Rich Men and their Baubles

January 22, 2017

According to some reports over the weekend, “Glamour has been restored to the White House!”  Obviously, very beautiful Melania Trump stands in striking contrast to the old man who accompanies her.  She is, in fact, quite beautiful.  Being an old man myself, I can only say, for sure, Donald Trump looks like an old man in the presence of her!

Their dance together stands in stark contrast to the women marching on Washington, DC, and in capital cities across the world, as London, Paris, Amsterdam…and in our own country of Los Angeles and New York.  Even in Pickens County and Greenville County, South Carolina, staunch bastions of Republicanism, women and men marched in opposition to the new President.  I read the signs, which they carried proudly as they marched peacefully along:  Their words spoke of “respect for women”, “women being people too”, ‘women’s rights’ and rather poignantly, “please don’t be so mean!”

I listened to Donald Trump speaking at the CIA, in which he profusely apologized to our men and women in this service, after having questioned their integrity, comparing them to ‘Nazi Germany’.  Now, he says, ‘I love and respect you.”   I listened also to the White House Spokesman, some unnamed man who railed as Trump has done against the unfairness of the press in attributing more numbers of persons in Washington to the protesters than to those attending the inauguration.  I listened in vain for some acknowledgement of the million or so women who marched across the nation and In Washington, DC, at least acknowledging their concerns, their right to protest in this free nation, to some nod to their legitimate concerns with his new presidency.  I HEARD NONE!  Is this not remarkable, an argument about numbers of persons but no acknowledgement about the real women behind the numbers.  These are women of every stripe and persuasion from across the whole nation!  Instead, some, not all in ‘the press corp’ chose to speak of the restoration of ‘glamour and glitz’ to Washington.   Apparently Michelle Obama’s expensive designer dresses made no impression.  A very beautiful and articulate woman in her own right, surprisingly, no one called her ‘glamourous’, nor ‘glitzy’.  I expect she would have shunned these titles anyway, preferring instead to be the beautiful wife of President Obama, whom he often praised, not only as ‘the mother of our children, but as my best friend!”

To be fair, Melania Trump will struggle to find her place as ‘first lady’ of the nation and I have no criticism of her whatsoever.  I do however, wonder about President Trump.  Many of his remarks about women are enough to cause any reasonable person to shudder, especially his remarks on tape about ‘grabbing a woman in her pussy’.   I saw that statement reflected in a sign of one woman marching in Washington with her two young daughters.  “Keep your hands off my silky underwear!” and “My body is my own!”

Obviously there are many reasons why so many women marched on Washington, DC, and is so many other places across the nation and the world.  Everyone who participated came for some reason.  Even Gloria Steinman spoke of “putting our bodies with our words in this struggle for women’s rights”.  I haven’t seen Ms. Steinman speak so eloquently since the 1960s when she took on Hugh Hefner and the Playboy porn empire working for a time as ‘a Playboy bunny’, to show her solidarity with those exploited women.  I am not sure we can ever discern all the reasons so many women came to Washington, DC.  Some said it is “because I am afraid!”  For this, I will let their own words speak in their eloquence!

There is an unease among some men to acknowledge the real contribution of women in our society.  It is not only a problem in this culture.  Only recently have the history textbooks begun to be amended to acknowledge the contributions of both women and men to the development of our democratic society.

In some societies, women are still undergoing the ghastly cultural ritual of genital mutilation, often at age 13 or younger.  Other women are being sold into sexual slavery.  So many more survive only by some form of prostitution.  In our country, many young and beautiful women are being recruited into the porn industry, which is another form of sexual slavery, except they go willingly ‘as sheep being led to the slaughter, not opening their mouth’.

Rich men, as we have seen recently, like to surround themselves with beautiful women, mostly younger than themselves.  Having money and influence they will court and marry women who come from small places and offer them whatever is needed to persuade these young women to join them in their lonely lives.   The trappings of wealth, power and even politics is not often enough for these men.  Instead of one wife, by the time they arrive in their ‘most glorious state’, these young women are wife number three or sometimes four.  No one interviews the wives’ number one or number two, as their silence has been bought for a great price in the divorce settlement.  This makes it possible for ‘the rich man’ to continue seducing other women with nary even a pause in his supposed entitlement to them.

This is what I mean by ‘rich men’s baubles’.  The women accept their lower class status in exchange for beautiful clothes, a jet set lifestyle and the envy of their peers.”  Marilyn Monroe turned this concept on its head for a while singing the ever memorable, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.’  In her case, she made the point that she was in charge of choosing her men, not the other way around and when she tired of the men, ‘diamonds still are her best friends.”  Of course, she also succumbed to the powerful men who surrounded her, namely ‘Jack and Bobbie Kennedy’.  Will the world ever know if she took those pills willingly or not?  It is one thing to leave Joe DiMaggio, it is quite another to embarrass the sitting President of the United States, birthday song and revealing gown or not!

I worry about President Trump on behalf of all my sisters for a similar reason.  Can anyone, male or female, cross this man of privilege and not be damaged in some way by him?  I suspect this is why many of the women marching on Washington yesterday said, “I am afraid!”  Trump chose to speak first to the CIA, to only persons in Washington, DC, save the Senate and House leadership, who could ever bring down his presidency.  I suspect he knows that they know much more than he wants them to know about him and his past and present behavior.  So he went straight to them to make amends, lest a disaffected CIA person puts all his secrets on the Internet as they have the power to do to so many others.  Consider Mr. Snowden.

Yet, Mr. Trump’s real constituency is marching outside his door on the streets of Washington, DC.  These are the persons he should be addressing, not the ‘spooks’ among us, but the ‘real citizens’.  I suspect, if the truth be told, the power of these women to either make or break his presidency is far greater than secrets the CIA holds on him.  Trump has yet to know the real power ‘of a woman scorned’.  He would be wise in my opinion to get things right with these women marching down the streets of Washington, DC.  Whatever power or influence he might have expected to garner across the nation is in imminent peril of being forever lost.   I sincerely hope he has enough sense to realize the world has changed since 1959.  This is 2017!   All across the globe disenfranchised immigrants, refugees of war, and now our own mothers and daughters are saying, “It’s important that you listen to me!”  It is not an effective strategy of government to ignore those who truly have something they wish and need to tell us!”  I would advocate for you at least stopping long enough to listen.  These women are not against you, Mr. President, they could be the source of your real greatness.  But if you choose to ignore them, you do so at your own peril.  Not peril of your life, but peril of being irrelevant in the grand march of history.  These women are on the right side of history!  Their story is the story of us all!  Where are you, Mr. President?  At least, if you a wise, listen to your own daughter, Ivanka!  At least she has the good sense to know that climate change is already among us.  What about you, Mr. President?  Will you refuse to listen to our scientists, too?  It is not the measure of a great man to ignore the truth when it is staring you squarely in the face!  You represent us, now, and so you must listen to all of us, otherwise we will never listen to you, and you will become the parenthesis I spoke of in another place, something to be deleted from the corporate memory of us all, an anomaly that did not belong in this place called the United States of America.  I shall pray for you, since very few people do, and ask that God may have mercy upon your soul, and if possible wake you from your deep slumber of irrelevance!

A Voice