notes on Murphy's chapter 1, research and journal for weeks 4--6

[o]

These notes are designed to help students understand the first
chapter’s focus on the so-called Washington mindset, of Murphy’s six
points, perhaps the most foreign to students in Southern California,
the west, or anywhere outside the Beltway. The classroom section has
been mainly discussing essay 1 and only began reading Shaw's Caesar
and Cleopatra on 9/20. On 9/27, 10/4, and 10/11, we’ll discuss these
ideas on Murphy’s chapter 1, read more of Shaw’s Caesar and
Cleopatra, and practice/prepare for essay 2.

These are plenty more than enough journal ideas for the entire
semester's requirement, but no one’s expected to write about all or
even most of them. Select the ideas below most helpful in preparing
essay 2 to use for journal work over the next few weeks. Most of these
links work now. Some of those that don’t are broken by the group
message board (and might be pasted back together), and some will be
corrected later.

"The pretense of Western unity was abandoned. Europe would now become
a continent of barbarian kingdoms — in embryo, the Europe of nation-
states that exists today" (Murphy, 25).

The class has already and will continue both to refer to history and
to assure students no particular background is necessary for this
course. While Murphy frequently refers to republican and imperial
Rome. The class briefly discussed a comparison to to ancient Greece's
uniting against Persia before fighting amongst themselves in the
Pelopenesian Wars. When reading Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, we also
discussed Egypt and its historical relation to Rome. Some students may
be able to usefully evaluate other historical periods. Those familiar
with the history of this part of the world might compare the times of
the Shoshone and Chumash, to Spanish missions and presidios, through
Mexican ranchos, and US California. Here are links to a couple local
views:
Beckman, T. 1997. Historical sketch of the California Indians of the
Mojave Desert. Mojave Desert.
http://mojavedesert.net/california-indian-history/index.html

Megowan, M. History of the South Bay of Los Angeles. Megowan Real
Estate.
http://www.maureenmegowan.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=1471578&NF=1

"Washington resembles Rome in many ways. The physical similarities are
visible to anyone. The similarities of spirit are more salient. …The
Jefferson Memorial, off on the Potomac River's edge, is a diminutive
version of the Pantheon. Union Station, just below the Capitol, was
inspired by the Baths of Diocletian. The Washington Monument recalls
the obelisks brought to Rome after the conquest of Egypt. Colonnaded
government buildings stretch for miles" (Murphy, 26—27).

MacDonald, D. 2005. Virtual tour of Washington DC.
http://orchard.sbschools.net/library/links/washington/

Goddard Space Flight Center. 2001. Pan around Washington DC Mall.
NASA.
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002000/a002092/a002092.mpg

Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. 2008. RomeReborn.
Unviersity of Virginia.
http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/

AboutRoma. 2008. Monuments of Rome.
http://www.aboutroma.com/monuments-rome.html

"I doubt I'm the only person who has trod, with lofty step, the
sculpted gardens of the Capitol and been seized with a vision of how
the city below might appear as a ruin. The Washington Monument —
imagine it a millennium hence, a chipped and mottled spire, trussed
with rusting braces. The stern pile of the Archives building, the Tomb
of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, the gothic National Cathedral on
its distant hilltop, the turreted Smithsonian Castle on the Mall —
they somehow invite you to see them as derelicts, rendered into darkly
impish engravings by the hand of some future Piranesi. What calamity
could bring the capital to this condition? Earthquake? Pestilence?
Pride? The end of air conditioning?" (Murphy, 27).

Searching online for the expressions decline and fall and ruins yields
various ideas about the past, present, and future. There is a vide
game called Fallout set in the ruins of Washington DC, and the
following site describes several films with aspects related to the
ideas about the end of human civilization in general at the end of
Planet of the Apes.

