"Now that no one buys our votes,
the public has long since cast off its cares;
for the people that once bestowed commands, consulships,
legions, and all else, now meddles no more and
longs eagerly for just two things -- bread and circuses."
by:
Juvenal
[Decimus Junius Juvenalis] (c.55-c.128 AD) Roman satirical poet
Date:
c. 100 A.D
Source:
Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81
Rating:
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The process hasn't changed just the currency.
 -- RobertSRQ     
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    Education is the only answer. Lots of education. The less educated cannot see the abstraction of politics and the further away the abstraction is (state, nation, world) the less they are able to see it and care. Pay me for my vote or give me some benefit I can see clearly. Not unlike the poor of France that first needed religious statutes in order to relate to church doctrine and later needed stautes to define the concepts of liberty and justice.
     -- Bruce, 'Bama     
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    As long as we get our infotainment and credit lines, we are passified -- that is until the powers-that-be wish to work us up into a frenzy so that we start bombing one another. Is there nothing mortal man cannot be made to believe? Truth is more important than 'education' -- and it cannot be taught, only spoken -- would that we had the discernment to tell the difference.
     -- E Archer, NYC     
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    (-; The direct approach to buying votes is far too expensive and the promise of bennies is much more long term and devious.
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
  • 1
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    The recognition and value of truth can be taught but not truth itself - truth is absolute and absolutes are absolute.
     -- RobertSRQ     
  • 1
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    Beware of those who have truth but not education. Education teaches those who get it about how much they don't know. Having truth puts an end to the use of the inquiring mind. Hitler for example burned all of the books because Nazism had the truth. Radical Islam has the truth.
     -- Anonymous     
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    When did they not stop buying votes? Where is this guy coming from? I can’t believe things were that different back then. Human nature surely can't have changed that much. My recollection of his culture would have me believe that it was actually worse then than now. I have to assume that this quote is an example of his satire and speaks more to the Roman's softening resolve and lack of determination that led to its downfall.
     -- warren, olathe     
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    Hitler did not have the truth. He burned books because he couldn't deal with the truth. Radical Islam does the same. Destroy all you don’t like, keep the people ignorant and you get power as a reward. That is how the left in our country attains power also. The destruction of our school system and perversion of our media is purely intentional. That is why you see so many leaders get so frantic about information sources that they have no control over. They try to block home schooling and private education. They demand legislation to make it "fair" for them. (Nothing that contradicts them is fair) Truth is a dangerous thing to them and must be destroyed. They even go so far as to redefine truth to mean any thing they want. So it depends on what your definition of "is" is.
     -- warren, olathe     
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    warren, it is the bread and circus that now propagates the vote (along with stuffing the ballot computer) For as many election cycles as I can remember there have been bus loads of students out of Boston coming up to New Hampshire, registering the day of the election, then successfully voting in the most appropriate comrade (of course the law won't change, too many comrades in office). How many 108% of the vote has to go to 1 candidate (without 1 vote going to the contrary) has to occur before the government's media complex will inspire the patrons of the bread and circus to do anything about it? Union voters pay their overlords (why pay that herd) For so many, it is the bread and circus (diversified dole, insurance, and otherwise benefits) that buys the vote. The occupying statist theocracy infesting this land buys its votes through education - its patrons learn to exist either in the left or in the right end of the socialist stick. Issues such as mandatory vaccines are heavily advertised by propaganda (falsely passing such off as news) with half truths and outright lies to buy the vote through so called educated fear - more bread and circus. Etc., etc., etc.
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
  • 1
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    So this is where "Bread and Circus" comes from ! There was ( still may be ) a group that traveled around New England that adopted the name. I never closely-observed their philosophy but my impression was that they were FAR left.( Maybe I'll do a bit of research today to find out more ).
     -- Bob, Charlotte, VT     
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    Have we really advanced two thousand years later? Isn't the goal of a leftist administration is maintain the bare essentials of quality of life and give them a super-bowl event every other month to placate the socialist masses? This while plundering the economic infrastructure and destroying constitutional rights.I believe that Juvenalis was right then and it applies to the US now.
     -- Tom, Dayton     
  • 1
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     -- Mary - MI      
    If I wasn’t so busy eating food bought with my food stamps and watching the Kardashian’s I might have time to analyze this quote. But whatever…
     -- SCSURFR, La Mirada     
  • 1
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    An Italian lawmaker talked about how it took 2000 years for Italy to be in the shape it is now. He noted how it only took the US 200 years.
     -- cal, lewisville, tx     
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    The bread becomes disrupted, the circus is seen a fraud, now monocrats of old seek to feed once again, the Christians to the lions. Saad Al Melik, Saad Al Sund. history repeats itself. 
    WWG1WGA to MAGA to KAG The disruption of "business as usual" has exposed a worldwide swamp. 
     -- Ronw13, Oregon     
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     -- jim k, Austin      

    For several years, I used to attend the Bread and Circus Theater gathering in Glover, VT.  There were performances and giant puppets — the 'evil' one burned in effigy.  Anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-capitalism, free bread (long lines), hippies, drugs, veggie burritos, good times!  Few were there to be educated in progressivism, most were there for the party and the bonfires. 


     -- E Archer, NYC     
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