I'm Spartacus- More Lessons From The Movies

[Laxman]

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."- Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933

America has seen a lot of dark days as a nation. A great civil war. A great depression. World War II. It was not mere happenstance that our country not only survived great trials and hardship but thrived through it all. Now clinically we can probably analyze the advantages that the United States enjoyed that have allowed us to prevail in these circumstances. A strong industrial base. Great resources. A bit of luck. Historical scholars can attribute our success to any number of these factors. However, the real reasons that this country has remained strong are the strength of its people and the strength of our ideals.

The values that have sustained us are the glue that has held us together. They are the notions that have led brave people to place themselves in harm's way to defend and fight for our country. They're the shared principles that have bound us together despite our differences. Sadly, they are both the source of the rhetoric used to continue to prop up the current occupant of the White House and the targets of his policies. Therein lies the potential for the Bush administration to do what no foreign power, no tyrant, no terrorist has ever been able to do. Take away our freedoms.

The freedoms that define us as a people are being lost, not through an invasion, not through some traumatic and momentous event, not ripped from us by force. No, they are being slowly eroded while we sleep intellectually as a nation. Hypnotized by fear of terrorist attack. Paralyzed by fear of being labeled "un-american". Divided, in a way that we have never before been divided, through the use of fear as a wedge. It seems as if the will to fight for what we value has been slowly bled from our collective bodies.

There is a way out. We need to stand together. We need to reach out to our neighbors and find common ground. We need to embrace the ideals that we hold so dear and realize that they are both the tie that will bind us, despite our differences, and the source of the strength necessary to take our country back. Wipe away the fear. Wipe away the cloud of divisiveness that has been used to divide us and we can reject the policies that have been cynically used to take control of our country for the party in power. We have to reject fear.

At the end of the movie Spartacus the soldiers of the slave rebellion are captured by a Roman legion. There are literally thousands of captured slaves who have fought and defeated and embarrassed the Roman army time and again for over a year, finally subdued. All the Romans wanted was to take the leader of the rebellion (Spartacus) and they would let the rest of their captives go. Spartacus identifies himself in order to turn himself in and save his comrades. However, his fellow slaves would have none of it. In one of the great scenes in movie history, each and every slave stands and says "I'm Spartacus".

Now granted, the movie ends badly as the Romans, unable to tell which of their captives is actually Spartacus, decide to crucify the whole lot of them just to be sure. The point however, is that despite being in jeopardy and knowing that their lives would be in danger, despite having an easy way out, this group of men stuck to their principles, stuck to the common ties that bound them together and were defiant to those who would deny them freedom until the end. Do we have the kind of fortitude and the kind of resolve as a people that was demonstrated in that scene?

As long as we allow ourselves to be divided. As long as we are cowed by the thoughts of what might happen if we speak out or fight back. As long as we are subjugated by fear we will be weak. We will have our freedoms taken from us. We will continue to suffer the leadership of the fools and tyrants who have taken over our country. If we stand together. If we speak out. They cannot come for all of us. They cannot keep us all down. They cannot silence all of us. The ideals that bind us together are the guideposts that will lead us from this dark time. They have kept this country strong for 230 years but they will only keep us strong if we use them.

If we continue to allow the life's blood of our democracy to be slowly bled away, soon this will neither be a country worth fighting nor will we find that we have the fight to take it back. It is time for us to stand together. It is time to reach out to those who do not agree with us and find the common bonds that we intuitively know reveal that our country has been led astray. It is time to put our fears aside and take our country back from the small-minded self-serving cretins who have taken it. I'm Spartacus! Who will stand with me.

[Kagemusha]

1. "I fought the Romans and the.... Romans won"

People like to forget Spartacus lost, the Empire and slavery stood for hundreds of years, and so on. The Romans stuck together too in the end. Life's complicated.