The United States(!) of A
- and that’s worth something pop (evidence / proof)
… more than a squew iff perspective ;)
https://m.
- also depends on the source ;)
https://m.
Hey Roady
Mate U are looking in the wrong places , u need 2 search a bit , outside the MSM .
But think about it , Volody ( his real name ) is running a corrupt country , that had $US 40 billion poured into it , in 1 year .
Not just weapons , tonnes of cash .
Trump has called Zelenskyy the Best Salesman , EVER .
$100m , just a years wage 4 helping Start WW3 , that sounds close enough 4 me .
Unlike Pelosi , the gig is short term .
Trumps son is Trained 2 work in Finance and Trump lost the election , Show Me The Money has stayed with the Fund and what current fees are , pretty please .
How about U also check out Hunter's qualification 2 B on an Oil and Gas companies board , in fn Ukraine , I have !
That IS in the MSM , so U can find that .
Pop Down wrote:Hey Roady
Mate U are looking in the wrong places , u need 2 search a bit , outside the MSM .
But think about it , Volody ( his real name ) is running a corrupt country , that had $US 40 billion poured into it , in 1 year .
Not just weapons , tonnes of cash .
Trump has called Zelenskyy the Best Salesman , EVER .
$100m , just a years wage 4 helping Start WW3 , that sounds close enough 4 me .
Unlike Pelosi , the gig is short term .
Trumps son is Trained 2 work in Finance and Trump lost the election , Show Me The Money has stayed with the Fund and what current fees are , pretty please .
How about U also check out Hunter's qualification 2 B on an Oil and Gas companies board , in fn Ukraine , I have !
That IS in the MSM , so U can find that .
So no evidence just more PD word salad. Gotcha
Hunter has no qualifications. He is a sleazy nepo grifter on the take. A total pos.
Ok Roady
U sure do know Hunter .
Mate , how did that No Hope loser , get the gig in Ukraine then ?
U agree the place is corrupt .
U started the Nepotism !
The rest was MSM facts .
U agree with everything I wrote , but weren't happy with The Price of a Volody 4 a year .
Whatever the Salesman is getting , is fn Way 2 much !
Property is hard 2 value .
So it could B 20m or 200 ?
My sources guessed $100m , a nice round figure .
How much fn money do U think this prick , takes home a year then ?
What's the going rate , close 2 Putin's annual pay ?
They are neighbours .
Pop Down wrote:Ok Roady
U sure do know Hunter .
Mate , how did that No Hope loser , get the gig in Ukraine then ?
U agree the place is corrupt .
U started the Nepotism !
The rest was MSM facts .
U agree with everything I wrote , but weren't happy with The Price of a Volody 4 a year .
Whatever the Salesman is getting , is fn Way 2 much !
Property is hard 2 value .
So it could B 20m or 200 ?
My sources guessed $100m , a nice round figure .
How much fn money do U think this prick , takes home a year then ?
What's the going rate , close 2 Putin's annual pay ?
They are neighbours .
Still waiting on that evidence to back up what you claimed about Voldy?
Any proof? Or just more PDisms?
Juliang wrote:Anyone seen Elon Musk and Donald Trump ,
doing an interview, in the same room , at the same time?
Probably not because they wouldn’t show it on mainstream television .
That’s why no one seems interested in the US election this year,
because of Trump’s obvious mental decline,
they’re not showing it on TV .
WTF?
You say the weirdest things.
Musk owns twitter/X and is a tech guy so it makes sense they did a live online interview on X, it doesn't make much sense to do another but if they did why would they do it on TV?....Musk would obviously want to do it on X again to bring in viewer's. .
And how did you figure no one is interested in the US election?
Not everyone is interested in politics and many in the USA aren't happy with either choice, but it has as much focus as any previous USA election, if not more.
Mental decline?
Oh please Biden had obvious mental decline that was denied for years by democrats including by Kamala up until weeks before Biden got culled, Trump is a lot of things and has no filter and says some dumb shit at times, but he doesn't have the obvious mental decline issues Biden had.
