The majority of the US populace, at the time of the invasion, approved it. Democrat Congresspeople like Clinton granted Bush the go ahead. Unless everyone is running a major take down on every single celebrity that’s friends with any of them, this is just a smear job. Ellen is no worse than any celebrity that’s befriended Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat in Congress at the time who approved of this very, very popular war, (at the time of its outset.) The truth is that we as a nation of people failed, and trying to shove this much blame onto Ellen for not scratching Bush the Younger’s eyes out is flat out intellectual and ethical dishonesty. It’s people trying to blame her for something that, frankly, we’re all to blame for.
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And on top of all that:
Even if you are willing to forgive what happened half a globe away (I am not) where we are now has strong foundational support in what he did then.
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Bad hyperbole to avoid constructive dialogue.
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I don’t think that’s the subtext here. I think Ellen hangs out with Bush because he’s not a total douchebag towards women, is probably funny and witty. I think Clinton’s rep as a womanizer and total cockwad precedes him, so no female celebs really want to hang with him. Notice I have not brought up war or any of our favorite political buzzwords. They’re probably hanging out because he’s not a total disaster to hang out with.
Also not saying I want to hang out with him or approve of him or any other nonsense like that. I’m saying the explanation for why Ellen is hanging around him is on a simpler level than approval of his past or what-have-you that people are attaching to it now. It’s more basic. Is this guy socially acceptable or socially unacceptable this moment? Monkeys, we scratch each others’ backs, and the ones that do it wrong get kicked in the balls and shown the fast route to the bottom of the tree.
Yes. Thus my insistence that we are not actually debating people. We are discussing systemic issues, for which we are all partly to blame because we have collectively allowed this system to continue to exist in its current form.
We’ve changed nothing. We could somehow manage to get rid of Trump. But the system will allow for another Bush, another Trump, or another 10 or 20 Trumps and Bushes, because we allow it to exist.
Is the GOP in the last three decades, (or more,) demonstrably worse than even the worst of the DNC? Absolutely. Reagan, both Bushes and especially Trump are a nightmare unleashed from what could almost be a literal hell. The problems with the Clintons and Obama don’t even count as problems in comparison.
But this isn’t on Ellen Degeneres’s head. It’s just weird for people, and I will stress this again, people who from a truly proactive standpoint have done nothing meaningful or proactive to stop any of this, to be trying to demonize her in this way. It’s petty and misguided and the exact kind of division that prevents constructive forward progress. This is not how to improve the nation.
I do feel we should shun US conservatives at this point. We should deny them service, we should deny them friendship, we should make them social outcasts until they either go away or agree to stop being so ethically horrible. But that’s just my opinion and frankly almost no one seems to agree with me about that in any meaningful application. So why are these people trying to suddenly hold Ellen accountable for that when they themselves are absolutely no better. And I’m dead serious, the people trying to smear her are no better. At all.
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Here is the fundamental problem here. The people demonizing Ellen are demanding that she shun. But they’re not shunning.
Has Boingboing begun banning every account that expresses support for Trump? Has everyone involved with this smear campaign either quit jobs that have Trump supporter coworkers or demanded that those said people be fired? Have any of these people risked employment to refuse to serve or interact with current Trump supporting Republicans?
The answer is no, so how can you demand Ellen shun when you won’t, and don’t make some cheap excuse about it being Bush himself, and not just a Trump supporter. The problem is very much with the support, not just the people benefiting from it. If you want shun culture, you must be willing to lead it, not hide from it then shake an angry finger at celebrities who act no differently.
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There’s a difference between sharing a workplace or forum with someone and sitting next to them at a baseball game, shooting the shit, taking selfies together, joking, etc. Even if you do similar things at work there’s the natural coercion of it being the workplace.
And yes, people who come to the fora to defend, say, concentration camps do get banned.
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She might have a point if she had honestly engaged him on his choice to wage an elective war, and the profound consequences of that choice that continue to this day. Apparently she didn’t do that. To defend her public appearance with him without doing that is to lend herself to the whitewash of history.
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Ah, but you see, she has more money than you, and she also didn’t know any of his victims, so it’s all okay. She’s also a better person than you because she can see past that and you can’t. Oh, and she’s also a better person than you because she has more money than you.
/s
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