Bread & Circuses

It’s a policy as old as the hills. Coined in Roman Times by the poet Juvenal, to describe the way the republic appeased the population as the democratic Roman Republic made way for the dictatorial Roman Empire. To distract and divert the people’s attention from the erosion of their rights & freedoms they literally gave away food and provided great spectacles in the Coliseum.

Modern interpretations of this policy even brand these “circuses” and use them to push their propaganda. The Nazis’ did this effectively during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. With great pomp and ceremony they used the games to promote the strength of the Aryan race & stir up nationalistic fervour within Germany.

The UK and America had threatened to boycott the games in Germany due to discrimination against minorities, banning Jews from joining sports clubs or taking part in the games. But after allowing a token Jew to perform & the known racist & head of the American Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage (whose bust the San Francisco Asian Art Museum recently removed), telling people they were “un-American agitators” they decided to take part. With the worlds’ backing, Germany then spent a fortune on a lavish spectacle designed to fool the world that they were a tolerant, open minded country.

“The Olympic Games in 1936 were a climax of power and international influence for the Nazis, because Germany presented itself as a peace loving, open minded, and tolerant country, The various sportspeople and diplomats who came to Berlin were hugely impressed with what they saw. So it was an enormous success in propaganda.”

Oliver Hilmes – Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August

As Hitler & his propagandist Goebbels used the Olympics to push their propaganda, their message was beautiful undermined by American Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals, including the 100 metres; with Hitler watching.

The parallels with what the Romans, Nazis and now Tories are doing with Brexit are evident, the idea of a Brexit Festival of Britain, Brexit 50p, Bung a Bong for Brexit, £1m to paint the Royal plane, the “British blue” passport; etc, the nationalism and desire to paint Britain as better than other countries, returning to the time of the (evil) Empire and letting the British Lion roar.

A lot of people find the idea of correlating the Johnson administration with Nazi’s abhorrent and ridiculous. Of course the Tories haven’t invaded their neighbours & killed 6 million Jews, but there are similarities in the way they’re running the country, dividing the nation, blaming others for their failures and using nationalism, fear & propaganda to cement their power base. In other words, similar fascist idealism. That was after all the cornerstone of Brexit, an anti-immigration “fear of the other” policy where they blatantly lied and blamed the EU for the previous failings of Conservative governments. Likewise, we can see similar patterns with Trump in America, which is not a coincidence since Steven Bannon has been instrumental in setting the policy of both Donald Trump & Boris Johnson, he’s been their puppet master.

If we examine Hitler & the Nazi’s foreign policy aims before the war, it boiled down to this:

1. To undo the hated Treaty of Versailles. Hitler blamed the treaty for much of Germany’s troubles since 1918.
2. To unite all German speaking people into a Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany). This was linked to aim number one: many Germans had found themselves living outside of Germany after the territorial changes of the treaty, and of course Germany and Austria were forbidden from uniting.
3. To acquire Lebensraum (living space) to the East of Germany. Hitler believed the Aryan Germans were racially superior to the Slavs of Eastern Europe and should expand into their lands to accommodate a growing Aryan population.
4. To destroy communism. Hitler detested the Soviet Union and its ideology and was determined to destroy it.

Source: BBC News

Of course Johnson + Trump don’t want to kill Jews, they are just using the techniques of the fascists to cement their power and carry out their own political ends. That is to become untouchable dictators (ala Putin who just got his vote to be leader until 2036), have an adoring nationalistic support, run their countries like a mafia business and use & abuse foreign countries to launder money & carry out other criminal acts to increase their power & wealth. So the four pillars of these new authoritarian rulers, parallels the aims of the Nazis in their own way.

1. We see so much cross-over with the policies of Johnson & Trump. Ripping up international treaties (Paris Climate Accord, Iranian nuclear deal, The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), attacking NATO, the EU, the WHO & the UN & blaming them for domestic issues.
2. Trump closing borders to Muslims, calling KKK “good people”, “Make America Great Again”, attacking Black Lives Matter, calling African countries “shit holes” and other racist and xenophobic acts. Johnson little better calling Africans people with “watermelon smiles” and “picanninies“, calling Muslim women wearing burquas as looking like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers” & other ignorant racist comments. The Brexit campaign was even worse, Vote Leave lying & making people fearful about Turks & Farage with his racist “Breaking Point” poster about Syrians pushing fear of migrants. The hypocrisy of them saying the Remain campaign was Project Fear, when it was them stoking fear and the predictions of Remain have mostly been shown to be true.
3. Instead of stealing foreign land, their policies are more about white supremacy and removing foreigners from the UK and America. Brexit has meant thousands of non Brits have been forced to leave the UK, to a massive economic and cultural impact.
4. One only needs to look at Trump’s tweets to see how he’s attacked opposition politicians for being socialists – as if this was something evil. This policy was repeated by the Conservatives when they undermine Labour in General Elections.
   
   But their biggest hate is reserved for the EU, which stands for democracy, freedom, peace & the idea of working together to create a stronger place for everyone. It goes against everything their small-minded and ignorant Nationalistic viewpoints stand for. So they hypocritically project their own failings, ignorant views and policies onto their enemy and make it look like the problem, when in reality they are the problem or creating the problem.

So we see the parallels and how these populists leaders are using the same old tricks to distract the populace, while they bring in racist, xenophobic polices & others designed to remove the rights, freedoms and liberties of the people, which also erode the pillars of democracy to give them more power.

Could we ever have a future where people use the word Brexit with as much disgust as they do Nazi? If we continue along the path Trump, Johnson and other populists who look upto dictators like Putin, Xi & Kim Jong-un, we may do. We only have to look at Victor Orban in Hungary, to see how they want to move towards a dictatorship that have removed all democratic processes & attacks educated liberal progressive and gay people in his country.