his people's protection, he claimed, but that gave him greater power over them, too. Paradoxically, he often wished he were on the open steppes, where he couldn't see a tent from one horizon to the next.
And, Attila had a weakness for women. He had numberless wives, who he justified as his way to cement ties with his allies and, later, with newly conquered tribes. It was, ultimately, a risky game and his first wife, his queen, Erekan, knew it. And so, finally, did his last scribe--and his last bride.
Attila as told to his scribes, will be out on Kindle soon. I will keep you posted.
This is a fictional autobiography--yes an autobiography …as told to his scribes: what he tells them, what they think, and what he thinks, or sees, when he's telling them. He's not a nice guy, although his tale (based on history and folktales) begins when he is an attractive boy on the cusp of manhood--when he witnesses his beloved father's murder. Attila is a lover and a megalomaniac, an attractive one--up to a point.
Sigidinum and Ravenna taught him to despise urban living; later, nothing pleased him quite so much as destroying Roman cities like Acquilea and Sigidinum (modern day Belgrade).
Of course, Attila's greatest weakness was his thirst for conquest. He was not an imperialist, like Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, nor like the conquistadors Cortez and Pissarro. Nor, like the Europeans and Americans after them. He was partly driven by a prophecy, only half remembered, from his youth. He wasn't interested in holding a piece of land; he only wanted to assert his will, and to carry off the wealth of settled lands. He believed (with some justification) that Roman wealth had been stolen already, anyway. He depopulated a whole region north of the Danube, and kept people out--a buffer for his people's protection, he claimed, but that gave him greater power over them, too. Paradoxically, he often wished he were on the open steppes, where he couldn't see a tent from one horizon to the next.
And, Attila had a weakness for women. He had numberless wives, who he justified as his way to cement ties with his allies and, later, with newly conquered tribes. It was, ultimately, a risky game and his first wife, his queen, Erekan, knew it. And so, finally, did his last scribe--and his last bride.
Attila as told to his scribes, will be out on Kindle soon. I will keep you posted.
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