Empire of Illusion: Triumph of the Spectacle

As all these traditional impediments have been erased, we have had this effect where the crimes of the corporate state came increasingly egregious and harder to ignore.  They have done a good job with spectacle, entertainment, tawdry.  The collapse of empires, whether it is the Austrian-Hungarian empire, the Ottoman empire, or even the Roman empire all descend into these twilight periods, which Cicero writes about, where it's all about spectacle, violence, and sex.  Cicero writes this period in Roman times when we saw the rise of the leaders Nero and Caligula.  This time was when Romans would just go to the Colliseum and invest their emotional and intellectual life in entertainment which became vaster and vaster such as 2000 slaves battling to the death to replicate the battle of Carthage. 

Cicero became a hated figure of the state for speaking these truths, so much so that he was beheaded and his hands severed.  His head and hands were then brought to the Colosseum where is was said that he would never speak or write these things again, and the 40,000 member audience roared its approval.

That's what happens when societies die.

                       Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion

America has long since passed its turning point, as we have now begun to run away from honest intellectual curiosity to selfish, glamorized sexual prowess and entertainment fancy.  What do we celebrate in our culture?  We spend our days at the theater, cinema, and bar.  The lecture halls have been replaced with propaganda and debate has been silenced on some of the most important topics of our time.  We vote for the same corrupt politicians year in and year out and most recently let off punishing those responsible of some of largest criminal act(s) of our time.  Think that after this banking crisis, not one perpetrator of the largest fraud in our lifetimes has gone to jail.  Rather, those in power pillaged the middle class even further to fund even more of the same speculative, fraudulent behavior that created the crisis in the first place.

 The decline in our culture has not happened overnight and if America's heart is return to God, neither will it happen in an instant.  However, to address culture's decline, we will have address its fundamental core, its rotting core that has transformed love into lust and removed all shame.  Voting out our politician at the next election will not solve the problem, rather an address of our own heart's sin and the culture of sin that has permeated our thinking and acting will have to be changed first.