More than 50 years ago I sat in a fourth year Latin class facing the daunting task of translating Cicero’s Oration against Cataline. In 63 BC , Cicero was a Roman consul who was taking apart a competing politician in detail. It is a brilliant example;e of oratory and nothing can be bore timely for us in this crazy age. The translation goes something like this: ” Othe times! O the morals. The Seanate understands these things , the Consul sees them; yet this man still lives. He lives? Indeed, he even comes into the Senate, he takes part in public debate , he notes and marks out with his eyes each one of us for slaughter. ” In a series of four orations, Cicero exhorts Romans to see things as they are and to take action.
A version of this oration can be found today on Facebook , in the mouths of a host of talking heads and in the pages of the Washington Post, the New York Times and in a mass of other media vehicles. One question still remains…what is to be done? In a later oration , Cicero asks the timely question directly:”How long will you test our patience…how long will you fury make sport of us”?
How long, indeed.
As we see the assaults on our hard-won national values Cicero’s question speaks volumes. When will we act? The tremendous list of transgressions perpetrated by a single individual and his small group of Myrmidons appear to have us all cowed into passivity. As our values are, “marked for the slaughter’ there seems to be a terrifying lack of will to resist. another question naturally arises because of our fatal ennui: Who are we, after all? The time has come for action and answers. We have covered every disgusting mile from pussy grabbing and the caging of people of color all the way to bounties on our troops to black shirt law enforcement on our own city streets and we have no plan other than a dubious election to put a stop to the madness.
I am beginning to despair of a non-violent solution and I hate to admit that we can not control this situation.
There are those that are fighting the good fight but they are few and weakly supported. Our final choice is becoming starker and more immediate. We either move toward the light or embrace the darkness. If we believe that the,”arc of history moves toward justice” we must be prepared to exercise the political will necessary to reverse the current vector.
Make a choice. Act.
Olio Folio 