Politics is reminiscent of the Roman Games. The games are held to appease the people. People are led to opulent settings and led to believe they’re a part of the production. The people get the peanuts and the chance to gaze upon the face of Caesar as he feasts on gourmet meals and the finest wine. The people get grape juice, but it’s free.

The pageantry is what counts. Pleasure and distraction are the goals. The people descend into a feeling of well-being, or maybe they’re harangued to a fever pitch watching battles of gladiators versus animals versus gladiators or animals vs. human slaves condemned to death for no more than being caught without sufficient strength in numbers to prevent enslavement.

Where this becomes of surreal importance is in the relative positioning of the participants in the games. The Gladiator’s position is certainly different from that of the animal. One will die. The other will walk away for the chance to fight another day: to kill or be killed. Charioteers race to determine the winner, but the horses suffer the lung-bursting race and the risk of damage to their bodies and lives.

The citizens sit in the open beneath the sun, baking their brains while being satisfied of their need to see carnage and forget their problems for awhile. They’re entertained and feel good for doing nothing about the underlying problems depressing them when the games aren’t in session. Life’s momentarily good. They can feel better about their situation because, in respect to that of the people on the arena floor, they (as citizens) are at least not being eaten by a tiger or shredded by an angry gladiator.  It’s all subjective.

Now, national politics stands-in for The Games. Politicos replace roman aristocracy in the Caesarian “Sky Seat” observing the combatants and victims running in the arena. Politicians sit in the shade, their lackeys fanning them in splendor, while overseeing the illusion of “good times” and prosperity. Meanwhile the granaries are filled with rats and mold taints the product. But, everybody’s getting to see the show.

Politicians send pollsters to “test the waters”. They ask questions to determine the thinking and possibly the thought processes of people to figure out what the people want.

At least that’s the way polls once were taken and analyzed.

Now, many pollsters have agendas as well defined as the people they poll for. Opinions are accepted from those they query, but if they don’t produce the numbers necessary, the results can be “jiggered” (shaken) to blend the ingredients and produce a dilution or solution working best for the customer. Those results are malleable, moldable to fit the needs of the pollster’s customer.

America is being run by “Public Opinion Poll”. Until this point most people believed they decided what direction American policy would steer by controlling their elected officials. They received facts from the news media. Now all the media supply polls to justify their reportage.

Bill Clinton ran an entire administration by watching the way polls drifted and reacting to HIS best interests so as to rise to the top of circumstantial derivatives. He always made it look like he knew what he was doing, when really it was a toss-up. Witness Somalia and his failure to neutralize Osama bin Laden during his administration. The polls were ill-defined in what people wanted; Clinton’s actions were ill-defined and weak in their decisiveness of action. But he had no personal jeopardy to worry about. Nobody shot at him.

The main thing to recognize in all of this is the relative position of the actors as they sit in society. It’s always the wealthy giving to the “little people”. It’s always Caesar giving the games to the people from the coffers of THEIR taxes so they feel better. He never gives away HIS assets, only the people’s funds are doled out. And the strange thing is the citizens accept this as long as they get their share. Free is equated to freedom as long as it’s somebody else supplying the goods. This is what polls show: who wants what.

This President’s a millionaire. What’s he got to lose by re-distributing YOUR wealth under this theory?

Thanks for listening.