Roadkill wrote:Pop Down wrote:Ok Roady
U sure do know Hunter .
Mate , how did that No Hope loser , get the gig in Ukraine then ?
U agree the place is corrupt .
U started the Nepotism !
The rest was MSM facts .
U agree with everything I wrote , but weren't happy with The Price of a Volody 4 a year .
Whatever the Salesman is getting , is fn Way 2 much !
Property is hard 2 value .
So it could B 20m or 200 ?
My sources guessed $100m , a nice round figure .
How much fn money do U think this prick , takes home a year then ?
What's the going rate , close 2 Putin's annual pay ?
They are neighbours .
Still waiting on that evidence to back up what you claimed about Voldy?
Any proof? Or just more PDisms?
from someone that has NEVER answered a question, its very rich that you would expect a different result when you ask one.
Gosh roady , u still not happy me saying a guess is a guess .
Consider the guess of $100m p/a , the Price , 4 sending 100's of thousands countrymen to the meat grinder , a PD ism then Roady .
Enjoy your gotcha :) !
How macabre U can be .
Putins Official salary is around $US140k p/a , but nobody REALLY knows how much he gets .
Some guess his Net worth at $200B , but No one knows , 4 sure .
He wears a A. Lange Sohne Tourbograph watch valued at $500k , that adds another dimension Putin has said .
His Mega Yacht is called the Scheherazade and valued at $700m .
He has a Play Plane he affectionately and hilariously calls The Flying Kremlin , $716m .
His pride and joy is his Black Sea Mansion .
No one can Guess its True value but it's Dinning Room Furniture is valued at $US500k .
Fortune estimated it has 40 permanent Staff and Cost Vald about $US2 million a year 2 keep ship shape .
Roady , I'm guessing Putin skims more off the Russian Bears back than 140k , but NFI what he really gets .
Same with Volody .
You have popped the ism out of me .
Pop Down wrote:Gosh roady , u still not happy me saying a guess is a guess .
Consider the guess of $100m p/a , the Price , 4 sending 100's of thousands countrymen to the meat grinder , a PD ism then Roady .
Enjoy your gotcha :) !
How macabre U can be .
Putins Official salary is around $US140k p/a , but nobody REALLY knows how much he gets .
Some guess his Net worth at $200m , but No one knows , 4 sure .
He wears a A. Lange Sohne Tourbograph watch valued at $500k , that adds another dimension Putin has said .
His Mega Yacht is called the Scheherazade and valued at $700m .
He has a Play Plane he affectionately and hilariously calls The Flying Kremlin , $716m .
His pride and joy is his Black Sea Mansion .
No one can Guess its True value but it's Dinning Room Furniture is valued at $US500k .
Fortune estimated it has 40 permanent Staff and Cost Vald about $US2 million a year 2 keep ship shape .
Roady , I'm guessing Putin skims more off the Russian Bears back than 140k , but NFI what he really gets .
Same with Volody .
You have popped the ism out of me .
Now you pivot to Putin?? Gawd you are all over the place. I have no idea what you are on about. It’s just more verbal vomit.
Ok , so please stop regurgitating spew !
What is it with repeating the Crap I write ???
I keep reading me talking when Under water and fn asleep .
I am getting so tired of reading my fn self , repeating myself ffs ! .
F off and leave My Crap alone , pretty please .
edit Covid Brain , please look up .
If you stop repeating everything I write , that's half my crap gonski .
F off Loui the fly :)
Pop Down wrote:Ok , so please stop regurgitating spew !
What is it with repeating the Crap I write ???
I keep reading me talking when Under water and fn asleep .
I am getting so tired of reading my fn self .
F off and leave My Crap alone , pretty please .
“What is it with repeating the Crap I write.” Good stuff…the first stage of recovery is recognising the problem..or in your case the crap you write.
“I am getting so tired of reading my fn self” now you are starting to find out how we feel.
“I am getting so tired of reading my fn self”
Now you are starting to find out how we feel.
GOLD
indo-dreaming wrote:Juliang wrote:Anyone seen Elon Musk and Donald Trump ,
doing an interview, in the same room , at the same time?
