Repeating History? Not: Resisting Barack Obama’s ‘Bread and Circuses’ Strategy
The current White House administration has taken several pages out of the playbook of political history. This in itself is surprising, since collectively they seem to be such poor students of history if their litany of failed socialist policies is any indication. Akin to the race cards they have dealt from the bottom of the proverbial deck, the pages they selectively culled from political history are among the most onerous ever deployed. Their contempt for the citizenry they “serve” is reaching critical mass, in the same manner that George III provoked the colonial citizenry to uprising a few hundred years ago.
President Obama has circumvented the American multi-branch system of checks and balances at every opportunity in order to advance his personal agenda. In legal and illegal maneuvers of a scale that shames the constitutional parsings of his predecessor William Jefferson Clinton, Mr. Obama has ploughed new ground of despotic chicanery in his quest to cement his legacy. If there is any justice left in this world (and courage to back it up), his actual legacy will be to go down in history as the single most rebuffed president ever to occupy the Oval Office.
Instead of relying on the established constitutional process of promoting his policies through the arena of public debate and building support in Congress, he has brashly resorted to any other obscure means through which he can avoid honest scrutiny of his proposals. That says volumes about the quality of those proposals…and even more about the smarmy, cynical manipulator behind them.
Regardless of party affiliation, ANY administration that circumvents constitutional limits on power by abusing special mechanisms such as executive orders, regulations imposed by unelected government agencies or by invoking broad applications to select, limited portions of the constitution (Commerce clause) is NOT there to serve the electorate, but rather to enact its own agenda in spite of the citizenry. This administration has sunk to depths of depravity unplumbed by any preceding one.
Notwithstanding all this, the most recent ploy of the Obama White House is to utilize glitzy distractions, in the form of celebrities and sports stars promoting its policies. To wit, Obama approached the National Football League about using its immense cachet to promote his failing Affordable Care Act. They punted as a group, but that didn’t prevent him from enlisting the Superbowl Champion Baltimore Ravens to publicly push his healthcare debacle on a reluctant public. Does anyone in possession of a brain give a damn what Ravens players have to say about the matter? When did Joe Flacco become an expert on national health policy, Mr. Obama?
Adam Levine may be the “sexiest man alive”, so on that basis we should listen to him flack for Barack’s stillborn healthcare act? Your president believes that when confronted with the radiance of Mr. Levine’s unapproachable good looks and talent, men and women alike will completely lose their ability to think critically and simply embrace whatever Levine’s rap lyrics hypnotically tell them.
The Roman politicians of 140 B.C. devised a scheme appealing to the lowest common denominator of citizens, those who had become so jaded about their lofty political heritage that they only cared about cheap food and entertainment. Roman poet Juvenal captures the lament of the people, as they realize that they’ve exchanged the birthright that enshrined their greatness for rubbish.
..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 hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.
Not by a long shot, Mr. President. Not by a long shot.
Fix bayonets!
Image: Courtesy of: http://www.magickriver.org/2012/01/uncle-ants-agony-ecstasy-column-1.html
