{"id":27830,"date":"2024-03-04T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=27830"},"modified":"2024-03-03T15:02:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T20:02:15","slug":"waiting-for-the-barbarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/04\/waiting-for-the-barbarians\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting For the Barbarians"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a somewhat famous poem by a somewhat famous poet that went like this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Waiting For the Barbarians<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

-What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?<\/p>\n

The barbarians are due here today.<\/p>\n

-Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?<\/p>\n

Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?<\/p>\n

Because the barbarians are coming today.<\/p>\n

What’s the point of senators making laws now?<\/p>\n

Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.<\/p>\n

-Why did our emperor get up so early,<\/p>\n

and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,<\/p>\n

in state, wearing the crown?<\/p>\n

Because the barbarians are coming today<\/p>\n

and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.<\/p>\n

He’s even got a scroll to give him,<\/p>\n

loaded with titles, with imposing names.<\/p>\n

-Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today<\/p>\n

wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?<\/p>\n

Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,<\/p>\n

rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?<\/p>\n

Why are they carrying elegant canes<\/p>\n

beautifully worked in silver and gold?<\/p>\n

Because the barbarians are coming today<\/p>\n

and things like that dazzle the barbarians.<\/p>\n

-Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual<\/p>\n

to make their speeches, say what they have to say?<\/p>\n

Because the barbarians are coming today<\/p>\n

and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.<\/p>\n

-Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?<\/p>\n

(How serious people’s faces have become.)<\/p>\n

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,<\/p>\n

everyone going home lost in thought?<\/p>\n

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come.<\/p>\n

And some of our men who have just returned from the border say<\/p>\n

there are no barbarians any longer.<\/p>\n

Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?<\/p>\n

Those people were a kind of solution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Constantine P. Cavafy<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cavafy was a Greek living in late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> century Egypt, who was fascinated with the Byzantine past.\u00a0 The history of that worn down vestige of the Roman Empire helped him define his place in the world.\u00a0 After all Egypt where he lived had been an important part of the empire until the Muslim conquests sheard it away.\u00a0 And so, he imagined what it was like to be in Constantinople after all those centuries of Goths, Bulgars, Turks, Arabs and other hordes washing over the lands of their realm and crashing against the impenetrable walls of the city but inexorably wearing away the \u201cempire\u201d until all that was left was the city itself.<\/p>\n

And so, you reach the mindset of the poem.\u00a0 The life of the Byzantines was defined by the idea of just resisting the passage of time, of the changing of epochs of even the disappearance of whole civilizations by shutting the gates and withdrawing inwardly.\u00a0 Eventually you can justify almost any decadence or depravity by shrugging your shoulders and pointing at the chaos outside your walls.<\/p>\n

This familiar end of empire mentality is appropriate for any number of decaying systems.\u00a0 It applies almost equally well for western civilization as a whole, the British Empire, the American Global Empire, American \u201cdemocracy\u201d and in particular the Republican Party.\u00a0 Waiting for the barbarians could be the description of how the \u201cconservatives\u201d have handled their campaign to resist the progressives.\u00a0 It\u2019s a crouching posture of weakness where resistance is merely a reluctant acquiescence to whatever new outrage has broken out under the eyes of the faithful standing on the walls of the city, above the wreckage of the empire.\u00a0 As the last of their possessions are appropriated and converted by the enemy, the nobles and their lackeys look down from their protected heights and wonder how this all came to be.\u00a0 The fact that they long ago gave up leading their followers into battle isn\u2019t even a memory.\u00a0 All they remember is the ancient glories of the \u201cGipper\u201d and how wonderful it was back then to be real men.<\/p>\n

But now a real problem emerges.\u00a0 What if there are no more barbarians.\u00a0 \u201cThose people were a kind of solution.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>They could blame their uselessness on their enemy\u2019s strength.\u00a0 <\/strong>What if, heaven forbid, Donald Trump wins the election and they have to rule?\u00a0 How could they pretend to be beautiful losers?\u00a0 Well, they\u2019ve come up with the answer.\u00a0 Now Donald Trump and the MAGA conservatives becomes the barbarians and they\u2019ll cooperate with the Democrats to destroy them so that things can go back to normal.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the situation we may be faced with.\u00a0 Joe Biden is so incompetent and despicable that even Democrats have begun to mock him.\u00a0 The Democrat party is beginning to sound desperate to find a convenient way to ditch him and Kamala Harris together.\u00a0 And, of course, the bait and switch at or after the convention seems like the obvious ploy.\u00a0 But what if they bungle this whole election and Trump wins so convincingly that even these master cheats can\u2019t make it happen?\u00a0 What then?<\/p>\n

My belief is that the Republicans will sabotage the Trump administration just as they did during his first term.\u00a0 They will cooperate with the Deep State and throw away the chance at reform.\u00a0 They will see the Democrats as their natural masters and cripple all attempts at reform.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what my instincts tell me.\u00a0 But there is always the chance that Trump will find a way to get things done.\u00a0 It\u2019s not likely or even explicable.\u00a0 How would he get things done without the Congress?\u00a0 How would he break the power of the Justice Department?\u00a0 To carry this already overtaxed metaphor to its utter absurd conclusion Trump would have to be the founder of a new empire and re-order the old world into something new and dynamic.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s a different era.\u00a0 Ends of empires only go in one direction.\u00a0 So, we won\u2019t be on the walls but we\u2019ll get a ringside seat to the next act in this drama.\u00a0 \u201cThose people were a kind of solution.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a somewhat famous poem by a somewhat famous poet that went like this:   Waiting For the Barbarians -What are we waiting for,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1102,4443,148,2927],"class_list":["post-27830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-conservative-inc","tag-constantine-cavafy","tag-rinos","tag-uniparty"],"yoast_head":"\nWaiting For the Barbarians - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/04\/waiting-for-the-barbarians\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Waiting For the Barbarians - 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