Schaffner, F., dir. 1968. Planet of the Apes. 3-minute clip from
ending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmw6Jne0tAQ

Planet of the Apes ending. TV Tropes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfTheApesEnding

Here’s a page of selections from Piranesi’s Views of Rome, a
frequently referenced source of images of ancient Roman structures in
ruin.
Philadelphia Print Shop, Inc. 2008, Jun 17. Piranesi architectural
prints: prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
http://www.philaprintshop.com/piranesi.html

"'Non omnis moriar' ('I shall not wholly die'), the Roman poet Horace
proclaimed in one of his most famous odes. He was referring to his
work, but he could just as well have been referring to the legacy of
his civilization”

If you were to list the five greatest achievements of the USA, what
would they be? What five aspects of our country's history do you
believe will be most remembered/mistaken (truly/falsely) in the
future?

The ode by Horace follows below. As Murphy notes, the poem does
discuss one poet's ideas on how he will be remembered after death, but
much of it can be read as a voice of Rome. If you imagine a symbol of
the USA speaking as a poem, how might our country be portrayed? How
well does the poem on the Statue of Liberty reflect your ideas about
our country? See The new colossus by Emma Lazarus below Horace's ode.

Odes, Bk III, xxx
Exegi monumentum aere perennius,
regalique situ pyramidum altius,
quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
possit diruere aut innumerabilis
annorum series et fuga temporum.
Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
vitabit Libitinam. Usque ego postera
crescam laude recens. Dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex.
dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus
et qua pauper aquae daunus agrestium
regnavit populorum ex humili potens,
princeps Aoelium carmen ad Italos
deduxisse modos. Sume superbiam
quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica
lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.

I have created a monument more lasting than bronze,
And higher than the royal site of the pyramids,
Which neither harsh rains nor the wild North wind
Can erode, nor the countless succession of years
And the flight of the seasons.
I will not entirely die! and a large part of me will avoid the grave.
Constantly renewed, I will grow in the eyes of posterity,
So long as the Pontifex and the solemn Vestal visit the Capitoline.
Where the river Aufidus roars, and where Daunus in the dry summers,
ruled his rural folk,
I, risen to greatness from humble beginnings, will be renowned
As the first to adapt the Aoelian verses to Italian meters.
Take the well-deserved pride, Melpomene,
And freely grant me the wreath of Apollo for my crown.
Horace.
http://home.golden.net/~eloker/horace.htm

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
by Emma Lazarus
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/LIBERTY/lazaruspoem.html

"Rome began as a farming settlement on hilly portions of the eastern
bank of the Tiber River. Tradition puts its founding at 753 B.C., and
the Romans calculated the passage of years ab urbe condita — "from the
founding of the city." The legendary origins of the Roman people go
back even further, to the Trojan hero Aeneas, who with family and
friends made his way to Italy after the fall of Troy" (Murphy, 28).

The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas' journey away from Troy (he was
one of the few Trojans who survived). The story is comparable to the
more familiar Odyssey and other epics which serve as heroic literary
role models for cultures. Who are our contemporary epic heroes? What
are our current ideas on the heroes of our culture who help establish
our way of life and offer us inspiration today? What do a culture's
epics say about its strengths and challenges?
Aeneid summaries from a university classics course
http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/epic/aeneidsum.html

"With the conclusion of the Third Punic War against its great rival,
Carthage, in northern Africa, in 146 B.C., Rome effectively controlled
the Mediterranean world. It continued to grow in all directions,
impelled by its military prowess, its administrative genius, and its
compulsive sense of destiny." (Murphy, 29).

The US has been involved in many wars, from the time of the
Revolutionary War with England on. Which of the country's wars do you
think of as those which established the US as a major agent in global
politics? In class, we discussed common symbols of Rome in the
following fashion: close your eyes and imagine the word Rome and see
what image comes to mind. Notes above discussed the Statue of Liberty
as a symbol of the US. There are many official symbols for our country
emblazoned on our money, our national monuments, and recorded in our
pledge, our anthem, our oaths of allegiance. Which symbols of the US
most represent what the country means to you and why? How closely are
your selected symbols associated with war?

