David Blixt

Rage, Determination, and Art

Before the National Endowment for the Arts, there was the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, which supported the rise of visual artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Thomas Hart Benton and Stuart Davis, creating art that is considered original and wholly American. 

Before the NEA, there was the Federal Theatre Project, which supported the rise of playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill, William DuBois, Orson Welles, Clifford Odets, and Arthur Miller, and employed hundreds of actors, singers, dancers and technicians all across the country.  


Since LBJ enacted the NEA 50 years ago, it has funded over 50,000 projects, eroded philanthropic redlining by creating funds for diverse companies, fought to keep art in our schools and in our lives, all while giving struggling artists a chance to both ply their craft and eat. No, it hasn't always been comfortable. But it's always been worth it. 

I've never received funds directly from the NEA, but I have worked for and seen art by organizations that have. It's a few pennies from Americans every year, .002 of the federal budget, far less than anything else our taxes fund. But it's such an easy target - much easier than a helicopter that can't fly or a submersible tank for our coming war with the Kingdom of Atlantis. Everyone has an opinion about art. 

So imagine if there was no art to have an opinion about. What if we go back to the rich funding art for the rich. What would be new? What would be different? What would be ours?

To quote Aaron Sorkin, through one of his characters: "There is a connection between progress of a society and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo Da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was the age of Shakespeare."

Or, to quote Winston Churchill: "The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life. The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them. Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due."

There are many, many fronts in the war being waged on our national character. We will have to fight to keep public land, public parks, clean air, clean water, human rights, civil rights, women's rights, minority rights, LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Hell, they're going to try to dismantle public education and the post office, and the ACA, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid are on the chopping block. They're going to remove the supporting bricks from the 250 years of Jenga we've built up. We're going to see how stable the original base still is. 

And in that fight, we have our rage, our determination - and our art. 

Let's go.

ROGUE SERVER - Chapter 3

Dibs barely made it to the Tower on time, only to find the street before it mobbed with protesters. He had to flash his ID several times before the cops paid him any attention, and by then he had drawn the ire of the sign-wielding chanters near him. Seeing NSA on his badge, they turned on him. He braced himself, expecting jeers and even raised fists. Instead they smiled and starting chanting a single word:

“Leak! Leak! Leak! Leak!”

This was more terrifying than threats. The worst thing to be in any administration was a whistleblower. Presidents do not forgive leaks, even in the public interest. And this nascent administration, not yet even half-staffed, was bedeviled by leaks of all shapes and sizes. There were so many, it was almost a concerted effort to stymie the President in all he did. Dibs did not want to be considered a risk for such behavior. Keeping his head down, he pressed through the throng, past the police line, and was immediately stopped by the Secret Service.

“I have an appointment with Jay Trevor,” said Dibs, almost apologetically.

The agent took Dibs ID with his left hand. The right hand was hanging by his side, though in reality it wasn’t his right hand, it was a mannequin hand. The real hand was under the suit coat, holding a pistol. It was an old trick. It wasn’t until this moment that Dibs noticed how small the fake hand protruding from the sleeve was. He wondered if that was new.

The agent studied his ID badge, then checked his list and radioed for instructions. “Okay, you’re cleared. Go in. Wait by the fountain by the escalator.”

Dibs did as he was bid, standing with his hands in his pockets. He wished he smoked, because it would be an excuse to go outside again, and maybe delay this meeting. He had deliberately not brought his briefcase or any of his equipment – external drives and whatnot – hoping to stall the work until someone rescinded his mission. The last thing he wanted was to actually be forced to uncover anything.

He was staring around at the massive lobby, with the Tiffany store and the Gucci store, and wondered what a nightmare security must be here. Had there ever been shoppers in the same residence as a president before now? So many bags, so many people. Good lord, the cost of it had to be staggering! And then the famous residents of the Tower, with their own personal security. Dibs couldn’t imagine the Secret Service enjoying the antler-scraping that was surely causing. Like everything else with this President, this was beyond normal. And would cost a fortune…

“Mr. Dibs?”

Dibs wheeled around, his heart literally stopping for a moment. He was faced with a man in a very nice suit – too nice for the Secret Service. The man’s smile was extraordinarily wide, like Ray Wise as a shark on Joker venom.

“Yes,” said Dibs warily.

The grinner held out a hand. “Gavin Felcher, hi. I’m afraid Special Agent Trevor isn’t able to meet with you just now. I don’t know if you’ve heard the news…”

Dibs had. On his way from DC, he’d read that several more members of the President’s campaign staff had been linked to Russian spies. It had ratcheted up Dibs fear of this whole enterprise. Still, he was eager to limit his exposure. “I saw a headline.”

“Yes, well, one of the people who remained unnamed in the story works here – oops, I probably shouldn’t have told you that, should I? Anyway, J-Trevs has to do a pro-forma exculpation of her – whoops, I probably shouldn’t have said it was a ‘her’, should I? Well anyway, he asked me to get you situated and find out what you need. So – what do you need?”

That was too abrupt a question for Dibs, who thought this whole thing was moving way too fast. He dodged with a question. “I’m sorry, what do you do here?”

Impossibly, the smile widened. “I’m the concierge.”

“Oh. Okay. So – I’m sorry, I’m not sure what I should be asking for.”

“Well, we could start with a tour,” suggested Felcher.

Not having any better ideas, Dibs agreed. At once Felcher launched into a rehearsed ramble about the construction of the Tower, the famous architect who started it, was fired, rehired, and then disavowed the work when it was finished. He spoke elegantly of the pink marble with the white veins that set off the gold so splendidly.

Suddenly Felcher asked, “You ever been to Russia?”

Staring up at the slanted skylight and wondering if the glass was now bullet-proof, and how much that had cost, Dibs was caught short by the question. “Excuse me?”

“Russia. Ever been?”

Was this a test? A trick? A set-up? By the concierge? Was he really a concierge?

Dibs’ mind raced as he wondered what to do. Anyone with access to his file would be able to learn the truth in a matter of moments. And maybe a link to Russia would get him thrown off the case before he even started. “Uh – yeah, for a week in college.”

“Did you make it to the Peterhof?”

“…no.”

“Oh man, that’s a shame. This place is like the modern Peterhof. An excess of excess. It’s like Peter the Great looked at Versailles and said, ‘I like it, but put it on steroid and make everything gold.’ It’s the same here. I think the President has a lot in common with Peter the Great. You know, a man with an eye on expanding his domains, always interested in new things.”

