The 1960 Kirk Douglas epic, Spartacus, may soon prove to be more than great entertainment. It may also turn out to be a prophecy of the end of the American Republic.
Throughout the movie, wealthy Romans assume they can buy anything–or anyone. When seeking a favor, Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Oliver) says bluntly: “Name your price.”
Today, “Name your price” has become the password for entry into America’s Intelligence community.
Althugh not portrayed in Spartacus, one of the reasons for the fall of the Roman empire lay in its reliance on foreign mercenaries.
Roman citizens, who had for centuries manned their city’s legions, decided to outsource these hardships and dangers to hired soldiers from Germany and Gaul (now France).
Although Germans and Gauls had proven capable fighters when defending their own countries, they proved highly unrelible as paid mercenaries.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of political science, drew heavily on ancient history for his examples of how liberty could best be preserved within a republic.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Fully aware of the Romans’ disastrous experience with mercenaries, Machiavelli believed that a nation’s army should be driven by patriotism, not greed. Speaking of mercenaries, he warned:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends, among enemies they are cowards.”
Americans–generally disdainful of history–have blatantly ignored both the examples of history and the counsel of Machiavelli. To their own peril.
Mark Mazzetti, author of the bestselling The Way of the Knife, chronicles how the CIA has been transformed from a primarily fact-finding agency into a terrorist-killing one.
Along with this transformation has come a dangerous dependency on private contractors to supply information that government agents used to dig up for themselves.
America’s defense and Intelligence industries, writes Mazzetti, once spread across the country, have relocated to the Washington area.
They want to be close to “the customer”: The National Security Agency, the Pentagon, the CIA and an array of other Intelligence agencies.
The U.S. Navy SEALS raid that killed Osama bin Laden has been the subject of books, documentaries and even an Oscar-nominated movie: “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Almost unknown by comparison is a program the CIA developed with Blackwater, a private security company, to locate and assassinate Islamic terrorists.
“We were building a unilateral, unattributable capability,” Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater, said in an interview. “If it went bad, we weren’t expecting the [CIA] chief of station, the ambassador or anyone to bail us out.”
But the program never got past the planning stage. Senior CIA officials feared the agency would not be able to permanently hide its own role in the effort.
“The more you outsource an operation,” said a CIA official, “the more deniable it becomes. But you’re also giving up control of the operation. And if that guy screws up, it’s still your fault.”
Increased reliance on “outsourcing” has created a “brain-drain” within the Intelligence community. Jobs with private security companies usually pay 50% more than government jobs.
Many employees at the CIA, NSA and other Intelligence agencies leave government service–and then return to it as private contractors earning far higher salaries.
Many within the Intelligence community fear that too much Intelligence work has been outsourced and the government has effectively lost control of its own information channels.
And, as always with the hiring of mercenaries, there is an even more basic fear: How fully can they be trusted?
“There’s an inevitable tension as to where the contractor’s loyalties lie,” said Jeffrey Smith, a former general counsel for the CIA. “Do they lie with the flag? Or do they lie with the bottom line?”
Yet another concern: How much can Intelligence agencies count on private contractors to effectively screen the people they hire?
Edward Snowden, it should be remembered, was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting/security firm. It was through this company that Snowden gained access to a treasury of NSA secrets.
In March 2007, the Bush administration revealed that it paid 70% of its intelligence budget to private security contractors. That remains the case today–and the Intelligence budget for 2012 was $75.4 billion.
A 2010 investigative series by the Washington Post found that “1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the country.”
Jesus never served as a spy or soldier. But he clearly understood a truth too many officials within the American Intelligence community have forgotten:
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
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MOVIES: A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE INDUSTRY
In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Social commentary on September 4, 2014 at 11:16 pmOn August 31, the Huffington Post ran a story about trouble in Hollywood, under the headline: “Film Industry Has Worst Summer since 1997.”
Little more than one month earlier–on July 22–a headline in the Hollywood Reporter had offered this insight into moviedom’s current woes: “Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter.”
Click here: Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter
It’s hard to think of an industry that’s created a better recipe for self-destruction than the movie business.
Consider the following:
According to Rentrak, a company that keeps tabs on box office profits:
Among this summer’s films that disappointed movie studios:
Click here: Film Industry Has Worst Summer Since 1997
Analysts had predicted a drop-off in movie attendance owing to increased use of online streaming. They also expected major television events like the World’s Cup to keep moviegoers indoors.
But they didn’t expect the summer of 2014 to prove the worst in ticket sales since 1997.
Which is outrageous. The wonder is that the movie business hasn’t collapsed already.
It’s hard to think of an industry more geared toward its own destruction than the movie business.
First, there’s the before-mentioned average ticket price of $8.33. You don’t have to be an Einstein at math to multiply $8.33 by, say, a husband, wife, and two to four children.
So a couple with two children can expect to spend at least $33.32 just to get into the theater. A couple with four children will be gouged $49.98 for a single movie’s entertainment.
And that’s not including the marked-up prices charged for candy, soda and popcorn at the concession stand.
Second, it’s almost guaranteed that even the biggest potential movie “draw” will be released on DVD or streaming within three to six months after it hits theaters.
So if you need to save enough money each month to meet the rent and other basic needs, you’re likely to wait it out for the DVD to hit stores. Wait even longer than six months, and you can probably buy a cheaper used DVD.
With that, you can watch your new favorite movie as many times as you want–without being charged bigtime every time you do so.
This is especially tempting to those with big-screen TVs, whose prices have steadily fallen and are now affordable by almost everyone.
Third, there used to be an unspoken agreement between theaters and moviegoers: We’ll pay a fair price to see one movie. In return, we don’t expect to see TV-like commercials.
Naturally, that didn’t include previews of coming attractions. These have been a widely enjoyed part of the movie experience since the 1930s.
But starting in 2003, theaters began aiming commercials at their customers before even the previews came on. Some industry sources believe cinema advertising generates over $200 million a year in sales.
Click here: Now showing at a theatre near you – Louisville – Business First
But for those who feel they’ve already suffered enough at the ticket booth, being forced to watch TV-style ads is simply too much.
Fourth, while some theaters provide lush seating and special help for their customers (such as closed-captioning for the deaf) many others do not.
At AMC theaters, an onscreen advisory tells you to seek help if you need it. But your chances of finding an available usher range from slim to none at most theaters.
To sum it up: What was once thought a special experience has become a jarring assault on the pocketbook and senses.
Just as airlines are now widely considered to be “flying buses,” so, too are movie theaters fast becoming expensive TV sets for moviegoers.
In the 1950s and 1960s, theaters lured customers from small-screen TVs with film spectacles like “Ben Hur” and “Spartacus”.” Or with new “you-are-there” film experiments like Cinnemascope.
“Family-friendly” movies like “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” proved box-office champs with millions.
But now theaters have allowed their greed–for high ticket prices, quick-release DVDs and/or streaming and TV-style ads–to drive much of their audiences away.
Unless the owners of movie studios–and movie theaters–quickly smarten up, the motion picture business may ultimately became a pale shadow of its former Technicolor self.
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