By Kenneth J. Theisen, 9/2/06
Recently I watched the 1960 movie, Spartacus. Spartacus was a
slave who led a three-year slave revolt against the Roman
Empire 21 centuries ago.
The movie is a fictionalized version of the revolt. In it, the two main protagonists are
Spartacus and Crassus, a would-be dictator of Rome. Near the end of the movie there is a
scene that I think relates to today’s present political situation.
Spartacus is asked by a fellow rebel, if the rebellion was
worth it. The rebellion has been defeated, most of the slaves have been
crucified, and Spartacus is in chains awaiting execution. Spartacus responds by saying, “When one man
says, “No, I won’t,” Rome
begins to tremble. We were tens of
thousands. That is the wonder of it.” Moments later, Crassus slaps Spartacus when
he notices a defiant look on Spartacus” face. Spartacus immediately spits in
the face of Crassus. Even though he is chained and facing death, Spartacus will
not bend to the dictator.
Today, our Crassus is George W. Bush, a would-be
dictator. Like the Roman leaders, the
Bush regime is out to create a global empire.
But resistance took place against the Roman Empire
and is now occurring today against the U.S. Empire. And today we have many people who act in the
spirit of Spartacus. There is Cindy
Sheehan who captured the attention of a nation by challenging the president to
explain to her why her son died in the unlawful invasion of Iraq. There is Lt.
Ehren Watada and many other troops who refuse to fight in the Bush regime’s
imperialist wars. There is journalist Josh Wolf who went to federal prison to
protect the free press when he refused to turn over video tapes of a
demonstration to federal prosecutors. And like in Spartacus” era there are
“tens of thousands” of others that make the empire tremble by their resistance
to the Bush regime.
But we need to do more than make the empire tremble. We need to drive the regime that runs this
empire from power. Spartacus” revolt was
ultimately defeated due to the balance of forces that existed 2100 hundred
years ago. Today, on the surface it
appears that the Bush regime has the balance of forces in it favor. The regime holds state power. But in order to hold on to this power and
expand its global empire, it has also unleashed forces that can drive it from
power if we act in concert.
The Bush regime is over-extended. Its efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and Lebanon
have met with fierce resistance. Various polls show that the vast majority of
the people of the world consider the U.S. the greatest danger to peace
in the world. Here at home even Republican politicians are saying, “Bush who?”
as they campaign for election, and various polls show eroding support for the
regime. But despite all this we cannot
just sit back and wait for the regime to collapse or hope that it will somehow
moderate the fascist agenda it has been following for the last six plus years. Speeches by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush this
week have confirmed that the regime will not retreat from it goal of global
empire unless it is forced to do so.
In his speech to the American Legion on August 31, Bush confirmed
this when he stated, “In the coming days, I”ll deliver a series of speeches
describing the nature of our enemy in the war on terror, the insights we have
gained about their aims and ambitions, the successes and setbacks we”ve
experienced and our strategy to prevail in this long war”Every element of
national power” is being used in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st
century.”
This coming October 5th gives us the opportunity
to make the empire tremble and to further lay the basis for driving it from
power. We must operate in the spirit of
Spartacus, one of defiance and optimism.
We must mobilize hundreds of thousands to see that only by taking to the
streets can we awaken the world to the dangers we face if the regime is not
halted and driven from power.
As the call for October 5th states, “The Bush
regime is remaking society very quickly, in a fascist way and for generations
to come. There is not going to be some magical “pendulum swing.” A regime that
steals elections and believes they”re on a “mission from God” will not go
without a fight.” On October 5th
hundreds of thousands of us will say that this regime does not represent us and
that we will not stop until we drive it from power. We can not afford to fail as the alternative
is too horrible to imagine. The alternative of failure is represented in
another quote from the movie Spartacus.
Crassus after staging a coup announces, “The enemies of the state are
known, arrests are being made, the prisons begin to fill.” In the case of the Bush regime, our prisons
of torture are already beginning to fill and the regime conducts spy operations
to discover “additional enemies of the state.”
But I have another favorite quote from the movie that should
be inspirational to those who want to drive the regime from power. Crassus asks Spartacus” wife what she
remembers of Spartacus. She replies, “I
remember that he started out all alone. And yet, on the day he died, thousands
and thousands would have gladly taken his place.” We are not alone. Already thousands are active in the campaign
to oust the regime. But we also need to find
millions of others to, not take our place, but to join us. It is only by mobilizing massive political
opposition that we can expect to succeed.