“I don’t know much about Peter the Great, I’m afraid,” said Dibs.

“Oh, you should have been here last summer! One of our residents, a bigwig in the campaign, was manager for like a week, well, he had some Russians in to visit and they would regale us with the history of the rulers of Russia, how they worked, how they fought – it was amazing! I wish they’d taught us all that in school. All I ever got was the boring Jefferson and Madison stuff.”

“I know what you mean,” said Dibs agreeably. “The Founding Fathers. Such a bore.”

“Right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, America is terrific and all. But it’s not exciting! No one ever wants to shake things up! Not until now.”

“‘May you live in interesting times,’” said Dibs.

“What’s that?”

Dibs bitterly regretted having said it. Brusquely he explained, “An old Chinese saying.”

Felcher frowned, then gave a conspiratorial whisper. “You better not let anyone hear you mention the Chinese here. They’re very suspicious of China.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Dibs, nodding. “Thanks.”

ROGUE SERVER - Chapter 2

It happened fast, so fast that it made Dibs’ head spin. Barely 24 hours after that meeting, the National Security Advisor resigned in a cloud, not of sulpher but of mustard gas, which seemed to leave everyone asked for comment choking down their words. Rumors of inappropriate dealings with the Russian government were everywhere. Though they had started as good intel at the Department of Justice, it wasn’t until they were made public that any action was taken. A sign of the times, shrugged Dibs.

Still, it was a relief. No longer needing to feign illness, Dibs showed up to work feeling good. He had a biscotti and a venti Veronese from Starbucks in his hand, perfectly cooled by the short walk to the building. He was a man who did not enjoy things that were too hot. It was about to become the greatest irony of his life.

No sooner had he landed at his cubicle desk than the pool secretary delivered an envelope to him and demanded his signature. “Can’t you forge it yet?” he asked cheerfully.

“Too angular,” she told him. “Looks like chicken scratches.”

“Well, keep trying.”

“I mean yours. I can’t read your writing half the time.”

“Ah. Well, no one writes anymore…” His voice trailed off as he began to read the envelope’s contents.

“Something important?” she asked.

“What? No, no. Say, do you think I could steal a moment with the Director?”

“No go, Joe,” she told him, as if he were simple-minded. “He won’t be in the office all day.”

Of course he wouldn’t. The National Security Advisor had just resigned. His deputy, General Cereal, had replaced him, and would doubtless be spending a good portion of his day being briefed and making his dispositions. Since the President refused to receive the presidential daily briefing, demanding a nine-point summary at most, it actually fell to the head of national intelligence to receive all the President’s intelligence. It made for jokes all around the building. ‘I know we’re all about outsourcing, but now the President’s outsourcing his intelligence? That’s too far.”

So it made sense that the Director was out of the building. Yet it seemed also a wicked trick. Just yesterday Dibs had been foolishly reassured by his boss’ assurances. And here he was, holding in his hand the very order he had been promised would never arrive. He was seconded to the Secret Service to assess the integrity of the Tower’s electronic infrastructure.

Fuck.

The remains of the biscotti now tasted like ashes in his mouth. He knew how it had happened, of course. The out-going advisor had written a request just before signing his resignation, the ultimate ‘oh, you want to fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you back’ move to the administration that had just thrown him under the proverbial bus (though if his ties to the Russians were as strong as it seemed, that bus might not be so proverbial). That it placed Dibs in the crosshairs of every gun, both proverbial and real, mattered not a whit. Having ordered it, the bastard had resigned and allowed his deputy to do with it as he pleased.

And it had pleased the deputy to do exactly the thing no one wanted to be responsible for, knowing his back was covered. ‘Oh, it wasn’t me that ordered it, Mr. President. It was done just before my predecessor was out like Flynn.’ And the Director had gone along with it, knowing that now that it was in writing he was also covered.

As in any game of hot potato, you don’t want to be the one holding it. You have to pass it on. In this envelope the hot potato had come to Dibs. Only he had no one to pass it on to. He could almost feel it scalding his fingers.

Fuck.

He wondered if he could somehow feign the illness he’d been told to contract. Or perhaps he could become genuinely ill. How was his blood pressure these days? Did he know any friendly doctors who could prescribe some time off? Oh, if only he hadn’t come in today! If only he hadn’t signed for these orders!

Well it was too late for that. It was time for damage control. His first order of business was to delay. He would take the morning to finish up some paperwork that had been lingering. And he could ask around to see if anyone needed help at their desks. He could pretend not to have read it for at least a few hours. Then he could pretend to have misread the effective date, could have transposed some numbers, thought it started in two weeks…

He glanced at the effective date. ‘Effective immediately’.

Fuck.

That was when his phone rang. He answered it almost gratefully, hoping for salvation.

It was the reverse. “Is this Joseph Dibs?”

“It is,” he confirmed.

“This is Agent Jay Trevor, Secret Service. I understand you’re coming up to New York this afternoon.” He did not sound pleased.

Nor was Dibs. “This afternoon? Well, that might not be…”

“I’ll meet you at the Tower at three o’clock. Don’t be late.”

“Well, I can’t really…”

But the line was dead.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

Fuck.

It seemed that, like the condemned of England, Dibs was off to the Tower.

ROGUE SERVER - Chapter 1

Joe Dibs reported for work feeling ill at ease. Something said to him on the way into the Director's office had his hackles up.

“They want an honest assessment,” the assistant had informed him.

Oh Christ, no, thought Dibs.

An honest assessment was the last thing he wanted to be asked for. Having written the damned report, he'd hoped he had buried his findings in the most boring and technical language he possessed. Now he was going to be pressed for honesty? What had he done to deserve such unkind treatment?

It was just a month since the new administration came in, and suddenly working at the NSA was like navigating the Sicilian mob. Only the Godfather wore tacky suits and got his ideas from cable news and third-rate online rags. Expert opinions were a thing of the past. Only one opinion mattered, and that opinion swung with the holder's mood.

Entering the office of the Director of the National Security Agency, Dibs saw with dread that the presentation he was meant to give had an audience other than his boss. None other than the National Security Advisor himself. Oh shit.

Introductions were made, and his boss said, “Mr. Dibs has been tasked into looking at these reports of Russian interference in the last election.”

“Alleged interference,” said Dibs at once.

“Let’s get down to it,” said the National Security Advisor brusquely. “I really don’t have much time.”

