History Western Civilization, Rome and Cyclical History

[S'task]

This may sound like a strange question, but in the build up to the social wars and the like, does Ancient Rome have a "boomer" generation? Because one quibble I have with the predictions here is that I'm not sure if any civilisation has had a generation fuck up as spectacularly as the boomers before. They are the "apres moi, le deluge" generation after all, so could that have snarled things up cycle wise?

Except as I've pointed out again and again, it is not the Boomers who "fucked up" our civilization, and the areas they did arguably "fuck up" wasn't due to their own decisions and knowledge but rather because they were set up to fail by the preceding generations.

The collapse of the Christian Church in the west? That was set up when the Fundamentalists were driven out of Academia by the Modernists across Western Academia and the rise of Liberal Theology. You know when that happened? It began in the late 19th century and concluded by the 1920s. The Sexual Revolution? The underlying "science" behind that was developed by a man born in the late 19th century and perpetuated to the Boomer's parents and the Boomer's education. Who set up the international institutions that have been used to destroy national sovereignty and identity? Again, not the Boomers, but the generations prior to them.

The Boomers were set up to fail, they were educated wrongly about religion and humanity. Blank-slate theory of human development wasn't invented by them, but they were taught it as if it were fact. The massive entitlement state was set up before them, and expanded on the back of their labor.

The Generations that failed was not the Boomers, they inherited a system designed to fail and destroy western civilization, a system constructed by the prior generations who were so traumatized by WW2 they learned the wrong lessons from it and who had been highly subverted by an ideological enemy that sought to destroy the West from its foundations up. People really don't get how deep and how influential the Soviet psyops of the 1950s and 60s were... and remember, the Boomers were CHILDREN and TEENS in those years, they were not the ones allowing infiltration, that allowed academia to be infiltrated, by the time they were in college the infiltration was already well underway and they had no idea about it because the media was corrupted and an agent of anti-western forces much earlier than people seem to think.

This is one of those things that I do think sets our time apart from Rome in that while Rome had foreign adversarial Empires, they did not truly have an IDEOLOGICAL enemy that took active measures to destroy their civilizational foundations. Mass media I think also makes things different in that ideas and news spread so much faster and communication is so much easier both for ill and potentially for good.

 

[Bacle]

So I have a question that I think maybe some here might be able to expand upon; what of the pre-Burckle Crater Event (~5000 years ago) cycle was likely left for the surviving civs to reincorporate into their cultures?

 

[Skallagrim]

So I have a question that I think maybe some here might be able to expand upon; what of the pre-Burckle Crater Event (~5000 years ago) cycle was likely left for the surviving civs to reincorporate into their cultures?

Evidently a lot, since we don't really see a major interruption in cultural continuity in the established civilisational heartlands. At least... those we know about. If, hypothetically, a generally coastal civilisation existed in Somalia or Pakistan or Southern India or whatnot -- only to be hit by a giant tsunami like that...

We'd never even know they were there at all.

This is the kind of thing where everybody that we know about managed to avoid the brunt of it, and if there was anybody we don't know about, that's because the answer is: "there was likely nothing left of their culture".

The big question mark for me is Mesopotamia, in this narrative. I like OzGeography (I hadn't watched this documentary, but I'd watched his one on a hypothetical Mediterranean impact / Sahara flood), but I wonder if he doesn't see a few too many false positives sometimes. The thing is, we know for a fact that there was a big Mespotamian flood around 2900 BC... but it was a river flood. Definitely a freshwater thing, not an oceanic saltwater flood.

This fits the expectation of the Burckle impact leading to massive rainfall, which really would flood Mesopomia like nothing seen before. So that all checks out, and fits with the flood narratives. But a big tsunami, even a weakened one of 'only' 30-50 meters or so tall, would have erased Mesopotamia. And that didn't happen. There may have been a minor tsunami (say more like 3-5 meters or something), followed by the massive rain-flooding. That would do major damage and cause flood myths to get carved into the popular consciousness for sure, while still allowing Mesopotamian civilisation to rebuild on relatively short notice, without a massive discontinuity in cultural history.

