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Chris Kelly

Chris Kelly

Posted: November 23, 2007 10:47 PM

Ron Silver isn't a Racist, You Are


How did Ron Silver not have a blog? It's like Paris Hilton not having gonorrhea. You just assumed it was there, and no one told you, because it was so obvious.

But it's true. Ron Silver didn't have a blog. Until now.

It's called "Silver Bullet." Because Ron Silver has gonorrhea. No, that's not true. That would be "magic bullet." It's called Silver Bullet because Ron Silver is a lot like the Lone Ranger. Who also didn't have any friends.

Another amazing thing about Ron Silver? It took him all the way until his second blog entry before he accused opponents of the Iraq War of being racists.

Let me walk you through it, because there's not much light, the steps are slippery and the head clearance is low.

To start with, Ron Silver has a lot to say about the kind of guy Ron Silver is, and the kind of things that a guy like Ron Silver believes.

Others were "content with Saddam in power in a post 9/11 world. I (Ron Silver) was not."

He's a revolutionary liberal from right of the left of center who resists reactionaries, and believes in the Bush Doctrine to project American power, expand freedom and, uhm, seek out new worlds and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before.

Also, when he finds himself a-fallin' for some girl, he hops right into his car, and drives around the world because he's the wanderer. Or maybe I'm thinking of Dion.

Ron Silver counts himself "firmly in the tradition of Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy... Reagan and George W. Bush." Except, of course, they're all presidents, and he's the bad guy from Timecop.

So far - and he only just started - Silver Bullet is about 50% tragic tough guy palaver, like a small dog barking at the fridge, and 50% Kingfish-style pseudo-formalize, the kind used by actors who've played too many lawyers.

Why else would a grown-up write something like:

"I've become increasingly disadmired by members of my profession,"

or

"George W. Bush: a revolutionary liberal internationalist? History may so decree,"

unless they weren't very smart.

We'll give him that. But there's no excuse for:

"worldwide, malignant, metastatic Islamic jihadism,"

unless you're blowing someone, and they like the way nonsense words make your mouth move. It's not Paddy Chayefsky, it's Pat the Bunny.

And then we come to:

"My friends sound a bit racist when they insist on Arab-Muslim incapacities to expand freedoms and maintain their faith."

Here's the first thing that's wrong with that statement: Everyone knows Ron Silver doesn't have any friends.

Here's the second thing wrong with it: It's a canard so baseless and tired and slanderous and vile, President Bush hardly ever uses it anymore.

It seems like a non sequitur - not slaughtering Arabs proves you don't respect them - but logically it's a perfectly functional modus tollendo ponens:

- George Bush wants to bring democracy to the Muslims by bombing the living fuck out of them.

- Susan Sarandon doesn't want to bomb the living fuck out of the Muslims.

- Therefore Susan Sarandon doesn't believe the Muslims can understand democracy.

Or maybe it proves that Susan Sarandon isn't George Bush.

Either way, the logic is fine. The problem lies with the first statement -- the antecedent of the material conditional: Carpet Bombing = Respect. It's debatable without anyone calling anyone else a racist.

Or maybe it's right, but it's only partially right. Sure, massacres are one way to show our high hopes for democratic institutions taking root in the Middle East. But there could be others, too.

This is related to the problem with the equation Arabs + Being Killed = Voters. Because it's possible that the best way to make people vote isn't killing them.

Or that Susan Sarandon disagrees, but not on racial grounds.

It's also possible that Ron Silver understands the Arab mind like cats can cut hair, and he should stick to things he understands, if he can find one.

Ron Silver signs off:

"My philosophy, at the end of the day, bottom line, as they say: 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but labels never hurt me.'"

So he won't mind if I say he's a dipstick.

--

Ron Silver is exceptionally good in Lovesick. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It's not a great movie or anything. But he's terrific.

 
 
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03:21 PM on 11/28/2007
In a time long, long ago; in a land of far far away were two people living in a beautiful garden! These two people were liberals! Totally at peace with the climate, nature, earth, sky, all that existed.

