W.J. Astore
News of the death of Senator John McCain from cancer has generated enormous sympathy and praise. When he ran for president in 2008, McCain was known as a “maverick” in the media, even though his views were rarely that far removed from traditional Republican orthodoxy. Maybe it was his style that won him that nickname. A former Navy fighter pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam war, McCain was less guarded than most politicians, and he courted the media with candor and humor (what a contrast to Donald Trump, who denounces the media as “the enemy of the people”).
Rolling the dice in the 2008 campaign, McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, a folksy governor from Alaska with virtually no experience in national or international politics. But what Palin had was strong populist instincts and a certain plain-speaking charisma. If McCain was the “maverick,” Palin was the “rogue” candidate. She helped to unleash a populist (anti-intellectual) fervor in the Republican party that culminated with Donald Trump.
I well remember the 2008 election. I was living in rural Pennsylvania and both vice-presidential candidates came for a visit. Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, filled a high school gymnasium — roughly 600 people. Sarah Palin filled a minor league baseball stadium to overflowing — roughly 13,000 people.
Back then, Rebecca Traister wrote about Palin’s triumphal tour of rural Pennsylvania here. She also wrote about Palin’s rally at that minor league baseball stadium, Bowman Field. For some reason, the link to that article (which appeared originally at Salon.com) no longer works, but another blogger (“Lowell”) at Contextual Criticism cited portions of it back in early November 2008. Here’s how that blogger, quoting Traister, set the scene:
Palin is in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It is a cold Thursday night. Thirteen thousand faithful, with “their Christian literature and thundersticks in tow,” have come to an outdoor baseball stadium to see the hockey mom from Alaska, the moose-slayer, the pit bull who ignites their basest instincts.
“Finally, about an hour before Palin’s scheduled arrival, Bowman Field kicked off its pre-party with the National Anthem sung under the giant flag suspended from a crane over the ‘Victory in Pennsylvania’ sign. A security sniper ogled the chilly crowd with his night-vision glasses, and a local minister took the stage to offer a benediction that hit the trifecta of guns, gays and abortion. The preacher asked forgiveness ‘for so many [who] have shed innocent blood through the course of abortions, and so many [who] would stop the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.’ With these abominations in mind, the preacher continued, ‘Thank you for raising up a woman like Gov. Sarah Palin at a time like this. Bless her for standing against those who would remove the guns from our cabinets, and those who would want to remove the baby from the womb of her mother. Bless her family as they adjust to changes in their lives that are going to be taking place on Tuesday.'”
Ms. Traister writes that “Palin was her down-home bestest, peppering her brief address with references to First Dude’s four snow-machine world championships, a lot of gratitude toward the veterans in the crowd, and a lot of folksy, g-droppin’ references to how ‘the time for choosin’s comin’ real soon,’ a golden-oldie reference to Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech in support of Barry Goldwater. Combined with Palin’s repeated use of the phrases ‘You betcha!’ and ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ and her guess that the crowd was ‘so doggone proud’ of the Phillies, and her environmental justification that ‘God has so richly blessed this land with resources’ that [we] should probably strip-mine it, Palin seemed to be imitating Tina Fey’s imitation of her on ‘Saturday Night Live.'”
Toward the end, Palin invoked Reagan again, saying “In the end, what John McCain and I believe in is what Ronald Reagan believes in … we believe that America is still that shining City on a Hill that Ronald Reagan used to speak of.”
Now, lest you think Ms. Traister got out of that God-lovin’ bunch of folks without incident, think again. Here’s how she tells it:
“While I was interviewing some of the attendees, accompanied by another Salon staffer who was holding a video camera, a Palin fan in a newish silver sedan drove by and hit me hard in the back with the side mirror of the car, hard enough to bend the mirror back. Then the car drove off without anybody inside pausing to ask if I was all right. The middle-aged woman in the passenger seat, however, might have saluted me with an un-Christian hand gesture.”
Yes — that happened. Traister, a journalist, was hit “hard in the back” by a car, earning a middle-finger salute for her pains from one of the passengers. Talk about being anti-media! Small wonder that Trump’s diatribes resonate so well with “God-lovin'” people across the USA.
After the rallies in 2008, I asked my students (I was teaching college at the time) about them. They gushed about Palin. One of my students was especially taken by Palin’s husband, whom she considered to be a stud. None of my students had anything to say about the (much smaller and comparatively sedate) Biden rally.