He was quite right, he didn’t. He was being pilloried in the press for his ties to Russian interests. The fact that he had lied about his conversations with those interests prior to being sworn in meant that neither Congress nor the White House was willing to have his back. He was seen as weak, and therefore his desperation to cling to his new office rose like a stench from his armpits.

The Director raised an eyebrow. “You requested this meeting yourself, Mike.”

That was further unwelcome information. Dibs felt himself begin to sweat inside his suit.

“True, true,” admitted the National Security Advisor. “Okay, Mr…Tibbs?”

“Dibs. Like, I’ve got dibs on that parking space.”

The National Security Advisor frowned. “You’re not from Chicago, are you?”

“I lived there in college. I’m from Ohio.”

“Good. Red state. Okay, Mr. Dibs,” said the NSA, emphasizing the D, “let me hear your report.”

Wondering if he was about to end his career, Joe began:

“With the hack of the DNC last summer, I was tasked with looking to see if there had been any hacking done of the RNC, and the candidate himself. At the RNC, I did find some small hacking of email lists, but nothing on the scale of the DNC. And as I looked at the Republican candidate’s private servers, I found no trace of hacking.”

It was true. That he had found something was buried in his report, which he hoped to God the National Security Advisor hadn’t read.

Turns out he had. “But you did find something unusual.”

“I would not say unusual,” hedged Dibs at once, feeling the trapdoor creaking under his feet even as the noose looped around his throat. “Uncommon, maybe.”

The NSA waffled his hand. “Same diff. What was it you found?”

Shit. “I found some low-level communications between a private firm and the candidate’s tower in Manhattan.” He was careful to speak no names, in case he was being recorded.

“Uh-huh. What kind of firm was it?”

“A bank, sir.”

“And where is this bank located?”

Dibs paused, but there was no way around a direct question. “...In Russia, sir.”

“The bank’s name?”

“Omega.”

“I see, I see,” mused the NSA, distracted. “When you say ‘low-level’, what does that mean?”

“It was far from a constant stream of information,” Dibs said hastily. “But every day or so, late at night, some information tracked back and forth.”

“Is it random?”

“It does not appear random, sir, but random for a computer may seem calculated to us.” Dibs was proud of that equivocation.

The NSA flipped open to a page in Joe's report. “But these communications ceased.”

“They did,” Dibs confirmed. “A story broke in the press about it just before the election, and all signals between Omega Bank and the Tower ceased.”

Dibs paused, hoping that would be the definitive end. Of course, it wasn’t.

“But they began again,” said the NSA coldly. “From a different source.”

“Ah, yes,” said Dibs uncomfortably. “From, ah, another bank, though with the same umbrella company that owned Omega. Two days after the signals from Omega ended, these started up.”

“Same time? Same duration?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see, I see,” mused the NSA. “Now, who owns the two banks?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Dibs. “That’s outside my brief. I was just told to look into possible hacking. And it does not appear that there has been any. There would have to be sustained activity for a hack.”

“So these communications between servers are not long enough to be a hack?”

“No, sir,” said Dibs definitely, feeling a sense of relief. On the other side of his desk, Dibs’ boss looked pleased.

“Were they long enough to be messages?”

The executioner gripped the handle for the trapdoor. “Messages?”

“Emails, you know. Instructions.”

Dibs spread his feet wide, hoping to avoid the drop. “Instructions?”

“Yes, were these communications long enough to convey messages?”

“Yes,” allowed Dibs slowly.

The NSA looked uncannily interested. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me about these servers in the Tower.”

“The servers in the Tower?” It was a trick from his time in uniform. When confronted with an unhappy superior, do not play stupid, do not play toady. Play parrot.

“Yes, the servers in the Tower. What are they there for?”

“Well, I have no information about that, sir. I don’t have access to them.”

“Are they for business?”

“Possibly, sir,” replied Dibs. “Though the Tower has another set of servers for its business.”

Dibs cursed himself the moment he said it, and his boss raised his eyebrows. He’d volunteered information, and that was as good as bouncing on the rope around his neck.

“So they’re not for business. Are they used for video games?” asked the NSA derisively.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Dibs. “It’s possible.”

“You have no idea what these servers are used for.”

“Sir, I did not have the authorization to hack into the candidate’s servers. I could only study the traffic flow of information.”

The NSA stood and began to pace, something no one but Dibs’ boss was allowed to do. But the Director said nothing.

“So, the Tower has these extra servers, and we don’t know what they’re for. These servers have been communicating in the middle of the night with a Russian bank. When they’re found out, a different bank takes up the signal instead.” He rounded on Dibs. “Those are the facts?”

“That’s what it says in the report,” replied Dibs, as if he had not written it.

“Right. But we don’t know what these computers were doing.”

“No, sir,” repeated Dibbs.

The National Security Advisor looked to Dibs’ boss. “The Agency has no idea what these computers were communicating, do they?”

The Director said, “No, Mike. Without access to those computers, we have no idea what they were saying.”

To Dibs’ surprise, the National Security Advisor cracked a slight smile. “Then I think we ought to have a look. Don’t you?”

The trapdoor opened and the noose went taught.

Dibs was glad to see his boss at a loss, too. He left it for his boss to speak. “Mike – you want the Agency to hack the President’s New York home?”

“No no,” said the National Security Advisor, very swiftly. “No. I am absolutely not saying that. In no way.” Clearly he, too, was concerned about being recorded. Dibs found this reassuring.

“What I am saying,” continued the presidential advisor, “is that this is clearly a matter of national security. I mean, isn’t it in the national interest to know that the servers in the Tower are secure? I’m sure the nation will sleep better knowing that the First Lady and her son are not going to be compromised by some rogue computer trouble.”

This was patently ridiculous. Unless the servers in question came to life and began assimilating everyone in the Tower a la Warlock’s dad in the New Mutants, there was no direct threat to the first lady. Hell, it was costing over a million dollars a day to keep her and the little boy safe. Dibs wondered what he could do with a million dollars a day. Then the National Security Advisor spoke, and Dibs stopped wondering anything.

“Director, I’d like to second Mr. Dibs here to the Secret Service for the next week to look at cyber security in the Tower.”

“They have their own people,” objected Dibs’ boss.

“I’m sure they won’t mind the extra set of hands. We’re all Homeland Security, aren’t we?”

That he said it with a straight face showed how short a time he had spent in his post. It was a common enough phrase to be sure. But whenever it was said, it was with a knowing sneer, or an eye-roll. The combining of all the different branches of national security in the previous decade had done nothing to aid the dissemination of information, which had been the stated goal. Instead inter-departmental rivalry was at its peak. Dibs was certain some of his colleagues were tasked to monitoring their neighbors down the hall.

