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| Leonidas I, King of Sparta, Commiefied |
The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta
BY LEE SMITH
Opening paragraphs:
In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.
This essay explains a great deal of what's been going on in America. Some might feel Lee is being too cynical, but everything he says agrees with what I've been hearing. The American elite don't care about the country or the people who live here. All they care about is making more money.
You could argue that they wouldn't be making money if they weren't providing a valuable service, and they might be improving the lives of people living in Asia, but if you are destroying your country you are still a dirt bag.
Note:
"$2 billion for a five-year oil supply of 130,000 barrels a day" works out to $42.14 per barrel which is probably a pretty fair price. Oil from the Urals is about the same, other oil is around $60 a barrel today.
Wikipedia articles:
2 comments:
I agree, Nixon (Kissinger), Ford, and Reagan set up a mass exodus of US jobs and tech to increase profits of the “donors” who own congress.
$42.14 a barrel, or a dollar a gallon. That barrel yields 19 gallons of gas, 10 of diesel, 4 of Jet Fuel, 2 LPG, and a bunch of other stuff. They can make money with that. I remember when the bottom fell out and crude got down close to $30 the Arabs were pulling their hair out.
Doesn’t anyone care anymore about the hard line communists around the world whose homelands are being overrun and usurped by the insatiable capitalists? I wonder if I could make a buck with a “Make Communism Great Again” tshirt?
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