The master gardner gave these two a simple instruction: "Tend my garden, pollute not the skys, waters, or creatures; be fruitful and multiply". They did so also knowing that the Master Gardner's warnings that the Tree of Political Wisdom would pollute their lives and make them die.

One day a Serpent called George, came upon Eve and lied to the one with beautiful figure and supple breasts.
"Partake!" George said and surely you will not die but become Rulers of New Worlds. So the beautiful one partook, then offered her mate saying "Tis sweet and George tells us it will make us Rulers of the World". "Woe unto all in that they did and found they were Democrats & Liberal". The Master Gardner was disappointed but provided them with "Parties, Campagins, Donations, and Volunteers!!

During one of the Campagins, the good volunteer(Able) was showing the Master Gardner his new "Slogan"of "Democratic Party-Party of the Peace-full People". The Master was pleased. The not so good volunteer(RonSilver) showed the Master Gardner his campagin slogan "Righteous Right Wing Democracy through Military-industrial Might!" and the Master Gardner was not pleased. The Master approved of Able's slogan. Volunteer Ron was angry and struck Able on the head with a cruise missle.

The Master Gardner called out: "Ron where is your volunteer brother Able?" Ron answered "Master Gardner I don't know! Am I his keeper if he goes to Canada?" Ron was then banished to travel the earth With a mark on him callled:
"ACTOR" AND "RIGHT WING NEO-CON"; so that if anyone harm him; the Gardner would make votes become indentations, uncounted, unreported, and voters discriminated against.

But that was a long time ago and the story no longer believed. The book of stories was only allegorical. Nothing like that could really happen!
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
Witkacy
04:38 PM on 11/27/2007
"Silver Bullet"---->"Blue Steel"

Now THAT'S the Ron Silver I know: mercilessly pulling that stolen service pistol on Elizabeth Pena, when Jamie Lee isn't there to protect her...

Wait - I take that back--I think that Dershowitz was the role Ron was born to play...and keeps playing...
03:53 PM on 11/26/2007
Yeah, I got an "A" in it, but I wished I'd paid more attention in Philosophy of Logic. Seems it could be useful in a snarky kinda way.
03:23 PM on 11/26/2007
Brilliant;
"
Or maybe it's right, but it's only partially right. Sure, massacres are one way to show our high hopes for democratic institutions taking root in the Middle East. But there could be others, too.
"
>> Ron Silver always made my spider senses tingle. He plays an arrogant prick so well, because his method acting requires that he never gets out of character. That's him.

It's like when an air-headed movie star plays an air-headed movie star, and then they throw in the occasional non-sequitur of BIG WORDS that fits them like a bad suite. Ron Silver is that way with BIG WORDS and displays of compassion. If he does a love scene, I'll barf.

Sometimes people try to sound important, or thoughtful, by being critical (hopefully I'm not ironic here), and basically contrarian. I think that may be the condition Ron Silver is in. He knows he is brilliant, and he is wrong. So vanity, intolerance, pig-headedness, and an amusing lack of introspection result. Que Rush Limbaugh.
02:57 PM on 11/26/2007
lilphucker - perhaps lieberman didn't want to follow the Democratic march to socialism
02:27 PM on 11/26/2007
"Ron Silver is exceptionally good in Lovesick."

I've always thought Mazursky's "Enemies: a Love Story" was Silver's best, but maybe the presence of Lena Olin clouded my judgment.

That crappy alien movie with Charlie Estevez was certainly among his worst.

Does Dennis Hopper have a blog? Now there's a Bush kisser that might have something, at least, colorful to say.
12:52 PM on 11/26/2007
If you claim, as critics of neoconservatism do, that certain races (white Europeans, Asians) are capable of representative democracy and other races (Arabs, Africans) can't, you're a racist expressing a racist sentiment. How is this self-evident fact a "canard"? How has it been debunked? Surely not by Chris Kelly's false non-sequitor about conservatives equating respect for a people with bombing them. Your straw man is showing, Chris, even more so than usual.

Also, there's no excuse for calling

"worldwide, malignant, metastatic Islamic jihadism,"

a bunch of nonsense words, unless you're not very smart.