And we don't see that kind of discontinuity. There is evidence of whole settlements getting wiped out, but not of the whole civilisation getting erased and things being rebuilt from scratch.

Because of this, I'm pretty sure that his interpretation of the 'chevrons' all over Mesopotamia must be false positive. [*] Anything that could cause that (if they were tsunami-created chevrons, that is) would have erased any and all trace of civilisation from the region. And in reality, Mesopotamian civilisation (in urbanised form) emerged around 5000 BC, clearly saw bad flooding round 2900 BC, but still continued on afterwards (to the point that things seem to have been hunky-dory again just a few generations later).

So.... yeah. If we assume that OzGeography is over-estimating things in some places (at least Mesopotamia), and that Mesopotamia at most got a less serious tsunami & mainly suffered from river flooding due to subsequent heavy rains... then things begin to fit into a coherent picture.

Another uncertainty is presented by the Indus Valley civilisation, which would basically be right in the path of the tsunami, but which was also essentially uninterrupted. This might be explained by the fact that they were centred more inland, and they only expanded into the coastal regions... well, as of 2900 BC or so. Expanded rapidly, too. Which might potentially suggest that the region had become... unoccupied. The issue is that the Indus Valley civilisation still existed in the Indus flood plain, and the tsunami postulated by OzGeography would surely have reached them, too.

I think the tsunami must either have been less powerful than he suggests to begin with, or (more probably) lost 'power' faster than he thinks, when crashing overland (and after having been 're-bounded' before surging into the Persian Gulf).

Other civilisations we know of (Egypt, Knossos, early Levantine...) didn't really face the Indian Ocean, while Elam was in the same situation as Mesopotamia. So again, the disruptive effect on their culture would be massive river-flooding due to heavy rains lasting for weeks.

So, all in all, as far as the cultures that we know about are concerned, the answer seems to be that they mostly made it out in surprisingly great shape, with basically one "flood generation" being greatly affected, but the overall culture making it through without massive disruptions.

When this thing hit, you either lived in a place where enough people kept their feet dry as to make rebuilding fairly easy work... or you lived in a place where nobody made it out at all. And all the stories we have come, of course, from the former category. If this thing had hit the Eastern Med instead, maybe some people from India and East Africa would be debating whether any hypothetical ancient civilisation ever existed in Europe, North Africa or Western Asia, before getting utterly erased 5000 years ago.

By the grace of God, we are here instead. To wonder.



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[*] It's also conceivable that they are chevrons, but ones caused by a different, larger and even more ancient tsunami. One that occurred prior to the emergence of urbanism, thus explaining why it didn't disrupt civilisation in the region.

 

[Bacle]

Evidently a lot, since we don't really see a major interruption in cultural continuity in the established civilisational heartlands. At least... those we know about. If, hypothetically, a generally coastal civilisation existed in Somalia or Pakistan or Southern India or whatnot -- only to be hit by a giant tsunami like that...

We'd never even know they were there at all.

This is the kind of thing where everybody that we know about managed to avoid the brunt of it, and if there was anybody we don't know about, that's because the answer is: "there was likely nothing left of their culture".

The big question mark for me is Mesopotamia, in this narrative. I like OzGeography (I hadn't watched this documentary, but I'd watched his one on a hypothetical Mediterranean impact / Sahara flood), but I wonder if he doesn't see a few too many false positives sometimes. The thing is, we know for a fact that there was a big Mespotamian flood around 2900 BC... but it was a river flood. Definitely a freshwater thing, not an oceanic saltwater flood.

This fits the expectation of the Burckle impact leading to massive rainfall, which really would flood Mesopomia like nothing seen before. So that all checks out, and fits with the flood narratives. But a big tsunami, even a weakened one of 'only' 30-50 meters or so tall, would have erased Mesopotamia. And that didn't happen. There may have been a minor tsunami (say more like 3-5 meters or something), followed by the massive rain-flooding. That would do major damage and cause flood myths to get carved into the popular consciousness for sure, while still allowing Mesopotamian civilisation to rebuild on relatively short notice, without a massive discontinuity in cultural history.

