Julius Caesar and the Jedi Purge II

I would like to continue the threat that TK-2432 started, but sadly I found that it had already been locked. I disagree with the original poster. In my opinion the comparison goes like this:

Palpatine = Sulla / Ceasar
Anakin Skywalker = Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
Obi Wan Kenobi = Cicero
The Jedi = The conservatives of the Roman senate

Feel free to discuss

Knight_AlSidre

 

Brilliant. GL always wrote Star Wars to be about the decline of a republic into an empire, and how the population will willingly cede their sovereignty and personal security to an unelected dictator in exchange for security. These were themes that were on his mind when he first began writing Star Wars in the Vietnam era, and they're ideas that are even more timely today. Some have noted the parallels between the speeches of Darth Vader and the Emperor during the Clone Wars, and those of politicians promoting the Terror Wars. (BTW, I say this as an extremely conservative Republican. I am not now, and never have been, either a liberal or a Democrat, and have never supported any Democratic presidential candidate.) As an example of this parallel, Darth Vader says, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy." George W. Bush said, "If you're not with us, then you're with the terrorists" (his enemies). GL insists that he wrote the line before President Bush's speech and did not use at as a source for Vader's remarks. I believe he pointed out that a similar statement is attributed to Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23, which both state, "He that is not with me is against me..." So the statement, while not being original to GL, isn't original to President Bush either. They could have both independently borrowed it from Jesus. Since the president is an ardent Christian, and GL studied a wide variety of religious literature in writing the prequels, GL could have gotten the statement without regard to W. Nevertheless, that was the president's most famous speech, it was made right after 9/11, and GL admits that he began writing ROTS right after 9/11, so in my opinion, I think that, whether or not he was aware of the similar statements in the New Testament, he borrowed the line directly from the president. So the bottom line is yes, Star Wars is about the decline of a republic into an empire and GL has stated that Rome is his biggest historical draw, and not anything in American history (although it is curious that, in ESB, everyone in the Alliance has an American accent, while all of the imperial officers have British accents). Finally, check out this article:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp

 

God, can we issue a moratorium on desperate neo-cons saying that Bush=Anakin? The phrase "If you're not with me, you're my enemy" is an everyday expression that's been around forever. Back when Bush was dodging the draft in the 60's (during a war that was 12-times more lethal than Iraq), that was the Black Panthers' motto, okay?

If Lucas wanted to quote Bush, he would've made his characters stammering and incoherent, and every other phrase out of their mouths would be "Nine Eleven". Sure, the dialogue in SW is kind of weak at times....but not Bush-caliber weak.

As if innovative, creative George Lucas pours over videotape of some tool who can't even utter a coherent sentence. Like he's hanging out at Skywalker Ranch with John Knoll and Rob Coleman talking about some miraculous new technology, and then he suddenly shouts, "WAIT! I've got to go watch Bush speak!"

Give me a freakin' break.

(Honestly, I think that, in their idolatry of Bush, a bunch of neo-cons secretly want to associate old, silver spoon Bush with handsome, virile, slave-born Anakin. It's double-think to try and put lipstick on their pathetic pig. Hilariously, neo-cons also tried to say that Bush was Batman after 'The Dark Knight'.)

Sorry, but this is patently incorrect. I posted quotes from Lucas in the thread "Obi-Wan Kenobi: Wacko Conspiracy Theorist?", which prove that Lucas was publicly using American history as reference in 'Star Wars'..

Lucas is very well-read, and so he's studied lots of history, and has cited:
-Nazi Germany
-the Vietnam War (he talks about how Nixon wanted to use the Vietnam War as an excuse to undo the 22nd Amendmant)
-post-Revolutionary France (Napoleanic era)
-Ancient Rome....

....and even several other parallels. He was looking for the commonalities in civilizations, not to merely doll up one historical fluke. America was explicitly one of the civilizations used as source material, and our history of false flag terror and wars was especially relevant for Lucas. So now that you've read numerous quotes from Lucas demonstrating this, please don't make this fallacious claim anymore.

 

Let's leave the political commentaries for the Senate forum.

 

Right, especially asinine comments like Lucas quoted the most hilariously inarticulate person in the Western world and put the quote into the penultimate scene in his penultimate movie.

I'm not the one contaminating these wonderful movies with pathetic idolatry of the government.

 

Like all liberals, you're arguments have no relationship to your point. I said that Roman history, and not American history, was GL's PRIMARY source of inspiration. Yes, he also drew on the Nazis (especially for the design of the helmets for Vader and the Stormtroopers) and there are parallels to American history (which come out in TESB by giving the Rebels American accents and the Imperials British accents).

