Modern Bread and Circuses

Americans Are So Distracted by Entertainment That They Don’t See Government Corruption

 History-Clues

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

America’s “welfare state is now larger than the gross domestic product of 175 of the 190 wealthiest countries.” ~Terrence P. Jeffrey

When Lenin set out to transform, fundamentally transform Russia, he didn’t say he was going to kill 40 million people, create famines and concentration camps called gulags. He said he was going to give them bread, land and peace. ~David Horowitz

Hope and change. Bread and circuses. Don’t say you weren’t warned. ~Patrice Lewis

 

America, Land of 1,000 Addictions

David Kupelian

But, unlike getting high and being entertained, real faith is not a feeling or emotion, no an intellectual concept or positive affirmation.

Rather, faith and hope come, as the Good Book tells us, on the heels of genuine, sincere repentance. As always, the only way out of the great maze of life on earth is upward—by yearning for the Living God and His influence and direction in our lives.

Providing free food is the best way to conquer and domesticate animals and to lead them into cages.

“Bread and circuses” (where politicians and “experts” become our gods, and continual distraction and escape from reality become a way of life) is the diametric opposite of early America’s “Christianity and liberty” (faith in God, and the real freedom that keeping His commandments brings.)

Enter the circuses! To assuage our angst and anxiety, we need to be continually entertained and distracted so we cannot hear the still small voice within us that is desperately saying, “Something is terribly wrong with the way you’re going.”

At the root of the bread-and-circuses welfare state is our country’s de facto abandonment of God, with the government and a rotten culture acting as our gods.

Do you think telling children, in a multitude of ways today’s culture and government constantly do, that God is not real has no effect on their mental health and happiness?

Do you think aborting over 55 million American children in the four decades since the Supreme Court legalized it in 1973—and the not-subtle message this sanitized slaughter sends throughout society about the lack of sacredness of human life—has no effect on the mental health and sense of wellbeing of Americans?

Do you think watching the greatest, freest and most productive nation in history—one based on “Christianity and liberty”—being dismantled by arrogant elitists, addicted to power and enthralled by a delusional utopian system that always fails, has no part in driving people to addiction?

Do you think, for America’s military members, that having a president who—let’s just say it—hates America, and therefore logically cannot have American soldiers’ best interests at heart in his decisions as commander in chief, wouldn’t cause tremendous stress and morale problems in the armed forces, perhaps even contributing to the radical level of psychiatric drug use by troops and the 22 military suicides (active-duty and vets) that occur daily?

Do you think indoctrinating and pressuring young children into affirming that two men kissing each other, or getting “married,” is normal and wholesome has no effect on their mental health and happiness? Allow me to spell it out: When a 5-year-old sees two men kissing, the “ick factor” he automatically experiences—“Oh my gosh, that’s so gross!”—is from God. It is gross.

To escape from our self-consciousness of this uncomfortable rift between us and our Creator, we are easily tempted to escape into distraction, excitement, intoxicants and toxic relationships.

As if that weren’t enough, add to the mix a government run by people addicted to power and control over us, as well as a corrupt culture addicted to celebrating pride and rebellion against basic moral values, and these influences make things immeasurably worse for us.

But, unlike getting high and being entertained, real faith is not a feeling or emotion, no an intellectual concept or positive affirmation.

Rather, faith and hope come, as the Good Book tells us, on the heels of genuine, sincere repentance. As always, the only way out of the great maze of life on earth is upward—by yearning for the Living God and His influence and direction in our lives.

 

Amusing Ourselves to Death

“In the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate.” ~Aldous Huxley

 

Art Moore

In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, who died in 2003, shows how various forms of media shape the way a civilization defines truth. In the age of television, information becomes a packaged commodity that subordinates the relevant and the important to what sells.

Entertainment and emotional stimulation thus become society’s highest values, and the complex ideas of politics and religion are diluted and distorted into platitudes, pleasant aphorisms and sound bites.

Education, too, becomes a form of show business.