“Look, I’ve got to run. A meeting on the Hill. Set it up, will you? Mr. Dibs, good report. I leave it in your hands.” And he left without signing an order, thus keeping his hands off of Dibs’ transfer as neatly as if he’d never been in the room.

The door shut, and the Director and Dibs stared at each other.

“Coffee?” asked the Director.

“Sure, Admiral,” said Dibs.

Together they left the room. But instead of heading to the break room, they went down to the kiosk in the front lobby of the huge building. It was ironic that the least secure place in terms of safety was where one was least likely to be overheard.

Stirring creamer into his drink, the Director said, “How are you feeling, Dibs?”

“Feeling?”

“You look a little run down. Might need a few days. There’s a nasty stomach bug going around.”

“Yes,” said Dibs slowly. “I’ve been a little queasy the last month.”

“I thought so. Hell, I’ve been living on Pepto since the inauguration.” He frowned, worried that he’d spoken too loudly. “I miss ships. So hard for anyone to hear you over the ocean. You know what’s going on.”

“No idea,” said Dibs. It wasn’t true. But, much as he liked the Director, he was damned if he was going out on a limb. It was his neck that was about to be stretched, and friendship didn’t mean a thing these days.

The Director made a show of stirring his coffee, as if the creamer was refusing to mix. “It’s pretty clear,” he said softly. “Mike’s going to be out in a few days. This is him trying to find dirt on the President in a last-ditch attempt to keep his job. He sends us in to poke around, and if we find anything, he leverages that with the President, who at this moment is not supporting him.”

“I see,” said Dibs slowly.

“I know you do,” said the Director sternly. “And I can’t tell you how bad this would be for us. One whiff that were poking around the President’s private servers and we’re all out, and on trial in front of Congress. Watergate and Benghazi all in one. We’d be sunk.”

It was kind of the Director to say ‘we’ and ‘us’. Dibs knew perfectly well whose name would be on the indictment. “So I’ve got stomach flu. Till the end of the week?”

“Maybe a little longer. You know how these things can drag out.” Throwing away his over-creamed coffee, undrunk, the Director put an arm around Dibs’ shoulders. “Don’t you worry. All we have to do is delay and he’ll be gone. I can tell you – there’s no problem here a little bureaucracy can’t solve.”

Dibs was foolish enough to believe him.

AMERICA FIRST - My Tom Clancy Novel

I'm a Tom Clancy fan (at least his early stuff, before he disavowed editors). Let me see if I can imitate him.

Nick Glenn, a young outsider CIA analyst, sees a troubling pattern. International leaks and campaigns of misinformation are coming at an alarming pace from unknown sources. First a weird campaign in England to break with the EU gets sudden boosts from unsourced, untrue media reports. Next comes an election in Germany, with the moderates losing to a right-wing party for the first time in decades. 

Working closely with a good buddy at the NSA, Nick discovers that all of the misinformation campaigns originate in Russia. He sounds the alarm bell, and his report goes up through channels - but not fast enough.

All this happens in the shadow of an interminable American election cycle. One candidate, a former Secretary of State married to a known philanderer, had previously denounced the most recent Russian election as being rigged. Her party's national headquarters is hacked, and the most damaging emails (nothing illegal, but a few that are scandalously personal) are slowly leaked at strategic times to the US press. It even appears that their headquarters has been bugged.

Nick checks to see if the other party is being hacked as well. This candidate is a second generation billionaire, a TV personality with a penchant for young women and high living. His campaign is marked by nativism, racism, and economic doomsaying. 

Nick finds no trace of hacking, but he comes up with something strange. A server in a Russian bank is regularly communicating with an old server in the billionaire's Manhattan tower. Nick can't discover what those communications are, but it isn't random. And when alerted to Nick's investigations, the server shuts down - only to have a new server start up and begin the exact same process with the same Russian bank. 

This information is taken to the FBI, but is ignored because the NY office is riddled with investigators who are more interested in sinking the former Secretary of State than in some unsourced CIA nonsense about Russia and servers. It's up to Nick to find the answers - even if it means working outside the chain of command. 

Beginning with a single piece of intelligence, Nick uncovers a plot meant to unravel Western alliances, destabilizing NATO, the European Union, and the United States government, all to return Russia to the glory it recalls from the height of the Soviet Union. 

It's too late to help England or Germany. But can Nick expose the plot in time to save the American election?

AMERICA FIRST by David Blixt

Think anyone would buy that book?

Senatus Populusque Romanum

Looking at the US government of late, I can’t help but think of Rome. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the parallels, all coming faster and faster. It took the Romans nearly 500 years to get to where we are in just over 200.

Our most dire peril, as I see it, is the breakdown of the rule of Law. When our lawmakers dislike the laws that came before them, and decide to subvert them, the whole system is endangered.

The greatest gift the Romans gave us wasn’t aqueducts or amphitheatres, or even art. It was Law. The Roman court system was the envy of the world. Yes, there were miscarriages of justice, when a jury was bribed or a judge threw out an air-tight case. But even the very concept of standing courts was new to the world, as was a selected jury of your peers (rather than the unwieldy Greek version of a court, when the whole city came together to pass judgment. The Roman way didn’t shut down the society).

At the dawn of the Republic, when the first Brutus threw out the Tarquin and set up a new system of government, there were four inalienable rights of citizenship:

1 – A Roman had the right to vote. After the overthrowing of a tyrannical king, this was a huge guarantee, and vital.

2 – A Roman had the right to own property.

3- A Roman had the right to marry. This was later expanded to include all legal contracts – basically a Roman had the right to sign a written contract, or enter a verbal one, and expect it to be upheld.

4 – A Roman had the right to be whole in his person. Technically this means he could be beaten with a rod, but not whipped or cut – nothing that broke the skin. But it also had the effect that he had recourse at law for any injustice or indult given him – assault, etc. This also ended up guaranteeing a citizen the right to a trial before he was punished. The right to a fair trial is enormously important.

Having come from tyranny, these rights were precious, and ferociously defended, becoming the cornerstones of Roman law (and of course I should mention that these applied to Roman male citizens. Women eventually could own property, but the rest of their rights were not nearly as protected. A man could divorce a woman on a whim, whereas a woman needed a reason, and proof).

