Those of you who saw the letter I included in the previous posting about the "Malfunctioning of the Democratic Process" might be pleased, as I was, with its being published by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel (circulation 106,000) last week. What a wonderful way to start out the new year! And of course, a happy, healthy and successful 2018 is our wish to all of you.
Sexual Harassment in Macbeth
In
Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth has seized the Scottish throne, murdering the
king and is ruling the land with a reign of terror. Macduff is in rebellion against him and seeks
the help of the exiled Malcolm, rightful heir to the throne. Malcolm has no reason to trust Macduff,
suspecting that he might even betray him to Macbeth. To test his loyalty, he tells Macduff that
however bad Macbeth is, he would be even worse as the king, for he is of all
things, unable to control his sexual appetite. Here are Malcolm’s words from
Act IV, Scene III, of the play.
“I grant him
(Macbeth) bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, sudden, malicious,
smacking of every sin that has a name.
But there’s no
bottom, none, in my voluptuousness; your wives, your daughters, your
matrons and your maids, could not fill up the cistern of my lust, and my desire
all continent (restraining) impediments would o’erbear that did oppose my
will. Better Macbeth than such a one to
reign.”
Malcolm
is making all this up as he reveals shortly thereafter to Macduff. (At first,
Macduff was willing to accept Malcolm as King so long as his supposed sexual
behavior were kept out of the public eye and involved only “willing dames” of
which “we have enough.” Malcolm then comes up with some additional lies about the
bad things he would do as King.) For
those of you who are not familiar with the play, Malcolm joins up with Macduff
and the good guys win.
The reason I am including this as a blog posting is that even at
the beginning of the Seventeenth century, sexual harassment was already an
issue which could be raised in regard to politics, and the plays of Shakespeare sometimes
had political overtones, often being performed before politically involved
audiences. “Macbeth” was performed at the
palace in front of the King. To my
knowledge, he did not send out any “tweets” after seeing it.
Jack Lippman
A Cautionary Note to Democrats and Other "Real" Americans
I fear
that the Republican,Trump-supported,Tax Reform bill, greatly benefiting
the wealthy, reducing the social and economic roles of government and creating
trillions of dollars of additional debt for future generations to manage will be very POPULAR with the American people! How come? Are they that gullible? I fear that they are. Almost half of them did indeed vote for
a failed real estate developer and “reality” TV host for President in 2016!
In their eyes, the
bill’s many horrible provisions will be mitigated by its reduction of taxes for many lower
and middle-class tax payers for the next ten years! That’s all that
will count for many of them. Less
deducted from their paycheck. They
won’t care about the far greater benefits being afforded to the very wealthy
and certain businesses, and unless the absence of our present environmental, regulatory, health care and consumer-oriented safeguards will directly affect them (and not some other guy), they won't miss them.
Show me a
voter who is turned off by what might happen ten years down the pike. Include yourself. Many Americans don’t look beyond their next
paycheck, let alone ten years ahead. They
may be dead by 2027.
Those who oppose our evil President and the evil things the
Republican Party does to keep the money
flowing into its coffers from certain very wealthy supporters have a lot of work to do in 2018. It won’t be easy.
JL
Three Columnists You Should Read
And here are three columns from writers far more skilled than I. I highly recommend that you read them!
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