Re: [xmca] 'Summer reading' continued: "Are we Rome?"

Garcia Lorca's cry is interesting, indeed. There is (at first glance, at least)
nothing obviously Roman about NYC. Washington D.C., however, has Capitol Hill,
Roman obelisks, and the Jefferson Memorial (an American Pantheon). Cullen
Murphy gives some examples of a kind of "refeudalization" in late capitalism.
Power is organized in structures and hierarchies of patrons and clients, Bush
succeeds Bush, Clinton succeeds Clinton, prison- and health services are
privatized, the state monopoly of violence is undermined. Torture
(crucifixions), health care and warfare were all put out to private tender in
the declining the Roman Empire.

Eirik

On 2007-07-30, at 12:05, Leif Strandberg wrote:
> Hi,
>
> About Rome.
>
> I just came over (serendipity? - my favourite word this summer) a poem
> by Garcia Lorca. In his 'A poet in New York' (1930) I found a small
> poem called (in Swedish):
>
> Rop mot Rom - Från tornet av Chrysler Building
> (Cry against Rome - from the tower of Chrysler Building)
> from 1930.
>
> Interesting that he used 'Rome' when writing about NY
>
> Leif
>
>
> 2007-07-26 kl. 11.45 skrev Eirik Knutsson:
>
>> Or, according to Geir Lundestad, "empire by invitation":
>>
>> "... if [the] American expansion created what we could call an
>> American empire,
>> this was to a large extent an empire by invitation. Unlike the Soviet
>> Union,
>> which frequently had to rely on force to further its interests, the
>> United
>> States possessed an arsenal of diverse instruments. In fact, the
>> United States
>> was often invited to play a more active role."
>>
>> ( http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/263 )
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2007-07-26, at 08:25, Leif Strandberg wrote:
>>> E
>>>
>>> I think we are doing what we can to be a part of Rome ("Legtimate
>>> peripheral participation" - see Swedish and Norwegian soliders in the
>>> ISAF forces in Afghanistan)
>>>
>>> I am waitng for a New Martin Luther
>>>
>>> Leif
>>> 2007-07-25 kl. 13.46 skrev Eirik Knutsson:
>>>
>>>> Leif, if America is Rome: who are we (Europeans) then? "Athenians"...
>>>> now
>>>> conquered by Rome... (?)
>>>>
>>>> E.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2007-07-25, at 13:27, Leif Strandberg wrote:
>>>>> No, but I have heard about it,
>>>>>
>>>>> and
>>>>>
>>>>> I listened to a radio programme the other day where the reporter
>>>>> reminded me that Rome lasted for 800 years
>>>>>
>>>>> :-(
>>>>>
>>>>> Leif
>>>>> Sweden
>>>>> 2007-07-25 kl. 12.13 skrev Eirik Knutsson:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Has anybody out there read Cullen Murphy's "Are we Rome?" (Houghton
>>>>>> Mifflin,
>>>>>> 2007), in which contemporary Washington is compared with ancient
>>>>>> Rome?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> E.
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Received on Mon Jul 30 09:29 PDT 2007