A class-warfare take (sure to be blasted) on John KELLY
Every role in life has its own, just worth. KELLY says his best role was being a Marine. Fine. His first service was in the Merchant Marines, meaning as a laborer, then he enlisted in the Marines as an enlisted man, fine. It is not disparaging to say that his core is blue collar, despite later graduating from institutions of high repute and becoming an officer and cramming his resume with high profile assignments.
Navy enlisted jargon for enlisted personnel who later became officers was “Black Shoe” in contrast to Brown Shoe (Commissioned Officers, in class-warfare terms “to the manner/manor born”). (All the Googling refers to Brown Shoe as Aviation, rather than what I'm saying. ) The word is that Black Shoe types tended to be extra hard on the enlisted crew, castigating their own enlisted roots, also as a means to demonstrate how to squeeze out more work/results because of their knowledge of enlisted traits and to brown-nose the Commissioned Officer “upper” class they aspired to be accepted by and impress.
On my LST during most of my year’s tour, the “Captain” (who was really a Lieutenant) was a Commissioned Officer, that is, of the upper/”aristocratic” class, under whom we had “holiday routine” on Sundays (day off). When he completed his tour and transferred, his replacement was a Black Shoe officer. When the word got out we lowly enlisted thought he was “one of us.” Well, he had us busting our behinds working on Sundays and extra hours in the regular work week. None of that aristocratic coddling!
So when I say Marine General John KELLY has blue collar roots and was (is) a Marine GRUNT, it is not disrespectful. But it means he was not rooted in the UPPER MANAGEMENT of POLICY, and things tend to peep out like grass in concrete cracks.
Along with that, us Boot-straps types tend to project our anecdotal life experiences in broad generalizations, a.k.a. “war stories.” As with opinions and everything else, things vary in quality and validity depending on the astuteness of whoever is expressing them. Everybody’s war stories vary in quality of insight. I can picture him telling his gritty war stories to a slack jawed TWITLER. And I'm sure KELLY's war stories are better than mine.
So KELLY shows his jabs at policy and at people to be those of his own parochial life experience. Yes, I am Blue Collar and will bow to the corrections to my generalizations and my limited recollections of Navy slang from 50 years ago.
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https://www.aclu.org/other/john-kelly-facts
The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has wide-ranging authority over the development and implementation of national security policy. Overseeing a wide array of agencies, including: the Coast Guard; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Customs and Border Protection; the Secret Service; and the Transportation Security Agency, the Secretary sits at the center of ongoing debates around border protection, the rights of undocumented immigrants, drug policy, and constitutional limits on the powers of the security services. Gen. John Kelly has pledged to bring to the role of Secretary a “deep respect for our laws and Constitution.” Lawmakers should use his confirmation hearings to question Kelly on his record and challenge him to speak out, in his characteristically forthright manner, should the Trump administration pursue its unconstitutional proposals.
Facts:
* As the General in charge of the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility, Kelly publicly criticized efforts to close Guantanamo (Source) and was accused by Obama Administration officials of working to undermine the President’s efforts to close the facility. (Source)
* Opposed and publicly criticized the integration of women into military ground combat units, arguing it would lead to lower standards. (Source)
* Defended the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, such as waterboarding and rectal feeding. Kelly went on to dismiss the criticisms of human rights groups as “foolishness”. (Source)
* Testified in support of an officer caught urinating on talibani corpses. (Source) (This point said to be erroneous.)
* Supports the imprisonment of terror suspects without trial. (Source)
* Criticised by Amnesty International for his “unsafe and inhumane” treatment (Source) of Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. (Source)
* Supports the war on drugs and opposes legalization or decriminalization of any drugs, including marijuana. (Source)
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