And we don't see that kind of discontinuity. There is evidence of whole settlements getting wiped out, but not of the whole civilisation getting erased and things being rebuilt from scratch.

Because of this, I'm pretty sure that his interpretation of the 'chevrons' all over Mesopotamia must be false positive. [*] Anything that could cause that (if they were tsunami-created chevrons, that is) would have erased any and all trace of civilisation from the region. And in reality, Mesopotamian civilisation (in urbanised form) emerged around 5000 BC, clearly saw bad flooding round 2900 BC, but still continued on afterwards (to the point that things seem to have been hunky-dory again just a few generations later).

So.... yeah. If we assume that OzGeography is over-estimating things in some places (at least Mesopotamia), and that Mesopotamia at most got a less serious tsunami & mainly suffered from river flooding due to subsequent heavy rains... then things begin to fit into a coherent picture.

Another uncertainty is presented by the Indus Valley civilisation, which would basically be right in the path of the tsunami, but which was also essentially uninterrupted. This might be explained by the fact that they were centred more inland, and they only expanded into the coastal regions... well, as of 2900 BC or so. Expanded rapidly, too. Which might potentially suggest that the region had become... unoccupied. The issue is that the Indus Valley civilisation still existed in the Indus flood plain, and the tsunami postulated by OzGeography would surely have reached them, too.

I think the tsunami must either have been less powerful than he suggests to begin with, or (more probably) lost 'power' faster than he thinks, when crashing overland (and after having been 're-bounded' before surging into the Persian Gulf).

Other civilisations we know of (Egypt, Knossos, early Levantine...) didn't really face the Indian Ocean, while Elam was in the same situation as Mesopotamia. So again, the disruptive effect on their culture would be massive river-flooding due to heavy rains lasting for weeks.

So, all in all, as far as the cultures that we know about are concerned, the answer seems to be that they mostly made it out in surprisingly great shape, with basically one "flood generation" being greatly affected, but the overall culture making it through without massive disruptions.

When this thing hit, you either lived in a place where enough people kept their feet dry as to make rebuilding fairly easy work... or you lived in a place where nobody made it out at all. And all the stories we have come, of course, from the former category. If this thing had hit the Eastern Med instead, maybe some people from India and East Africa would be debating whether any hypothetical ancient civilisation ever existed in Europe, North Africa or Western Asia, before getting utterly erased 5000 years ago.

By the grace of God, we are here instead. To wonder.



-----------------------------------



[*] It's also conceivable that they are chevrons, but ones caused by a different, larger and even more ancient tsunami. One that occurred prior to the emergence of urbanism, thus explaining why it didn't disrupt civilisation in the region.

The chevron's in the Arabian Peninsula are mostly confined to Yemen and Oman, so I think the mountains at that end of the peninsula likely shielded most of Mesopotamia, with only the Persian Gulf and Red Sea getting the big wave, and that might have lost power in the shallower waters/narrow chokepoints at the south end of both bodies of water.

And yes, I expect the flood myths likely come more from river floods during the rainout event; could have been weeks/few months worth of torrential downpours across a lot of the world.

The Indus Valley situation is likely they were far enough inland that they only got the rains.

I do think the Burckle Crater event also might be why there is all that water erosion in the Sphinx Enclosure.

 

[Bacle]

@Skallagrim how badly would the Nile have likely flooded during the rainout event, since it didn't face the tsunami itself?

There are two other rainout centers which suggest smaller bits of the comet hit out in the Pacific without hitting the bottom/mantle the way Burckle did.

So I am wondering which Chinese flood myth would correlate to that time period?

I would guess Natives in the America's would have some flood myth to go with it, but they have quite the alarming number of separate flood myths, so isolating it is not as easy due to differences in time-telling for most of native history.

 

[Skallagrim]

@Skallagrim how badly would the Nile have likely flooded during the rainout event, since it didn't face the tsunami itself?

