by Sr. Organza
Americans are collectively idiotic. We have elected a man and a Congress bent on ending the United States and replacing it with something more like a collection of warlord-run states. We’ve been given ample opportunity to stop all of this and for whatever reason- we have decided not to. Perhaps it was Trump’s classic good looks, his virility, his vitality, his youth or his dashing sense of style that got him elected then re-elected. For many of us, these times seem “unprecedented” but they are not.
Picture it. Rome, 410 A.D. A group of disheveled, rather ragamuffin, men and women from the north invaded the Roman provinces and sacked the eternal city itself. But, alas, they were too stupid and decided to destroy the city, take their bounty of gold and marble statues of naked people and left, leaving the Romans to uncertainty and poverty. You might compare this with a similar group of fur-clad imbeciles who sacked the Capitol on January 6th making off with such treasures as Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, a half-eaten orange from the Capitol cafeteria and the last shreds of dignity left in DC. The difference being that the ravaging Goths of the 5th century were led by an red-haired dynamo while the caravan of gullible tarts were led by an orange-faced, morbidly obese, man-baby who had just shit himself and needed a changing. Just like today, the writing was seemingly on the wall. Roman civilization was ending. But the Romans didn’t do a fucking thing. They spent time pointing fingers and blaming every cause available- much like the Democrats have been doing since 2016. So why were any Democrats remotely surprised that the Goths returned in 2024?
For the next two decades, the Romans watched in horror as their empire fell around them. Imagine being an olive oil merchant living in or near Rome at that time. Actually, you probably can. All you want to do is make olive oil and sell it at a profit to a merchant from Genoa. Think of a band of wandering brigands the same as laughably high tariffs. The same fear, uncertainty and exploding cost of groceries you are witnessing today was exactly the same 1600 years ago. We may not have a bunch of hulking, fur-clad, sword-wielding men roaming around. But we do have a fat-ass, South African billionaire with all of our personal data. Finally, after years of terrible leadership, disease, and famine, Rome itself fell in 476. The last Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed- partly because of his ridiculous name but mostly because he was an inept pussy. He was swiftly replaced by a Germanic warlord named Odacer.
But that wasn’t precisely the end of Roman civilization. The Roman empire was still populated by mostly Roman people who lived Roman lives and were used to Roman roads, plumbing, orgies, and safety. Undoing all of that immediately was not a smart thing to do and Odacer knew it. So, he tried as best he could to keep things just as they were. King Odacer learned very quickly that economic stability and a strong, stable imperial trade network were worth more than perhaps a roasted turkey leg and a wench to call his own.
Unto Us a Son is Given
During this time of relative post-Roman stability, a man was born to a wealthy and noble Roman family – Boethius. He was kind of the “last Roman” in the way that most of us would understand an ancient Roman to be. In other words, he was smart, wore a toga, and was in a bathhouse every day. He spoke Latin, Greek and whatever bumbfuck language Odacer spoke and he ended up serving in this new Ostrogothic kingdom as a senator at the ripe old age of 25. Only 8-years later, Odacer was deposed by another German named Theodoric and being impressed by Boethius’s intelligence and his ability to keep himself clean for 24-hours with soap, appointed him consul of Rome.
Despite the perceived intelligence and class of the gothic overlords of the remnants of Rome, they were still relatively uneducated, illiterate nincompoops and really needed men like Boethius to help them out. Theodoric himself was illiterate. It was these men who kept the government and the trade network running. But, uneducated gothic trash is still what it is and it did not take long before these guys fell victim to greed and corruption. Boethius, who I imagine was much like a single daycare worker in a feces-covered, urine-soaked daycare facility, was beside himself and decided he would speak up. Tsk. Stupid man. King Theodoric threw him in prison for treason in 523. This too should seem familiar. Imagine another fat idiot on a throne of his own making, pouting because someone smart said he was dumb and ruining everything. Boethius cared about his remaining Romans more than some petty king’s pocketbook and ego.
