“LULLING OUR SENSIBILITIES”
by OPOVV, ©2014
(Jan. 3, 2014) — Before Christ, back in the infancy of the Roman Empire, to distract the citizens from sleazy, inappropriate and illegal maneuvers of the government, lavish shows were made available. Free, or virtually free, entertainment, along with food and wine; anything to distract the populace from what was really going down with their money in the form of taxes and how they were being spent.
Remind anyone of the United States of today? Multiple channels on the idiot box (television set) 24 hours a day; spectacular sport spectacles year-round; when the season and Grand Finale of one sport ends, another begins, so much so that they overlap one another. World Series competes with opening kickoff; golf, tennis, hockey, lacrosse, darts, ping-pong, poker all competing with basketball. And re-runs of the great games of the past; bloopers; amazing catches; longest throw, shot, hit; worst calls by the zebras (umpires/referees).
Movies galore! New movies, weekly, at the neighborhood movie house and on that idiot box again. Movies made for television. And reruns of any and all the movies ever made and saved. No language difficulty here in Tinsel Town. No more subtitles: remember, Johnny can’t read. Bleep-out or just change the words; add color and destroy the shadows, the demarcation between light and dark, or vice- versa: it does make a difference. Shorten for time span. I watched an Elvis Presley movie the other night and my favorite part they cut out, a singing scene! The nerve!
Not to mention the reruns of everything that’s ever been on, from Our Gang and Hopalong, to Uncle Miltie and American Bandstand. Don’t forget the “news” 24 hours a day.
I knew a drug addict who’d pawn anything except his TV set.
Yes, we have the wine, just as they did 3,000 years ago. And beer, too. And everything else under the sun. Thousands of concoctions: gin, vodka, rum, rye and on and on and on: alcohol on its way to the brain by the easiest vehicle: a glass and you drink it down.
Drugs for the nose and drugs for the needle. Drugs in pill form. Drugs to keep you zonked-out; maintain your unaware conductivity at a high level, just as public education does: keep you from thinking how dumb we are to accept the “bread and circuses” from the government.
In Vietnam it was called “The Dog and Pony Show,” because every kiddies’ circus had a dog, or a monkey/parrot/rabbit, sitting on the back of a full-grown horse (pygmy) the size of a pony running around in circles that adults somehow figured little kids would enjoy seeing such a bizarre sight.
In short, the government is putting on a show for us while we’re too drugged-up to even recognize it as a show in the first place. The FCC allows hundreds of channels to operate just so they can show more pro-government commercials. Beware of subliminal messages, by the way. It’s not hard to see through the hype.
“Bread & Circuses” or “Dog and Pony Show:” it’s all the same extravaganza to lure us in to lull our sensibilities so we don’t even know when we’ve been had.
OPOVV