Robert Kelley's Open Salon Blog

Blog has moved

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:09:17 -0400

For those of you who have been kind enough to read my posts, I thank you. I have come to the conclusion that I'd rather not post under my real name for a variety of reasons- don't want to piss off any relatives or catch shit at work or give inspiration to some liberal-killing murderer or whatever. So I have a new screen name at OS, if you want to follow my posts drop me a line and I'll let you know. (I'd post it here but it'd kinda be against the whole point of changing in the first place).

Time To Forget September 11?

Wed, 8 Sep 2010 13:09:47 -0400

Wait a minute. Put down those pitchforks and torches. Stop heating that tar barrel and put those feathers away. Let me explain. What a preposterous thought, you might say. Indeed, it does seem outrageous, even treasonous. But let me explain how I came to this conclusion. You may or may not agree with me, but I hope you can come to understand where I’m coming from. Come step into the Wayback Machine (Sherman, Peabody, please make room) and let’s take a little trip.

First stop, 1984. Nothing to do with Orwell, I’m talking to a Catholic priest in my pre-marriage conversion. Father Schmidt is talking to me one on one about the Catholic faith. He talks about how some people misunderstand the use of the icons, statues, and artwork in the churches. We aren’t praying TO the statues of Mary, he stresses. We’re using the artwork as visual aids to help us make that connection to the reality that is Mary. His voice strengthens as he says “The minute that we start to pray to a statue or a picture, the minute that we worship a piece of artwork, that’s when we need to tear down the statue or put that painting away. The artwork serves to remind us of God, not to replace God.” That really stuck with me all these years. More on this later. Back in the Wayback Machine, forward to September 11, 2001.

It’s an ordinary Tuesday at work. One of my technicians hollers over the cubicle walls that a plane hit the World Trade Center. Holy crap, I thought. What kind of a doofus pilot was that? Of course later it developed that the pilots were mass murderers rather than incompetent twits. As the morning wore down, reports of the Pentagon attack, the 4^th plane down, wild rumors of car bombs at the State Department, the White House and Capitol evacuated. I felt something I had never felt before… fear. Real fear. I was too upset to work. So I signed out for the afternoon and went home. I wanted to be with my family. I kept a nervous eye on the horizon as I drove home, half expecting mushroom clouds to burst in my field of view. I told myself that this would be the Pearl Harbor of my generation. A day we would never forget. A day we must never forget. Back in the Wayback Machine, forward to the start of the Afghan War.

I was all for it. Disgusted that Bush was going to get credit for it, but I was all for the invasion. Al Qaeda got us, the Taliban was harboring Al Qaeda, let’s go get ‘em. Still, I was a bit uneasy. Uneasy in the knowledge that Afghanistan is where empires go to die. Uneasy knowing that we’re going in to fight the same people that we armed to fight the USSR during the Carter and Reagan years. Sure enough, the Taliban fled into exile. But that wasn’t enough for Bush and Cheney. They wanted to use 9/11 as an excuse to go into their true objective, Iraq. And as we set the Wayback Machine to trolling speed, we see Bush carefully conflating 9/11 and Iraq without ever actually saying explicitly that the two were related. Soon enough, polls showed that most Americans thought that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. Bush had the political capital to push for the war that he had wanted even before setting foot in the Oval Office. He successfully used the victims of 9/11 as political pawns to start this war. The exploitation of the victims of 9/11 had begun.

Still at trolling speed on our time machine, we see over a million Iraqis dead as a direct or indirect result of this senseless war. We see the abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Gharib, the massacre of Haditha, the torture of prisoners. These outrages were committed on our dime and in our name. When we questioned these abuses, we were accused of being unpatriotic, un-American, or Having Forgotten About 9/11.

Over the years, 9/11 became a crutch for politicians. Don’t have a plan? Doesn’t matter, just repeat 9/11 a few times. It was captured humorously in this Family Guy clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUTIPQxo21c. Joe Biden wasn’t very far off when he said every sentence uttered by Rudy Guiliani contained three parts: a noun, a verb, and 9/11. The exploitation of 9/11 had begun to mutate and spread like a cancer. Use it for justification of an invasion! Use it to justify human rights abuses! Use it as a substance substitute in political campaigns! 9/11 can do it all! Now just $19.99 but if you call right now we’ll DOUBLE the offer!

