Those that attack as clones

moominmolly had a link to this conservative's comments in favor of the Galactic Empire. It got me thinking, and thus I'm all in favor of his editorial as seeds of discussion.

I have some other theories about Emperor Palpatine. (I also have some theories that the author of this article secretly approved of the Nazis because they helped Germany recover from World War II.)

First there's Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. My impression had been that Palpatine is merely using the system as a means to his own end -- domination. We can say that megalomaniacs seek law and order, but the deeper psychological issues leading to that need suggest childhood abuse. He's re-enacting his crippled childhood in Episode 4, when he blows up an entire planet.

Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. Ah, the happy, spring days of Augusto Pinochet, puppet of the CIA. He disappeared thousands of people, ended the nationalization of the bauxite industry (because it threatened American business interests) and set the standard of fascist waves throughout South America.

When he gets to The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen, I think of Alduraan's fate. The author's suggestion that Alduraan is merely a sacked fort misses the big picture. A fort has just soldiers and officers -- many their families as well. A fort is not a high-scale ecosystem, even when it's the size of the Death Star -- nothing has come to a biological equilibrium yet. When you sack a fort, soldiers die. When you blow up an entire planet, trillions of innocent critters, most without any sentient goings-on, die. Why? "Cuz you gots rebels."

I'll grant that supra-planetary jurisdiction would be difficult at best. There would need to be the kind of diplomatic coordination that makes Microsoft or Verizon look like ma and pa stores. As bad as this had been for the Senate, I doubt you'd really cut out many middle-men in an Imperial setting. To propose the Empire was a brilliant solution ignores the iron fist inside the velvet glove. It excuses bread-and-circus Academies the same way the same author would probably explain workfare.

The positivist approach to the Empire saga is that the story of Anakin becoming Darth and the Republic being crushed under the Empire then the Empire replaced by a monarchy is really the tale of the middle way. Okay, here me out. Anakin really is the new wave that will bring balance -- he starts as good, goes mega-evil. This snaps the Jedi out of complacency through severe pogroms. The fresh blood is his son, but it is also in the clean slate of what a universe could be. There was stale water on the good side; by Episode 6, it is running fast and clear.

The other problem is that we, as Americans, have come to new methods of large-scale management since 1977. The conclusion of Episode 6 is that neither Imperialism nor the Republic worked. What worked was a small revolution, like E.F. Schumacher discusses in "Small is Beautiful". Warren Wagar wrote a book "A Brief History of the Future", which though it is surprisingly dated for something published in 1987 gives a fine example of how a small-revolt works. We embrace the swarm these days -- we don't want fiefdoms but instead seek a high-power, fast-response team. We'd want a billion bands of comrades that may never each meet but all read the same infectious literature.

You know, like they all saw Star Wars and went "hey, cute, but I could top that."

-there's a fence to be on? ps/d