A 2000-year-old Speech and America’s Broken Promise
The wild beasts of America have their caves to retire to, but the brave men and women who spill their blood and sweat in her cause have nothing left but air and light. Without houses, without meals, they wander from place to place, from food bank to food bank with their children; and their leaders do but mock them when, from mansions of privilege, they exhort their people to sacrifice for their communities, for among such numbers perhaps there is not one American who has a home so distant and safe from this plague. The people struggle and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the great, and they are called masters of the world without having a sod to call their own.
This is an excerpt from a speech given by Tiberius Gracchus, an official in the Roman senate, over two thousand years ago. I changed a few things, but the themes remain the same. There is a promise of a good life in return for hard work and sacrifice, a thin veneer over a rigged and cruel edifice. It is not shocking that the same problems of inequality and rampant corruption Tiberius lambasted exist in our society too. Societal decay is the consequence of power and wealth, ever interchangeable, left unchecked to accumulate without end.
The pandemic has laid bare the deep flaws in our society. The suffering of the poor and powerless goes unabated while the rich and powerful double their fortunes. The political violence that followed the reforms of Tiberius ultimately led to the fall of the Roman Republic. Inequality and corruption are the enemies of all republics.
Here is the speech without edits: https://www.bartleby.com/268/2/5.html
