SHAKESPEARE?!

     Every year I would hear the same complaints. Why do we have to read him? It's not even real English. It's so old anyway! The best answer, before the experience proved itself rewarding to and for the kids was this: because I said so. Period.
I am sure that somewhere in the world today, wherever they might reside, some of my students are remembering their days in our classroom and the understanding of Shakespeare, its relevance to all ages. Humanity is not so creative. We recycle.
     "Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war!" 
    So cried out Marc Antony in Act III of Julius Caesar and so did we, the people, of the current USA, do so yesterday. There were huge protests. They began, for the most part, peacefully, and then deteriorated into violence, mob disorder, looting and fires. Not just protests, but acts used by others willing to incite, others wishing to prove a point about the protesters, or people frustrated by the longevity of this irrational hatred that leads to the cruel deaths of so many. 
      Saturday is a day when aside from the delivery of the morning paper, I am, thankfully so, at least these days, cut off from the agonies of the world, frighteningly  resembling the death throes of mankind, certainly of our society as conceived, as once was progressing towards.
    However, when a society is so riven with discord, with disagreement on fundamental rules without which we cannot have a just society, then we are in trouble. People have a streak within them that often calls for war, for the use of force to prove a point. So the police officer sits on a man's neck for the 'crime' of paying with an alleged counterfeit bill. Was it? Do not know, but what I do know is that it was not worth the loss of life. He might not even have known if it truly was a counterfeit and I would bet that most of us have passed off a counterfeit $100 or $20 bill at one time or another. They are rampant within society, favorite targets of counterfeiters. Usually if one is revealed, it is confiscated, a substitute is put in place and there are no cops involved. Certainly no death sentence!!
     But that did happen. And it was inhumane. And people are tired of it. However, as righteous as the anger was, there was no need to let slip the "dogs of war". Once they are unleashed there is no calling them back. They snarl and bite, attack and wound, even kill. They are symbolic of all that is the worst of mankind.
     So the leader in lieu of Caesar, Marc Antony, called for war against the murderers of his mentor. Those who had participated in that political coup for what they believed were good reasons, fell alongside the evil plotters. Is that what was happening over the past few days? Have we forgotten ourselves?
     Kamala Harris asks that we hear the pain of people. Simple justice and humanity demands that enough is enough. But common sense also tells us that looting, fires, smash and grabs all have nothing to do with the original basis of the protests and in fact, trashes it, so detrimental to that cause.
     It also falls prey to the idea that all others, meaning those of paler skin color are at fault, simply transferring the irrational hatred. Not right either, for at the time of slavery my people were used as slaves, as objects of ridicule, blamed for the ills of society - as continues to this day - and always, always, never safe, never sure of welcome, a sustained welcome,, always running, fleeing from those who would murder me and mine. So I understand the anger, the unfairness, the frustration. So do the millions who were oppressed in their original homelands.
     But what we have here is not good. That huge blimp of a coward threatens from behind the vast lines and force of protective guards. He threatens that looting will lead to shooting, a meme of a terrible time of rioting in Miami years ago. He warns that they will be met by "vicious dogs". Those same damned dogs of war that manage to live, to survive, as do the roaches. So think about that. And think about the visions,  the awful photos of Selma, Alabama, when dogs of war were unleashed as well. Will we never learn!!!
     Hatred is a cold emotion. It freezes the soul, cracks the heart, and damages the brain. It leaves no room for others, no empathy, no sharing, no ties of similarity of shared life and what life brings to all of us. A man filled with that freezing emotion is Trump, the man who should have had the integrity and courage, the honor, to come forth from his hideaway, crouched behind the protective final barriers of wife and son. He should have appealed for peace, promised results, investigations, major changes, denounced the violence on both sides, but he did not. He is, as Roger Cohen stated yesterday, a donut, no, the hole in the donut, promising and giving nothing. A waste.
     I have been warning for years that this man will drive the country into Civil War, far worse than the first one. We are a nation at war with itself, with no answer in sight. We have allowed anger to separate us, to become political robots, rather than Americans who disagree, as usual, with certain policies, but manage to talk it out, to compromise, and keep our nation moving forward. But not now.
     Now we have the threat of armed soldiers, our army, being called out to quell these protests. Will they? Will they shoot their own? Will they shoot fellow Americans? Will they channel the National Guardsman who shot the student at Kent? Will they emulate the Russian and Chinese soldiers who rolled right over crowds of those calling for democracy? 
     I wish I were wrong. I so desperately wish that were so, but I doubt it. We are almost at the point where the momentum will not allow for peaceful settlement. Guns and riots will follow. Blood will spill. Extreme? Three years ago I wrote of a would be dictator, unwilling to get out of that kitchen should he lose the bakeoff and today we hear of pre formed excuses that should he lose - oh, dear G-d, please let that be so - he will call it rigged. And where do you think he will keep that behind of his then? Right on that chair in the Oval Office!
     Do I have the answers? Unfortunately I do not nor do I think any one person or group does either. But we need to start somewhere, anywhere, with some words of peace, of apology, of understanding, of national pride. We are Americans. Let us remember that. Let us forgo the worst parts of our history, the story of the past, and let us use the memories of what was, what could be, as a starting point.
      Please, please, do not cry out, do not cry Havoc and do not let slip those dogs, the gnashing teeth, the shredders of mankind or at least what is the best of us. How do I wish all to Be Well and Stay Safe in this America. How?