The Romans really knew what they were doing. Thousands of years ago they dreamed up the idea of “bread and circuses” to keep the mobs and masses of Roman society quiet while the government did what it wanted.

Give the people food and entertainment to keep them happy and they will not question.

We might look back at it now and think, “What? Getting stale bread that could probably knock you unconscious and if it was thrown at you while being entertained by some circuses tricked these people? I would never fall for that.”

Think again.

Unfortunately we have all become, in one way or another, victims of “bread and circuses” syndrome. Now, however, our “bread and circuses” have evolved to a multi-million dollar art.

We have brain-draining television shows like “American Idol” at our disposal at all hours of the day to distract us from reality.

We have (for many people) more food than we know what to do with.

Portions in American restaurants have gotten larger and larger. Just look at the size of dinner plates as compared to 15 or 20 years ago–they have almost doubled in size.

Instead of picking up the paper and investigating what our leaders are doing with our hard-earned money, we spend our time reading over the nuances of celebrity lives.

To be honest, I am just as guilty as anyone of having useless pop-culture knowledge. Quick–what music celebrity recently got married to another music celebrity?

If you knew the answer was Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale … congratulations you have useless knowledge taking up room in your highly capable brain (don’t worry, it’s unfortunately taking up space in my brain too).

On a daily basis we are being fed a diet of ersatz culture while the important decisions of the world are being made without our input. And in between “Elimidate” and “Survivor,” we are surrounded by the message to buy, buy, buy with a never-ending stream of commercials.

The modern day “bread and circuses” is stopping us–the average person–from having our say in the way our world is working.

After all, how many of us really know what our foreign policy really does or the true impact of welfare on the working poor? Perhaps the aspiring politicians, the political science majors, and those with an interest in world affairs know a little more than the average person, but what about the rest of society?

Our brains have an incredible capacity for knowledge.

To check for yourself, just go up to any sports fan and listen to the various player statistics and other sports-related information that just pours out. Or ask any “Days of Our Lives” fan for the latest plot developments and be amazed by all the little details and plot twists they know. If sports and soap-opera information can be managed, then so can a comprehension of most world and local news. Clearly, we all have the capacity to do so.

We just need to wake up and realize what is going on.

More questioning needs to take place with less acceptance of the orders handed down from on high.

After all, how many of us really want billions of dollars of our money to go to killing innocent women and children in other countries?

How many of us want a dead, polluted and environmentally unstable planet for our children to inherit?

How many of us want to see the health-care system spiral out of control, leaving many Americans uninsured?

It is time for all of us to wake up and throw away the crusty bread and intellectually deficient entertainment we are being surrounded with and start asking some hard, serious questions of our leaders. It is time we started holding our politicians accountable.

Lubna Alam is a senior studying history