These foundations got expanded over time, as rights do. First conceived to protect Patricians (the “fathers” of the country), they then spread to cover all citizens, even Plebians. As more and more people got the citizenship, and therefore the vote, the ideal of Roman law was respected the world over. People from other countries would travel to Rome to get justice in a Roman court. A will lodged with the Vestal Virgins in Rome was considered so safe than many foreign kings placed their wills in those holy hands. Roman justice was seen to be swift, and by-and-large fair.

What eventually happened, though, was that the lawmakers started to not like the eroding of what they saw as their rights. There were too many “new men” coming up to join their ranks (some were even of Italian, not Roman, birth!) In response, lawmakers began rigging the elections, so that their votes counted more than those of ordinary people. Then they started holding themselves exempt from certain laws. Then they started passing laws to circumvent other laws. Then Cicero had five Roman citizens executed without a trial.

For all our talk of Caesar crossing the Rubicon, it was this undermining of the law that was the beginning of the end for the Republic. A country’s laws are only useful when they are seen as applying equally to all people, high or low. 

I’m going to quote from my play Eve Of Ides, set the night before the assassination of Caesar:

CAESAR
The law is a breathing thing, Brutus. It cannot be static. When the Senate - a few hundred men of birth and wealth, making laws for people they despise - when they make laws that go against the wishes or interests of the people, they abrogate their authority.

BRUTUS
Is that how you see the Senate?

CAESAR
(laughing) I’ve been a member too long to see it as anything other than what it is - a collection of privileged fools who do nothing and obstruct everything. They’ll fight even the most basic, clear-headed notion because it was suggested by their political enemy. As if we were not all Romans. Picking absurd fights to protect some petty private interests, backing so deep into a political corner that my only viable solution is military. Lawmakers with a profound disdain for the law. That is how I see the Senate. Whereas you see it as you wish it to be - a just and wise body of men.

BRUTUS
The dreamer.

CAESAR
And the pragmatist.

This was a very reasonable view of the Senate in Caesar’s day. They routinely broke the law, violating their stated beliefs in order to protect their power and privileges, invoking Rome’s founders and traditions as a club to beat anyone who disagreed with them.

Does this sound at all familiar?

We must study Rome, not for simple love of history. Our own founders consciously based the government they created on the Roman system – two houses, a Senate and a House of Plebs; two consuls to run the executive branch; and a system of standing courts. With Rome as our model, it is imperative that we learn from Rome’s mistakes, not repeat them. Otherwise we’ll end up with too much power vested in the executive branch, a huge income disparity between the wealthy and the common man, and a military engaged in perpetual war.

Oh wait…

As I see it, we’re in the time of Gaius Gracchus. Gracchus, who tried to advocate for the rights of the common man above the elite. When he was opposed by a faction of backward-looking zealots calling themselves the Boni (the “Good Men”), who pulled the same parliamentary tricks as the Tea Party this last fortnight, Grachus said, “A tribune who diminishes the privileges of the people ceases to be a tribune of the people.” I couldn’t agree more.

Being in the time of Gracchus means we’re not doomed yet. But if Rome is a reliable roadmap, in about 100 years we’re destined for our own Nero, our own Galba, Otho, Vitellius, our own Year of the Four Emperors. That year, 69 AD, was a nightmare of unconstitutionality. But by then, the constitution of Rome was so badly trampled that it was virtually useless.

When law-makers live outside the law, the law ceases to have value. As Truman Capote said, “The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have the protection of it.”

By the bye, I don’t have a soapbox in The Four Emperors. It’s just my attempt to tell an excellent and exciting story, a story worth telling. But history is more than a window into the past. History is a mirror, a window into ourselves. As I said in an interview last week, “We forget our history. That’s what literature can do – remind us not of where we are, but how we got here.”

Senatus Populaesque Romanum: “The Senate and People of Rome.” We forget the People at our peril. The same is true of history.

I’ll close with a lengthy exchange from the end of Act One of Eve Of Ides:

CAESAR
You of all men might understand. Seven civil wars in my lifetime. Seven. Add to that proscriptions, purges, and outright murder, and what do you have? Chaos. Rome is foundering. You must see that. Our customs and beliefs are dashing themselves against the facts of our times. The ideals of our founders are either ill-equipped for modern man, or else ill-served by him. The poor are frightened by the change, and they cling to the three staples of their lives - their gods, their games, and their bread. The Second and Third Classes want to join the First Class while the First Class wants to protect its exclusivity. We with the birth, the money, and the will to govern are expected - needed - to provide for the lesser among us. Else the Republic will fall.

BRUTUS
The Republic is eternal.

CAESAR
Nothing is eternal. Not even the gods. Without a firm hand, we will return to Pandora’s world - a world of chaos. It’s almost as though someone has defied the gods and shouted out Roma’s secret name into the open air, heralding our destruction.

BRUTUS
Is that the choice? Caesar, or chaos?

CAESAR
Not a palatable choice, I’ll confess. But you must see that a dictator is better than destruction.

BRUTUS
I’m not so sure. We cannot have a king - or a Caesar - and still be the people our forefathers envisioned.

CAESAR
But they couldn’t envision the state in which we find ourselves today! We’re no longer that tiny colony on the seven hills, desperate to survive the wolves. We have interests in foreign lands, far-flung peoples and places. Our wealth is great, our prestige greater, our enemies greater still. The sign-posts our ancestors planted should guide us to who we will become, not bind us to who we were. An example - from the time of our founding until a generation ago, the poor had no stake in the society. The army was filled with men of means - men with property have property to defend. But that changed when Marius saw Rome’s need for soldiers - an honest need, with the Germans coming for us like an avalanche. Lacking men, he drafted the poor. Practical. But fifty years on, what do we have? Professional soldiers coming home to find themselves rejoining the poor, wondering why they were called to fight for their country. Was it to join the Head Count and starve once discharged? Military training married to starvation births revolution. And not one of our civil civil wars, with Senators battling Senators. This will be a genuine uprising, with the people overthrowing the lot of us. As a consequence, Rome today needs wars, constant wars, foreign wars, until we are prosperous and equitable here at home. Without wars abroad, we sow the seeds of our own destruction here at home.

BRUTUS
Perpetual warfare? That’s a terrible solution!

CAESAR
Offer an alternative. Should we tax businesses? The poor? Women? That is the choice - wars of conquest, or taxation. War is both popular and profitable. We can try to replace it with arena games, but nothing matches the patriotic fervor of war, nor its ability to produce funds.

BRUTUS
We should just return to the old ways. Leave the rest of the world to fight each other. Remain above it.