Let’s return to the present. Now we’re using 9/11 as an excuse to restrict the First Amendment rights of some Americans. It is somehow “insensitive” to have any type of Muslim building anywhere near Ground Zero. Once again, the bloody shirt of 9/11 is being thrown as some sort of Ace of Trumps that wins every argument. We have to be wary of all Muslims because of 9/11, regardless of sect, regardless of nationality. An American cab driver in New York is stabbed for the crime of admitting to his religion. A Nazi-style book burning of Qurans is planned. Can stitched-on crescents and gas chambers be far behind?

I think we have reached the point that Father Schmidt had warned me of. September 11 has become our golden calf, our false idol. We have sacrificed thousands of our servicemen and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians before it. We have bankrupted our nation by waging useless wars and refusing to pay for them as a sacrifice upon its altar. We have sacrificed our national reputation before it by condoning torture and rendition. We have tossed habeas corpus into its flames. We seem willing to sacrifice the Bill of Rights before it. We wave it around like some magic amulet, using its mystical powers to win arguments and elections. We no longer honor the dead, we exploit them. The time has come to throw down the golden calf and stop exploiting these victims. We have proven that we are incapable of remembering them with the dignity and honor that they deserve. Perhaps they would be better off if we did not remember them at all.

Before You Forward That Email....

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:08:29 -0400

Yes, I know. That forward button is just sitting there, just aching to be pushed. But please, before you do, please consider….

Nothing magical is going to happen if you do. Bill Gates is not going to give you a laptop. You aren’t going to see a special screen and the original email is not going to show you something hilarious. God is not going to grant you any miracles. No cancer patient is going to get the money for a cure. All you’re going to do by forwarding such an email is expose yourself as a gullible chump.

Please check your email history. That bit about Mars appearing as large as the full moon in August? You sent it in 2009….and 2008….and 2007….and 2006... and 2005… and 2004….Call me crazy, but I sense a pattern. The truth is, Mars’ closest encounter with Earth was in August 2003. It was particularly bright for Mars, but if you expected Mars to appear as large as the moon does you were disappointed then as you will be every single August for the rest of your life, since these emails are doomed to be sent every July for all eternity. By the way, if Mars ever DID appear as large in our sky as the moon, the tidal effects would be disastrous.

Does your email contain the acronym “ACLU”? If so, it is almost certainly false. The ACLU is not trying to remove the crosses on graves in Arlington, they aren’t filing suit to stop Marines from praying, they didn’t take “In God We Trust” off our coinage, They aren’t forcing businesses to say “Happy Holidays” in lieu of “Merry Christmas”, that’s a business decision that private businesses are allowed to make. As far as the coins go, if you don’t see your precious motto on a coin, check the other side! Or even the edge!

Oh, and if the word “Obama” appears in your email, there’s a 100% chance that it is wrong. He isn’t Kenyan, Muslim, Marxist, Communist, Socialist, He stands for the national anthem and will recite the pledge (one of the many silly things we expect our presidents to do). He wore an American flag pin on his lapel during the 2008 campaign (something John McCain did NOT do). He did NOT refuse to declare a National Day of Prayer (another silly job we demand of our presidents). He did NOT promote a Muslim postage stamp (although George W Bush did). No, he didn’t use a teleprompter to talk to elementary school students. No, he didn’t apologize to the UK for the American Revolution. There are many things that you will get forwarded to you about Obama. None of them are true. When in doubt, check it out.

Or maybe you got one of those anti-PC rants supposedly written by Bill Cosby or George Carlin or Andy Rooney. See that button that looks like a garbage can? That’s what that button is for. These guys are all pretty liberal in their political ideology. They’d rather ride a bicycle without a seat than be credited with the bullshit that is sent under their name. Well, maybe not so much Carlin since he did the hokey-croaky.