Then and now, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party dismissed Palin as a joke, just as they initially dismissed Trump as a joke in 2015. Yet, as I wrote about Palin in 2010:
Much of what’s been said about Palin was also said of another backwoods American whose values were honed on the frontier: President Andrew Jackson. Palin may be no Jackson, but the liberal media’s sneering dismissal of her constitutes an indulgent, often self-congratulatory, narrative. It’s also a repudiation of our Jacksonian heritage of tough-minded, plain-speaking independence.
Like Jackson, Palin makes no pretense about being a cultivated American. Like it or not, she’s seen by her admirers as genuine precisely because she’s not a conflicted intellectual — precisely because she doesn’t confuse her followers by revealing a fourth side to every three-sided problem. Gosh darn it, she just loves God and loves America and loves our troops and loves her special baby and … well … that’s more than enough for her many admirers and followers.
Rural people in “fly-over” country are naturally suspicious of slick politicians who are both too smarmy and too clever for their own good. Palin is naturally “aw shucks” and seemingly content with her knowledge of the world. And, like Andrew Jackson before her, Palin is unapologetic, undeferential, and unabashedly proud to be an American. One simply can’t imagine her making a “patronizing apology tour” of European capitals, as President Obama was accused of doing by conservatives.
And which past president does Trump believe he’s most like? Andrew Jackson. Trump is, in a way, a male Palin with a lot more celebrity, lots more money, and scads of mendacity.
By selecting Palin as his running mate in 2008, McCain helped to open a door for future populists, a door Trump jumped through in 2015. It may not be McCain’s defining legacy, but it is, perhaps, his most negative.
Reference: See David Smith, “John McCain opened Pandora’s box – Sarah Palin came out, but Trump was right behind her. The senator regretted his choice of running mate. In 2008, no one could have imagined what it would mean,” at The Guardian, which got me thinking about this issue.
Bracing Views 
Tom Woods sent out an email blast this morning and it caused me to wonder if the celebration of McCain is an attempt to bring Republicans in line with established ideology [‘be like John, a real American’ kind of think] and shut down Trump.
Then I ask whether promoting a “maverick” Republican will encourage supporters of The Don, and other impediments to the State.
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Do you think the Democrats will learn from 2016 and run a candidate with some populist appeal, meaning an ability to connect with people on issues that truly matter to them? Or will they run another uber-establishment candidate like Hillary Clinton? One thing is certain: it won’t be enough to be anti-Trump (or anti-Pence). The usual neo-liberal economic policies and neo-con foreign policies were losers in 2016, and they will remain losers in 2020.
In my opinion, the Democrats need a fresh face for 2020. Failing that, Bernie Sanders. At least he has convictions and can relate to regular people. Of course, the DNC will fight tooth and nail against Sanders. Assuming he’s healthy, Joe Biden might be the new “change” candidate. Ha!
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So another oxygen thief and waste of good skin has finally shuffled off this mortal coil. I wonder if Charon the Boatman will refuse John McCain passage across the River Styx and into Hades on the grounds that even Hell has some minimal standards as to the type of low-life psychopathic murderers it will admit for permanent residence. According to Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, The Inferno (Part I of The Divine Comedy) the sign above the entrance to the Underworld reads:
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”
Ironically, with Murderous McCain’s departure, Hope begins to dawn for those still alive that he never got the chance to bomb or suffocate with industrial-waste carbon-dioxide poisoning. I thought that this happy day would have come long before this, but better late than never. At any rate, as I anticipated the scene in verse almost a decade ago:
Before Inferno’s Gate
My friends, if I might have a word or two
About a subject that just slipped my mind …
No, wait! I’ll have my staff get back to you
About how many houses, and what kind,
My wife might own in various disguise
To keep the tax-man guessing, vexed, and blind.
My friends, I never meant to criticize
The Black Messiah preaching to the choir
Or spread those “Foreign! Muslim! Traitor!” lies
Of which, my friends, you know you never tire.
So when I spit and drool you never flee,
But sit, engrossed, around your TV fire.
I’m John McCain, I think you’ll all agree.
Abandon hope all you who’d vote for me.
