Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Empires Crash and Burn After They Rise


A great deal of main stream history is about the rise of empires. Much about the fall of empires is usually related to the Roman Empire.  A little about the Persian Empire, the Mongolian empire is also out there on so called history cable channels.

But speaking mainly about History type channels that talk about the American Revolution and the Civil War and World Wars One and Two are all about how we won. It is so easy in retrospect and in the comfort of an armchair to plot the strategies of success in hindsight. 

Those strategies in many cases were trial and error and paid for in blood and suffering by those directly involved as in an army or a navy or collateral damage as in civilian casualties and death. 

It is funny how a military word like Collateral has worked its way into our lexicon in recent years, with our military involvement overseas in rotting sand piles parked over vast reservoirs of petroleum etc.

Some places like Syria for example has fallen apart because of its location next to falling apart government and geography in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. There is also the falling apart of places like the smaller countries on the rim of the Saudi Peninsula where religion mixed with politics is all there is or has ever been since the Prophet Mohammed found the glue to bring some of the warring parties and tribes together temporarily and centuries ago.  

Syria has no oil and many are saying that the population fell apart over hunger caused by the mythical Global Climate Change denied by the Right wing pols.

On a tangent, the Islamic world has different and or subtle-ly different ideas of the sacred and the profane. A mosque is a place of prayer and not a temple filled with relics and statues as in Christianity and Hinduism. The building is used as a public place when not in use for prayer.  This in not unlike the early use of Churches setting up in the corners of Roman basilicas which were originally covered markets to conduct commerce or court business out of the elements like rain or snow.

I saw in the news recently that the Saudi government in charge of Mecca was going to move the Tomb of the Prophet to accommodate a larger space for tourists to parade around the Kaaba. Nothing sacred in a tomb in the founder of a world religion?

Anyway, watching one of these pseudo history channels, they were throwing in a search for the real Mount Sinai trying to prove that the bible is correct in that there really was a Mt. Sinai etc. And then it hits me how the Christians have to agree with the Jews on their history in order to shore up Christian mythology. 

But the real crux of a religion history archeological type programming on a military history channel also goes to prove that Israel has the right to exist based on the man-made myths in the Hebrew – Greek Book aka the Bible.

When following Moses setting up his empire and taking the land away from the natives by force and blood it was because his desert god told him to do it. Whatever.

Nobody ever mentions that ancient Israel as a political entity crashed and burned and was a failed almost extinct religion by the time that the emperor god Constantine or one of his committees resurrected the party line of the old religion to prop up another new designer religion based on one of the later prophets called Jesus who may or may not have existed around the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E..

Same thing with the History Channel constantly churning out WWII footage about how great and smart and powerful we (USA) were in defeating the Axis Powers. The obsession though I think in all this WWII history stuff now that 95% WWII veterans are dead is to show how to start an empire like Hitler. How easy it is to lie and destroy and hurt and kill 50 million people who directly and immediately indirectly died making his egotistical idea and dream building a temporary political reality. He coulda been a contender – woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Now where did he go wrong is a very real theme of these shows shown on cable channels owned by strange dark right wing billionaires who want their own little strange dark empires which they are a building at the expense of the greater good of all the people in a democracy?

Just saying. That obsession with the building of empires does not prevent them from eventually falling slowly or crashing and burning in plain sight for all to see.  I prefer the crash and burn method of downward spiral for tin plated political and financial gods who have no life outside of their selfish dreams and obsession and mental disorders such as Narcissism etc.



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