If you are going to entertain a completely absurd notion like, “Shakespeare wasn’t really written by Shakespeare”, then you have to have some knowledge of the times and the context within which such a profoundly counter-intuitive thing could possibly be true. And it also helps to understand more precisely what the “writing of Shakespeare” actually means. Now, I know it is not particularly fair to confuse you, dear reader, right before I try to dazzle you with my complicated and over-thunk lackwit conspiracy theory, but that is, after all, what obfuscation actually means.
The plays, sonnets, and other poetry of William Shakespeare reveal the mind of a genius. Whoever wrote the works has to be a complicated man living a complicated life. He has to be a sensitive, empathetic, highly intelligent, observant, and troubled man. You don’t write the dark and deeply troubled suicidal tragedy of Hamlet without ever having thought of taking your own life. You cannot portray the madness of King Lear without ever having experienced the turmoil of the mind that threatens to tear your soul apart. And you don’t write about the complexities of love found in As You Like It or Romeo and Juliet without ever having experienced the massive thunderstorms of the mind that go along with falling in love. And we are talking true love, not necessarily the domestic love you have for the wife you are stuck with. You see what I did just there? I put you into the head of the writer, and started you thinking like you yourself are Shakespeare. As goofy a mental gymnastic exercise as that is, bear with me and keep thinking it.
At the time of Shakespeare’s ascendancy as the Bard Laureate of English Literature, England was not a safe place to be either a noble or a playwright. Queen Elizabeth’s mother had her head cut off for bad politics even though she was married to the King of England at the time. Lady Jane Gray, one of Elizabeth’s predecessors, lost her head when she was no more than a sixteen-year-old girl. During Elizabeth’s reign, one of her court favorites, Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, attempted to seize the queen herself after a riot fomented by a performance of Shakespeare’s play, Richard II, at which eleven of Essex’s noble supporters were said to be present stirring up the emotions of the crowd. It was a near thing for the writer of the play (about the life of a king whose reign ended in controversy about succession and which led eventually to the War of the Roses) to escape without also being caught up in the rebellion’s failure and round of executions that separated Essex from his head. Elizabeth banned numbers of plays with religious or political content, bans that never seemed to touch the writer of Shakespeare’s plays, even when they touched on political themes. You didn’t have to rebel against the Queen to lose your head either. Elizabeth was trying to reinstate Anglican Protestantism against the critical tides of Catholic Europe. You could be banished, put to death, or impressed by force into the English Navy for being suspected of ideas that were too Catholic. And witchcraft, or consulting with witches, as Macbeth depicts, earned you a nice warm fire in the public square to cleanse your immortal soul.
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
So, if one were to be both a playwright and a nobleman, known to and beloved by Queen Elizabeth, might there not be good reason to write under a pseudonym? And numerous people who write about Edward de Vere mention the fact that he wrote poetry and plays, and the plays were very popular. Some scraps of poetry by the Earl of Oxford still exist, but whatever happened to the manuscripts of his plays? It is a conspiracy theory so delicious, that I have to take at least one more bite. (You understand, I try to stick to a 500-word target for these posts, and even this 600+ is really too long. So that means there has to be an Earl of Oxford Part II at least.)
Catch a Falling Star 
Explaining the Words
I used to have political arguments all the time with my father that would end only in frustration… for me. He was happy to see his offspring boiling over ideas with smoke coming out of both ears. Because no matter what I said, he would always take the opposite position just to oppose me. I know this because I tested it. I would counter an argument he had just made by rephrasing it so that it was in different words, but meant exactly the same thing he had just said to me. Naturally he came up with opposing views immediately. One time I even flat out stated, “I agree with you!” Which naturally led to an immediate and complete reversal of the position on his part. I think now that he was training me to think more deeply about things than just parroting talking points heard on television. Either that, or he really really loved to argue.
The most important thing I learned in the endless arguments about Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Two Bushes, and Bill Clinton was that you have to establish the meanings of the terms you are using. Hence the reason for this post.
The words that made the most difference in my discussions with my father were “liberal”, “fascist”, “conservative”, and “communist”. When my dad used those terms, “conservative” always meant “good guys” and the other three words meant “bad guys”. But when I listened to the policies and concerns he wanted to talk about, whenever he said the word “conservative” he was really saying “moderate”. And because he was pretty much in the center of the political spectrum, he thought of fascists and communists as being the same thing. If my father ever was truly wrong about anything political, it was when he followed Ronald Reagan’s affable, smiling “Morning in America” politics towards the far right and abandoned the moderate principles he held dear. He had been deceived by Nixon, and regretted it… in fact, we all were deceived and we all regretted it. But that did not prevent him from being deceived by later Republicans. We both have had a long-standing admiration for President Eisenhower, Senator Bob Dole, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator John McCain. They represent the moderate wing of the Republican Party. But the GOP has marched relentlessly towards fascism and oligarchy of the rich, and we both feel that has tainted both Grassley and McCain. My dad ended up voting for Barack Obama twice. Obama, to him, is Eisenhower reincarnated. The problem, we both agree, has come anytime American politics have moved away from the center.
So let me begin defining terms by ridiculing the Loony Left.
Being liberal means promoting change. Hence, the Marxist devotion to revolution and the desire to have an on-going revolution of constant change. Unfortunately constant change is another way to define chaos. That is the main reason that communist-socialist experiments have generally ended in violence, economic collapse, and fascist-type strong-man oppression. The poor raggedy communist in my cartoon, standing on the left end of the spectrum is always doomed to poverty and violent death. If you don’t believe that, just ask Leon Trotsky if it isn’t so. Oh, wait, you can’t. Stalin had him murdered. Stalin ended the Russian experiment by cracking down on everything, making himself the antithesis of actual socialist ideas. I included the ultra-liberal philosopher and hedonist Alistair Crowley on this end of the spectrum because he fought against all social norms and rules. That sort of religion leads to sexual depravity, vice, and corruption to a degree that got Crowley labeled “the Most Evil Man Who Ever Lived” in a BBC documentary.
Sometimes being liberal is needed desperately. Then you get the kind of liberal change agents that JFK was (and thankfully, LBJ carried out his liberal changes to an American society crippled by racism and xenophobia). Martin Luther King Jr. was also that kind of agent of change. Bernie Sanders is a parallel agent of change to JFK in that Barack Obama’s policies are almost a mirror image of Eisenhower’s in the 1950’s. What the media today labels as a liberal is equivalent to moderate Republicans before Nixon. Very similar changes are needed in social and economic areas today. We have yet to see if Sanders can get elected in 2020 and then assassinated shortly thereafter.
You can probably tell that this article is not yet complete. I have a lot more loony liberal pontificating to do (and please note, I said “pontificating” not “defecating”. I am not a Trump voter.) But I am well past the 500 word goal for today, and so, I must leave the rest of the crap to be said in a part two article. Maybe also a part three. Please stop me before I reach part twenty-six.
I do so enjoy making fun of Trump and his tiny, tiny hands. So here I am sharing another lampoon at the expense of the Great Orange Face of America.
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Tagged as communists, conservatives dang!, fascists, humor, liberal politics, politics