Finally, earlier this month Ron Silver was honored by a conservative group for maintaining his political principles in a creative community almost entirely hostile to them. Ron was unable to attend the event, as he is gravely ill. And not with gonorrhea,as Chris Kelly so wittily suggested, nor with A.I.D.S., but with something equally serious. Think about that the next time you find yourself enjoying a Chris Kelly posting that mocks a sick person he happens to disagree with.
12:38 PM on 11/26/2007
Favorite description: "Think about it: The most sympathetic character Ron Silver has ever played is Alan Dershowitz."
11:53 AM on 11/26/2007
This column was almost Shakespeare. You knew what he was claiming, you knew who he was claiming it about, on what grounds; what was missing was why: what was the moral issue?
If good society was just voting, the USSR had the best: everybody voted. They also had a wonderful constitution, religious freedom and everything. It was just all, indeed, a canard: a "duck". A fake.
Freedom? Getting blown up impares freedom, as does having electricity cut off, no police services, hot and cold running air-raids, etc. But lying and insanity are greater impediments to freedom. "The only way you lose your liberty is by giving it away."
Bursting in on a group of people and snagging the bad guy so they can all go about their business? Have a search warrant? Have any idea what you are doing? Have an ulterior motive, such as propping up your brother's criminal scam down the block?
Shakespeare has to let the audience down easily at the end, so they can hang on to the moral.
Let me see if I can recall the moral here. Ron Silver is a bad person.
Nope, not quite.
11:50 AM on 11/26/2007
That was hilarious. I love the line:"......so baseless and tired and slanderous and vile, President Bush hardly ever uses it anymore."
Why anyone hires Ron Silver for anything is beyond me. However, I am delighted that a universally hated, pompous no-talent such as Silver advocates for Bush. Only highlights that Bush is despicable, at best.
10:53 AM on 11/26/2007
i was a big fan of dennis miller back in the day, as they say. but he went screwy. i think his stint on monday night football screwed him up. he got a taste for testosterone and wanted to be apart of dumb machismo. also, it was machiavellian to the core. america turned dumb machismo and corporations have always been that way. boy einstein decided his family's bread was on another man's table. dennis tried to adapt himself in a freak show that is still playing itself out. he's some mutant sideshow act telling jokes about something he doesn't believe to people who don't get it. like carrottop (the new steroid one) he is a freak unrecognizable to himself or anyone who once knew him.

buy hey, good luck with all that!
10:50 AM on 11/26/2007
good actor, bad actor, who gives a shit? the bottom line is ron just isn't that smart, which has never been a prerequisite to be an actor.
10:43 AM on 11/26/2007
Wow. Narrow-minded, knee-jerk me. I wondered as I read this, "Who is Ron Silver?" I know I'd seen him in countless character actor roles, and remember that he was usually cast as stereotype because of his "looks". I remember him as a snakey, sleazy, untrustworthy type of character.

In every role.

Then I said to myself, "Wait a minute! This can't be true! You're reacting in an entirely knee-jerk, unfair way!" So I decided to Google his picture to jog my memory.

Sorry, Ron. Sorry because my reaction to your face is because I once had a business partner for whom you are a dead ringer, who was a snakey, sleazy, untrustworthy, manipulative, Machiavellian bastard.

He even sounded like you, or you sound like him, or someone sounded like the other one. And he couldn't manage his end of the English language, either...I remember once receiving a memo with the word "Drackular" in it (he meant "Dracula", but, unknowingly had invented an intriguing though ghoulish adjective). It was a milk-through-the-nostrils moment.

I still don't like you, Ron. Maybe now more than ever.
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cobraxus
Defend The Innocent_Protect The Weak
10:30 AM on 11/26/2007
OK so Ron Silver is a Zionist who fears that support for Israel here in the US is fading.The Religious Right are bigger supporters than most Jews and Americans might not be willing to sacrafice lives and dollars to keep the holyland safe from its own indigenous(sic)population.

P.S.
I haven't really liked Ron Silver in anything since "Wiseguy"9the tv series).
10:23 AM on 11/26/2007
Ron Silver (like many middle-aged Jewish chickenhawks) views himself and Bush 43 as supporters of Israel. The welfare of the United States is way down on their list of priorities.