Made Up Outrage
This is a political post. If interested please scroll down.
Someone I know posted this online:
.
I shook my head. For, nobody is asking that he apologize for the America flag. Nor is anybody suggesting such a thing or even inferring.
This is just made-up Right-wing outrage. And this is a real thing.
For example, people on the Right were OUTRAGED about the phrase Merry Christmas. “Obama won’t say Merry Christmas! Why does he hate Jesus Christ?”
Really, this was a huge thing with the Right. Huge! Trump screamed about this all during the Obama years.
But…a quick YouTube search will reveal many many many videos of Obama saying Merry Christmas.
Oh! Here’s one:
A few blocks from me is a store owned by people on the Right. I love them. But, every holiday season they put a sign on the front door:
We Say Merry Christmas Here.
If You Don’t Like This, Don’t Enter!
Sigh. I just shake my head at the idiocy.
Note: I stopped saying Merry Christmas during the holiday season decades ago. Why? Because it is exclusionary. It excludes all non-Christians (about 70% of the global population). Because I am an inclusive kinda guy, and because I endeavor to be respectful of others, I instead simply say: “Happy holidays.” And I am pretty sure Jesus would, too.
In a previous post, I wrote about how the Right was OUTRAGED when Obama wore a tan-colored suit. This outrage went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. Fox News was all in 24/7.
Never mentioned in all this sound and fury? A quick Google search reveals George Bush and Ronald Reagan also wearing tan suits.
The Right was also OUTRAGED when Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless dress. You would have thought she was caught on video eating puppies! But, when Melania Trump wears sleeveless dresses? Not a peep from the Right. And all those images of Melania, you know, nude? Not a peep from the Right.
Obviously, sleeveless dresses and tan suits are only bad when worn by Democrats. And Blacks.
And being nude all over the internet is obviously OK if the First Lady is a Republican.
Well, back to this:
.
I replied:
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as slaves were not free when the flag was created.
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as women were not free to vote when the flag was created.
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as interracial couples were not free to marry when the flag was created.
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as same-sex couples were not free to marry when the flag was created.
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as Black Americans are not free from being regularly murdered by police.
The American flag stands for freedom? That’s interesting as the creation of America and its flag happened only after 12 million people native to this land were slaughtered.
I am American. I was born in Detroit, a 1957 model.
I love my country. But, rather than furiously defend symbols of freedom, I am vastly more interested in defending actual freedom.
Right now, America has never been in greater danger. Before our very eyes, people paying attention recognize that Democracy is being taken apart bit by bit and being replaced by Fascism.
The Right gets OUTRAGED by things-which-don’t-matter all the while happily supporting people in Washington who are intent on destroying America.
So, which side are you on? Do you care more about symbols than democracy?
9 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel Reply
Your email address will NEVER be made public or shared, and you may use a screen name if you wish.
Martyrdom is the new evangelism.
Regarding the Right’s War on Christmas hoax, I usually post the following every year around Thanksgiving, with the dates corrected as needed for the current year:
Why wish people one merry day (or twelve, if you consider the period from Christmas to Epiphany to be part of Christmas) when you can wish people a whole happy month by saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”? It seems selfish to refuse to acknowledge a full month of reasons for other people to be happy. After all, who are your holiday wishes for– yourself, or others?
December
4 — Saint Barbara’s Day
5 — Discovery Day (Haiti and Dominican Republic)
6 — Independence Day (Finland)
8 — Feast of the Immaculate Conception; Hanukkah begins (2011)
9 — Id-Ul-Adha (Sri Lanka)
12 — Día de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe
13 — Santa Lucia Day
14 — Alabama Admission Day
15 — Bill of Rights Day
16 — Las Posadas
17 — Saturnalia begins
18 — National Suckling Pig Day
19 — Oatmeal Muffin Day
20 — Games Day
21 — Solstice Day
22 — Mother’s Day (Indonesia)
23 — Festivus
24 — Christmas Eve
25 — My birthday
26 — First day of Kwanzaa, and Boxing Day
27 — Rizal Day celebrated
28 — Holy Innocents’ Day
29 — Texas Admission Day
30 — National Bicarbonate of Soda Day
31 — New Year’s Eve
January
1 — New Year’s Day
2 — Georgia Ratification Day
3 — Tamaseseri Festival
4 — Independence Day (Myanmar)
5 — Feast Day of Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder
6 — Epiphany (I hope you won’t wait until this date to have one.)