As for Bush, you're overreaching. I never said that he pours over Bush's speeches, but Bush's post-9/11 speech was ubiquitous for months after 9/11. Saying you never heard it would be like saying you never heard about 9/11! To think that Bush did NOT hear it is ridiculous, especially because he IS a student of history and follows current events. Considering that 9/11 led to wars abroad, and the diminution of liberty and the growth of the police state at home, I'm sure he saw parallels between current events in America and the story HE WAS JUST BEGINNING TO WRITE FOR EPISODE III when 9/11 occurred. So while many others, at least back to Jesus, used the phrase, "You're either with me or against me," or similar statements, the president was using it right there and then. It's extremely unlikely that, in the universe of available lines, he should coincidentally use the same saying as the president, exactly when he's using it, and in the same context (the diminishment of civil liberties, the growth of the police state and the instigation of wars against the uncooperative).

Nor am I a neo-con. I've warned against them for years and blame them for the demise of the Republican Party. I have a "conspiracy theory" that the purpose of the Bush presidency was to destroy the conservative movement - a theory I've had since before he was elected! That said, while I certainly acknowledge that Bush isn't the greatest president in American history (that honor goes to Andrew Jackson), but at least he's not a Muslim, Marxist, homosexual, baby murdering, illegal alien.

 

Right or wrong, my comments are NOT asinine. That's an unprovoked personal attack, but that's all liberals are capable of - personal attacks and stealing elections. If you had any decency, you'd apologise to me, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for decent behavior a liberal.

 

Next time you're hamming it up with John Rocker and Michael Richards, you might want to write a note to yourself: "My hatred stays in this room."

First off, for the record, I'm not a liberal. If anything, I'm pretty darn conservative - although I'm definitely not as far-right as you apparently are. But really, maybe I can't call myself a conservative these days because I don't believe in Viagra or murdering Arabs. (And, yes, I've spoken with the good folks at Pfizer's marketing and Viagra is almost exclusively a Republican drug.)

Getting back to SW, if Bush's speech was so famous, then many people ought to be able to quote it, right? Next time you're out at....wherever it is you go (biting my tongue), randomly ask five people to cite one word of Bush's speech. I guarantee that none of them would be able to recall anything. Not one.

Nobody remembers inane speeches by Presidents. It's like remembering what dish you ate at McDonald's in 1997 or what the in-flight magazine was on a trip to Cancun: disposable information that you discard two seconds after receiving it. Because of this, as soon as I heard neo-cons saying "Bush=Anakin!!!", I knew that it was clearly meticulously crafted pro-Bush propaganda. The military-worshiping neo-cons had to desperately reach to make the claim. It was clearly propaganda because it was only neo-cons making this claim. No honest person would correlate handsome, young, virile Anakin with old, ugly, Viagra-popping, draft-dodging Bush.

So, you think Lucas likes to quote Bush, whereas I think that this is bogus because neo-cons started this inane connection and only they've propagated it.

You've not substantiated any of your claims at all with quotes from Lucas (as I make great efforts to do in many of my posts) or any sound arguments. You're basically spewing hateful nonsense and thinking it makes an argument. It doesn't.

Yes, Rome was clearly one narrative inspiration for false-flag wars and a democracy decaying into a militaristic empire. I'm actually reading 'The Making of ROTS' right now and Lucas again cites Julius Caesar (along with several other powerful civilizations) as examples of civilizations that corroded because of false-flag terror and wars. I know you love the government and so you think the PT is totally irrelevant, but I think that it's very relevant, and I'm not going to insult the great movies by saying that their lessons no longer hold true. They do hold true. The American government has murdered its own people and blamed it on foreigners. The people have decadently ceded control (from "Of the people, for the people, and by the people....") to powerful outsiders. And 'Star Wars' helps me conceptualize what's going on. It's not boring old history, it's life.

-----

You know, the last time I got in an argument with a neo-con here at TFN he ended up tracking down info about my personal life and creeping me out big time. So, I'll just concede the argument to you: Muslims are evil, Viagra's great, the military is god, etc., etc., etc.

-----

Edit #3: I'm sure that we probably agree on most things, I'm sure that we both love our families and relish liberty. But, like, I think we have a strong disagreement of fact about 'Star Wars' (I'm agreeing with Lucas and not calling him a liar - for all the reasons cited above - and you're agreeing with the pop-politic theory that Lucas copied Bush.) No big deal. Just a difference of opinion, and we'll leave it at that.

I apologize to the OP. You seem to have legitimate interest in history and 'Star Wars's' parallels to it and I've participated in a digression that's taken this thread far away from that intellectual honesty.

