Is America the New Rome?

Cup O' Joe!:

How we react to the disaster of New Orleans is going to determine the future of this country. Already the powers that be have been absolved of responsibility for their lack of preparedness (or complicity?) that allowed 9/11 to happen, the inability to apprehend those responsible, the hubris that involved us in an aggressive, imperialistic war with Iraq and the incompetent handling of it. If they escape responsibility for the fiasco that has practically destroyed New Orleans, they will continue to believe that they can get away with anything, and that will make them bolder still. And judging from what I have seen, it's quite possible that they are indeed getting away with it.

In giving up their power as citizens, the Romans asked only that the Emperors leave them alone; that the civil service would keep the roads in repair, that there was food enough to eat, that there was plenty of entertainment, and that they could be free to live their lives in peace as long as they posed no threat to the elite class. That's all most of us want, too: let the politicians play their games, we have better things to do with our lives.

But it doesn't work that way. Thucydides, in his journals on the Peloponnesian Wars years before [Imperial] Rome, wrote that those who have money and power are always hungry for more of either. Things haven't changed since then. George W. Bush has as much wealth and power as any man can possibly have, yet he and his allies still want more. The "why" of it isn't important, that's the fact. How we deal with that is up to us.