A timeline of the Punic wars
http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/853

Try a role-playing game—choose to command Rome or Carthage
http://www.pchs1.com/ecourses/punicwar/punicwar.htm

"The republic came to a de facto end in 31 B.C., after a century of
social turmoil, constitutional crisis, and civil war. Vast Roman
armies had thrown themselves against one another across the
Mediterranean world. Emerging supreme from the carnage was Octavian,
Julius Caesar's grandnephew, who in proto-Orwellian fashion
symbolically "restored" the republic while in fact inaugurating the
principate, a regime of one-person rule. The outward forms of
republican government would be preserved in various ways right to the
very end, a progressively meaningless nod to the past, but whatever
the disavowals, Rome was now an imperial state." (Murphy, 29).

Extensive notes and links from a college course
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/romanpages.html

An essay on the US and its future.
Johnson, C. 2007, Jan. Republic or empire. Harper's Magazine.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/01/0081346

"All told, decline-of-Rome explanations fall into two broad
categories: either the empire killed itself (internal weaknesses) or
it was killed by something else (external factors). Historians tilt
one way or the other, but they also tend to cite the interplay of
inside and outside forces rather than attributing Rome's demise to a
single simple cause" (Murphy, 32).

Which seems more dangerous to the US in your opinion: internal
weaknesses or external factors? Although the passage above and other
analyses of large-scale culture over long periods of time cautions
against expecting single, simple answers to such questions, and we
might be able to imagine a whole host of internal weaknesses and
external factors involved, many people's recommendations on what could
be improved do focus on one side or the other. Here are a couple,
first internal, then external.

Here's a quote from Pat Robinson and Jerry Falwell on internal enemies
weakening the country:
Robinso, P. and J. Falwell. 2001, Sep. 17. Transcript of Pat
Robertson's Interview with Jerry Falwell. 700 Club.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0917-03.htm
"…what we saw on Tuesday [9/11/2001], as terrible as it is, could be
miniscule if, in fact, if in fact God continues to lift the curtain
and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the
antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do
to the major population.

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But,
throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court
system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The
abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will
not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies,
we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are
actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU,
People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize
America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this
happen.'"


Here's a quote from President Bush about external enemies.
Bush, Pres. G. W. 2008, March 6. President Bush commemorates fifth
anniversary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security. White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080306-4.html

"This war against these extremists and radicals who would do us harm
is the great ideological struggle of our time. We're in a battle with
evil men -- I call them evil because if you murder the innocent to
achieve a political objective, you're evil. (Applause.) These folks
have beliefs. They despise freedom. They despise the right for people
to worship an Almighty the way he or she sees fit. They desire to
subject millions to their brutal rule. Our enemies oppose every
principle of humanity and decency that we hold dear. They kill
innocent men and women all the time. The only way these terrorists can
recruit operatives, the only way they can convince somebody that their
dim vision of the world is worth following, is to feed on hopelessness
and despair.

And so our policy is to oppose this hateful ideology by offering an
alternative vision, one based upon freedom and liberty. Across the
world, America feeds the hungry, we fight disease, we fight tyranny.
We promote the blessings of a free society -- not only because it's in
our national interest, national security interests, but because it's
in our moral interests. You see, by bringing the hope of freedom to
these societies, we'll help peaceful people marginalize the extremists
and eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism. And so, for the
sake of our security, for the sake of the peace of our children, the
United States of America will stay on the forefront of spreading
freedom and liberty around the world. (Applause.)

As we wage this struggle abroad, we're also building the
institutions we need here at home to keep our country safe. The second
part of the strategy is to protect the homeland. The first part is to
stay on the offense, bring people to justice where we find them, and
spread liberty as the great alternative to their hateful ideology. The
second part of the strategy, of which you're intricately involved, is
to protect America. And that's why I'm here to celebrate the fifth
anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security, because you're on
the front lines of doing what the American people expect us to do, and
that's to protect them.”

"Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman of the mid fifth century BC
who farmed a small plot of land across the Tiber from Rome. …The
Romans voted to empower a dictator to lead them out of crisis, and
sent word to Cincinnatus, who put aside his plough and came to the
city's aid. In two days …he obtained a complete victory …Soon as this
great work was done, he took an affectionate leave of his gallant army
and returned to cultivate his four acres. …sculptor Horatio Greenough
produced a massive marble Washington in a classic Roman pose, seated,
the toga draped to reveal a bare chest. With his left hand Washington
offers his sword back to the people, as Cincinnatus might have done. …
The Cincinnatus reference is probably lost on most visitors:
Washington looks like a man in a sauna, asking for a towel." (Murphy,
38—39).

There are many web sites discussing Cincinnatus, with many different
interpretations as well. Here is one from a site called Leadership Now
(http://www.leadershipnow.com/cincinnatus.html). Here's an account and
analysis of George Washington's resignation at the end of the
Revolutionary War and George III's comment we briefly discussed in
class (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5593). This site is
from the Cato Institute, which we also briefly discussed in class
also. Here is the Cato Institute's information about their goals and
some notes on political ideology (http://www.cato.org/about.php).

"The term 'omphalos syndrome' originated in the study of old maps, and
describes the tendency of people who "believe themselves to be
divinely appointed to the centre of the universe," as one geographer
explains, to place themselves in the middle of the maps they
draw" (Murphy, 44).

Try an experiment: draw a map of the world from memory, labeling as
many different countries as possible. How do our different maps drawn
from memory reflect our understanding of the world? How do our
official maps reflect our understanding of the world? Several
different projections of world maps, with more or less complicated/
comprehensible explanations that may or may not be helpful, one from
USGS (http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/MapProjections/projections.html)
and one from a mathmatician/programmer (http://www.quadibloc.com/maps/
mapint.htm). Here's a map with the USA in the center (http://www.world-
atlas.us/world-map.gif), not so common now but frequently used in the
past. Here are a couple maps not representing physical geography but
demographics by geographical region: a world map of population--more
people=bigger size (http://rs.resalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/
2006/02/worldMap.jpg); and here's a similar map of the US by
population but also by voting in the 2000 Presidential election
(http://www.pnas.org/content/101/20/7499/F3.large.jpg). Finally,
here's a zoomable view of the Peters Projection, which was much
discussed about ten years ago (http://www.odtmaps.com/
detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_Pet-Wall-35x50).

"Rome, like Washington, was an economically pointless metropolis, a
vast importer and consumer of an empire's riches rather than a
producer of anything except words and administration (and the pungent
cartloads of garbage that left the city every night)" (Murphy, 45).

Here, by words and numbers, is a view on the DC economy (http://
www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-South/Washington-D-C-Economy.html).
Searching Google for "made in Washington DC" does match a couple
manufacturers, a jewelry shop and a clothing designer, but most of the
matches are more about decisions, mistakes, speeches, announcements,
or even arrests made in DC rather than products. This page (http://
www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2006pr/04/ft920/) from the
Census Bureau may not be easy to decipher, but it does show
comparative export statistics.

"The biggest component of the city's prodigious intake was something
called the annona, an in-kind tax levied by Rome on everyplace else,
and collected in the form of grain, which was used to provide free
bread for most of Rome's inhabitants. At its peak the annona amounted
to 10 million sacks of grain a year" (Murphy, 45—46).

Here's an article on the general comparison between the US and Rome,
which like many other essays supporting the US and discounting
negative comparisons, claims America is no Rome, partly because it
does not demand tribute. The author Baker concludes about the US,
"whatever it is, for the sake of humanity, pray it lasts at least as
long as Rome." Here's another from the same Hanson of e1.1 (http://
www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson112702.asp). (http://
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article2448867.ece).
In the past, there have been articles from the left and the right more
or less seriously or metaphorically characterizing or suggesting the
US to be an empire and demand tribute.

