Barrack Hussein Obama. Goodness me, such a hush, such a gasp. How such trepidation? Am I to infer that his name may not be mentioned in polite company, except in the most reverenced and whispered tones? Pisshaw! Give me a break! What clap trap! He’s a man right? Like any other? Or as our old friend Michel De Montaigne says, “Both kings and philosophers defecate, and so do the ladies.” [That’s from his essay On Experience.]

So then if not a sanctified thing, well then are you saying that his name is a dirty word--why wasn’t I informed of this? Where’s the memo stating Barrack Hussein Obama is such a dirty word as not be typed in print, or given voice on radio, or must be stricken from television?

Well of course I can certainly imagine the embarrassment, the humiliation, the unmitigated shame. What were his parents thinking? Wait a second his parents named him, yes? With love I presume. And now I’m given to believe that they gave their son a humiliating, embarrassing, shameful name on purpose? What ingrates say this? What fops promulgate such a dishonorable view? Oh, of course, twittering sycophantic popinjays like Keith Olbermann. Well that‘s to be expected.

What’s that you say? “That’s not what you meant and I know it.”

Well of course I agree the whole thing is silly. Schoolyard silly. Does it really have to be said, he gives meaning to his name and not the other way around. Yes, it would have been nice had Senator Obama said something that amounts to the same rather than piously accepting gratuitous apologies. And so a silly thing that could have been put down with a word or three has festered into a most unseemly thing.

I suppose temptation is always an insidious thing, always difficult to ward off, how else to explain the conduct of his own supporters using his own name as a weapon--using it to bludgeon and silence. But are they so daft as to not know that in doing so they accentuate rather than eviscerate, confirm rather, that there is something there that is embarrassing, humiliating, shameful in the mere mention of his name. Are they so half-witted that they’re unaware that their sanctimonious indignation reflects not only back on Barrack Hussein Obama, but his parents too. So then I must, being charitable, reject the premise. It is the only charitable thing to do.

But to tarry a moment longer, who wouldn’t agree that if a man asks you to refer to him by this or that appellation, being respectful, we should simply comply. Many of us have a preference, all? Some of us don’t really care for our middle name. Some of us don’t like our first name--so it goes. And unless Billy Bob Blutarsky is having a Billy Bob Blutarsky “you stop that right now because I’m not telling you twice moment”--well then…The point is that it is up to Barrack Hussein Obama to tell us how he would prefer this or that usage, not some screeching peevish supporter.

Still, how much better it would have been for Barrack to simply say, “my name is Barrack Hussein Obama, and simply enough I love my parents and I’m honored by the name they gave me, and if it is true that some see my name besmirched by the actions of others similarly named, well all the good my opportunity to give not merely honor to my parents, but by my actions redeem mine own name, and if as you say it is true that it has been so dishonored that it ought not to be mentioned in polite company, than all the more righteous and sublime my achievement, my victory, where none anywhere willingly refrain from shouting my own true name from every rooftop, prairie, dale, and mountain.” Or some like soliloquy or other. That he didn’t do so, that was unexpected.

****

So Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York, David A. Paterson, current Governor of New York, and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have all been exposed as men who have seen fit to consummate their inappropriate dalliances, though in Mr. Spitzer’s case we can, as he did, dispense with the dalliance because he went straight to go, and I don‘t mean Park Place.

Now it is true that dalliance and its near relation, concupiscence, recognize no creed, religion, or political party, and further what is good in one case may be bad in others, sort of like those neutral terms that have zero moral value whatsoever, tolerance and diversity, or any value, come to think of it, without some informing qualification. For example, I’m intolerant of Jihadi Nazis, and frankly that’s a diversity I can do without.