 

Ok, I just went to your site and watched your video "Star Wars & False Flag Terrorism." I think it's absolutely brilliant!!!

I've actually been making the same points for years, and have called the closing scene in AOTC, where we watch Palpatine watch the clones march to war, "The United States, September 12th." I also note that you closed with a number of pictures, including Alex Jones, whom I mentioned in my last post. You also mentioned celebrities Charlie Sheen and Jesse Ventura, both of whom have publicly endorsed the 9/11 Truth Movement.

That being said, you were still wrong to make personal attacks, especially when you had my point backwards. To me, it would be CRITICAL to say that Bush was like Darth Vader, since he is an evil villain. The fact that we enjoy him in the movies doesn't mean we want him in office in real life.

I also continue to think that GL looked to that one line, which was ubiquitously repeated after it was uttered by Bush in the wake of 9/11. Could I be wrong? Possibly, but the coincidence is too much. As you yourself note in your video, the story in the prequels is about using false flag wars and terrorist attacks to bring about a police state, a story he admits he was writing right after 9/11. Gl would have noted the parallels between the Terror Wars and his Clone Wars, so on this one occasion, I believe he was inspired, for his one line, by Bush's speech. I do not think he habitually copies from politicians.

I will also point out that you yourself, in your video, discuss how the story of Star Wars was inspired by Rome, and you should paintings of Romans! So you will have to concede on this one.

 

JarJar,

You're right, I did jump to conclusions about your intentions and beliefs, and I apologize again. (When you don't know somebody in person, you just associate them with simple stereotypes!)

You're right that Lucas has lied about some elements of 'Star Wars' (most notably in his claim that the Skywalker family tree was plotted in advance), but I don't think he'd lie about something trivial like, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Sure, FoxNews & Co. created the hype from whole cloth (with side-by-side shots of young, handsome Anakin and old, pathetic Bush), but that was merely one of those phony news stories that nobody could possibly forecast. So Lucas would have no cause to lie about something like that, particularly when he's so openly cited Nixon, Julius Caesar, and other historical figures. He could just as well have cited Bush.

(Also, calling somebody Darth Vader - or the Evil Empire - is definitely an insult....but associating them with a handsome young man like Hayden Christiansen would have a beneficial, tragic-mystique-inducing psychological affect on people. Again, the ONLY people I heard propagating the "If you're not with me...." controversy were Faux News and Joe Scaroborough on MSNBC.)

-----

I don't want to get TOO far off-topic, but (a) there's nothing wrong with somebody being Muslim. I worked with many of them at my last job, and grew up with many Christian Arabs (Chaldeans), and, although we can tease groups for conforming to simpleminded stereotypes, the stereotypes of them as terrorists is just totally fabricated.

(B) So, although I highly doubt that Obama's a Muslim (like....have you seen who's in his cabinet? Do you know anything about Rahm Emmanuel?), the only issue would be with him lying about it, not with him believing in the Koran's divinity. That's an issue of faith, just as you take the Bible on faith. But, again, I don't think that he's a Muslim anymore than I think Dick Cheney's a Christian. These power-brokers are cynical liars who know that religion makes for good politics (just as having a wife and children for photo ops is), and they take delight in manipulating people with bogus claims of faith.

(C) As far as Jefferson's endorsements of (violent) revolutions, my theory is that this will never happen again anymore for two reasons. First, the disparity in power between the governments and the governed has grown exponentially since our Revolutionary War. (Back then, they had muskets and we had muskets, and we both just went at it. Now? Well, they've got nukes. They've got satellites. They've got cameras. They've got tasers, bullet-proof vests, infrasound crowd-dispersers....it'd be a bloodbath.) Secondly, there's no longer any frontier for people to move to, and so governments no longer risk losing the populace to a New World. Nah, we're all stuck with 'em.

 

I'm going to reply on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis this time, and I will do so by putting my comments in a different color:

 

Um, Marxists aren't exactly known for approving $700 billion corporate bailouts, and filling their cabinets with Clinton neo-liberal stooges. See, Marxists don't really like corporations...not with the whole workers-owning-the- means-of-production...that sorta thing. You might want to go to a library and...

Ah, never mind.

Back on topic: I like Star Wars.

 

JarJar,

I disagree with you wholeheartedly with your hatred of Muslims and Arabs. Again, I'd encourage you to actually....meet some of these people (I was born and raised in suburban Detroit, and so I've had Lebanese and Iraqi friends and classmates since I was a boy) as opposed to getting your views on people from fake Americans like impotent, closet-gay Michael Savage (and we KNOW that it's true in his case.)