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) for several years
organized around their proposal of 2000 called Rebuilding America's
Defenses. The organization's website has now gone inactive, but their
files are reposted at an organization critical of PNAC (http://
www.pnac.info), particularly the pdf file of the original proposal
(http://www.pnac.info/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf). Here is a quote
from the proposal:
"America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global
leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces.
Today, the United States has an unprecedented strategic opportunity.
It faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with
wealthy, powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it
is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and
its political and economic principles are almost universally
embraced. At no time in history has the international security order
been as conducive to American interests and ideals. The challenge for
the coming century is to preserve and enhance this “American peace.”
Yet unless the United States maintains sufficient military strength,
this opportunity will be lost. And in fact, over the past decade, the
failure to establish a security strategy responsive to new realities
and to provide adequate resources for the full range of missions
needed to exercise U.S. global leadership has placed the American
peace at growing risk. This report attempts to define those
requirements. In particular, we need to: ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS
for U.S. military forces:
• defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the
security environment in critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military
affairs;”

To carry out these core missions, we need to provide sufficient force
and budgetary allocations.

In particular, the United States must:
• MAINTAIN NUCLEAR STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY
• RESTORE THE PERSONNEL STRENGTH of today’s forces from 1.4 million to
1.6 million.
• REPOSITION U.S. FORCES to respond to 21st century strategic
realities"

Chalmers Johnson has extensively written on US military forces, bases,
politics, and economics, and his work may seem more immediately
relevant to chapter 3, The Legions, but this article shows his
perspective on the costs both foreign and domestic to US military
bases around the world (http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/1990).

"All life in Washington today derives ultimately from the capital's
own version of Rome's annona — the continuous infusion not of grain
and olive oil but of tax revenue and borrowed money. Instead of ships
and barges there are banks, 10,000 of them designated for this
purpose, which funnel the nation's tax payments to the city. The
keystroking civil servants at the federal Financial Management
Service, who gather it all in electronically, are Washington's
equivalent of the longshoremen at Ostia. …Federal employment may no
longer be growing — the federal payroll in the Washington region is
about 360,000 — but this is in essence a convenient deceit, to make
the size of government seem contained. An even larger number of people
in the Washington area — about 400,000 — work for private companies
that are doing actual government work; like the baker Eurysaces,
they're living directly off the annona. …An additional quarter of a
million people in the region feed off government directly or
indirectly: the lawyers and lobbyists, the wonks and accountants, the
reporters and caterers and limousine drivers and panegyrists, and all
the aides and associates whose job it is to function as someone else's
brain" (Murphy, 48—49).

Open Secrets (http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/) has been tracking
money in politics for many years now. This article from the Washington
Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/
AR2005062101632.html) negatively criticizes the lobbying situation in
DC.

"The sacred boundary of the city of Rome was known as the pomerium.
Washington's pomerium is of course the Beltway, and 'inside the
Beltway' has long been conventional argot for the city's special sense
of self; 'outside the Beltway' means, in effect, 'the provinces,' 'the
hinterland'" (Murphy, 50).

John McCaslin has written a column for several years for the
Washington Times called Inside the Beltway (http://
www.washingtontimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm) and also has a
internet radio show () and a recent book with the same title.

"There always seems to be a moment at Washington gatherings when some
mildly fortified Oxbridge expatriate begins muttering about how it
falls to Britain 'to play Athens to your Rome.' Washington's wounded
riposte would echo that of Julius Caesar in Shaw's Caesar and
Cleopatra: 'What! Rome produces no art! Is peace not an art? Is war
not an art? Is government not an art? Is civilization not an
art?'" (Murphy, 51).
We'll continue to discuss Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, particularly
with comparison to what it implies on cultural views of self,
military, and corruption. These notes and class discussions have
briefly notes different empires besides the Rome/US comparison of
Murphy's text and the Rome/Egypt comparison of Shaw's play. Here's one
list (http://www.b17.com/family/lwp/chronology/empires.html) which
includes some maps. This list from Wikipedia is easier to read than
some others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires) and
looks at the idea of largest empire in different ways: geography,
population, economy. This is an odd place for the Wikipedia/
encyclopedia lecture that's been discussed several times with students
but not yet typed, but here it goes: If students have heard
instructors counter-recommend Wikipedia (that means tell students not
to use) as a source for research, what reasons have been given? If
students have heard instructors counter-recommend encyclopedias in
general, from World Book to Britannica, what reasons have been given?
What does this etymology of the word encyclopedia indicate about the
depth or detail provided? From The Online Etymology Dictionary, "(from
en- "in" + kyklos "circle") + paideia "education, child-rearing," from
pais (gen. paidos) "child" (see pedo-)" at (http://
www.etymonline.com). So what's the conclusion? This course counter-
recommends Wiki sources in References pages, but recognizes their ease
of use and simplicity in identifying sources. In short, look at Wiki
sources first for a quick summary if you like, but then go to the
bottom of the page for a more academic source.