Considering the extent of the Nile watershed, there would surely be major flooding. If I understand it correctly (although I'm no expert) the rainout is caused by vapourised water, which reaches high altitudes, before condensation turns it into torrential rains. The vapour could easily cross mountain ranges, so it would be carried over East Africa, and the Nile basin would be directly affected. If the wind patterns indicated in the documentary are accurate, the water would be carried over Kenya, in the direction of the Nile's basin.

There are two other rainout centers which suggest smaller bits of the comet hit out in the Pacific without hitting the bottom/mantle the way Burckle did.

So I am wondering which Chinese flood myth would correlate to that time period?

The most famous Chinese flood myth is almost certainly of more recent origin. Specifically, the 'Great Flood' may be confidently identified with the Jishi Gorge outburst flood that occurred around 1900 BC. Since the Great Flood is said to have caused problems for multiple generations, ultimately leading to the foundation of the semi-mythical Xia dynasty, the dating here also confirms the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project's identification of the Xia with the materially attested Erlitou culture. (The Great Flood was historically dated using the traditional foundational dates for the Xia; putting the Great Flood around 2300 BC. That dating is no longer considered credible, and regardless, it's still more recent than the Burckle impact.)

But there are older flood narratives in China. Particularly, there is the one involving the mythical figure (sometimes goddess, sometimes post-diluvian ur-mother of all mankind) Nuwa / Nu Wa.

Reading up on it, I find that Bruce Masse (one of the big proponents of the Burckle Impact model) points to this particular myth as the likely Chinese "cultural memory" of the event. I think that's probably correct. This particular myth was told down the ages, in various forms, by dozens of peoples living in what is now China. Many versions reference astronomical events, including references to a planetary alignment that would have occurred on May 10th, 2807 BC. He points out that all over the world, various flood myths link it to that celestial event. Which suggests that massive floods occurred around that time, and were associated with the celestial "omen". These myths are, more than incidentally, also linked to sories of the sun getting blotted out-- possibly by the massive clouds?

Anyway, the various Nuwa myths (and their variants) all involve problems with either the water god (Gonggong) or the thunder god (Leigong) causing cataclysmic damage. When cast as a goddess, Nuwa fixes this damage after a great deluge has been caused. When cast as a mortal, she marries her brother after a great deluge, and they repopulate the world.

This latter motif is one of the universal flood motifs. It suggests massive loss of life, whereafter the few survivors of a society repopulated it afterwards; but because there were so few of them left, there as surely structural inbreeding for a while afterwards. The myth is typically cast in a justifying way, "the gods made us do this, so it's not wrong in this case". Especially if widespread, this motif implies truly widespread devastation, with great loss of life.

(Incidentally, the aforementioned Great Flood of China, which was more recent, follows another universal motif: that of the hero who stops the flood. That motif is almost always indicative of more localised river-floods, and the hero-figure represents some kind of dam-building effort that was done to bring things back under control. The Great Flood and Yu the Great fit that to a tee.)

The remaining motifs are "the ark-builder who is spared" and "the sinful city that is drowned by the gods". Of these, the "ark-builder" motif fits into the scenario of truly widespread devastation, while the "sinful city" motif fits with a sudden local cataclysm, i.e. a volcano or a regional tidal wave (such as one caused by an underwater slide). The reason for this is that the "sinful city" myth tends to be a narrative told by people who remember the cataclysm befalling the "sinful city", but who weren't affected themselves. Had the disaster been more "global", the story would be about them and their woes. If it's only about "those other guys over yonder" meeting some great disaster, then the ones telling the tale were close enough to know about it, but far enough away from it to be mostly or entirely unaffected.

And indeed, the myths identified with the global disaster ~5000 years ago aren't of the "sinful city" type -- nor of the "flood-stopping hero" type -- but of the (expected) "ark-builder" and "incestuous repopulation of the world" types.