But to return to our subject, misguided dalliance and such, so who was that dolt who said “religion is the opiate of the people”? Freud was much closer to the truth; sex is the opiate of the people. Not just in our own day, though we may have refined it to a finer substance, but take infidelity, which has a long and storied pedigree: Some say that the curse on the house of Tantalus was at fault; if not for the curse King Agamemnon would have lived to a nice ripe old age. Well maybe, and then again maybe not, but I’ll tell you what bringing home his paramour Cassandra to a meet-and-greet with Clytemnestra after being away for ten years probably wasn’t such a hot idea. And it’s not like he didn’t have chaste, or not so, examples immediately before his mind’s eye--you know Paris, Helen, Trojan war and all. But hey it did give outstanding material for a play by Aeschylus.

Which brings to mind the far more famous Greek tragedy Oedipus by Sophocles, or rather why Sophocles’ play is more famous than Aeschylus’. Because of Freud you say, well yes, but why was Freud transfixed by Oedipus? Notwithstanding Freud's reading (whatever you may think of it), I will say that Aeschylus’ Agamemon doesn’t give a troubled reading to the Progressive world-view: simply legislate against human sacrifice, cannibalism, and the like, and, in Freud’s day, have strong societal sanctions disfavoring illicit trysts. Ta da! problem solved.

Now I admit that is a rather trite reading, but then we’re talking about progressive world-views and solutions here not literary sublimity. But never mind that, we’re talking about Oedipus, and Oedipus, to the contrary, disavows, negates, does not conform even to any progressive world-view solution. And that my friends is a scandal of the first order. A scandal, an affront, to the progressive mind, which our hero, Freud, could not well let stand. Thus he found god in our unconsciousness, planted him squarely there, and named him--well you know the rest of the story.

My take? Well as the primary, profound, literary reading of the play, well, as Get Smart would say, “he missed it by that l-----l much.”

****

“The new plan…is an honest attempt to advance in constitutional legislation along lines best calculated to promote smooth collaboration of all classes of society for the good of the state…‘Power is now given to the ‘productive forces of the state’ rather than to the mere representatives of territorial division. Each art, craft, trade, and profession will be represented in this…[the] first legislative body to be based on full economic representation.”

Wait a second that’s Mussolini’s Progressive Affirmative Action plan. Sorry about that, my bad. I’m sorry, too many notes and such, like things get confused, what can I say? [If curious Mussolini is being quoted by F. Lee Burns whom I mentioned in an earlier post.]

So lets try this again. Here’s the current California plan: “Each state must have a Delegation which is 50% female, 50% male or within one, and must have a Delegate Selection Plan that includes Affirmative Action Goals (quotas are prohibited [okay I’m laughing]).” Wait! Actually that directive comes from some national Democrat Party committee or other (hmm, I‘m having a déjà vu moment), but that’s not what’s funny, rather the imbecility of people who use the words “must have” and then in the same sentence say “quotas are prohibited”--must have flunked their SAT’s, or must be nimrods, or they must think we are, whatever.

So how does this break out--no, not as artisans and such as Mussolini would have it--we’ve progressed since then--no, these buffoons have their own categories. Lets go through them shall we:

As you can see there are conundrums rapt in mystery, fogged by confusion, lying inherent in this miserable riddle; for instance, can one person count more than Once? Twice? Three times Four?

Of course the Democrats, or should I say, Progressive party, are free to organize themselves however they wish. But as for me I’m not much of one for a party that describes my primary worth as my color, my sex, or whatever preferred, politically correct, superficial phenotypic trait.

And it‘s obvious isn‘t it? though the categories are nominally different as advanced by Mussolini and the Democrat Party, as they are clearly different on a Phenotypic level, there isn’t a hair’s breath difference between them on a structural Genotypic level, no, nary a difference between the two.

No of course not, I’m not bringing into this discussion that most exotic, infamous, distilled-evil National Socialism into this discussion--that guy and his ideology is to fascism what Stalin and his ideology is to communism (two peas in a rotten pod). No we’re talking about something like benign fascism, happy fascism, or Liberal Fascism.

Or as someone once said, “a rose is a rose no matter what you call it,” or something like that.

By the way did you pick up your copy of Liberal Fascism yet? If not go to the post below. I have a link there.

What’s that? “I didn’t say anything about Hillary?” Well, we have time yet to discuss Hillary don’t-cry-for-me Clinton.