Babaloo's Waterloos: Raiding the "Enemy's" Camp (A Continuing Series)

Dear Readers:

I know from your e-mails that many of you want badly to comment here but are afraid of incurring Val Prieto's wrath and the penalty of expulsion from Babalú, where you have made friends and forged a blog identity. Do not fear. Unlike Val I will never demand submission from you as the price of admission. I extend to each and every one of you an invitation to make this your blog home. You are welcome to change your moniker when you comment here, and in fact I would encourage it. I think you will find that liberating in many ways; and I am sure that, eventually, after becoming acclimated to the independence that you will be accorded here from day one, you will have little patience with the strictures which Val imposes on free speech at Babalú and will make your permanent home here among fellow independent spirits.



POSTSCRIPT (in response to Killcastro and Charlie Bravo):

There are two kinds of censorship. The least complex is that which others attempt to exert over us; but the most corrosive is that which we exert over ourselves. Self-censorship is usually preemptive: the person who censors himself does so to avoid being censored by others. He acts from the same motivation as the condemned man who commits suicide just before he is to hang in the morning. He spares the hangman the trouble of stringing him, which in turn spares his dignity and shows a certain noblesse oblige at a time when the quiddities of etiquette might well be dispensed with.

It is these people that must be emboldened, because, in truth, they do not depend on Val or any other blogmaster, but Val most assuredly depends on them. Once they can grasp and embrace this concept they will feel empowered to exert their independence.

This is the reason that I make it a point to tell every habitué of Babalú that they have other options; that it really isn't babalú or nothing else. On the contrary, it can be babalú and anything else they please. Or even killcastro or RCAB or anything at all and not babalú.

It is better, as I have said, for them not to migrate with their original monikers. Let them assume a new identity so that they will be free of all mental fetters associated with the old. Then they will be able to think with a wide scope and will doubtless become habituated to so thinking.

I have analyzed carefully on an individual basis the profiles of all visitors to this blog and have determined that they consist primarily of Val Prieto & Company, along with 60 percent of their usual "commenters." The number may actually be higher because I am working with fragmentary data.

Of course, this is hardly a revelation, because who else would as interested in a critique of babalú as those who already share a curiosity — and may even flatter themselves that they also share a stake — in the future of babalú. (Now, there's a vain conceit!)

The sad thing is that there are many people stranded on that island without a bearded dictator who would like to range to other domains and see what life may hold there; but they are constrained from doing so by the fear that they will be banished from their usual haunts because of it. This is not an irrational fear given Val's erratic behavior which is triggered by the least suspicion that someone might actually have a brain of his own and require neither his directions nor his guidance.

So, yes, look to your e-mails as the truest indication of your progress: these are the caterpillars which may someday become butterflies. And butterflies, as we all know, are so much more beautiful than caterpillers.