A Very Damaged Man

Volubulis, farthest extent of the Roman Empire - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Mike Burnaugh

A few days ago I sent three of you a comment on Jeremy’s vent about Barack Obama. It was a well-written commentary, but as usual I had to add my two bits. I’ve been thinking more about the line of thought and would like to pursue it for a bit.

Jeremy noted the President was pursuing the anti-colonial folly of his alcoholic Communist father. That should not come as a complete surprise to Americans, as he wrote a book titled: “Dreams of my Father”. Then again, the first law of Louisiana politics now applies to all of America: If you want to keep a secret, put it in a book.

I noted that the first voice of anti-colonial rage was Frantz Fanon. See if you can see today’s American Progressives in this quote from Fanon’s book: “The Wretched of the Earth”.

“What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.”

That was circa 1960. Compare it to Obama’s response when he was told raising taxes on the rich would cut tax revenues. He cited the need for fairness. Not logic—fairness. We all went through that stage in childhood. I submit Obama was never able to grow out of it. He was abandoned by his Communist father, then his Communist mother, and went through adolescence with a Communist longshoreman as his mentor. What are the odds against his ever being told that life was inherently unfair and he should grow up?

Instead, we as a people are so stupid we elect a man whose first response is: “It isn’t fair! Waaah!” Faced with the threat of oil disruptions in the Gulf, he blocks a pipeline from Canada. Logic? If we believe it was logical, we have to believe he hates America and wants to bring us down. Let’s be charitable (I seldom am) and assume it is just the post-colonial politics of resentment. People who can’t shake that syndrome will never be able to function in a logical world. To them, nothing is ever fair, so they don’t have to assume the painful burden of responsibility. Fanon died in an American Hospital. That is deliciously unfair! But he realized before he died, that liberation for the Algerians, for whom he propagandized, was going to be miserable, as they fought, not to govern, but to replace the French brutality with their own.

Santayana would comment about being condemned to relive the history we do not study. I prefer the less stuffy Bard of Avon. As a political science major at UCLA (the lesser University of California) I studied Shakespeare and drove the professors half loony with my political interpretations of the plays we studied. Case in point: “THE TEMPEST.”

Here is Prospero stranded on a desert island. He takes an ignorant savage under his wing (enslaves him) and gradually educates him. His reward? Caliban hates him, resents his inferior status, and wants to overthrow him since he really is inferior. He can’t imagine doing anything but replacing Prospero with another master, because he really likes being CARED FOR. Hence the magnificent quote: “Get a new master, get a new man!”

This is the politics of resentment in a nutshell, whether practiced in Africa or third world America. The same infection rules Obama and his loyal legions. They are incapable of operating in the real world. He is a deeply damaged man doubling down on irrationality. In November, will we double down on stupidity?