I haven’t described it yet? How about those pictures of the twin towers ablaze above an account of Oliver North testifying about the perils of bin Laden to then Senator Al Gore? Nope, North himself disavows that one, though you have to go to an archival version of his web site to see it. Turns out he wasn’t talking about bin Laden. Nor was he even speaking to Al Gore, who wasn’t even in the room. Yes I know, 9/11 is the Ace of Trumps that wins all arguments whenever played. Welcome to reality, chumpo.

Whatever the message, my forwarding it is not going to make you rich, nor does the Almighty work via chain email. Your anti-Obama crap mail isn’t going to sway my politics, and if you’re dumb enough to believe the junk you send out, then you were never in any danger of voting Democratic in the first place. Do yourself a favor. Check out those stories before forwarding. Snopes is your friend. Don’t like Snopes? Do whatever research you can, there are other hoax-busting sites out there. Or {GASP} go to the library.

The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:08:39 -0400

No, I’m not talking about Park 51. I’m talking about Glenn Beck and his rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28. On the 47^th anniversary of the “I Have A Dream” speech, the party of White Christian Racists will be having an orgy of hate in the shadow of the Great Emancipator. Does he have a right to do it? Of course he does. Should he do it? If his aim is to tweak his nose and say “up yours” to the civil rights movement, then I guess he should. The message is simple: White Christian racists, the GOP is right there with you. We feel your pain. We share your hate.

Don’t believe me? From the mouth (or the orifice of your choice) of Beck: “This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. It is an abomination.” Reclaim it? How? From who? And the man who called President Obama a racist thinks he has any standing to talk about civil rights? My irony meter just exploded.

In case you’ve been asleep, the GOP has been courting racists with more passion than Pepe LePew. Even Michael “Oreo” Steele admits as much: “The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties. Their parties walk away from them. For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South.”

It used to be much more covert. Ronald Reagan opened his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS, where civil rights workers were murdered. It was a wink and a nod to racists that “yes, we’ll keep those uppity blacks in their place”. It was dog whistle politics in those days. Subtle enough to offer plausible denial, yet obvious enough to be unmistakable. The Republicans have traded in their dog whistles for train whistles, as we’ve seen in 2010.

Look at the Tea Party rallies. Look at the pictures of the crowds. Imagine your bathtub filled with hot chocolate. Throw in one mini marshmallow. Now imagine the colors are reversed. You get the idea. What were they so enraged about? That poor people might get health care. That some of “them” might benefit at “our” expense. The ralliers were stupid enough to swallow all the crap about “socialism”, but the plan that passed was nothing more than the Republican alternative to Hillarycare in 1993. What made the moderate GOP plan of 1993 turn into a satanic takeover of the health care system in 2010? That it was proposed by a black president.

Look at Shirley Sherrod. A dishonestly edited video promoted by the unscrupulous blogging whore Andrew Breitbart was used to discredit a mid-level black government worker. This gave way to such a feeling of white resentment and victimhood that both the NAACP and the Obama Administration gave her the bum’s rush before finding out all the facts. The Republicans had their black scalp.

Of course, lower class whites fear more than blacks. They also fear Mexicans. Those illegal immigrants, taking the jobs that they won’t do, getting fake social security cards and paying SS taxes that will never get them benefits. Those Mexicans who have babies here and those babies becoming “anchor babies”, paving their way for their parents to infest the United States. The solution: Repeal the 14^th Amendment! Does it matter that parents of “anchor babies” are not given preferential status to immigrate for years? Does it matter that most parents of “anchor babies” have been living in the US for years? Does it matter that the 14^th Amendment has absolutely no chance of repeal? Of course not! What does matter is ginning up fear of Scary Brown People among lower class, poorly educated whites.