Probably not because they wouldn’t show it on mainstream television .
That’s why no one seems interested in the US election this year,
because of Trump’s obvious mental decline,
they’re not showing it on TV .WTF?
You say the weirdest things.
Musk owns twitter/X and is a tech guy so it makes sense they did a live online interview on X, it doesn't make much sense to do another but if they did why would they do it on TV?....Musk would obviously want to do it on X again to bring in viewer's. .
And how did you figure no one is interested in the US election?
Not everyone is interested in politics and many in the USA aren't happy with either choice, but it has as much focus as any previous USA election, if not more.
Mental decline?
Oh please Biden had obvious mental decline that was denied for years by democrats including by Kamala up until weeks before Biden got culled, Trump is a lot of things and has no filter and says some dumb shit at times, but he doesn't have the obvious mental decline issues Biden had.
Indo, he’s maybe not the same as Biden but surely you’ve seen his gobbledygook.
It goes beyond an ex politician not answering the question. He’s hopeless but thinks he’s on point. Surely you’ve read about the right wing media edits sane washing of his rambling tangents.
Goes way beyond Kamala’s deficiencies at public speaking. He’s convinced himself of his lies.
seaslug wrote:“I am getting so tired of reading my fn self”
Now you are starting to find out how we feel.
GOLD
Like high school poetry lessons.
Teacher… “what is your interpretation”
Student proceeds to have absence seizure complete with drool.
;)
https://m.
@Seeds
Trump likes the sound of his own voice, says a lot of dumb shit, has no filter etc.
But thats not mental decline, what we saw Biden go through was true mental decline from ageing, Trump is pretty quick witted for his age really.
It's actually kind of weird, because in a strange way while Trump talks a lot of shit people dont mind it so much, because we know he isnt holding back and is saying exactly what he thinks, it's strangely genuine.
It's kind of like when you have had a few too may drinks and you start dribbling shit and you say some dumb shit, but a lot of it is exactly what you think, the filter is gone.
Kamala on the other hand is a typical politician she is very scripted it's not genuine.
https://m.
Fox News, admitting they are a propaganda
machine for Trump.
Most MAGA probably didn’t realise,
Indo said..
“ It's actually kind of weird, because in a strange way while Trump talks a lot of shit people dont mind it so much, because we know he isnt holding back and is saying exactly what he thinks, it's strangely genuine”
Um, you obviously don’t mind it.
(saying what you think doesn’t make it real)
It’s genuine alright. Genuine bullshit.
@ Seeds
You obviously didn’t see the kindergarten dribble of an interview , of Trump Musk,
which they didn’t show any of on Australian TV
And if you did , it’s probably been long
forgotten by you .
No the mainstream media don’t like to show Trump in a bad light .
Probably why he’s still hanging around,
against all odds.
Don’t need too. There’s enough already. Indo above is bonkers with his genuine logic also.
Yes you do need to watch something, if you’re going to give your knowledgeable opinion on it.
That’s the problem, everyone giving their
uninformed opinions.
I think you’re getting your wires crossed
Yes I’m not ???????!!!!!!!!
That’s probably why I spend more time
listening to US experts,
than Aussie surfers
you're kinda railing at people who think Trump's a dickhead cunty dumbass (well, sorry, 'dumb-arse') @Juliang.. the particular response you want, is for people to think Trump is Devil, Kamala is saving us from Trump? It is a bit confusing (but then, it all is when you listen to an Aussie surfer's opinion).
y'know how young people are getting caught up with online bullshit?
they think medium sized shit matters, and their opinions are big?
Well, older people are victims, too. Being clawed into 'big' media and net-fuckery.
come to the "agree to disagree with how ridiculous it is to not get outdoors, and engage with what is real, instead opting for 24 hour news cycle and online western reality-show-turned-popular-politics" benefit gig this Monday at the Church
Jelly Flater wrote:
Trumps three policies of Tariffs
Misogyny and Racism don’t seem to be working as well.
And getting people that are sorta on his side mixed up shows he thinks anyone replying to his post is a republican shows he’s getting a bit too nutty about this subject.
