…look in this place ran Cassius dagger through.
See what a rent the envious Casca made. And
through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed…’
The quote above was Mark Anthony’s. He was lamenting the brutal assassination of Julius Caesar, in the Capitol, by a bunch of Senators. When the desire to kill Caesar was baking in the mind of one Caius Cassius, he took his crazy idea for the political dethroning of Julius Caesar out to the people.
If you remember, the group of Romans had gathered in the market square, because Caius Cassius, with some senators, called them together to explain why they think Caesar was a threat to the Roman Empire. The crowd had listened to the ‘Wherefore Rejoice? What conquest brings him home?’, speech from Cassius, in which he fattened Caesar for that eventual mob kill. Awed and speechless after the Cassius oratory fireworks in earlier days, it was Marcus Brutus, Julius Caesar’s best friend, that Cassius recruited to join them as they gunned for Caesar.
Donald Trump plotted against Biden in the early days of the run for the big house when he sought for dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, with the Ukrainian president. Brutus, as you know ‘is Caesar’s angel’; he bought into the lies about his beloved friend. And when Brutus walked with the party of Cassius, Metellus, Trebonius, Casca and Cinna on the stony Apian Boulevard, and in the halls of the Capitol, he was walking with the party of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Louie Gohmert, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson, and Devin Nunes in this era. It was from that political dais Brutus lit the fuse of hatred…the exact same thing that Donald Trump did when he spoke to the crowd on January 6th. Add that cold January big lie to the thirty thousand plus lies from Donald Trump, aka, Caius Cassius, in autumn, Marcus Brutus in summer, and you will begin to see how the condensation finally broke free and rained blood on the Capitol. The bunch of senators finally succeeded in mowing Caesar down in the Roman citadel of a Capitol. Brutus spoke with fervency, and with enough emotional bent and fervor, stroking and massaging the libretti in his speech, in that format akin only to Roman rhymesters of that century.
The explosion came: The group chanted, at intervals, shoveling their unwavering support for the killing, with proclamations only the mind of a blood-drunken man could fashion. As Brutus rolled on with his vintage, post-mortem dissertation on the best friend he had stabbed to death, the crowd did what Roman citizens were known for, each time they congregated in Roman amphitheaters with questionable wits to watch a man getting mauled by a lion, or gladiators engaged in a fierce lance battle: They screamed harder…granting the assassins, the senators, extra succor of that proverbial pat on the back for killing a man everyone knew was a statesman. All this while, the man the senators had stabbed one hundred times, was lying in a pool of blood, inside the Capitol. Cassius and Brutus were riding high, unknown to them, on a short-fused euphoria strung together by fake speech and cult-like adulation of their followers. Enter Mark Anthony! Me!
If they had found Speaker Pelosi; if these men that defecated and peed inside the Capitol had seen Nancy Pelosi hiding under the table, the thirty thousand bland, but salty lies they have been fed would have fueled their unruly ways that very moment. This drama isn’t hard to imagine…given their state of organic deterioration and the falling-off of the sinews of their minds. If they had found her, she would become instantly the turkey in a designated turkey shoot…the big fish in a barrel would have been spear-fished…not gunned down or beaten to death. In other words, these brainless curs would have granted her a much painful exit to the other side of things.
The lifeless body of the State’s noblest stateswoman would have been shredded, desecrated, peed on, and defecated on. This is not a narrative, or an example of what would constitute a dramatic overkill. I am simply stating, fleshing out the hidden aspects in the behavior of mostly, angry white men hellbent on rewriting democracy they feel is slipping away from them. I am saying that they would have indulged themselves in an overkill had they found her. Just like one would read a poem from the days of yore, (ancient days) and a judgment of interpretations would be required to untie the convoluted passages of the verses, I am contending that these mongrels and pooches of the lowest degree could have done the outrageously despicable. As a democrat, I’d say that I am not a fan of VP Mike Pence…well because he belongs to a different political persuasion. I am a Nancy Pelosi fan. I would have rushed into the Capitol had they killed her, to gather up her remains, and carry her body to the main square, like the Mall of America, like Mark Anthony did with the body of Julius Caesar he carried to the market square, for that renowned, profound signature only Mark Anthony himself could deliver…which would run like this: (From: Barron’s: Simply Shakespeare; redone)
O, mighty Speaker! Do you lie so low?
Are all your conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
shrunk to this little measure? Farewell, my friend.
I don’t know, Proud Boys, QAnon, and you double-dealing.
republicans, what you intend. Who else must die,
who else must live through this ignominy?
If it is I that must die, there is no better time to come
under your sword, or your gun as this hour of Nancy’s
death. I beg you, if you bear me ill will, kill me now
that your guns are still smoking…now that your swords
are still reeking, dripping Nancy’s blood. If I live a
thousand years, I will not find myself so ready to die…
no place will please me so much, no manner of death
would I want, except for the way the Speaker fell.