My friends, if I might speak in a cliché
And utter static noise with “clarity,”
Or coin a phrase used endlessly each day
I say with not one trace of irony
That I was held a prisoner before
But suffered grim and stoic and silently
Until I found it useful to implore
Some voters to accept my vicious lies.
I’ve therefore learned an easy way to score
Cheap points about my homes and jet that flies
At altitudes from which I take the view
That those who weep should simply dry their eyes.
My friends, I’ve got three words to share with you:
A noun, a verb, and P. O. W.
Michael Murry,”The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2009
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Speaking of the pathological publicity stunt that “Maverick” McCain chose for a Vice Presidential running mate in 2008:
As I recall, The Geezer and the Go-Go Girl lost to that black community organizer from Chicago, Barack Obama — not to mention Uncle Joe Biden — by a considerable margin, both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. As the election approached, I could feel the widespread revulsion sweeping the nation, as McCain demonstrated his utter unfitness for the position of President by selecting as running mate someone even more rabid and unfit than himself, not unheard-of for American presidential candidates (think Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew), but still …
Anyway, the wheels started turning and out came:
The Damn Belle Sans Souci
(after the style of Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”)
Whatever ails you, Number Two,
On stage and sneering red-meat quips?
Some spittle smears the lipstick on
Your pit-bull lips.
Who can assail you, Hockey Mom,
Post-partum and still nursing Trig?
Your daughter’s underage and yet
Her belly’s big.
We hear you told her “just say ‘no,'”
Although both you and she said “yes;”
And now you want to blame the Stork
For this, your mess?
The baby blanket that you wave
Like garlic and a silver cross
Cannot scare off the questions or
Your looming loss.
We know of apron strings and troops
Behind which charlatans will hide.
But pregnant unwed daughters? Why
Has John no pride?
From speeches written by a ghost
You read some insults off the page
For leper lunatics who find
You all the rage.
Appalled, the country sees again
The venal viper’s gaping jaws
And dripping fangs deployed to bite —
For cheap applause.
But snakes, like other beasts of prey,
Come well supplied in genders, two;
So snakes that mate for votes will come
As nothing new.
From nowhere, you have now appeared:
An apparition of attack,
With no substantive claims except
The class you lack.
Thus John McCain has shown once more
That pressure from the right he’ll heed;
And in selecting you, damn belle,
We see his need.
With all your carefree calumny
You’ve shown no virtue, only vice;
Which leaves us only left to ask:
How low your price?
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2008
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Stories about Palin always warm my heart. My Dad’s last vote before passing was 2008. A 1st in his long life, he voted for neither McCain or Obama: “Neither are qualified to be President”. Using his fantastic 1930’s slang, he thought Palin dressed like a “floozie”. Reading a NYT article by Maureen Dowd, which stated: “More Target & less Jimmy Choo…” he thought Choo was a politician he’d never heard of. I didn’t know either, but my Mom chimed in: “He’s a famous shoe designer”.
I was actually volunteering time for election of Obama, which never bothered him: he was a REAL believer in a ‘Republic’. When Obama won, he didn’t show much sadness, but joked with my Mom, when watching TV: “Is Michelle wearing Jimmy Choo shoes?”
Cher’s famous song, “And the beat goes on”, always reminds me of Palin: could be “And the joke goes on”….
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As the news came across the Internet, I couldn’t help rejoicing for those innocent foreign souls who might get the chance to live now that John McCain no longer prowls the planet seeking ever new opportunities to exterminate them, just because he always thought he could and so very much wanted to. I realized, of course, that the Consolidated Corporate Media would instantly fall all over themselves licking his cold dead ass, but I took heart when I came across this from my favorite Australian lady, Caitlin Johnstone, who wrote at Information Clearing House (August 24, 2018): Do NOT Let Them Make A Saint Of This Asshole. As she forthrightly set forth the options:
“If you want to see a world with more and more John McCains, with more and more US wars of aggression and regime change interventionism, then by all means play right along with his public beatification. If you want to see a world where neoconservative war whores are treated with the revulsion, disdain and rejection they deserve, then now is your chance to help create that world. Refuse to be shamed and guilted into polite silence and move in the exact opposite direction from where the establishment shepherds are herding you.”
I came to this same conclusion decades ago and have tried over the intervening years to do my tiny little part in puncturing the putrid, petrified persona of this pompous plague posing as a person. Stuff like:
Up Yours, John McCain
Well, “Up Yours!” Mad Dog John McCain,
And what’s that stench I smell?