"The omphalos syndrome is not just a curiosity — it leads to isolation
and a view of yourself and the world that can be sharply at odds with
the true state of affairs. Rome actually had more insulation against
the consequences than Washington does. …The Roman mindset — center of
the world! — might be a palpable reality, but in practice the nature
of government put limits on its scope. In Washington it's exactly the
opposite: the nature of American government amplifies the mindset of
the capital. A president is deemed a failure if he is not pushing an
activist agenda. He is therefore wary of being seen as "detached,"
wants to be seen as "hands-on." The president spends most of his time
in the capital, and even on his many short trips he remains largely
isolated from ordinary people. The machinery of government centered on
Washington — hundreds of agencies, millions of workers — had no
counterpart in Rome. The machinery is there to be used, and a
president has access to all of it. Modern communications ensure that
no job is beyond potential presidential supervision, even when
decentralization and autonomy might be all to the good. …In America,
then, as a practical matter, the workings of Washington encourage the
idea that the world is small, that society is malleable, and that the
capital's stance is paramount. All things begin in the capital, the
prime mover of all change. You see traces of this idea in everything
from the War on Poverty, in the 1960s, to the Clinton health-insurance
plan, in the 1990s. In foreign policy the idea makes itself felt as
resistance to multilateral arrangements (such as the treaties to
reduce atmospheric pollution and to ban land mines and antiballistic
missiles) and as faith in unilateral action (such as pre-emptive war).
Across the board it fosters the conviction that assertions of will can
trump assessments of reality: the world is the way we say it
is." (Murphy, 56—58).

Here's a quote from an article in The Nation on this point of view. It
includes an often repeated line about how "we create our own reality"
attributed to and metaphorically seen by some as a reflection of the
Bush administration (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050509/alterman):
"Bush himself, on more than one occasion, has told reporters he does
not read their work and prefers to live inside the information bubble
blown by his loyal minions. Vice President Cheney feels free to kick
the New York Times off his press plane, and John Ashcroft can refuse
to speak with any print reporters during his Patriot-Act-a-palooza
publicity tour, just to compliant local TV. As an unnamed Bush
official told reporter Ron Suskind, "We're an empire now, and when we
act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that
reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new
realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort
out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do." For those who didn't like it, another Bush
adviser explained, "Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're
outnumbered two to one by folks in the big, wide middle of America,
busy working people who don't read the New York Times or Washington
Post or the LA Times."

[o]

These notes were written to accompany Chalmers Johnson’s Nemesis
(excerpt available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7623461),
so the page numbers refer to that text, but with or without consulting
that book, some of these links might be useful for those planning to
write on chapter two of Murphy’s Are we Rome? for essay 2, and one
student mentioned in the weeks 2—3 research Eisenhower’s speech linked
below.

15 Johnson doesn't refer specifically to Eisenhower here with
"military industrial complex," but 34th President gave a speech much
discussed on the topic. Compare Eisenhower's ideas to Johnson's and
others'.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/speeches/eisenhower001.htm
excerpts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

16—17 Searching Google for the words presidential war powers will
return many articles evaluating Congress' and the President's
separation of power, checks and balances, and whether these are being
properly managed today.

18 Many web pages discuss US intervention and offering a variety of
timelines and interpretations. Here's one from Adbusters (http://
adbusters.org/media/flash/hope_and_memory/flash.html).