As an aside: for all that everybody tends to talk about Atlantis, the Greeks actually have their own ark narrative, too! It's completely unrelated to the Atlantis story: it's the myth of Deukalion, who is basically the Greek Noah. This is explicitly set in the most archaic times, and involves nine days and nine nights of unceasing rain. So if we take Bruce Masse to be correct, then that's surely the (proto-)Greek cultural recollection of the Burckle event.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

As an aside: for all that everybody tends to talk about Atlantis, the Greeks actually have their own ark narrative, too! It's completely unrelated to the Atlantis story: it's the myth of Deukalion, who is basically the Greek Noah. This is explicitly set in the most archaic times, and involves nine days and nine nights of unceasing rain. So if we take Bruce Masse to be correct, then that's surely the (proto-)Greek cultural recollection of the Burckle event.

Coming to think of the Greeks, or more specifically their northern ancestors and influence, it occurs to me that the Indo-European Horse Lords don't quite have the same sort of emphasis on a flood myth as others do. Could that be down to our forefathers living out on the Steppe and thus being shielded from the worst of such an event?

Whilst European myths ended up having flood stories, and plenty of them, could that also be the result of our ancestors picking those stories up as they swept down upon the older, more exposed to the seas, Neolithic world?

 

[ATP]

Coming to think of the Greeks, or more specifically their northern ancestors and influence, it occurs to me that the Indo-European Horse Lords don't quite have the same sort of emphasis on a flood myth as others do. Could that be down to our forefathers living out on the Steppe and thus being shielded from the worst of such an event?

Whilst European myths ended up having flood stories, and plenty of them, could that also be the result of our ancestors picking those stories up as they swept down upon the older, more exposed to the seas, Neolithic world?

I am not historian,but i belive that Europe was settled in 3 waves -
1.hunter gatherers about 45.000 BC
2.settled people about 9000 BC
3.Horse nomads about 3000BC /with bronze/

So, i think that last wave come after all major catastophes,and only take part of myths existing among older people.

 

[Skallagrim]

Coming to think of the Greeks, or more specifically their northern ancestors and influence, it occurs to me that the Indo-European Horse Lords don't quite have the same sort of emphasis on a flood myth as others do. Could that be down to our forefathers living out on the Steppe and thus being shielded from the worst of such an event?

Whilst European myths ended up having flood stories, and plenty of them, could that also be the result of our ancestors picking those stories up as they swept down upon the older, more exposed to the seas, Neolithic world?

It stands to reason that in an environment that would be least affected by massive deluge events -- such as the inland Eurasian steppes -- the whole concept will be less prominent in the cultural consciousness. All the more so when we're talking about semi-nomadic horseriders, who just have much less in the way of cities/towns to lose in a given disaster.

In part, the Indo-Europeans did have reason to start telling their own flood stories later on, based on their own experience. We see this, for instance, in various Celtic tales. The Isles of Scilly were -- famously -- one single island, into the Middle Ages. The story of its drowning, and of the ghostly bells of a sunken church still heard by fishermen, was widely rejected as fable. Until relatively recently, when diving technology allowed for investigation ...

Lo and behold, the sunken town was there. Church and all. Right in the middle of what had, after all, indeed been one single island. I have no comment on the stories of fishermen hearing the bells from beneath the waves, but that church was there, and the heart of that ancient island surely was swallowed by the sea. The myth was not a myth at all, but a memory of a true event. One that the Indo-European Celtic inhabitants of the region experienced themselves.

But then again... some of the flood myths of Britain are evidently older. Even older than the Middle Ages. Conceivably older than the Indo-Europeans. They speak of an entire world drowning, of the end of an age. So I'm not ruling out a cultural memory of the post-glacial flux, which ultimately led to a great drowning, and Britain becoming insular. (Where once, you could walk there, and men did. The first inhabitants of Britain didn't have to sail there.) The Indo-Europeans could have absorbed those tales -- those memories of old? -- into their own cultural narratives, as they mixed with and absorbed the peoples with whom the tales originated.

 

[S'task]

I have no comment on the stories of fishermen hearing the bells from beneath the waves,

Assuming a bell with a standard design and that it remained suspended, it's completely feasible that a current or tide could push the bell and end up having the clapper strike the bell with sufficient force to ring it. Water is a better medium for sound to travel through so I find the idea that fishermen would occasionally hear the bell ringing quite plausible and eventually once the supports holding the bell up, which were usually made of wood, rotted through and the bell fell, well, people would stop hearing it.