Why could it be an albatross
That you wear like a bell:
A dead, decaying necklace that
Suits leper losers well?
I do hope that you keep it up
Attacking us who learned
In Southeast Asia lessons that
You’ve only ever spurned
An asinine amnesiac,
Your coming loss you’ve earned
That fetid, feathered bird you wear
So proudly on your chest
Might help you win a few “red” states
And that’s about the best
That fools like you could hope to win
While losing all the rest
Just like a bomber pilot you
Just shit on those below
And never see the ground beneath
Where people you don’t know
Look up and curse the vapor trail
From hot air that you blow
And do team up with Holy Joe
The Judas Lie-berman
Who trashes “his own party” for
The Faux News Murdoch clan
And Zionist Likudniks who
Promote the fascist plan
Each day we’ve lost two more GIs
Through years that number four
Now with your “surge” you’ve doubled that
With killed and maimed galore
Among Iraqis — Afghans, too —
And still you cry for more!
You have no honor left to lose
You sold that long ago
For dreams of fighting ‘Nam again
And just as badly, so
Your plans for poor Iraq amount
To nothing we don’t know
You’ve nothing new to add of worth,
Just more of what we’ve had:
A litany of lies and death
And “leadership” so bad
That more of what you offer could
But make more widows sad
Please go away and save us all
The boredom of your screeds
We’ve seen and heard enough from George
And all his lousy deeds
We really do not care for you
And your pathetic needs
So “Up Yours!” Mad Dog John McCain,
And you can kiss my butt
Your stupid brain has slipped some gears
And left you in a rut
Espousing war that no one wants —
Except the senile nut
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2007
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Time to go to bed. Those HTML tags have gotten harder to keep track of and close. Judging from the blue text, I think I may have set an unintentional record for the longest Internet link ever, which probably will not work. My apologies.
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There’s a convention: “Say nothing but good of the dead.”
But maybe it’s good to say nothing. Or, put differently, it’s good not to fawn over someone like McCain, a man with a very mixed legacy.
Consider one blurb, this one at the “liberal” Boston Globe:
“Victoria Reggie Kennedy: For John McCain, it was always country first. What a privilege it was to know him.
An unabashed conservative who relished the opportunity to do battle against his more liberal Democratic colleagues, he was also a willing and able legislative negotiator, unafraid to buck his own party to achieve a goal he thought important. Because of his uncompromising love of country, John was able to be a dealmaker, a true legislator, as he fought for a more perfect union and to advance policies for the public good. He was the maverick who refused to be boxed into a political position merely for the sake of party. For him, it was always country first.”
Well, what can one say to that?
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“What can one say to that?”
I can say this to that: “Bullshit.”
I can clearly recall this self-tooting gasbag travelling to Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, and loudly proclaiming “We are all Georgians now.” He certainly never asked my permission to include me in his misuse of the first person plural pronoun, “we.” Bomber John did his best to goad tiny little Georgia into starting a war with the Russian Federation by killing some Russian peacekeepers in next-door Abkhazia and South Ossestia. How did that work out? As Wikipedia tells us:
Nov 6, 2014 – Georgia was swiftly defeated, and Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossestia shortly thereafter.
And what about Bomber John’s swell new friend Mikheil Saakasvili, Georgia’s erstwhile President, who stupidly fell for The Maverick’s promises of NATO and EU support if only he would punch the “toothless” Russian bear in the snout? Again, as Wikipedia informs us:
On 2 October 2012, Saakashvili admitted his party’s defeat in Georgia’s parliamentary election against the Georgian Dream coalition led by the tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili. He was barred by the constitution of Georgia from seeking a third term in the 2013 presidential election, which was won by the Georgian Dream’s candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili. Shortly after the election, Saakashvili left Georgia. Saakashvili is wanted by Georgia’s new government on multiple criminal charges, which he decries as politically motivated.
Saakashvili energetically supported Ukraine’s Euromaidan movement and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution [another project of John S. McCain III]. On 30 May 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili as Governor of Odessa Oblast (region). He was also granted Ukrainian citizenship, and due to restrictions on dual nationality under Georgian law, was stripped of his Georgian citizenship. On 7 November 2016, Saakashvili resigned as Governor while blaming President Poroshenko personally for enabling corruption in Odessa and in Ukraine overall. Four days later he announced his goal to create a new political party called Movement of New Forces.