In one chapter, “Reach Out and Elect Someone,” Postman demonstrates how elections have boiled down to a battle of images, functioning much the way retailers sell their products on TV.

Citizens become consumers who are fed abstract images based on what they believe is lacking in their personal lives.

They vote, consequently, largely to fill that perceived personal lack, rather than to do what is best for society and their families, in alignment with enduring principles.

Neil Postman …said he actually found Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” a more relevant reflection of modern times than Orwell’s “1984.”

The book concludes with “The Huxleyan Warning” from Brave New World: “in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate.”

In the Huxleyan prophecy, Postman says, there’s no need for Big Brother to watch people. (Orwell: 1984) People watch Big Brother—by choice.

Postman writes:

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

 

Socialists killing America with Bread and Circuses

Gina Loudon

Creating dependency degrades those who indulge, and it makes saps of those who do not. Worse, the tighter we weave the social safety net, the more we destroy the beautiful fabric of the nuclear family.

Example:

A cop responded to a domestic disturbance call. When he arrived and settled things down, he started asking questions and got some surprisingly candid answers. The young couple was doing pretty well for two people with no jobs.

Cop: How do you afford all this without jobs?

Man: We do OK> we pull in about $30,000 per year.

Cop: How do you do that?

Man: Welfare, AFDC (aid to families with dependent children), SSI (Supplemental Security Income), food stamps, housing assistance, food pantries.

It seems the Cloward-Piven strategy—intentionally loading up the welfare rolls to cause the current system to bread down, to be replaced by a new socialist system—was in full swing.

Worst of all, family interdependence is all but nonexistent for the poor, as illustrated by the stunning figure of 68 percent out-of-wedlock births for black women.

Under the flawed social welfare system, the teenager who seeks “independence” from her parents can find it in pregnancy. At the end of life, the senior no longer needs children, as the government has programs for them. Economic interdependence was part of the glue that held together the family fabric that forced people to humble themselves and work out problems between one another.

The socialists have eliminated that family-binding glue in the U.S.

Destroying then nuclear family, killing the poor with flawed food, and placating people with expanded access to mind-altering drugs is no way to build a strong sovereign nation. No country can survive these assaults over time. Patriots know that true compassion is tough love, but it is more than that.

Christians are commanded to help the poor. Three times Jesus beseeches his followers to show their love for him by feeding His sheep. The socialists have twisted this beautiful calling by making the government the agent of all good works. But those who create a system that enslaves people, and who do it in the name of justice, are the enemies of the people they profess to love.

 

The Kardashian Effect

Dire events abound, but many are too busy watching Kim’s derriere

Patrice Lewis

It’s not just Kim, of course. Americans are obsessed with celebrity culture. They follow the antics of “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars” and every intellectual giant that flashes skin in the Hollywood landscape.

Why? What has Kim Kardashian actually accomplished? What kind of cultural contribution has Britney Spears made? What significant event elevated Miss Gaga to the status of Lady? What am I missing?

Some people thought increased availability of information through the Internet and personal electronic devices would increase America’s vigilant oversight of our leaders. The opposite has happened. People (especially young people) have become so separated from reality, so drugged by media and so focused on those tiny little screens that they become immune to government actions that will have a vast effect on their future.

In other words, people are more interested in following the shallow antics of Kim Kardashian than they are in following the life-altering antics of our leaders. It’s the ultimate triumph of style over substance.

Saturated in this kind of constant stimulation, the one thing people miss out on is real life—and that includes how Washington is taking advantage of these distractions to disassemble our nation and rebuild it into something unrecognizable.

I know it’s a lot easier to immerse ourselves in the trivial than face the serious, and I’m not implying we don’t all deserve a little R&R by reading or watching fluff.

But for goodness sake, people, America is burning down around our ears. You need to put aside the digital bread and circuses and open your eyes to the real world we’ve been gifted by God. Just maybe you’ll see some things that need fixing.

Or at least you’ll avoid walking into a light pole.