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By Rixon Stewart
In ancient Rome they had bread and circuses, today we have bread and the modern media. A whole cavalcade of various entertainments: from TV talk shows and soap operas to films and newspapers of every description. They may appear a little different but the effect is the same: to divert attention with illusions and fantastic amusements, and in doing so silence voice of conscience.
Even those media that claim to be serious bastions of journalistic integrity are no exception. In fact they are often more culpable than most. Thus we’ve witnessed two momentous events and in each case the mainstream media has woven a web of deceit around them masquerading as news. The first occurred on August 31st 1997 when Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris. In the months and years that followed many began to question events as portrayed by the mainstream media. And with each unanswered question doubts about the integrity of our so-called “free press” have grown.
Why, for instance, have editors and news commentators carefully avoided mentioning Tomlinson’s historic affidavit? Could it be in response to some unspoken agenda? As authors Jon King and John Beveridge point out in “Diana: The Hidden Evidence” there are indications that the BBC actually conducted “dress rehearsals” to announce the “death of a British Royal” weeks before Diana’s fatal crash. Then on Saturday 30th August, the eve of her death, the authors were informed that another such rehearsal had taken place announcing the death of the Princess “in a road traffic accident”.
As you might expect the BBC has denied these claims.
The events of September 11th 2001 have brought a similar flurry of questions and -- like Diana’s death -- the mainstream media has been unable to provide any credible answers. Indeed almost without exception they have confused the issue still further.
So what exactly happened on September 11th 2001?
In attempting to answer that it’s worth bearing in mind that when the Ruling Elite embark on a project the aim is often to achieve a NUMBER of different objectives; in other words to kill two or even three birds with one stone. For example the Gulf War was to enrich the Bush family and their friends in the oil business. But it was also used to introduce the public at large to the very notion of a New World Order. Remember George Bush Senior's famous speech? And, moreover it was used take a few steps toward establishing a real global army and to prepare the way for a global peacekeeping force, at least in the public mind.
So in view of the current ‘War on Terror’ we should ask ourselves: who exactly profits?
Well, amongst other beneficiaries, the oil business is once again set to embark on a bonanza. Current estimates indicate that, in addition to huge gas deposits, the Caspian basin may hold as much as 200 billion barrels of oil with a current value of $4 trillion. That’s enough oil to meet the U.S. energy needs for decades ahead. So it’s significant that its potential was recognised back in 1998 when current Vice President Dick Cheney, then CEO at Halliburton, a leading oil industry and military supplier, announced: “I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian.”
There was however one small problem: getting oil out of the Caspian would mean laying a pipeline through Afghanistan and that was something its then rulers, the Taliban, were not amenable to. So the executives at Halliburton must be rubbing their hands together in glee at the “War on Terror.” Their profits are about to surge and in the process help pay for the whopping twenty million dollar retirement package they granted Dick Cheney when he retired last year to run for Vice President.
And Dick Cheney has had plenty of experience with this sort of operation. As CEO of Halliburton Cheney was among the chief profiteers of the Kosovo war: Brown & Root, a Houston subsidiary of Halliburton, was awarded the engineering contract to house, feed, and otherwise amuse the US “peacekeepers”.
All of which gives new meaning to the term the “Military Industrial Complex.”
Remember though: when the Ruling Elite embark on a project the payback is usually manifold. So the oil industry and military suppliers are not the only ones who will profit from the ‘War on Terror’. Others will too, and not just in material terms either. Since the September 11th attacks Israel has come under far less intense media scrutiny. And as Israel Shamir points out in “On The Move” the consequences of the troubles in Afghanistan could reach further than many yet realise.
While Imperial Rome had its circuses and intrigues it was nothing compared to its modern day counterpart. The New World Order is bigger, nastier, more decadent, corrupt and repressive than ancient Rome ever was. But like they say: the bigger the come, the harder they fall, and like the World Trade Centre it may yet come crashing down in tumult of dust and rubble.
America’s Bread and Circus Society
By Chuck Baldwin
The Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) wrote regarding the way latter-day Roman emperors retained power and control over the masses that were seemingly more than happy to obsess themselves with trivialities and self-indulgences while their once-great-and-powerful empire collapsed before their very eyes. He wrote:
“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.”