On 26 July 2017, Saakashvili (at the time staying in the U.S.) was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by Petro Poroshenko, and became a stateless person. But he soon told the press he wanted to return to Ukraine to “get rid of the old corrupt elite” there.
Since December 2017 Saakashvili is suspected (by the General Prosecutor of Ukraine) of receiving financing from a “criminal group” linked to the ousted (during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution) Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. On 12 February 2018 Saakashvili was deported to Poland and later relocated to the Netherlands.
That “maverick” McCain sure did know how to pick his fascist friends. Personally, I wouldn’t waste my urine pissing on his grave. I’d rather flush it down the toilet. It and he will wind up in the same sewer eventually.
John S. McCain III — who never once insisted on a Congressional Declaration of War against another nation — deserves as much sympathy and compassion as he showed for those uncounted millions — yes, millions — who perished or lost their homes and families in the many unconstitutional American crimes he so cruelly and callously championed. As we used to say in Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club, a.k.a., the United States Navy: “Fuck him and the tide he floated in on.”
If I could only think of something worse to say about him, I would.
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And, oh, about that “convention” that admonishes us not to say anything bad about the evil dead: I would consider it if only those speaking good about the evil dead would follow the same advice.
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As Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote at the end of his poem, A Forsaken Garden:
…
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.
…
If only Death itself had died with the maniac who so delighted in dispensing it to others.
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I often agree with Peter Van Buren and would like to do so in regard to the awful details of John McCain’s miserable life, which Mr Van Buren somewhat detailed in his recent article: See Ya, John (McCain), antiwar.com (August 26, 2018). In this case, however, I must put some distance between us in regard to three issues I have with his thesis.
(1) The unpleasant thought of “seeing” Bomber John again in the afterlife — which would mean joining him in the burning flames of Hades for all eternity — does not recommend itself to me.
(2) I have a few reservations about blaming Sarah Palin for only doing what Republican vice presidential running mates, and Republican vice presidents, typically do so that the guy at the top of the ticket doesn’t have to dirty his own hands directly. Eisenhower had Nixon and Nixon had Agnew and Ford had Dole and Reagan had Bush, Sr., and Deputy Dubya had Dick Cheney, and so on and so forth. Imagining that Sarah Palin had somehow sullied the Republican party’s reputation for low-road viciousness does that female human publicity stunt a grave disservice. If anything, she came across as something of a transparent joke, even among Republicans.
(3) Yes, a desperate John McCain stupidly thought that Democratic women voters would desert the Democratic party for another woman candidate in 2008, just as You-Know-Her thought Republican women voters would do if the Democrats tried the same thing in 2016. Incredibly, neither McCain nor You-Know-Her seemed to know anything about women: namely, that “No woman has a worse enemy than her best friend,” and if you don’t believe me, ask Monica Lewinsky what she thinks of Linda Tripp.
In the first Star Trek television pilot episode (1966) a woman played the part of Number One, second in command of the Starship Enterprise who took over whenever the captain beamed down to the planet below. Series creator Gene Roddenberry later said that he had to change the part, giving it to the half-human/half-Vulcan, Mr Spock, because he got a ton of complaints from women viewers who asked, indignantly: “Who does she think she is?”
A black man, Barack Obama, and an orange man, Donald Trump, won the most women votes in 2008 and 2016, respectively. Yes, Sarah Palin and You-Know-Her did disgust and repel many voters, mostly other women, but I doubt if “men” like Barack Obama, John McCain, and Donald Trump — or a “woman” like You-Know-Her — understood the first thing about why.
Sarah Palin did nothing to “change” the Republican party’s rabid rhetoric about the “Democrat” party. She couldn’t even sink to its usual depths. Nor did John McCain do anything to bring about Donald Trump. The Democrats themselves — along with the Concentrated Corporate Media that Bill Clinton created by deregulating the public airwaves — did that by standing for nothing while taking bribes from billionaire oligarchs to lose — and blame “the Russians” for their cowardice, corruption, and manifest incompetence.