 

[Cherico]

It stands to reason that in an environment that would be least affected by massive deluge events -- such as the inland Eurasian steppes -- the whole concept will be less prominent in the cultural consciousness. All the more so when we're talking about semi-nomadic horseriders, who just have much less in the way of cities/towns to lose in a given disaster.

In part, the Indo-Europeans did have reason to start telling their own flood stories later on, based on their own experience. We see this, for instance, in various Celtic tales. The Isles of Scilly were -- famously -- one single island, into the Middle Ages. The story of its drowning, and of the ghostly bells of a sunken church still heard by fishermen, was widely rejected as fable. Until relatively recently, when diving technology allowed for investigation ...

Lo and behold, the sunken town was there. Church and all. Right in the middle of what had, after all, indeed been one single island. I have no comment on the stories of fishermen hearing the bells from beneath the waves, but that church was there, and the heart of that ancient island surely was swallowed by the sea. The myth was not a myth at all, but a memory of a true event. One that the Indo-European Celtic inhabitants of the region experienced themselves.

But then again... some of the flood myths of Britain are evidently older. Even older than the Middle Ages. Conceivably older than the Indo-Europeans. They speak of an entire world drowning, of the end of an age. So I'm not ruling out a cultural memory of the post-glacial flux, which ultimately led to a great drowning, and Britain becoming insular. (Where once, you could walk there, and men did. The first inhabitants of Britain didn't have to sail there.) The Indo-Europeans could have absorbed those tales -- those memories of old? -- into their own cultural narratives, as they mixed with and absorbed the peoples with whom the tales originated.

 

[Bacle]

It stands to reason that in an environment that would be least affected by massive deluge events -- such as the inland Eurasian steppes -- the whole concept will be less prominent in the cultural consciousness. All the more so when we're talking about semi-nomadic horseriders, who just have much less in the way of cities/towns to lose in a given disaster.

In part, the Indo-Europeans did have reason to start telling their own flood stories later on, based on their own experience. We see this, for instance, in various Celtic tales. The Isles of Scilly were -- famously -- one single island, into the Middle Ages. The story of its drowning, and of the ghostly bells of a sunken church still heard by fishermen, was widely rejected as fable. Until relatively recently, when diving technology allowed for investigation ...

Lo and behold, the sunken town was there. Church and all. Right in the middle of what had, after all, indeed been one single island. I have no comment on the stories of fishermen hearing the bells from beneath the waves, but that church was there, and the heart of that ancient island surely was swallowed by the sea. The myth was not a myth at all, but a memory of a true event. One that the Indo-European Celtic inhabitants of the region experienced themselves.

But then again... some of the flood myths of Britain are evidently older. Even older than the Middle Ages. Conceivably older than the Indo-Europeans. They speak of an entire world drowning, of the end of an age. So I'm not ruling out a cultural memory of the post-glacial flux, which ultimately led to a great drowning, and Britain becoming insular. (Where once, you could walk there, and men did. The first inhabitants of Britain didn't have to sail there.) The Indo-Europeans could have absorbed those tales -- those memories of old? -- into their own cultural narratives, as they mixed with and absorbed the peoples with whom the tales originated.

The flooding of Doggerland in pre-history is likely part of the European flood myths, and was more localized to the region than other mass flooding events.

The sea had been rising a bit before that landslide in Norway, so the higher points of Doggerland were surrounded by tidal marshes close to what the Dutch have dealt with/tamed, then the massive tsunami swept down from the north and eroded the great chalk embankment/ridge that we see a remnant of at the Cliffs of Dover which had been what kept what would become England attached to what would become France.

This is earlier than the Burckle flood events, so would be in the even older stories.

 

[Bacle]

Not just Rome had problems with lead poisoning in the past, it turns out.

Explains a lot about Meso-American cultures if they were routinely exposed to lead via gold and copper metalworking.

