Confessions of a Know-It-All

Growing up, I was always around people who didn't care about politics, causes or changing the world.  Didn't care, didn't know, didn't want to know.  Which I had always thought to be an issue of class.  If you're struggling to get food and heat, who cares what's going on in the world, right?  Makes sense when you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs ladder- you sort out your physical needs first before social needs.  

Then in my 20's, I realized it's an issue of gender.  Specifically, women don't care about politics.  Most women let their husbands deal with anything of the outside world, because they have their hands full with the inside world of kids and chores and work and shopping and husbands.

(Um, aren't you a poor, busy mom writing about caring about politics right now?  wtf?)

Yes, I was wrong.  Clearly women and poor people are perfectly capable of understanding the hooza-whatcha-call-it world thingy.

Lately I've been reading about ancient Rome, specifically the republic before the empire, the senate and voting and plebeians, nobles, aristocrats, patricians and all this shit looking for parallels to today. 

And I found the satires of Juvenal, who is basically a comedian and a historian at the same time.  He observed that the campaign and election process had become meaningless and ineffective, since the voters were bribed with free grain and parties and shit and that's how the votes were "won".  They were bought.

From Wikipedia: 

Juvenal is the source of many well-known maxims, including: 

• that the common people—rather than caring about their freedom—are only interested in “bread and circuses” (panem et circenses 10.81; i.e. food and entertainment)

So, the person with the most resources would win the election, not the person with the most qualifications.  In the Roman Republic.  In like, the year 90 or 100.  Hm, that sounds familiar!

In conclusion, the way to a plebeian's heart is through their stomach, politics neglect actual governance, and I'm definitely the reincarnation of Julius Caesar.