I do not say these things out of a desire to compliment either John McCain or Sarah Palin. I just don’t believe in giving political predators credit for what their victims have willingly surrendered to them. Both the Geezer and the Go-Go Girl took personal advantage of Democratic party obsequiousness, and one can hardly blame them for that. Even in losing, they gained from the “winners” all they would have wanted had they “won.” Unfortunately, John McCain has escaped justice, if not vengeance, for this lifetime, but Sarah Palin, for her part, doesn’t even rise to the level of amateur irritant. I mean, taking candy from the crybaby Democrats hardly seems worth mentioning as a lifetime achievement. Any Republican can put that on his or her reactionary resume.
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Mike: From the New York Times: “The lions are gone. The lions of the Senate are gone. It is very sad.” SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS, Republican of Maine, on the loss of Senator John McCain
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A Vietnamese perspective that reflects on a positive aspect of McCain’s legacy: the normalization of political relations after the war
https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/464563/us-senator-mccain-who-helps-lay-foundation-for-vn-us-relations-passes-away.html#TJ0vydBlJDFbR6fl.97
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The McCainiac represented the perfect face for the Wall Street-Security-Military-Industrial Complex and the McMega-Media. He was a POW, he was tortured and rose to be a US Senator, just like Mom and Apple Pie.
I was not a POW, but I was a Combat Infantryman (Draftee Type) in Vietnam. During the that experience after a period of reflection, I went to the Anti-War, Anti-Imperialism Route. The McCainiac and John Kerry (who strongly resembled Big Bird) took a much different path. Both of these men never seemed to find a War they did not like, or lack a reason for some type of intervention.
The McMega-Media will cry buckets of tears because of the McCainiac’s torture, but not entertain a thought about the millions of people killed, wounded or missing because of our invasion of South-East Asia.
Gina “Mommy Dearest” Haspel, who was involved in our own American Torture Program heads the CIA. America hypocrisy is your name.
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I came back from an extended eighteen-month deployment to South Vietnam (July 1970-January 1972) determined to see that my country never did anything that bloody stupid and criminal again. Obviously, I failed to have any effect whatsoever. Soulless psychopaths like bomber John McCain came back from Vietnam determined to see that it not only happened again, but again, and again … forever. Watching helplessly, I have tried for years to purge the bile from my brain through composing poetry, writing essays, sculpting gargoyles, playing electric guitar — and I have found some relief in those pursuits. Still, I always “lose” and the glib, giddy ghouls like John McCain always “win.” But nothing could ever make me exchange my “defeats” for their “victories.” I know the difference between value and “price.” Unlike the late and unlamented …
Maverick Cerberus
Now John McCain’s gone to a hole in the ground
Where darkness and silence his corpse will surround
While his precious “pilots” continue to pound
On innocents anywhere “targets” abound
And “war” profits never once cease to astound.
His “straight-talking” lies, like all bullshit, confound
Even demons accustomed to “words” as just sound.
Anyway, Hades welcomes one more baying hound.
Michael Murry,”The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2018
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My widowed working-class mother once said to me: “Michael, as a woman, of course I hold grudges. But unlike you, son, I limit mine to a maximum of ten years.”
Sorry, Mom. But I once visited Washington, D.C. and made a special point of locating the memorial to your hero, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. How I wish you had lived so that we could have seen it together. On a granite wall I saw engraved impassioned words that FDR spoke in 1936: “I Hate War.” So forgive me, Mom, if I hate those who love war. This grudge I will keep to the end of my days, for I see no reason to set an arbitrary limit upon it.
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Good to see Jimmy Dore on the job refusing to swallow the corporate media’s hypocritical horse-shit hagiography (sorry for the multiple redundancies) eulogizing a war-loving psychopath who never met explosive ordnance that he didn’t want to drop on some impoverished peasants somewhere, anywhere, because … you know … Lockheed-Martin stockholders care so very much for “democracy” and “women’s rights” and “freedom” and “life” at the bottom of a B-52 bomb crater.
I would recommend that John McCain “Go to Hell,” except that he already took up residency there long before he died. It has always amazed me how my fellow Americans could never seem to recognize an actual Zombie even when one showed up regularly on all the weekend television talk shows demanding more dead people as part of his daily diet.
Anyway, again, good work Jimmy Dore.
Whitewashing McCain’s Warmongering By Journalists & Celebrities
Craziest Eulogy Of John McCain Comes From Democrat
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