While in prison and while Theodoric decided just what to do with the guy, Boethius wrote the self-soothingest of self-soothing tomes ever written – The Consolation of Philosophy. In it, Boethius is visited by the personification of philosophy- who was a woman in the fantasies of the young, imprisoned, and lonely former consul of Rome. So it was a wily woman who represented the last bits of logic and reason left in the world. And they talked. Well, Philosophy talked- or yelled as it were- while Boethius listened and agreed with everything she said. I suppose if a magical personification of all you held most dear just showed up in your house, that’s probably what you would do too.
And what is it that they discussed? First, they started talking about fame, wealth and power and how these are all fickle things and none can compare with the only good thing in one’s life – one’s well cultivated mind. In essence, Boethius is accepting the state of affairs around him and recognizing that stability and surety are not extrinsic but rather intrinsic to oneself. The book goes on a bit about divine providence and the idea of predestination. Christians of the time REALLY liked this book. But so did a lot of other people who were definitely not Christian. It was a smash hit read for well over 1500 years. Alas, Boethius would never get to see the success of his book or go on that book tour to Alexandria as he was executed shortly after he finished the work a year later in 524. (Yet somehow George RR Martin keeps the world in thrall for decades waiting on another shitty book of dragon porn.) But it was Boethius who many scholars credit with the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. A little poet by the name of Dante in Florence, Italy rediscovered the work. He described Boethius as “the blessed soul who exposes the deceptive world to anyone who gives ear to him.” I’m sure that sounds way cooler in Italian.
Misty Watercolor Memories
So how does this jaunt down memory lane help any of us today as a modern Odacer and Theodoric pillage our nation? First, it is worth noting that tyrants do not typically last all that long. Whether the constant stress of being one or other would-be tyrants lurking about trying to kill you, these men did not make a significant historic mark and were usually dead fairly quickly. And that is a prevailing theme of Boethius – The Wheel of Fortune. I’m not talking about the crappy game show of the same name. I mean the ancient concept of fortune being a very cranky lady turning a giant wheel and where it lands for you is what you get. She doesn’t really care what you’ve done or whether you’ve been a good little boy or girl. She just turns the wheel. Maybe today you land on getting your head stuck in a staircase, but perhaps tomorrow you get to finally see that obituary you’ve been waiting to see on the front page for the last decade. Boethius took great solace in that this was just how life was. The turning of the wheel, although seemingly by chance, was divinely ordained. People in the Middle Ages loved the idea of the Wheel of Fortune. It was their version of Goop.
The other lesson of Boethius is what happens when there are too many corrupt idiots running the circus and no one speaks out against it. Luckily, we do have some people speaking out today. Unluckily, most of them are comedians and not the opposing political party. But there is a second prong – action. People can yell, and scream, and post heady bullshit on Instagram all day long and it’s not going to do a damn bit of good if there aren’t also people trying to do something about the injustices. Boethius was unfortunately a one-man band. He had no problem speaking up and doing something, but no one else did.
Alas, Cholesterol
Because what is happening now is not permanent no matter how much they want you to think it is. There are still more of us Romans left than there are rich, oligarchy Ostrogoths. As long as we continue to persist and demand from our leaders those rights they cannot and should not ever take from us – we do not need to suffer the same fate as Rome. This will pass as all things eventually do. And history will not look kindly on those who sought America’s implosion and their collaborators.
No matter how clever the Trump turd factory think it is being, there is always someone more clever waiting in the weeds or a wrench will end up in their cog that they could not have planned for. In the case of the Goths – it was Charlemagne. In the face of King George III, it was George Washington. In the face of Richard Nixon, it was Bob Woodward. And in the face of Donald Trump, there will be someone or something that not even the thinkiest thinktank could ever have predicted. That was perhaps the greatest lesson of Boethius – men in their feeble and petty ways have no control over anything but what goes on in between their two ears. Maybe we won’t get a Charlemagne to wield his mighty sword, but decades of McDonalds for three meals a day is probably just as effective.