^ apologies couldn’t be arsed thinking about grammar
^ well, if you couldn't have oughtn't to be farted, you prolly need to get to bed and stop wondering about what your talking is being for.
Well that’s the problem
You potentially learn a lot more from a
10 to 20 minute US video,
than an Australian locals
post/ statement/ opinion/ belief/ prejudice
So I don’t put much time into reading many of them at the moment, on this subject.
And because of the reactive nature of some of the comments, and having to try and explain to someone who still has a
2016 poster of the grate man himself on their bedroom wall.
No offence not unintentionally intended.
The good billionaire , Mark Cuban calling out
Trump for his insane, impulsive, Marxist
policies.
And praising Harris for her leadership and ability to turn around the ratings ,and her understanding of business and the economy.
Do you think a US billionaire ,
would know more about the US economy ,
than your average Indo Aussie homey ?
Worthy longform reading from The Free Press (which you really should pay for):
How Republics Unravel: From Rome to. . . America?
A great state can fall apart when the rule-breaking of one man inspires his enemies to break the rules, too.
Earlier this month, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle was apprehended on a South Florida golf course. He was allegedly planning to murder Donald Trump on the links. It was the second attempted assassination against Trump in two-and-a-half months.
It’s likely that the gunman, Ryan W. Routh, was acting alone. But he is not alone in his hatred for Trump. In the eyes of many Americans, the 45th president is an existential threat to our republic. And ever since he won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, his opponents have treated him as such. They have also been repeatedly stunned by the fact that Trump breaks the norms of modern politics. From the minor—commenting on the size of his manhood—to the unprecedentedly major—denying that he lost the 2020 presidential election.
The dynamic between Trump and his haters has changed the chemistry of American politics. In 2016, Trump shocked the country by leading rallies where his adoring fans chanted, “Lock her up,” referring to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Eight years later, crowds at Kamala Harris rallies belt out a similar chant, calling for Trump’s imprisonment.
In this respect Ryan Routh is part of a larger problem tearing our country apart. When the other side is considered completely beyond the pale—a threat to our very system of government—it’s worth breaking the norms of political decorum to stop them getting into power. You hear it from both parties. Trump is an “extinction-level event.” If Kamala wins, our country will become, in Trump’s words, “Venezuela on steroids.”
One escalation begets the next, until politics goes past the point of no return. We take it for granted today that we settle our elections with voting, not shooting. But republics don’t last forever. And when they fall, violence almost always follows. Because the stakes are so high, it’s essential to ask: What leads a republic to choose the gun over the ballot?
To try answering that question, I looked back to ancient Rome, a republic that not only fell but fell because of the rule-breaking of one man—and the response of his enemies. His name was Tiberius Gracchus. Like Trump, he was a member of the elite who turned on the elites, who channeled the resentments and anger of the common people against a system that had turned against him. Like Trump, he disregarded the unwritten political rules of his era. And like Trump, Tiberius prompted his enemies to disregard the norms themselves.
“You see this escalation very quickly with Tiberius Gracchus,” Adrian Goldsworthy, a historian of ancient Rome, told The Free Press. “He crosses some lines, sets some precedents, and then they suppress him in a way that sets an even worse precedent.”
Imagine January 6 in reverse: A mob of angry senators rioting after an election, breaking the legs off their chairs to fashion clubs, attack the people who supported a populist leader—who had just won an election. That is how Tiberius met his end.
In America, we remain a republic unbroken, but this episode of history offers salutary lessons. We have endured Trump’s most serious norm violation: his efforts to steal back an election he claimed was stolen from him by the forces that smeared and defamed him during his presidency. His attempts to send slates of fake electors to Congress to delay the certification of that election. His supporters breaking into the Capitol, menacing legislators.
And yet the cycle of escalations between Trump and his opponents continues to strain our foundations like no political crisis since the Civil War. In Rome, this cycle led to bloodshed—and eventually, the death of the republic itself. Is this a blueprint for America’s future?