CAESAR
We tried! We tried, but they came for us anyway! Carthage, Pontus, the Germans - we fought them and fought them until we saw the only way to keep them at bay was to conquer them. I am not saying I approve, Brutus. I’m saying this is where we are.

BRUTUS
Are we a nation of brigands, then? Foreign wars are theft writ large.

CAESAR
Whereas civil wars are not about wealth or land. They’re about our idea of ourselves. Most men are sadly incapable of defining themselves by what they are, so they rely on what they are not. Being Roman has to mean more than merely not being Greek or Aegyptian. If we cannot have a foreign foe to define us, we will create one within our own ranks. And the sides will forever line up between youth and learning on the one hand and tradition and dogged ignorance on the other. One side sees the need for change, while the other sees the passing of the old ways and resists.

BRUTUS
No illusion to which side you favor in that struggle.

CAESAR
There is value to our history, but it cannot dictate our future.

BRUTUS
Says the Dictator.

CAESAR
Says Caesar.

Fixing Education in America

I've been listening to the debate on education. A lot of focus seems to be on teacher accountability, on parent choice, and on testing. 

There doesn't seem to be a lot of focus on the students. 

Because if you focus on the students, fixing education in America is suddenly easy. It's ridiculous easy. It's a three step process. 

Step 1: Hire more teachers.

We've past the point of capacity on classrooms. Now teachers can't actually teach. Their job is crowd control. Once you've passed 25 students in a classroom, there aren't enough minutes in a day to give kids the individual attention that will let them succeed. Instead teachers are all about group dynamics, and always end up dealing with the loudest kids, the troubled kids, the unruly kids, just to make the class tolerable. Which means the shy kids, the quiet kids, the happy kids - they don't get to interact with their teacher. 

Instead, teachers give them all busywork. Just nonsense, hours and hours of nonsense. They aren't teaching, they're just reacting to 35 children in a room with no help or relief. The job of teaching is hard when you've got 15. It gets exponentially harder at 25. Past 30, you're just hoping no one bites anyone else. And this is when you're in a school where all the kids have three square meals a day. 

Students don't need worksheets. They don't, in elementary school, need three hours of homework. What does that do, save make them hate school? A rule of thumb is ten minutes of homework per grade. One of my son's classmates just transferred in from a school that gave more than two hours of worksheet homework a night. In second grade. Now he has less than half an hour homework each week. And suddenly he's not stressed about school. He doesn't have nightmares about it. He likes his classes. He likes learning. 

Students don't need worksheets. Students need individual attention. They need to be recognized as people, unique people with individual needs and a distinct personality. But when a teacher is teaching to a huge mass of students, only the neediest or most vocal students will receive that attention. It's like a MASH unit. Everything is triaged, and there isn't time to help everyone. 

So we need to reduce class size by hiring more teachers. 

Step 2: Teach more subjects. 

Not every kid learns the same way. Some kids will respond better to reading something than hearing it. Some will experience the reverse. Some will get it automatically, some will struggle. Kids need as many doors into learning as can be opened for them. And that's where diverse subjects come in. Not just the 3 Rs, but Music, Art, and Drama. These are not extras. They are tools for teaching.

Personally, I think history is taught wrong. It's not dates. It's stories. Tell the stories, make it about the people and their ideas, their struggles and their lives. But that's my door into history. Someone else won't respond to that, they'll want the dates. So you need to have it all. Cutting subjects is cutting core education, not "extracurricular" activities. They're all curricular. They are all a part of learning. 

So is recess. Kids need time to let their brains relax. There's only about 90 minutes of doing one thing before they get squirrelly and start to need diversion. And children need physical activity, and play. They learn social interaction through play, and they also apply what they've learned in the classroom in their play. So let them play!!!

Now we come to Step 3: Stop thinking education should be a for-profit enterprise. 

This is the new one, and it's wrecking modern education. Corporations have seen all the money going into education and have decided they want a piece of that. But is the goal to put that money into education, or to make a profit? 

Here's a scary fact - the private sector doesn't always do it better. Remember when soldiers got electrocuted in the field because the government outsourced the building of their barracks? Did you know that Medicare has a less than 3% staff wage rate - that is, less than 3% of the money spent on Medicare goes to pay the wages of those that run it. The rest goes directly to healthcare. That's astonishing, and minuscule compared to what private insurers spend on admin. Because there are conflicting goals. Provide healthcare. Turn a profit. Those two goals will always be in conflict, and greed will win. 

The same is true with schools. Is the goal educating the next generation of Americans? Or is it turning a profit? Because once the latter becomes part of the equation, we suddenly have all sorts of corners being cut. In Chicago they've privatized janitorial services, hiring it out to the lowest bidder. It is more expensive than it was when done in-house AND the schools are suddenly filthy - rats and bedbugs are being reported all over the place. 

If student-teacher ratio is an historic measure of quality, what does it say when we pile 35-40 students into a room - one without proper climate maintenance, because they've outsourced that too. The argument is competition is good. The results don't agree. Testing for charter schools is marginally better than public ones, and that difference is easy to explain - the public schools are being drained of that money, and charter schools get to choose their student population. Imagine if all that money was going to hiring more teachers, and giving the students more options.

Some things shouldn't be exploited for money. I think healthcare and utilities should be non-profit, but those ships have sailed. There's still time to save education, though. 

These three solutions don't even touch a couple other problems with schools today - lack of student accountability and lack of parental involvement. To the first, remember when getting a B was good grade? When a C student was average? When earning an A meant a huge achievement? And to the second, parents don't have the time today to be fully engaged in their children's education. Income inequality means they're working all the time. Which is why they rely on teachers to make their children perform - and blame the teachers if the students are failing. Teachers are not to blame for a kid's failure. That's called personal responsibility, and it's the parents' job to teach that one.

Oh, and for the love of God, knock it off with the testing. If they spend more time testing than actually learning, what kind of education are they getting?

Focus on the students. So simple, it's obvious to a child. Now if only we could convince the adults...

 

Fighting The Wrong Fight

It’s headline news, in my world at least, that Los Angeles members of Actor’s Equity will be picketing the offices of their own union this week. While I see their point most acutely, I gotta say, I don’t like the big picture of this narrative.

Labor unions were once the backbone of American prosperity. From the 1930s to the 1980s, they created a voice for the working class, and consequently built the middle class of this country. We have the concepts of the 8-hour workday, weekends, and overtime thanks to unions. It’s a very American idea – E Pluribus Unum. “Out of many, one.”

