Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the
walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

Ronald W. Reagan (1911-2004)


The famed general in the movie 'Gladiator,' Maximus knew that saving
Rome from the politicians was no easy job to accomplish. He was also
aware of the treachery behind politics, the Senators that he could
risk being undermined at their mercy, all to the end of getting what
they want... power. Emperor Marcus Aurelius was afraid that the great
empire wouldn't survive the winter, crumbling under the weight of
corrupt politics... a pleasant fiction of a great era then.

It is close to winter too today the year 2005 and i think Julius
Caesar would have been happy if he came to our shores and seen... the
Ameritocracy at work, the empowerment of the people, the vision he
would like to have seen grow in his people before embarking on his
ill-fated walk to the Senate.

The characters may change but the esentially story stays the same
separated by more than 2,000 years. There're virtues that Caeser
aspired for his empire that are visible today in this country and
also regrettably those that are bad that crippled the great empire
that he helped build. Orwell once said 'Power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely...'

"The general(C. Powell) and I knew -- that you don't have pervasive
behavior... unless you condone it(from the highest levels)," quipped
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

... the more things change, the more they will remain the same... the
threat of corruption and immoral behavior even pervasive is ever
present in our institutions that we've built today only the
characters behind the roles changes but today's politics has gotten a
lot savvier with the advent of the media, the platform on which the
oxygen of the modern age thrives on, the agent that information uses
to seep and waft across to the masses only to come back to the
senders in the form of polls and census to create policies and
strategies to manage them and the country(A-to-B and back to A). In
the world of global capitalism this may manifest itself in many ways,
one of which needed while climbing up its web and winning the game is
that of the transfer of technology(more on this in future). Is the
power of information today in our increasingly ubiquitous, digital,
informed world telling us of who will actually be culpable in the
latest saga the case of the CIA leak investigations?

It has at the very least made a case for prosecution, and possibility
charges levied very real for either Mr. Libby or Mr. Karl Rove or
even both(note the plurality and existence of 'target letters').
There's a possibility though that nothing will be done by the Bush
Administration appointed prosecutor even though he's labeled as an
apolitical advocate. What about a 3rd person or an institution
perhaps though information so far has not inferred it other than the
2 specially mentioned of interest and under glass. Has the
information and its powers revealed all that is likely already?

I have always wondered how would have the Roman's done it knowing
what we know, the dispensing justice?... i have a feeling it would
have involved the use of the sword somewhere along the line. The
sword that the Emperor Aurelius was afraid Rome had ever known and
depended to heavily on. I'm told that there's always a moral to every
story. Living true to my beliefs, I hope at the very least we do not
rely on the sword as much as the Romans did as much as our courage
from within to search for the truth behind the facts no matter where
it may lead to in our process of delivering justice.

As Alice always says it... "We shall know soon enough!"

May your endeavors be a prosperous one...

P. Mavin