You probably know about last year’s trend of American men confessing on TikTok how often they think about the Roman Empire. I’m a bit different. I’m obsessed with what preceded the empire, Rome’s republic. Empires are a dime a dozen in human history. They rise and fall, from Babylon to the Soviet Union. But republics—a form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the people—these are orchids: rare, precious, and fleeting. If you take the long view of human history, tyranny is the norm. A system that checks the power of its leaders and legislators and makes them accountable to citizens? That’s special.
Few republics of significance existed between ancient Rome and America’s founding.
Of course, there are differences between the two. In America, we have one chief executive: the president. Rome’s republic had the equivalent of two presidents known as consuls. In Rome, the powerful senate, composed of elites known as the patricians, were also the republic’s military leaders. In the U.S., there’s a bright line between soldiers and politicians.
We have a constitution. In Rome, many rules were handshake agreements between gentlemen, understood as part of the long-standing traditions by the ruling class.
But the similarities are nonetheless striking. Both the Roman and American republics emerged initially out of revolutions against kings. Both republics were stained by slavery. The Romans didn’t have political parties the way we do, but they did have politics. There were great debates over how powers and privileges were divided across society. And in both the Roman and American republics, the rights of the regular citizens expanded over time.
Between 494 and 287 BCE, the Roman republic went through a period of reform known as the Conflict of the Orders. For more than 200 years, the have-nots pressured the haves to expand liberty to all men (though not, notably, women). The plebeians—the largest community in Roman society—wanted political representation. Eventually they prevailed, gaining legal authority as tribunes, officials who could veto legislation and introduce laws. Tribunes could make citizen arrests. The 10 tribunes that represented the plebeians were the common man’s voice inside the republic. It was strictly forbidden to do any violence to a tribune if he was inside the city of Rome.
The Rome that Tiberius was born into had a peculiar problem, not unlike the one America faces today. It was a victim of its own success. As it swept through the known world with one military conquest after another, Rome became so rich that by 167 BCE it stopped taxing its citizens. There was no need. Every few months wagons filled with silver, ivory, and gold would come into the city, a portion of which would go to the republic.
This was glorious for the patrician elite. But the wealth flowing into Rome did little for the plebeians—just as globalization has enriched America’s coastal elites, leaving factory workers, truck drivers, and heartland Americans behind. And this endless flow of treasure relied on endless warfare. A massive military was needed to invade, hold, and plunder foreign lands. The republic relied on conscription. Citizen farmers were drafted into the army for years at a time. Often, when they returned home, their neglected farms were in disrepair, and wealthy patrician elites would swoop in and pay below-market prices for the land. Desperate farmers would have no choice but to accept these terrible terms. And it got even worse. The patricians didn’t hire the farmers to work the land they once owned. It was far more profitable to use slave labor instead.
For the everyman small farmer, this was an unbearable situation, and it was a political problem for the republic because Rome relied on these men to fight their forever wars, to borrow a phrase from today. They needed the plebes invested, not rebellious.
And so, just like our politicians today, the patrician Senate sat around and argued over what to do about it. One faction wanted the status quo, claiming that since small farmers received a portion of the booty from Roman conquests abroad, there was no real problem. Another faction argued for reform. Soldiers would not fight if it meant losing their farms. The idea was to apportion public land to the plebes. You might say it was the socialism of antiquity. And Tiberius would become its champion.
Before he was a politician, like most Roman elites, Tiberius had been a soldier. Three decades after Rome stopped taxing its citizens, Tiberius was part of a campaign against a tribe known as the Numantines in today’s Spain. There he served under an incompetent Roman commander, Mancinus, whose army fell into a trap: 20,000 Roman soldiers were surrounded, certain to die. And would have, had Tiberius not interceded. He went over the head of Mancinus to negotiate a truce with the Numantines. The Numantine tribe ransacked the Roman camp, as you would expect, but allowed the legion to depart for Rome unscathed.
