"Bread And Circuses" Worked In Roman Times & Still Works Today - Nothing Has Changed

[TheMastersNemesis]

All this cultural clap trap is important to a point and as far as it goes but masks the decline of the US in so many ways. And all the sports and reality shows are more circus that distracts from real issues like the trashed job market and falling wages. And while all of this legerdemain goes on unions and labor attacks continue in earnest.

Sure there are jobs, but they "ain't was they used to be" as the saying goes. Since Reagan most jobs have no job security, pay is much less, and for the most part only very few jobs have any long term future. Careers with upward mobility are practically extinct. Want a raise or want to move up. Find a job with another company. Move on or move out before you are forcibly unemployed. The new job market will be a series of short careers that the worker pays for with retraining every couple of years. Retirement forget it, unless you can make enough to save enough to buy a home, raise a family, and pay your bills and still have enough left over for a 401k that will likely crash just before you can leave the world of work.

The American worker has bought an economic lemon sold by Saint Reagan and the GOP for over 30 years. It is strange that "trickle down" economics is really "tinkle down" economics and looks yellow. And voters kept the GOP in with enough power to deliver this economic "turkey".

And it will only get worse as time goes on because the "Reagan revolution" has really succeeded in delivering a "service economy" which will itself be outsourced. And the "bread and circuses" continues as the plight of the worker class gets worse by the day.

Forget the econ numbers they are no more than a mirage. The real numbers are in your paltry paycheck. And it is not because of too many taxes, it is because of too much CEO pay and too much excess profit.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. except we aren't getting the bread

just the circus.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. Touche - Today's Circus Works Even Better Than The Roman Version.

[dawg]

6. You beat me to it!

I was going to say, "Except for the fact that now they are trying to cut out the bread."

[Kurovski]

7. What do you mean "we aren't getting the bread"?

Twinkies are coming back into production soon.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. Juvenal and the lessons of history

"Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors."

The Twinkie defense aside, readers should know that the 1st century (C.E.) satirist (an irony that should not be lost on most DUers) was complaining not only about the political expediency of buying votes, but also of the overall erosion of civic involvement in the community.

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Basics here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses for those who have abdicated their civic duty to be informed.

Were he to rejoin us today, I do believe Juvenal would have to pull out his rubber stamp.

[Kurovski]

9. More people than ever are voting and are informed due to the internet and...

popular entertainment using politics as material. A report in 2008 revealed more volunteerism than ever in American communities.

Our gov. is of course almost completely bought. But young people really don't watch TEEVEE, they are more involved than the retirees, for the most part. retirees however well, or ill-informed they may be, vote without fail.

[rrneck]

3. The culture wars are just another product. nt

[HiPointDem]

4. +1

[liberal N proud]

5. Another fine example of a Reagan policy or action at the root of Americas problems today