 

[Cherico]

Not just Rome had problems with lead poisoning in the past, it turns out.

Explains a lot about Meso-American cultures if they were routinely exposed to lead via gold and copper metalworking.

Leads often found co located with a lot of other useful materials and its relatively easy to work and if you don't know its toxic then it seems like as good material as any.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

So...

Tiberius Gracchus has crawled out of the River Tiber.

And he's pissed.

 

[Skallagrim]

So...

Tiberius Gracchus has crawled out of the River Tiber.

And he's pissed.

Trump has already done something not seen before by becoming his own more vengeful second coming. I said it before, but if he pulls it off -- in the process pulling the republic out of the icy depths as well -- he'll be one of the most important men in history.

I'm still worried about the danger to his life. Remember, the new Congressmen are sworn in on the 3rd of January; the President on the 20th. If the GOP holds the House, that's added security. But if the Democrats take it -- especially if they rush the nomination of their guy as Speaker -- it might be best to not have Trump and Vance together in public ever again. Because then, if they take out both of them, they can usher Hakeem Jeffries into the Oval Office.

 

[Cherico]

Trump has already done something not seen before by becoming his own more vengeful second coming. I said it before, but if he pulls it off -- in the process pulling the republic out of the icy depths as well -- he'll be one of the most important men in history.

I'm still worried about the danger to his life. Remember, the new Congressmen are sworn in on the 3rd of January; the President on the 20th. If the GOP holds the House, that's added security. But if the Democrats take it -- especially if they rush the nomination of their guy as Speaker -- it might be best to not have Trump and Vance together in public ever again. Because then, if they take out both of them, they can usher Hakeem Jeffries into the Oval Office.

Honestly at this point he's earned his position in the history books.

Also it really does suck to live through historical events.

 

[ATP]

Trump has already done something not seen before by becoming his own more vengeful second coming. I said it before, but if he pulls it off -- in the process pulling the republic out of the icy depths as well -- he'll be one of the most important men in history.

I'm still worried about the danger to his life. Remember, the new Congressmen are sworn in on the 3rd of January; the President on the 20th. If the GOP holds the House, that's added security. But if the Democrats take it -- especially if they rush the nomination of their guy as Speaker -- it might be best to not have Trump and Vance together in public ever again. Because then, if they take out both of them, they can usher Hakeem Jeffries into the Oval Office.

Yes,they would do so,if they could.And blame on Iran or somebody else.
I hope,that Trump have good private security,who never served in Blackrock....

 

[SoliFortissimi]

So...

Tiberius Gracchus has crawled out of the River Tiber.

And he's pissed.

Then he'll just be killed again, so perhaps you should find a better analogy?

Winston Churchill is what I'd go with. The maverick Conservative politician fighting his way back into power at a very advanced age after the voters grow sick of the very Leftists that they replaced him with.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

In the past we have spoken of the other high cultures that have existed alongside us down the centuries, one of which was that of the Persians so derailed by Alexander and then later smothered by Islam. Some would say modern Iran might have links to the Ancient Persians but it isn’t quite the same thing: a descendent more than anything else.

I myself have agreed with that at times, but on occasion I question myself. Because even under the dominion of Islam (with the exception of the modern day), Persia has always been a touch different from its neighbours on quite a profound level.

Case in point, Islam crushed or obliterated everything it came across…yet the eternal flame of Ahura Mazda still burns and the tomb of Cyrus is left in peace. After the end of the Islamic Golden Age/Mongol Invasions, it is the Persians that are still doing things alongside the rising Turks. The method of Iranian rule in India with the Mughal Empire (one of the richest powers on Earth for the time) is far more reminiscent of a Shahanshah than an Arabic Caliph or Sultan (at least until Aurangzeb buggers everything up).

That dynamism and perhaps even a touch of no nonsense practicality was still there right up to the Iranian Revolution, and even still present with how many Iranians chafe and grumble under the Ayatollah.

TL;DR, Persia didn’t truly die, it just caught the mother of all cultural flus in Islam.