One might think this was a triumph of military pragmatism from the young Tiberius. But none of this played very well back in Rome. As the ancient historian Plutarch wrote in his volume of biographies, Lives: “On his return to Rome, the whole transaction was greatly blamed as dishonorable and disgraceful.” The Senate voted to strip Mancinus of authority, put him in chains, and send him back to the Numentines—and, though they did not officially censure him, they also heaped abuse on Tiberius.
For an ambitious young Roman, this was a major setback. Yet there was a silver lining that would shape his future as a populist. The families of the soldiers whose lives Tiberius saved rushed to his defense. He was their hero. Tiberius earned contempt from the conservatives in the Senate, but bolstered his reputation with the plebes. It would become a pattern.
Tiberius was clever and ambitious and had a plan. If he was loved by the people, he would build his political career upon those very people, and he would do so as a tribune, representing the plebes. Most tribunes rarely made waves because they were bought off by the patricians. Tiberius would be different.
He was genuinely troubled by the treatment of Rome’s dispossessed farmers and their terrible living conditions. On a journey through Tuscany, Tiberius observed the political graffiti scrawled on sign posts in the countryside, raging that the farms of plebeian soldiers were being snatched up on the cheap. The young Roman was outraged, and his indignation would lead him to challenge the establishment of Rome as no one had before.
It began with a land bill known as Lex Agraria, which proposed that public lands be apportioned to small Roman farmers. The law also allowed for compensation to the wealthy Roman families that had effectively taken over these public lands. So it was in many ways a compromise.
Tiberius introduced the legislation in the people’s assembly. His speech on its behalf is a stem-winder for the ages. This is the version recorded by Plutarch:
“The wild beasts of Italy had their dens and holes and hiding-places, while the men who fought and died in defense of Italy enjoyed, indeed, the air and the light, but nothing else: houseless and without a spot of ground to rest upon, they wander about with their wives and children, while their commanders, with a lie in their mouth, exhort the soldiers in battle to defend their tombs and temples against the enemy, for out of so many Romans not one has a family altar or ancestral tomb, but they fight to maintain the luxury and wealth of others, and they die with the title of lords of the earth, without possessing a single patch of earth to call their own.”
Now Donald Trump could never dream of hitting that level of eloquence—it’s one of history’s great speeches. But if you go back to Trump’s inaugural address, you can see the similarities. “January 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day that the people became the rulers of this nation again.” American citizens, Trump likes to remind us, are being deprived of their birthright by the moneyed elites. And you could say Tiberius wanted to make Rome great again. This high-octane populism scared the togas off of the conservatives in the Senate.
The Roman system, like our own, relied on unwritten customs in addition to formal law. These standards, which were known as “the way of the elders,” helped keep the delicate republic in balance. And Tiberius Gracchus was about to steamroll these norms in order to ram through his land bill.
But there would be consequences. The senators opposed to the land bill found a more pliant tribune, Marcus Octavius, to be their proxy inside the people’s assembly, and Octavius vetoed the introduction of the bill time and again.
Tiberius at first tried to reason with Octavius in debate. He even offered to compensate him for any loss of property he might incur personally. But none of it worked. So he took a drastic step, arguing that when a tribune defied the will of the people he was no tribune at all. He called for a vote to strip Octavius of his office. That had never been done before.
The plebes voted to give Octaviuss the boot, and Tiberius dispatched one of his bodyguards to physically remove him from the orator’s platform, a humiliating spectacle. And in the fracas, as the plebes chased Octavius away, one of his slaves had his eyes gouged out.
Imagine that you are a blue-blood senator, and you’re watching all this. You’re horrified. Never in Rome’s history had a tribune used his power like this.
But it worked. With Octavius gone, the land bill passed easily and became Roman law. Tiberius then created a commission that would be distributing public land to dispossessed farmers. Conveniently, it was comprised of himself, his father-in-law, and his little brother, Gaius Gracchus. There is a fair argument that Tiberius was not acting entirely out of noble conviction. If the Gracchus family controlled the distribution of public lands, the beneficiaries would be indebted politically to Tiberius and his brother.
The Senate’s conservatives seethed. Their next move was one that any contemporary politician would find familiar. They couldn’t stop the land reform bill from becoming law, so they did the next best thing: They starved the land commission of funding.