But unions are the demons of modern day politics. Want to score political points? Bash the unions. Republicans, want to hurt the other side’s fundraising? Break a union. Democrats, want to show your independence? Slam a union. Not police or firefighters, but man those teachers unions are good pickings.

Statistically, it’s a race towards the bottom. The lowest wage states in this country are the so-called “right to work” states, where membership to a union is voluntary. Without the backing of a healthy and vocal majority of the people it represents, unions cannot effectively negotiate for better wages and better conditions for everyone.

Unions aren’t blameless. There are messaging problems, to be sure. And so often unions try to cut deals in order to be seen to be effective, deals that sell their membership short. Or worse, they simply fight the wrong fights.

That’s what this thing in LA strikes me as. The wrong fight.

There are plenty of great pieces giving the narrative over the 99-seat theatre fight, and I won’t get into it in depth. AEA had a rule in place for the last couple decades that allowed its members to perform for less-than-standard wages and no benefits in certain theatres. They are now trying to undo that deal.

But the 99-seat theatres aren’t the problem.

There isn’t enough money in theatre. That’s the problem.

The small theatres – with complete truthfulness – plead poverty. Paying even minimum wage for actors through rehearsal and performance would wreck them. It’s mathematics. With a 99-seat house, there is no way to bring in enough ticket revenue to sustain more than a two or three person show, let alone a season. Not unless tickets are $100 each.

The union should not be trying to force wages upon theatres that are clearly unsustainable. The union should instead be fighting to help make theatre funding more robust. Why isn’t the narrative about how the US spends less on culture than any other industrialized nation on earth? Why are we not fighting for local, state, and government grants to support theatre, walking arm in arm with the theatre producers themselves?

Theatre is a tradition in America. Traveling wagons would roll from town to town, putting up shows. The most famous theatrical event in American life happened, of course, in Ford’s Theatre. But we tend to ignore the fact that Lincoln was a theatre-goer. Just as it’s easy to forget that during the Great Depression the WPA put up shows and built theatres all across America. FDR understood that it isn’t enough to feed a man’s stomach, you had to feed his soul. Which is how we got the Federal Theatre Project, specifically created to both employ artists and entertain and inform the people. 

For anyone arguing theatre is for old rich white people, I disagree. Theatre has become for old rich white people as funding has been choked off. The economics of the last 30 years have created a circumstance where only old rich white people can afford to attend theatre, forcing theatres to cater to that audience’s expectations.

But that’s not the history of theatre. Theatre is vital, it is where unheard voices speak. In countries where monopolies or the state control the media, theatre has been the place where truth can be spoken. Theatres are laboratories of narrative, of how a society finds out what it’s trying to say. In times of both tumult and prosperity, theatre is a magnet for the young to express themselves.

The best part of theatre is that it’s local. Just like sporting events or concerts, theatre is a shared experience. In a world more and more separated by technology, human interaction is rare, and valuable. And study after study shows that a theatre enriches the economics of the city or neighborhood where it exists. People go out for dinner beforehand, maybe shop a little while they wait for curtain time. Then they go out afterwards to discuss over drinks.

This is money the theatre itself never sees. It goes straight to the community. Local businesses should be fighting to get a theatre in their neighborhood. And the city should be helping build that theatre, enriching the community and employing the professional actors it hires.

Some cities recognize this. In Chicago, theatres like Looking Glass and Chicago Shakespeare have amazing deals with the city for their physical plant – because the city knows that these places are great tourist destinations and do more for the image and economics of the city than they cost. It is a terrific return on the investment.

But the Arts are a great place to cut funds. No one NEEDS theatre to survive. Nor music. Nor painting. The first thing that happened when the new governor of Illinois took office was that all the theatres received a letter saying that all state funding was frozen. If they had been promised money, they might get it someday. But as of now, all arts spending was halted. Basically ensuring some companies fold, thereby reducing a key component to the economy, one that gives back between five and ten times what it takes. 

This is where the union should be working hand-in-glove with the theatres and producers. It should be making the argument in town halls, in state capitols, and in Congress, voicing the benefit of having professional actors and stage managers, raising the quality of theatre in America.

The American psyche can understand the difference between amateur, college, and professional sports. It should have the same understanding of community, college, and professional theatre. There are lots of talented people who don’t pursue careers in the theatre, are content to make it their hobby. It is absolutely no reflection on their talent. But it feeds into the narrative that “anyone can do it”.

For those who have made it their career, who have survived the draft and gotten the jersey, there should be an understanding of the difference. That’s what the union should be promoting, not internecine fights, but the argument of why professional theatre matters. And fighting for more professional theatres for its members to perform in.

For us union members, we don’t need convincing. We know why we get paid before the weekend of the show, because back in the day producers would run off with the box office take during the final performance. We know that we deserve our ten-minute breaks every 90 minutes. We like knowing how many hours we can be worked in a week. We like there being rules for how we are treated, and that there is a member of our union we can turn to if a director or producer crosses a line. These are all things the union does for us, and we know and appreciate them.

But every time the union ups the number of weeks an actor must have to get healthcare, or when an actor tries to work with a company only to be denied a special appearance contract, or all the other ways the union limits the chances for actors to act, it feels like the union is not for us.

The way this current fight looks is that the union is trying to stop its members from performing at the LA theatres they’ve called home for over 20 years. Fewer opportunities for them to act means more of them will have to find other work. But the union doesn’t care about the work its members do when they’re not acting. Just so long as they pay their dues. And AEA's tone has been terrible, both disingenuous and dictatorial. This is the tension between the union and its members.

For this fight, AEA has jumped on a very popular narrative – the minimum wage. I agree, every actor should at least make the minimum wage. But then I ask, where does that money come from? That’s the part the union cannot answer. Because, once again, they’re fighting the wrong fight, against the wrong enemy. The producers aren’t the enemy.

Apathy about theatre is the enemy.

Lack of funding is the enemy.

National income inequality is the enemy.

The image of union members picketing their own offices will make for great television. Famous faces on the picket lines will certainly draw attention to the fight. But it will, as is the nature of our discourse today, be without nuance. It won’t have the complexity of union reciprocity, of starvation wages for theatre staff, or decades of cuts for NEA funding.

It will demonstrate just two things: Unions are evil, and actors are unprofessional.

Neither narrative helps.

E Pluribus Unum. 

