Heh... James, I've been hearing comparisons like that for as long as I can remember. (And, dude, I can remember most of the 70s and even some of the 80s!
) Bread and circuses, we're in the Decline of Western Civilization, everything is doomed to fall into barbarism. Well, we've escaped that fate so far, and I have no reason to assume that we won't figure out how to keep muddling our way through our current problems.
Of course, I did grow up in a house full of Classics professors and their friends.
-soD