The Sicilian Expedition, Lysistrata, and Current Events

[Matthew Taylor]

Hmmm...I really can't see a connection between the Women's Marches and
Lysistrata. Seems like more than a stretch.

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 2:17 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:

> When I was in College, I had a Classics Prof. whom seemed convinced that
> the war in Iraq (this was 05-06) was the modern equivalent of the Athenian
> Sicilian Expedition. At the time, I didn't really connect the dots b/c the
> contrast between the catastrophic failure of Athens and the loss of her
> fleet, with the struggles with the quagmire of the US in Iraq. It was a
> strange time. I remember sometime during freshmen orientation, all of us
> were sort of herded into a room where military recruiters were waiting to
> pounce... the was before the Baker Hamilton Commission, etc., but it was
> painfully obvious that the cart was coming off the rails... I digress, but
> it was a strange time... not very long ago, but long enough to know that
> things have changed profoundly. Now, I do see the war in Iraq as something
> akin to the Sicilian Expedition... and maybe not so much in terms of simple
> military strategy, but as damaging to our credibility, and the Periclean
> Democratic (as in Democracy, not Political Party)-Imperial imperative
> inherent in the Presidency since the end of WWII... Much the same way that
> the aftermath of Vietnam was the death knell of hawkish cold war policy,
> and the beginning of Detente... No doubt the financial crisis of 2008 is
> just as much to blame as well... but just as Athens fell in the
> Peloponnesian War, and spiraled into political chaos, which for great city
> states, and Athens in general, seems to be the norm, never able to
> recapture the stability they had achieved under Pericles. The result of
> these failures was for some of the most important political thinkers in the
> West, Plato and Aristotle, to completely write off Democracy... It's
> interesting, but it's a stretch of an analogy contingent upon almost
> rampant hyperbole, but hey, I'm just giving an "...alternative
> representation of the facts..."
>
> On a lighter note, I'm convinced Aristophanes is laughing at us somewhere
> after the weekend re-enactment of Lysistrata... the non-creepy modern
> version to be sure, but I hope all P-listers that attended kept it real...
> Wonder if Pynchon was there in NYC?
>
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