19 Similar to US intervention, searching for US support of dictators
will match many web sites with different lists and interpretations.
Here's one from a Ron Paul campaign site: http://ronpaul2008nyc.wordpress.com/foreign-policy-tidbit/

21 Searching online for the term "desk murderer" mostly matches
reviews or advertisements for the book on Eichmann, but searching
online for chickenhawk will match many site complaining about those
who have no combat experience ordering others into battle. Here is one
very negative site (http://www.symbolman.com/chickenhawks.html).

22 Most who follow current events will remember plenty about Abu
Ghraib, here is one site with extensive documentation on the events at
that prison (http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/
introduction/).

23 the following list contains several sites with official US
government statements on torture (if necessary, use edit, find to
search on page):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030626-3.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070809-1.html
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/tort/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061027-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070720-4.html
http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2005/Dec/05-436751.html
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-2007/terrorist-interrogation-program.html
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=texttrans-english&y=2007&m=October&x=20071005185610xjsnommis0.2167017

24—32 Searching online for the expression collateral damage matches so
many pages unrelated to the issue discussed here, partly because the
phrase has been used long enough that, like blowback, it has taken on
a variety of connotations. Searching for the expression civilians
killed, however, matches many pages more closely related.

33 Extraordinary rendition is the phrase to search for stories on
secret prisons, the secret transfer of people around the world outside
internationally-accepted rules governing prisoners, and secret flights
not following internationally-accepted rules on flight plans and air
traffic. Many, many stories will match searches on extraordinary
rendition, but here is one link to a PBS Frontline video (http://
www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/video/video_index.html).

33—45 Johnson refers to the work of Alfred W. McCoy, a history
professor. Here are links to several of his articles on torture and
the last to his web site:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091104D.shtml
http://www.counterpunch.org/mccoy05292004.html
http://www.amnestyusa.org/Amnesty_Magazine/Amnesty_Magazine/page.do?id=1105051&n1=2&n2=19
http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/mccoy.htm

This site, managed by the New York Times a timeline and series of
links put together to relevant documents related to the so-called
torture memos:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/international/24MEMO-GUIDE.html

John Yoo wrote some of the legal memos involved. He is now a professor
of law at UC Berkeley, and here's an article he wrote explaining his
and the administration's positions (http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/
releases/2005/01/05_johnyoo.shtml).

Seymour Hersh wrote several articles for the New Yorker on torture,
Abu Ghraib, and how the situation was handled, a couple of which are
linked here:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh

41—53 Here are several links to US government sources' official
positions on helping Iraq preserve its cultural heritage:
http://exchanges.state.gov/culprop/iraq.html
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/archives/cbp_press_releases/042003/04182003.xml
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/050603agremarksinterpolmeeting.htm
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=January&x=20050119154116ajatia3.461856e-02
http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2006-09/TreasureInBaghdad.html


An additional model to consider for essay #2 may be found by comparing
Ken Silverstein’s article Their men in Washington (http://
www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/0081591
reposted at TruthOut: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062407G.shtml
; http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06222007/profile2.html
http://www.apcoworldwide.com/content/newsroom/statement_harpers_moyers_silverstein.cfm).
The situation presents an exercise in examining the lines between
truth and fiction, reality and appearance. Recent Doonesbury comic
strips have focused on the efforts of the character Duke in preparing
a public relations campaign for a fictional country Berzerkistan,
which is supposedly lobbying for US foreign aid. From the Doonesbury
site (http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html), select
archives, then see August 7—18, 2007, and October 8—20, among others
on lobbying, most recently January 6, 2008. Another source that might
be helpful is Sun Tzu's ancient treatise The art of war (http://
classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.1b.txt), particularly chapter XIII, The

[o]

Here are some links to Alexandria. The APA-style references aren't
written, but we can do more in class for practice using some of these
links, if useful.

http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/delta/western/alexandria.html

http://members.tripod.com/romeartlover/Alessandria.html

http://alexandriatour.com/

http://www.7wonders.info/egyptian-pharos.php

http://www.authenticwonders.com/Alexandria/History/guide.html