I don’t doubt your wisdom, because there is nothing
to doubt. But I will grant you a benefit of doubt and
take your bloody hands in a shake: First, Ted Cruz,
next, Josh Hawley. I will take your hand, Jim Jordan,
yours Kevin McCarthy, yours, Devin Nunes, and my
two-faced, gallant friend, Louie Gohmert. You all
must judge me in one of two bad ways; either as a coward
or as a flatterer. That I did love you, O, Nancy. It should not
pain your heart to see your dear friend, Donatus, making
his peace, shaking the bloody hands of your enemies…in the
presence of your corpse.
I AM GLAD I DIDN’T HAVE TO MAKE THIS FREAKING, MORBID SPEECH.
This is not a Roman history lesson. You should know that the sordid tales of unrestrained, sexual gratulation and bloodthirstiness of that era…especially, of the Romans in the days of Caesar, is ripe with modern-day man in his attempts to imitate Rome in her powerful days of insatiability. Poisoned rhetoric builds up fast and moves at the speed of light. The resultant vapor spreads just as fast…like the virus we are currently fighting off. Even as it is short-lived, it carries around lethal performers in her ranks. Those fumes borne out of insipid excitement the crowd of angry protesters have acquired, and the cascading effervescence of impure thoughts strapped in the cabooses of pure deceit transporting them would eventually beget an acrimonious hymn…like ‘Hang Mike Pence’, and that blood-cuddling carol, ‘Find Nancy Pelosi’. If they had found the Vice President of these United States and Speaker of the world’s most deliberative body, Nancy Pelosi, they would have butchered two political heavyweights, just like the cruel Romans struck down Julius Caesar. ‘Domestic fury, fierce civil strife shall cumber all parts of the United States. Blood and destruction shall be so much in use, dreadful objects so familiar, that most shall but cry when they behold their loved ones quartered with the hands of war.’ (Shakespeare) Had they found the Speaker, the Vice President, blood would have filled the Capitol hallways and interior offices. With that they would have been truly blood drunk. You see, there were others in hiding with the Speaker on that fateful day. And…and…and, where the VP was hiding out were his wife and child. Go figure.
In 2019, back in her State of Georgia, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene liked a text suggesting that a bullet to Nancy Pelosi’s head is a quicker way to get her out of office. She replied to another text suggesting that Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton be hung; ‘The stage is being set’, she replied, in 2018. That did nothing to call attention to her. Maybe, nobody seemed to care because threats from little, young, white ladies aren’t exactly threats. Her harsh rhetoric, as venomous as they sounded, was downgraded, and then dumped into the trough where toothless, barked out speeches are heaped. When November 2020 elections rolled in, and with no one holding her responsible for the bad and terrible speeches attributed to her, Marjorie Taylor Greene won. Now, she is a thorn in the flesh of the entire congress. What drives Marjorie Taylor Greene, and a slew of republican others, drove Caius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, and the rest of the Roman senators to kill Julius Caesar.
The steady consumption of certain creed…a doctrine, whose philosophies are wired with lethal quantities of falsehoods, has a way of overdosing the mind. In every sense, and especially with political misrepresentations and outright deceptions, words in opium wraps would push a man hard enough, yet untrained on the discipline of walking on a tightrope, to believe he could walk on one. And on the day he takes on that tightrope traversing two, two hundred and forty-foot skyscraping rocks…on the day he storms the hallowed grounds of the Capitol becomes the day of reckoning for him. The United States of America, the Government, that is, is aware that thousands of young white boys are coming of age daily; these young men are led, on a proverbial leash, to the slaughterhouse where morality is stripped and rinsed. This is where journeyman Barber, will have his mind reprogrammed; it is here that he will learn the tenets of a unique, strange brotherhood of the sexes we know as the White Supremacists Order.
Like the ACDC’s ‘COD’ song reminds us; these evil provocateurs… ‘walk besides you; walk behind you’. And in the very house where everyone believes should remain pristine, and hate-free, they are there, all one hundred and forty-something of them…in five-dollar hand-me-downs, one thousand-dollar Armani and Versace blacks, and in Rita Baylor’s pantsuits. It is a scary thought. KKK and other white supremacists are in Congress. Some are in law enforcement. That too, is a scary thought. That cop badge is a steel-plated armor that shields rogue cops. Qualified immunity ices the cake the badge baked. These mind of skunk drifters never get punished for vagrancies of murder and other abuses. And now, they are running for political offices, and winning seats in congress. This is where the greater danger sleeps. My heart is heavy…with beads of sorrow in my eyes beginning to water. I must wait, ‘til my heart comes back to me. (Shakespeare)
♦ Don Okolo, Professor and filmmaker, is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of many books.
- Anambra 2025 Governorship Election Might Be an Open Contest - April 24, 2024
- Anambra Assembly Passes Bill To Prohibit Secret Cults - April 24, 2024
- 2024 Aguata NBA Law Week: AG, Prof. Ifemeje Touts Landmarks and Expectations - April 19, 2024
