With Boycott-mania sweeping the country what better time for this look at the fragmentary remains of this ancient Greek Comedy by Aristophanes?
Ancient Greek Merchant Ship
Balladeer’s Blog presents another examination of an ancient Greek political satire. In this case it is one of those works of Aristophanes which have survived only in very fragmentary condition.
MERCHANT SHIPS
Merchant Ships was written and publicly staged in approximately 424 B.C. to 421 B.C. according to the available data. It was another of Aristophanes’ comedies protesting the pointlessness of the Greek city-states warring among themselves instead of uniting against the encroachments of the Persian Empire.
I can’t help but view this particular comedy in light of my own country’s current plight of having the rival criminal gangs called the Democratic and Republican Parties pointlessly rob the country blind and run it into the ground while virtually ignoring external threats.
In this comedy the captains of two separate merchant ships – one from Athens and one from their foe Sparta – have grown weary of the pointless conflict and make a separate peace with each other. They and their crew members get to spend the play enjoying the food and drink from their cargoes and living out a metaphorical return to the prosperous days before the Peloponnesian War when peace reigned among the various Greek city-states.
Franchises aka Merchant Ships
For a modern-day adaptation (as opposed to a straight translation) the situation could be depicted by having a Chick Fil-A restaurant right next to a Starbucks coffee shop. The managers and employees of these stereotypically Republican (Chick Fil-A) and stereotypically Democratic (Starbucks) establishments could grow tired of the political feuding, especially since both political parties often call for boycotts of the opposing business. Continue reading
Like Balladeer’s Blog pointed out last year the increasingly unhinged Anti-Trump Right, the American Left and their Corporate Media allies have accomplished the seemingly impossible: they’ve turned Donald Trump into a sympathetic underdog. 
At any rate, Lloyd Marcus penned a terrific item defending Trump and pointing out how the members of America’s notoriously corrupt political establishment are waging a propaganda war on this de facto Third Party President. 
“ Cancer patients lost their life-saving doctors 
JOHN F KENNEDY 
To give readers a break from my blog posts about how much contempt I’ve come to feel for the political left that I used to be a part of, I periodically post these articles about others who have come to feel the same way. 
“Progressives used to say, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” Not anymore.
TIM SCOTT – Senator Scott (R) from SC took to the Senate floor to discuss the way that freethinking African-Americans like himself get treated by DemoKKKrats for not obeying them like Barack Obama always did:
“Here in (Ivory Tower)-land things become what they are called rather than being called what they are.” – From Aristophanes’ satire 
“As somebody who escaped Lebanon and actually hid under desks to avoid death squads, I don’t take well to these idiots from Wellesley College who say, ‘I’m scared to go and buy my hamburgers now that Trump won,’ because it trivializes what true trauma is.” — Gad Saad 
“Everyone who is suffering from collective Munchausen and mass hysteria are obviously of a particular political bent — the ultra-Left (who typically belong to the Democratic party). And these people have built their whole ethos, edifice, zeitgeist on Identity Politics. Identity Politics leads to victimology poker and the oppression olympics. 
“This leads to people thinking absurd lines of thought like — and I’m being satirical here — : “How will I go to the store and feel safe buying tomatoes once Trump is in office?” or “What will happen to my children? Will Trump cause us to cannibalize our children?” “Will sex still be permitted?”
Hillary’s irrational and hate-filled devotees are so messed up inside they actually made a huge deal out of the fact that Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady, Patriots Coach Bill Belichek and Patriots owner Robert Kraft have long been friends of President Donald Trump. 
Since Left-Wing Archie Bunkers have no identity outside of their political opinions they just could not understand people who ignore public pressure to conform to Political Correctness. 
Balladeer’s Blog has long been a proponent of the need for Third Parties here in America. Those additional political parties would provide much-needed competition to the corporate owned Democrats and Republicans who hijacked our electoral system long ago. 
BALLADEER’S BLOG: And I imagine the Harry Truman comparison is the obvious shared trait? 
Balladeer's Blog 