"Panem et circenses" bread and circuses, or bread and games. Written by Roman satirist Juvenal statement about 100 A.D. the quote refers to politicians using cheap means to divert the attention of the people from real issues. In Roman times the distraction included the games of gladiator slaughter in the Colosseum.
The quote has never been more applicable than today in modern America. To be sure the circus is of a different type. It is a political circus, and it certainly is full of modern day clowns. Today's political circus advances fake issues, elevating them in importance for their appeal to popular fear and prejudice, to distract from real issues that should be in the forefront.
One such fake issue de jour is fear mongering about transgenders. They scream about them being in the wrong bathroom, about surgery being done on minors without parental consent (which does not happen) and so on. Another is the fake issue of supposed full term post birth abortion, which also doesn’t happen. For such fake issues, action is demanded, and often taken, with the passage of mostly meaningless laws impacting people who are already isolated and marginalized.
Fake issues, and fake actions regarding them, distract from real issues, like children being slaughtered in their classrooms by gunfire. When more of our kids are slaughtered in school, we are told that nothing can be done. Our children must be sacrificed on the alter of absolutist gun rights. Any restriction is to big, and no slaughter big enough to justify even the most tiny of change.
Only in a horrible nation, controlled by awful people, could such thinking dominate. And yet, here we are. We live yet another day after yet another mass school shooting brought by yet another child armed with a weapon designed to kill large numbers of people. Yet again nothing will be done. Nothing will even be seriously considered.
The same kind of weapon nearly slayed their own glorious leader, and again nothing changed.
But hey, let's get worked up instead about the kids dressing funny and wearing make up. I am so sick of this. I'd make a call for action, but it would probably be lost in a meandering clown speech about something really important involving sharks and batteries.
In 100 A.D. gladiators were slaughtered in the public Colosseum. Today, our children are slaughtered in our public schools, and we tolerate it, or at least do nothing to stop it. Do try to convince me how we are more civilized now.
