Letters to the Editor
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Is this how it felt
to live in all those other empires that fell, in the days of their disasters? Did Romans gathered in the baths have discussions about the mad leaders who were bringing it all down around their ears? Were there retired military patriots in the baths, feeling they had served Aurelius in vain, when, as in a nightmare, his mad son was pulling everything good and noble down? Did they comment to each other about how the Roman senate had failed in its duties to safeguard the republic, driven mad by their lust and greed? History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. History is shrieking in my ears this morning like a mad clown with the face of George Bush. Behind him sits Cheney, anxious and paranoid and frowning, muttering madly to himself. Behind them are the senators and congressman, all of them with fiddles, fiddling, while the fire grows. Behind them all are the ones who voted for Bush, blowing on kazoos; and behind them are the ones who could not be troubled to vote: not talented enough to play the fiddle, or even a kazoo, they merely whistle, while others just tap their feet or nod their heads in time to the shrieks and wails of the nightmare.