Constantinople and overreach

A funny thing occurred to me just this morning as I was reading the headlines. The big progressive social programs, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, are the American version of New Rome or Constantinople. "The City" as Byzantine Romans used to think of it, was eternal, it was the defining feature of the Empire and all of their enemies knew it. As long as the City survived, so did the empire. Every attempt by invaders to take Constantinople failed and usually the Arabs/Persians/Turks/Avars/Pechenegs, etc. were driven back and decisively defeated, and the Empire survived. Similarly, every attempt to destroy Social Security and Medicare by republicans recently has been followed by their defeat. I know comparisons to Rome and America are at best reaches, but let's play this out just for the heck of it.

The outlines are tenuous right now, but conservative (a label that no longer really applies) attempts to strike at this backbone of American society seems to be backfiring for them. The essential comparative feature is that while Rome's enemies failed to take Constantinople, the Empire weakened steadily through the centuries while managing to keep their society afloat. They acted a lot like Democrats do today, giving ground to the ferocity of their enemies who desired nothing more than their absolute destruction, while fighting amongst themselves and pretending nothing was wrong. Our republic is hanging by a thread right now, what comes next is anybody's guess. The barbarians inside the gates aren't so much interested in destroying their opposition as capturing the state apparatus, these are the corporate republicans, to eliminate anything that hinders their bosses in business or works toward the common good and doesn't produce profits. It is always useful to have a neutered Democratic party around that postures but doesn't offer any real resistance.

It is a fundamentally different situation, the Byzantines were combatting violent invaders on the battlefield, while conservatives are waging a "bloodless" class war. What the endgame is, I couldn't say. Extermination? Slavery? Social Darwinism? Hard to say, but just like bush spent his "political capital" after the 2004 "election" trying to privatize Social Security and went all the way back to the Danube of political wilderness, this time around the Ryan republicans are hard at work holding the economy hostage. There plan was called, correctly, an effort to privatize and undermine Medicare and SS was bypassed for now. Many have pointed out that when Ryan's plan is described for what it is, that poll respondents reject it by huge margins.

Nevertheless, they are barrelling ahead in a grand attempt to turn over a highly successful and efficient program over to insurance gangsters. In our little historical parable this could turn out to parallel the Persian king Khusrau II's yearlong siege of Constantinople in concert with Avars on the European land side of the city during the early Seventh Century. It is a little too much to hope that President Obama would assume the role of Emperor Heraclius and maneuver an end-run around the besiegers and sack the Persian capital of Ctestiphon, thus ending not just Khusrau's reign but his state as well a few years later when the Muslims overran it. Obama seems more likely to be Heraclius at the end of his reign when he was too exhausted and sick to confront the same Muslims overrunning Egypt and the Levant.

UPDATE: I started this entry quite a while back. It seems our President, the leader of the Democratic Party, the same party that created Medicare and Social Security, is volunteering to hand it over to the barbarians. Now, I'm convinced that he is actually Alexios Angelos, the son of a deposed emperor who sweet-talked the leaders of the Fourth Crusade to attack their fellow Christians in 1204 to take the throne. Our story is complicated, like that of the insane history of the Fourth Crusade, but ultimately the crusaders sacked Constantinople and turned it into a Latin (Catholic) state for over half a century. The events don't line up of course, but rough parallels can be made, especially the sacrifice of the "team" in service to ambition. The increasing disconnect between not only the administration, but the Democratic Party as well, and the American people, even the party's own base is playing right into the hands of the barbarians. Objectively, I don't know who the president is trying to serve. Is it the "establishment" that has jumped on austerity? Or is he really a closet republican who has had this in mind for a long time?

It is hard to say, but if we draw out the analogy just a bit we can see what happens to Western Civilization.  Everyone should look at the history of the Crusades era for its own sake, but its broad outlines spell disaster for so many vulnerable people when applied to the present day. I've completely lost track of who or what is where in this tale but as long as there is a vestige of civilization there is hope. I don't want to live through another Dark Age, or worse, and to think we the people could be sold out by "one of our own" is beyond gloom and doom. Regular conservatives and republicans will be harmed just as badly as liberals and democrats if our supposed representatives make a deal to "save" Social Security and Medicare, just because they are stupid and ignorant doesn't mean they won't spend their retirement years eating cat food and dying of easily preventable disease just to fatten even further our plutocrats profit margins. It was only after Constantinople finally fell to the Turks in 1453 that Christendom realized what had been lost. Extraordinary effort to regain the city came to nothing, and soon Europeans were defending Vienna tooth and nail. What would Vienna be in our analogy? The plutocrats and so-called conservatives have taken so much from us already, I don't know what it would be.

Anyway, just food for thought.