In case you don't recognize him, that's Jefrey Epstein with the Harvard pennant. Wikipedia identifies Epstein as "an American sex offender and financier." Epstein died in jail on August 10, 2019, exactly four years ago today. Officially, the cause of death was determined to be "suicide." Others are not so sure about that.
The Nation Magazine published an article about Epstein, which appeared in its August 7/14, 2023, issue. The article is titled, "How Jeffrey Epstein Captivated Harvard." How? How did he do that? In short, money!
What I thought most interesting in The Nation's article were the names of all the "famous" people associated with Epstein. Here is a partial list. Read the article for more names. If you don't recognize someone in the list that I am providing (for instance, Leon Bottstein, the President of Bard College, isn't known to everyone), just click the link for some biographical information.
All of these people were associated with Epstein. All of them are "famous," in some way:
Here's what I thought, when I read the article in The Nation, and started tallying up the names: Ugo Betti.
No, I wasn't thinking that The Nation had missed adding Ugo Betti to the list of those seduced into a relationship with Epstein by either money, or sex, or both. If you don't recognize Ugo Betti's name, click the link. Betti was both an Italian judge and a playwright. And I wasn't thinking about Betti as an individual so much, but was really thinking more about a speech from one of this plays, The Burnt Flower Bed. I often think about this speech, and often quote it, too - particularly to students who take courses from me at UCSC:
That's what's needed, don't you see? That! Nothing else matters half so much. To reassure one another. To answer each other. Perhaps only you can listen to me and not laugh. Everyone has, inside himself ... what shall I call it? A piece of good news! Everyone is ... a very great, very important character! Yes, that's what we have to tell them up there! Every person must be persuaded - even if he is in rags - that he's immensely, immensely important (emphasis added)!
Our system of democratic self-government is premised on the idea that each one of us is "immensely, immensely important." We are so important that we get to run the country ourselves. That's the idea, anyway!
Letting the rich run the world - and Jeffrey Epstein's life is an example - underrates our own importance.
Let's listen to what Ugo Betti tells us.
Let's not forget it!
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