I submit that a good many in America are, like Rome of old, carelessly frittering away their God-given liberties, foolishly clamoring for nothing more than government handouts and never-ending entertainment. Millions and millions of Americans (especially males) are literally intoxicated with sports. Sports are no longer a great American pastime; they are now a great American obsession.
Mind you, this writer has been a sports fan all of his life. I began playing organized basketball in the fifth grade; I was on the high school wrestling team; I played football in high school and college; and I ran track. Still today, I enjoy watching a good NFL game (yes, I’m still a Green Bay Packers fan), a good college game when the Gators are playing, a good NCAA men’s basketball game (especially during the tournament–even more so when the Hoosiers are in it), and any NBA championship series between the Celtics and Lakers (I root for Boston). And I even like to watch a round of professional golf once in a while (it helps me go to sleep when I’m trying to take a nap). But none of the above will interfere with anything that is important, and I am not going to plan my whole universe around any of it. If it is convenient, I will watch. If it’s not, I will read about it in the sports section of the newspaper. And I’m certainly not going to spend my hard-earned money following any sports team (even those I like) all over the country like some rock band groupie.
I am not talking about sports in general; I am talking about the way many American men have allowed sports to control and dominate their lives. With many, sports are not just a hobby; they are a religion. I cannot count the number of conversations between men that I overhear in restaurants, airplanes, boardrooms, and, yes, even church houses, in which every man in the circle is literally consumed with all sorts of sports facts, information, and opinions. In many such discussions, these men will talk about nothing else. To these men, there is absolutely nothing in the world more important than the latest sports score, announcement, or trade. NOTHING!
And there is also a very real psychological pitfall associated with a man’s intoxication with sports. I submit that an obsession with sports gives men a false sense of masculinity and actually serves to steal true manhood from them.
For example, it used to be when men stripped their shirts off and painted their faces, they were heading to the battlefield to kill the tyrant’s troops. Now they are headed off to the sports coliseum to watch a football game. A man’s ego and machismo was once used to protect his family and freedom; now it’s used to tout batting averages and box scores. The fact is, if we could get the average American male to get as exercised and energized about defending the historic principles upon which liberty and Western Civilization are built as he is in defending his favorite quarterback or NASCAR driver, our country would not be in the shape it is in today.
The sad reality is that much of today’s masculinity is experienced only vicariously through a variety of sports teams and personalities. Instead of personally flexing our muscles for God and country, freedom and liberty, or home and hearth, we punch the air and beat our chests over touchdowns and home runs (even though we had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with them ourselves). Instead of getting in the face of these would-be tyrants in Washington, D.C., who are doing everything they can to steal the American dream, we get in the face of the poor umpire who makes a bad call or the Little League coach who doesn’t play my son enough. Our happiness, well-being, and mood are not determined by anything personally achieved (or lost), but by what others accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) at the ball park. Whether our children inherit a land of liberty and freedom does not seem nearly as important as whether they make the starting lineup on the football team.
Add to an epidemic obsession with sports the demand for more and more handouts from Big Brother and the outlook for liberty is not good. Everywhere we turn, we seem to hear people clamoring for government to give them more and more. They expect government to supply their every need and meet their every demand. They then have the gall to turn around and say, “God bless America: land of the free”?
Ladies and gentlemen, one cannot have it both ways. If we expect government to be our supplier, we cannot expect that it will not become our master. Always remember this: government has nothing to give except that it first takes it from someone else. Every dollar and every job that government gives is first taken from someone else. Furthermore, every job given to government is another freedom–and another dollar–taken from the citizenry. Every government job brings with it a restriction, a prohibition, a regulation, an inspection, a fee, a tax, an assessment, etc. As government grows, freedom shrinks. As government spends, wealth shrinks. And as government hires, opportunity shrinks.
Most historians agree with Juvenal that the mighty Roman Empire collapsed from within due to a morally reckless, selfish, pleasure-crazed, sports-obsessed, bread and circus society that willingly surrendered the principles of self-government to an insatiable central government that, through perpetual wars and incessant handouts, destroyed a once-great republic.
By all appearances, the bread and circus society has reared its ugly head in America. And make no mistake about it: if the people of the United States do not quickly repent of this madness, the consequences will be just as destructive for our once-great republic as it was for Rome.