7 — Orthodox Christmas
@David Franks
Love this concept and this list!
I’ve recently disowned a sibling over their anger over anything not Republican. I was tired of their rhetoric so outed myself, to my Republican family, as gladly voting for Biden in order get get the current liar-in-chief out of office.
My brother has never talked to me the way he did afterward to the point I blocked him and his bitch wife from contacting me. They have so much anger and hatred, trying to present facts don’t matter. I tried sharing unbiased sources but they claimed it was Democratic run, nothing I said mattered. It was all about how evil Democrats are, how they want to take away our freedom, guns, religious freedom, and tax us to death.
This hatred toward me, my own brother calling me names over Trump, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the brainwashing. Facts don’t matter to die-hard Republicans. They’ve chosen willful ignorance.
Oh, Kelly! How could anybody be mean to you? You are a Goddess!
In the 1970s and 1980s, I enjoyed good debates with Conservatives. We would never agree but it was always thought-provoking and civil.
Then, in the 1990s, two things happened:
Fox News was created
Newt Gingrich
Both had a single aim: DEMONIZE Liberals.
And, here in 2020, we amply see the results. In my experience Conservatives are now fully brainwashed. They 100% accept what Fox and Trump tell them. They NEVER fact check. And, yes, they think people like you and me are demented evil-doers. They think Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ. And they are utterly blind to the horror of Trump et al. and to the fact that they are being played.
I’m proud that I’ve been able to reprogram several Republicans. Although all I did was, over a period of several years, gently ask them to fact-check stuff before approaching me for any discussion about politics. To their credit each did and—surprise—each slowly (and painfully) learned that they had been fed a steady diet of bullshit. One said to me: “Everything I believed to be true…wasn’t!” Each voted for Hillary in 2016. Each hates Trump with a passion equal to mine. Each will crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden, something they would have thought impossible not that long ago.
Well, a very BIG hug to you, Kelly.
I’m with you, kelly…my parents do not speak to me. My father is a retired Baptist pastor who spent 40 years preaching the love of God, but who cut off both of his sons and tore his family apart. I tried for years to hold it all together, but you know what I found? I don’t need them. I am sad, but I realize that the family I miss never really existed anyhow. My brother and I are closer now that ever before, and I am actually looking forward to the holidays this year without my parents there. Be true to you, and those who matter will be too. Those who shun you don’t matter.
I stopped speaking to my brother after Trump was elected and he went on a rant to me about how white men were the most persecuted people in America.
As far as the faux outrage is concerned, I quote the late, great Molly Ivins:
“I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.”
I’m Canadian. I just don’t get the flag thing. Who cares?
I’m with you and Biden and the light. I have Republican relatives on my husband’s side and I do carry on conversations with them on Facebook. It’s difficult but I actually want to know what they think and hear (on Fox). One of them is a decent, educated human who has tutored immigrant children and cares about animals, but’s still drinks all the Trump kool aid.
I asked today what he and his colleague thought about QAnon. He said he had just heard about it this week, and his colleague said the jury is still out on QAnon. What world do these people live in? They spew a lot of hatred towards liberals and yet they think they are being picked on.
It’s truly like We are living two separate realities.
Nothing exclusionary is good. We are not not straight, white Christian men in this country.
I have volunteered to make calls nationwide to talk to people about voting for Biden. I start tomorrow. Yes! Vote! Biden/Harris!
I fear my brother drinks the koolaide. 😐 I’m not certain how much but, this seemingly sudden lack of reason is disturbing.
The only recourse is to wait it out & vote as if life depends on it – because, it does. 🌻