(For more excellent cogitation on the issue, drop by Chris Walsh's page. He's got the goods. And links to several more stories, too)

(A fun link – I went back to look up some WPA facts and found this 1938 transcript of Hallie Flanagan, FDR’s head of the Federal Theatre Project, testifying before HUAC – the House Committee on Un-American Activities – about the nature of her program. It’s hilarious, especially when they ask if Christopher Marlowe was a communist)

(And hey - if you like my writing, I do write books. Visit www.davidblixt.com to find them all. And you can find me on Facebook here). 

Illegitimate

Okay, weighing in on the recent Giuliani kerfuffle, wherein America's Mayor questioned the President's patriotism and background. Yes, racist, absolutely. But it goes deeper than that, actually. 

Republican talking heads cannot simply disagree with their opponents. They cannot just insult them or demonize them. They must delegitimize them. Voter fraud. Birth certificate. Unpatriotic. Benghazi couldn't just be a tragedy, it had to be a cover-up. Acorn. Communist. Socialist. Muslim. Foreign. Other. 

But think back to when Bill Clinton was president. He wasn't one of us, either. Whitewater. Vince Foster. Lewinsky. Remember when the Right called Clinton "the first black president" as a way of de-legitimizing him? How about Kerry? Remember Swift Boats? Or flag pins - remember when suddenly everyone had to wear a flag pin or they didn't love their country? And if Hilary is elected, they're going to hit her with all the feminine bullshit, along with all her husband's baggage AND Obama's (Benghazi!). I guarantee Vince Foster's name will come up again, and stories about four dead bodies by train tracks or whatever the hell that nonsense was. 

I'm trying to imagine a world in which every decision President Bush made was greeted by the media and protesters crying, "He's not REALLY the President! Hanging chads, hanging chads, voter fraud, stolen election!" or "Ohio voting machines! Stolen votes! Illegitimate!!!!" or "He rented that ranch in Texas! He's not a REAL American because he's faking his credentials as a rancher!"

It's gotten so bad on the Right that ANYTHING they disagree with can't be legitimate. Science isn't right anymore. Climate change must be a ploy by all those greedy scientists and, I guess, solar panel billionaires lining their pockets. Teachers aren't right, because we don't agree with the facts they're teaching. Now even history isn't legitimate! 

Jon Stewart came close when he said  they believe the opposite of bad isn't good, it's conservative. But I think it goes even further. The Right cannot even conceive of the other side playing fair, or having opinions that are honestly held, or being patriotic and yet thinking differently. 

One of the worst ways to define yourself is in a negative. Through what you are not. But that's what happens when you're insecure in your beliefs. You find other people to point at and say, "I'm not like that!" So conservatives must demonize liberals in an effort to define themselves. It's not that they have firmly-held beliefs, as we learn every time the Left adopts a conservative idea and suddenly the GOP is against it. They simply know that whatever they are is right, and the other side is wrong. If the other side says one thing, the answer is always, "No!" It's a comforting formula, if incoherent. They can always know where they stand, because there will always be two sides - conservative and liberal. Or, put in their terms, the good people, and everyone else. 

I believe that Republicans love America. But the GOP doesn't just want us to love America in the same way they do. They cannot conceive of anyone loving America in any other way, because that would mean there IS another way. And that would mean admitting there was legitimacy to an opposing point of view. Which they cannot do, because they are so insecure in their beliefs, they'll fight to the death to prove them true, against all odds. 

Which is a shame, because that grit and determination could be really awesome, if it wasn't so rooted in fear.

The Rules Of Violence - Part One

There's been a great deal of talk about violence in media (meaning film and video-games), painting all fictional violence with a damning brush. It’s an important conversation, and one I’d like to have. But I’m not for toning down the violence in film. I’m for making it better. By which I mean, making it matter.

The trouble is not the violence. The trouble is violence without consequence.

There are a lot of talented writers out there, writing brilliant stories. But a lot of what I see in the Action-Adventure movie world has no weight, because violence has no cost. A guy fires off a million rounds of ammo, mowing down faceless badguys. It can be visually awesome, and it’s fun to watch, and you forget it ten minutes later. It has no weight.

For me, all violence should tell a story. That story should never be easy, never comfortable. It can be enjoyable, sure. Even better, it can be inspiring, heart-pounding, and cathartic.

I’m a fan of Shakespeare. I love his plays. And Shakespeare learned the rules of his craft from Aristotle, including the importance of catharsis, the cleansing that happens through a shared trial. As an audience, we share the hero’s trial. The greater the trial, the deeper the catharsis. That’s the theory.

Unlike Aristotle, Shakespeare never wrote down rules, or at least he didn’t pass them along to us. But reading his plays, there are some very definite rules at work:

-       Instigate an act of violence, and you will receive a violent end

-       There is no justification for murder. Ever.

-       Justice is for the authority of King, Prince, or God, not the average man

None of this is to say that Shakespeare doesn’t have his characters flout these rules. Nor do these rules apply to warfare, where armies meet. But he is absolute in his rules for personal violence. If you commit violence, or if you take the law into your own hands, you are sowing the seeds for your own destruction.

A few examples:

-       Romeo attacks Tybalt for murdering his friend, Mercutio. Though in our eyes he’s justified, he is taking the law into his own hands. And by killing Tybalt, he is dooming himself and Juliet.

 -       Titus Andronicus, whose sons have been murdered and his daughter raped, kills the rapists and cooks them into meat dishes to serve to their mother. Revenge is achieved, and perhaps some form of justice, but he is again placing himself in the place of authority, and dies. Unlike Romeo, he accepts this as the cost of his revenge.

 -       Laertes agrees to kill Hamlet in revenge for the Danish Prince murdering his father Polonius behind the arras. Laertes, of course, is cut with the same poisoned blade he used to cut Hamlet, a lovely ironic touch, mirroring the old phrase ‘when setting out for revenge, first dig two graves.’

 -       Brutus, the best example of all. He tries to save Rome from monarchy by killing his friend and mentor Caesar. He is clearly portrayed as a good and honorable man doing a very bad deed for the best of reasons. It is still a bad deed, and he pays the ultimate price for it.

Then there are those who are not even trying to justify their violent deeds – Macbeth, Iago, Richard – who commit acts of violence to satisfy their ambitions, their jealousies, and their rage at life. None of them live. In Shakespeare, the instigators of violence are always, always, consumed by violence.

In short, there is never violence without consequence. 

 

Next time - a look at violence done well in entertainment today. 

If you're interested in writing violence, this is now available. Just sayin'.