textfiles-politics/txt_files/caesar

                        Is Caesarism the Conspiracy? 

 An enormously popular conspiracy theory (that was perhaps best presented
in Taylor Caldwell's novel, A Pillar of Iron [Life of Cicero]) holds that
the ultimate goal of the ruling class/conspiracy for America consists in
moving from the virtues of "Republic" with its rigorous limits on
government power, rule of law, and checks and balances to the degradation
of unlimited rule or "Caesarism" of one man.  This theory implies, but
does not often explicitly state, that America as a social organism is in
morphic resonance a la Sheldrake's Presence of the Past with Rome, perhaps
through the intentional seeding of America by the Founders Fathers with
Roman forms and archetypes:  bicameral legislature, Senate, architecture,
etc, etc. 

      Those unfamiliar with the remarkable parallels between the America's
system and history and that of Rome need to read Amaury de Riencourt's The
Coming Caesars and American Empire and Haskell' New Deal In Old Rome. 
While Haskell deals with the parallel resort to collectivist economic
measures under the impoverishing strain and drain of Imperial adventure,
more fundamentally, de Riencourt demonstrates the similarity of America's
and Rome's geopolitical positions, namely that of representing a more
powerful new Imperial embodiment of an old culture--America of
England/Europe and Rome of Greece.  Rome was responsible for defending
Greece from the alien Parthian empire to the East as America has been
responsible for defending Europe from the hostile Soviet Union to the
East.  De Riencourt examines in detail how under the stress of world
empire and domestic economic pressures the tendency toward mass democracy
culminating in Caesarism is inevitable in the Republican system shared by
America and Rome.  Though America has so far avoided the fall into true
Caesarism or "Presidents for Life", Franklin Roosevelt can only be viewed
as a very close call, a close call indeed, and other presidents such as
Jackson, Wilson, and Lincoln have risen to near Caesar status. 
Apparently, the American system, in contrast to that of Rome, can provide
an "Imperial Presidency" for the duration of a crisis (Military or
Economic), but return rather smoothly to Congressional Bickering after the
crisis has passed. 

      Perhaps this helps provide a key to where the Taylor Caldwell theory
that "the conspiracy equals Caesarism" misses the mark.  It is not
"Caesarism" that the ruling class/conspiracy wants (Caesar can be as
difficult to control as Congress).  It is successful World Imperialism
best typified by Rome.  Rome's Empire was not a product primarily of the
Emperors, but of the Republic!  The Masonic conspiracy modeled America's
political forms on Rome's because they were forms known to be compatible
with the future World Imperial role they sought for America (Novus Ordo
Seclorum--New Order of the Ages).  The Masonic conspiracy fashioned a
Presidency that would be "Imperial" as required, but could always be
checked by the "Money Power" through Congress and the Supreme Court, the
States, or the people to avoid the notorious excesses and "flakiness" of
all powerful Emperors that did much to undermine the Roman Empire. 
      
      So far, the question in America remains:  whose Congress? whose
President? whose Supreme Court? whose Governor? whose People? The
Vatican's or Queen's?  Maybe eventually, if the growing "multi-cultural"
ethnic tribalism and "Balkanization" makes America ungovernable
democratically, Whose Caesar!