As far as Rahm Emmnauel, I only encourage you to do, like, a LITTLE bit of research into his past - and he's merely the tip of the neo-con Obama iceberg. No matter: for those who hate Arabs and Muslims (and those who are duped into it), you should be thrilled. There'll be well more than 1.5 million murders of them in the next eight years. Rejoice at the death!

But at this point, I'm ready to get back to SW. (You know, we've had two entertaining CW episodes in a row now....)

 

Hussein Osama is a Marxist. I say this because of the following:

1. He wrote in his autobiography "Dreams From My Father," that, "I was very careful in choosing my friends... Marxist professors and structural feminists."

2. His mother was an atheist and socialist.

3. His father was a socialist.

4. His stepfather was a socialist.

5. He was mentored as a boy by Communist Frank Marshall Davis.

6. His grandfather, who raised him throughout his teenage years, was good friends with Frank Marshall Davis.

7. In 1995, he joined the New Socialist Party and has been listed as one of its members.

8. He has the most liberal voting record of any U.S. Senator, even more so than John Kerry (the previous winner), Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer and even Hitlery herself.

9. The bailout has to do with the government taking over the banks and gives it an ownership in the recipient institutions. This fits in well with the fifth plank of the Communist Manifesto, which is a central bank.

10. He was endorsed in his presidential run by the Communist regimes of Cuba and North Korea, as well as the neo-Marxist regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. (You might be surprised to learn that I'm somewhat warm to Mr. Chavez due to his part in defeating the FTAA and general opposition to American hegemony, as I fear that any hegemony is potentially dangerous, especially considering the low quality of politicians in America.)

11. He dithers on and on about "change," but no one bothers to ask him what that means? The term "change" is a code word used by "community activist" and Marxist Saul Alinsky. Although the two never met, Saul Alinsky is the founding father of modern, left-wing community activists, and is an inspiration to all of them (just like virtually all modern libertarians look to Thomas Jefferson as the founder and inspiration of their movement). He dedicated his own book to Lucifer and said that "change" was a code word like-minded socialist activists could use to push their agenda without alarming the public, who would never embrace socialism by name. They would, however, be receptive to "change."

12. Finally, his famous remark to Joe the Plumber about "spreading the wealth around" is pure Marxism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

I believe with the above that I have made a prima facie case that Hussein Osama is indeed a socialist, thereby placing the burden upon you to disprove that he is a socialist, but I doubt you will do so. I've found Hussein Osama's supporters to universally lack any substantive reason for their support for him. It's all hype. Or let me guess? You support him because he stands for "hope" and "change?"

 

I don't hate Arabs or Muslims. Liberals can never see any gradation. You either want to embrace something or someone wholeheartedly, or you "irrationally hate them." While you may not be liberal, you have been influenced by liberals on issues of race and religion (as I was, until I was finally able to shake it). It's not that I hate Arabs or Muslims. It's that they're not from my culture, and no multi-cultural society can exist. It's hard enough for a society to exist when we all believe the same thing and have the same goals. But when we have contradictory beliefs and goals, then that society must tear itself apart, and usually sooner rather than later. I can have friends who are Muslims. I can trade with Muslims. But I can't be a Muslim. This is why ANY Islamic immigration to the U.S. is an inherent threat to our society and way of life, no matter how peaceful they may be. If they like our ideals, then they should adopt them in their own country. They may come here to visit and study, but they're too different to be permitted to live here.

As for them being killed, I am not in favor of that. I have opposed every American war from the War of Northern Aggression on, including the Gulf War and the Terror Wars, and I opposed the sanctions that cost the lives of so many Iraqi children. I believe the best course is that recommended by George Washington himself: Stay out of the affairs of other nations. Let our course be peaceful commerce with all (appropriate protected of course, so that no foreigner has a competitive advantage over American labor), and entangling alliances with none. You say the world has gotten smaller since Washington's time? All the more reason not to make enemies. Muslims were, after all, much easier to spot in his day than our own.

As for Rahm Emmanuel, I stand by what I said. Yes, he served in the IDF, but he is no hawk. Ehud Barack was in the Israeli military too, and look what he did to Israel! I'm not impugning their motivations necessarily. It's certainly possible that Mssrs. Barack and Emmanuel really believe that giving all disputed lands to the Muslims will produce peace. I simply think that they're wrong.