Now there’s all the controversy over the “mosque” near Ground Zero, or as it has become, The Altar Of Perpetual Victimhood. OH MY GOD, MUSLIMS! NEAR GROUND ZERO! To be upset over this, you need to be hopelessly ignorant or a major-league bigot, preferably both. Apparently they can’t understand that the motivations of the 9/11 terrorists were political, not religious. Or that they come from a splinter faction of Islam. Or that many of the 9/11 victims and first responders were Muslim. Or that it isn’t even a mosque. Or that you can’t see Ground Zero from the site. Or that there is already a mosque within four blocks of Ground Zero. Or that the imam in question is a moderate hired by the State Department to reach out to the Muslim world. Or that the imam condemned the murder of Daniel Pearl and attended his funeral. No, their thought process goes like this: “Grrrr... Og hate Muslim.... Og smash!” Now we’ve got people across the country fighting construction of new mosques anywhere. We’ve got people actually suggesting an amendment to ban Islam in the US. Unbelievable. Now we see a black man accosted by an angry crowd for looking Muslimish. We see a Muslim cabbie, a proud citizen of the US for over twenty years, getting stabbed for admitting his religion. When do we start sewing crescents on the clothes? When do we build the gas chambers?

The recent round of anti-Muslim hysteria has given rise to another round of “OH MY GOD, OBAMA IS A MUSLIM!” The best response to this was Colin Powell’s, who simply asked “so what if he is?” I guess they didn’t get any traction whining about Obama’s former Christian pastor (a marine veteran who tended to Lyndon Johnson), so they decided to reignite the faux Obama-is-a-Muslim outrage.

So after all this, who is going to be the beacon of light and “reclaim” the civil rights movement? None other than Glenn Beck. Assisted by the Wasilla Hillbilly. Maybe Laura Schlesinger will show up and toss the n-word about. I’m sure Fox “News” will exaggerate the size of the crowd by several orders of magnitude. Their cameras will seek out the few black faces in order to give the appearance of inclusion. Make no mistake about it, this will be a White Power rally. In the presence of Abraham Lincoln. On the anniversary of the greatest civil rights speech in history.

Republican Party Application

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:08:20 -0400

Republican Party Application

Name: _________________________

Sex (excuse us, gender)

/_/ Male

/_/ Female (attach permission note from husband)

Race

/_/ White

/_/ Caucasian

/_/ Honky

/_/ Crackerboy

/_/ Oreo

/_/ Hispanic No longer applicable (revised 2010)

Marital Status

/_/ Single (but definitely not gay!)

/_/ Married (happily)

/_/ Married (but fooling around) STAFF: Forward female applications to Newt Gingrich

/_/ Divorced

/_/ Widowed

Annual Family Income

/_/ $250,000 to $1 million

/_/ Over $1 million

Religion

/_/ Protestant

/_/ Catholic

/_/ I follow a televangelist

Reason For Wanting To Join the GOP

/_/ Obama’s Going to Raise My Taxes

/_/ Obama’s Going to Grab My Guns

/_/ Obama’s Going to Force Boy Scouts Into Gay Islamic Marriages

Where Do You Get Your News?

/_/ FOX News

/_/ Rush Limbaugh

/_/ Sean Hannity

/_/ God Tells Me Everything I Need to Know Personally

Who Is Your Favorite Supreme Court Justice?

/_/ Scalia

/_/ Alito

/_/ Roberts

/_/ Thomas

/_/ You Mean Sarah Palin Isn’t On The Court?

What Is Your Favorite Amendment?

/_/ The Second Half of the Second Amendment

/_/ The Tenth Amendment

/_/ The Fourteenth Amendment, After We Fix It

/_/ There Are Amendments Other Than the Second?

Who Was Your Favorite President?

/_/ Ronald Reagan

What Issues Are Important To You? Check All

/_/ Guns

/_/ Abortion

/_/ Keeping Gays From Marrying

/_/ Keeping Muslims From Building Mosques

/_/ Taxes

/_/ Stopping Illegal Immigration (except for my gardener)

Barack Obama Is…. Check All

/_/ Kenyan

/_/ Marxist

/_/ Socialist

/_/ Nazi

/_/ Secular Humanist

/_/ Gay

/_/ Muslim

/_/ Communist

/_/ Uppity

/_/ The Anti Christ

Your Economic Plan Is To:

/_/ Cut Taxes

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/_/ Reduce Taxes

/_/ Lie About How Much I Care About the Deficit

In the Space Below, Please List All Disagreements

You Have With Rush Limbaugh (Use Large Print)

___

|__|

I swear that I will support the Republican Party

And the candidate whose turn it is in 2012

Signature

Send completed forms to:

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