On Bread and Circuses

According to Wikipedia bread and circuses in Roman times referred to the "Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power".  

Now this sounds nothing at all like what is going on in the United States.  Ads for fast food restaurants offer rock bottom prices on super processed food with no regard to the harm it does to the individual, animals, or the environment.  Meanwhile people mindlessly pick a team based simply on meaningless location.  It's somehow socially acceptable to strongly state your opinion on this pointless matter, but yet when it comes to bringing up real issues such as that we are destroying the planet, somehow this is considered improper.  

But what we should remember is this: bread and circuses destroyed the Romans.