As for Michael Savage, I agree with most of his points, but disagree on a number of them, the most important one being his support for the Terror Wars. I'm not surprised though. As a Jew, he's biased in favor of killing Muslims. (I don't hate Jews either. Jews wanting to kill Muslims is a natural reaction to all of the terrorism inflicted upon the Israelis, but it is nevertheless a bias.) As for your personal attacks upon him, he has several children, so he is not impotent, and even if he was, what does that have to do with anything? You're still falling into the liberal trap of making personal attacks in order to avoid having to respond to an argument on the merits. As for him being a homosexual, considering that he is overtly and proudly anti-homosexual, I would ask for proof of that, and by proof, I don't mean the baseless accusations of angry homosexual activists who preach "tolerance" but tolerate not the slightest disagreemen

 

For the record, America started off as a "multi-cultural" society and had continued to be so for hundreds of years. Many of the Founding Fathers were not Christians and we've had immigrants of all races and creeds from day one. Buddhist Chinese rail workers, African slaves, Jews and Italians started coming around the turn of the last century. A one-race theocracy would've probably crumbled sooner than we did.

(And I'm involved with an engineering-heavy field and let me tell you: we're TOTALLY dependent on Easterners - 99% of whom are Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim - to design and construct pretty much everything. Nowadays, most descendants of European Christendom do "service" work; we all want to be lawyers or marketers - which is worthless and creates no wealth. On the other hand, the Easterners actually know their math and science and so every machine you use and computer program you play with has got foreign fingerprints ALL over it.)

All I'll say about Michael "Savage" and Rahm Emmanuel is that you should probably just do a little bit of research. Just screw around typing their names into Yahoo and Google for ten minutes and see what you come up with. (And, again....look at the REST of Obama's cabinet. You might not like killing Arabs, but it's the all-star squad for those that do.)

 

To quote Viceroy Gunray: You assume too much. I did not vote for Obama. I know a con artist when I see one, and Mister Hope n' Change is something of an extraordinaire. Understand though, that I oppose him, and the Democratic Party entire, precisely because I am a leftist. I support universal, single-payer health care, progressive taxation, strict regulation of the markets, an immediate pullout from Afghanistan/Iraq and the prosecution of the war criminals who deposited us there. Barack Obama will not deliver on any of these. Not because he's some crypto-pinko-commie-leftist, but because he's a center-rightist--much like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Nothing but a front-man for the Pentagon and Wall Street.


Out of curiosity: Why are you both throwing the homosexual charge around as if it were shameful? Believe it or not, homosexuals are human beings too. Most of them are as well-adjusted and decent as you, me and those-not-named-Michael-Savage.

 

JarJar and DRG4,

I think we all agree that Obama, like Bush, is essentially a puppet and that none of us participate in the idolatry of either of them. I suppose our crankiness might spring from different wells, but there's no love lost between us and the Bush-Obama cartels.

I don't want to chicken out of this conversation but there's not much more that I can say beyond what I already did. I think the "war on terror" (or "terror war") as JarJar calls it, is a bogus scam concocted by malevolent foreigners and fake Americans that's only possible because all these disgusting old men are empowered with faux masculinity from their Viagra (note Rush Limbaugh's bizarre trip to a secretive resort in the Dominican Republic with a jar of Viagra.) Everything about these murderous animals is fake: their Christianity (they're not Christians), their conservatism (they're not conservatives), their sex, their words, their hair, their smiles....everything.

So that's it. Although I have no special love for gays or Arabs or whatever other sect, but I do recognize that all human life is sacred and all men are free to live as they see fit. Honestly, I think that all this hysteria against these groups is Western men, secretly knowing that their own civilization has corroded (what with the fact that their fertility and testosterone has plummeted - at a systematic rate suggesting intent - for the past 25 years), and so they transfer their anxiety out onto other groups and blame them. (Of course, the mainstream media and the military are more than happy to offer up new identities for Western pseudo-men to adopt, "NASCAR Dad", "Cowboy", "Fanboy", etc.)

Whatever. There's nothing any of us can do about it - your testosterone is going to continue to plummet, poor Arabs will continue to be murdered, more fake "terrorism" will be propagated, etc., etc., etc. (Yesterday, I was at my girlfriend's family's house and her brother, who's in the Army, says that the recruiters have more applications than they know what to do with. Clearly, being a welfare queen in the military is an easier path than becoming an engineer or doing construction or anything else that actually CREATES civilization. America's gone, guys.)

And, yes, Obama's going to be right there putting a handsome face on the nightmare and using his silver tongue to make the wolves look like sheep. But there's nothing we can do.

 

Oops, sorry, thought this was a Star Wars forum.

 

Ugh, I'm not even going to bother pouring over all of this to see what needs to be edited and who needs to be banned. Let's just call it a lock and we can all be happy.