And that would have been the end of the land bill had Tiberius not experienced a stroke of good fortune. Attalus, the king of a wealthy territory called Pergamum in modern day Turkey, had just died. And in his will he bequeathed his entire kingdom to the people of Rome. Tiberius argued before the assembly that the money should go to land reform because Attalus left his fortune to the Roman people, not to Rome.
This shattered another norm. According to Roman custom, it was the senate—not the people’s assembly—that voted on Rome’s finances and foreign policy. When Tiberius put the matter of Pergamum to the people’s assembly, the patricians were incensed. “The Senate met in a furious session to denounce Tiberius as a reckless demagogue aiming to make himself a tyrannical despot,” Mike Duncan wrote in his history of this period, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic.
Sound familiar? Recall how leading Democrats, including Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, have warned that Trump will be a dictator if he is reeelected?
Tiberius confirmed the suspicions of his foes with his next move. He announced that he would run for an unprecedented second consecutive term as tribune of the plebes. Again, if there was a rule against it, it was an unwritten one.
One senator in particular was determined to prevent Tiberius from having his way. His name was Scipio Nasica, and he was also a high religious official, the pontifex maximus. He hated the land reform bill. He hated how Tiberius ran roughshod over the ways of the elders.
As voting got started, Tiberius’s supporters flooded the hill near the Temple of Jupiter where the assembly met, and controlled the area where the votes were to be tallied. Across the plane, in the Senate, Nasica boiled. He implored the consul, Rome’s highest elected official, to stop this affront to Roman tradition.
“Tiberius Gracchus was becoming a king, a tyrant,” he warned. “If he is not stopped, then we will lose the republic forever.”
But his pleas fell on deaf ears. The consul only promised to stop Tiberius if he violated a law, but he would not condone violence against a Roman citizen without a trial. Nasica then said, according to Plutarch: “Well then, as the consul betrays the state, to those who wish to maintain the laws follow me.”
At this point, Nasica pulled his toga over his head and led a mob of like-minded senators to the hill where the voting was taking place. They broke the legs off tables and chairs, and began filing through the crowd, swinging their crude clubs at the plebes as they approached Tiberius.
Plutarch writes that Tiberius was attempting to escape the mob when he fell to the ground. As he tried to get up, a fellow tribune clubbed his head with the leg of a bench. Another senator struck him again. Tiberius was beaten to death, along with 300 of his plebeian supporters.
After the bloodbath, the dead—Tiberius Gracchus included—were denied a proper burial. Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber River.
This riot was the first political violence in the Roman republic since the Conflict of the Orders. It would not be the last. Nasica broke the prohibition against political violence inside Rome. And that prohibition would never be restored.
The next century for Rome was soaked in blood. The republic was now stuck in a cycle of escalating violence. Nasica was never prosecuted for leading the lynch mob. So it’s not surprising that a decade later, when Tiberius’s brother, Gaius Gracchus, proposed even more sweeping reforms, he was also swept up in a tide of violence that left him dead. Over time, because conscription was becoming more difficult, various warlords arose, commanding their own private militias. The old safeguards against putting too much power in the hands of one man were eroding. Rome would be ruled by dictator-generals for stretches at a time.
Eventually, a loose alliance of three Roman leaders emerged: Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar. They trampled on Rome’s remaining political traditions and customs. After Caesar, Rome was a republic in name only. The Senate still met, but it no longer had power over affairs of the Roman state. A once-mighty republic was gelded by a century of norm violations.
Savor the irony. Nasica and his allies in the Senate thought they were preventing a king from destroying the republic when they murdered Tiberius Gracchus. And yet it was that murder—that massive norm violation—that planted the seeds for Rome to be ruled by an emperor.
So, what does this teach us about today?
The main lesson of Tiberius Gracchus is that republics are fragile. The laws as well as the unwritten rules of our politics only work when they are observed by all parties. When one side defies the norms, it’s an invitation for the other side to do the same, even if the rules were violated for the most noble of reasons. American senator Frank Church summed up this idea as follows: “Crisis makes it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free.”
He was warning about the overreach of the national security state during the Cold War, but it applies to the Trump era as well. In Rome, the crisis posed by Tiberius tempted Nasica to lead a mob that murdered him.
In America’s recent history, the crisis posed by Trump tempted Democrats to warp the justice system into a partisan weapon. It tempted the elite media to lash itself to the Democratic party. It tempted the FBI to pursue a meritless investigation into the sitting president long after the flimsy theory of Russian collusion was debunked by the FBI’s own investigators. It tempted state legislatures to try to remove Trump’s name from the presidential ballot. Every one of these norm violations was justified—in their minds—to stop Trump, a dictator, a traitor, an orange monster, especially after the transgressions of January 6.
So consider this a warning. Nasica’s lynch mob believed their actions were justified to save the republic; instead, they set it on a path to ruin. The Romans went from the rule of law to the rule of the emperor in just over a century.
In two years, our republic turns 250 years old. We’ve survived one civil war. Compared to Rome, our January 6 really wasn’t so fatefully terrible. After the mob was dispersed, Congress finished certifying the 2020 election that evening. We’ve been lucky. So were the Romans, until Tiberius Gracchus.
Eli Lake is a Free Press columnist.
Thanks Stu , great reading material .
History has a knack of repeating itself .
"The crisis posed by Trump tempted the Democrats to warp the Justice system into a Partisan Weapon .
It tempted the elite media to lash itself to the Democratic Party . "
The Plebs , the Deplorables of the US , are being Ignored .
The Partisans want 2 keep power .
The Plebs want a new King , 4 4 years .
Funny how the Democrats used to bat 4 the Plebs , same here in Oz .
Times CAN change !
No problems, PD.
No surprise you only interpret it one way.
Good read.
Sadly I don’t think Trump is doing anything for the plebs. More like using the plebs for his own ends.
Also Pops, Trump has plenty of media support.
Good morning seeds
As Stu points out correctly , Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and my Glasses are tinted .
The comment about media support was a quote from Stu's post , not mine .
In 2016 , 96% of journalists donated to Hilary .
Trump is No Media Darling , like his opponent .
;)
https://m.
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Pop Down wrote:Good morning seeds
As Stu points out correctly , Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and my Glasses are tinted .
The comment about media support was a quote from Stu's post , not mine .
In 2016 , 96% of journalists donated to Hilary .
Trump is No Media Darling , like his opponent .
I know Pop but you highlighted it.
Has right wing media gone on holidays in the US?
The opposite actually. They are working overtime sane washing Trump’s rally speech’s.
Trump only does anything for Trump. The plebs are simply too dimwitted to realise this.
Trump claims he’s going to be protector of women .
Which brought out the list of 26 women ,
who have accused him of sexually assaulting
them.
Including several who have testified against him in a court of law.
Women need protection from him!
Not to mention Trump having the
Christian and family values vote ?
only in America.
“In 2016 , 96% of journalists donated to Hilary”
Can we have a fact check?
Great seeds
Nice to hear that some journalists are changing sides and are trying to level a lopsided Playing Field . 4 a change .
Tucker is probably helping Trump with advice Trump trusts 2 .
Its was a One Way Main St , a bit imho .
As I said , times can change .
“In 2016 , 96% of journalists donated to Hilary”Can we have a fact check?
Yes, Kamala's are available...they haven't done anything for 30 years...but they are GOOD(for nothing)!
Nice to know a balanced bit of journalism can still cause hysteria in grown ups.
I think you will find it was.. of the journalists that donated, 96% of the donations went to Hilary.
Not 96% of journalists.
Hey Roady
Thanks 4 jumping into the Rabbit Hole .
Mate , I gave U gold 2 work with yesterday ,Spewing up some crap and a trap this morning :) !
Source : Centre for Public Integrity - Contributions to Presidential campaign H Clinton - D Trump , Jan 2015 - August 30 , 2016 .
To save u some time , check Zerohedge and read the article on Julian's mate Cuban .
Septic Tanks are going to Septic Tank