May 142018
 
 May 14, 2018  Posted by at 1:01 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Brassaï Cat 1945

 

What’s happening to John McCain is tragic. It’s not something one should ever wish upon another human being. Nor is it decent, let alone useful, to wish that he would die. Wishing bad things upon someone because they did bad things is too close for comfort to what he himself did. But it’s good to remember that his brain tumor is not the most tragic part of McCain’s life on earth. And no, neither is his time as prisoner of war in Vietnam.

McCain’s main tragedy is that he didn’t learn the one lesson he should have learned about his time in Vietnam, and didn’t turn his back on warfare. Instead, he turned into the biggest and loudest pro-war campaigner in Washington for decades. Talk about a missed opportunity, a life wasted. If there was one person who was presented with the first-hand experience needed to turn against bloodshed, it was John McCain.

What’s more, during his time in the House and later the Senate, McCain completely missed out on a development that might yet have changed his mind. That is, wars became unwinnable. Something even that the US losing their war in Vietnam might have taught him. It entirely passed him by. McCain still never saw an opportunity to wage battle somewhere, anywhere on the planet, that he didn’t like.

That makes him a dinosaur and a fossil who should never have been allowed to remain in the Senate for as long as he did. At the age of 81, and after ‘serving’ for 35 years in Washington, it apparently becomes too difficult to see how the world outside changes, let alone to adapt to those changes. If you limit the time a president can serve, why not do the same for senators? Is it because those same senators would have to vote on that?

Moreover, if wars are unwinnable, but you incessantly call for new wars anyway, then regardless of moral issues about going to war in the first place, you have de facto become a threat to your own people and your own country that you purport to serve. Especially, and first of all, to the American soldiers you desire to send out there to fight those wars. But also a threat to the image of America around the globe.

 

When wars are unwinnable, there is no reason to fight them. Again, even apart from morals and ethics. You will have to find other ways to deal with ‘elements’ that feel and act less than friendly towards you. To find out what, it helps to realize that they understand it’s just as futile for them to attack you militarily as it is for you to attack them. It also helps to figure out why they are unfriendly.

What doesn’t help is to take yet another stab at Putin and say “Vladimir Putin is an evil man, and he is intent on evil deeds”, as McCain does in a forthcoming book. If that’s the best you can do, your best-by date has long since passed. That’s language fit for a 4-year old. And George W.

McCain’s father and grandfather were both 4-star US Navy admirals. Perhaps that partly explains his blindness to the evils of war, and the role the US has played in many conflicts, including -but certainly not limited to- Vietnam. It’s hard to imagine Apocalypse Now, Platoon or Full Metal Jacket being McCain’s favorite Hollywood classics.

And that is a bigger problem than it may seem. Because America has indeed been able to paint a vivid portrait for itself of why Vietnam was such an insane venture that should never have happened, and certainly not repeated. If your culture has the ability to put that in words and images, and as a nation you still don’t learn the lesson embedded in them, you’re pretty much lost.

Oh, and besides, you lost too, remember? You lost the war and the lives and limbs of tens of thousands of young Americans and over a million Vietnamese. To have been part of that and then turn around and strive to be Washington’s premier warmonger, that’s just totally bonkers. Or worse. Has McCain been promoting war all this time because he subconsciously wanted to redo Vietnam but this time not lose?

 

Unwinnable wars are bad news for the weapons industry. They will deny the existence of even such a concept as long and as strongly as they can. Because if you can’t win a war, why wage them? There will continue to be technological developments, but there’s no “throughput”. You can fire some missiles into some desert somewhere from time to time, and that’s it.

The military-industrial complex is happy only -because most profitable- if and when guns and missiles and jets constantly need to be replaced because they’ve been lost in a theater of war, along with young Americans. McCain knows this better than most. And he knows the captains of this complex, both the military side and the weapons producers. Far too well.

Being as beholden as it is to the arms makers and dealers, has made America lose whatever edge it once had militarily. In the US weapons are developed and sold to generate the largest profits possible; in Russia, they are developed to protect the country. This is largely why the American defense budget is 10 times larger than its Russian counterpart. All this happened on John McCain’s watch.

The entire narrative of “protecting and sharing our values” has become hollow propaganda. Because the US has engaged its military in more theaters of war and invasion than we can even keep track of anymore. The US armed forces don’t protect democracy or human rights around the world, they protect the financial interests of America’s elites, including the military-industrial complex. Does anyone believe John McCain doesn’t know this?

 

Unbeknownst to John McCain, the world has entered a whole new era. And this didn’t happen yesterday. Russia and China may have only recently announced new hypersonic missile technology, but it didn’t fall out of the sky. It does profoundly change things though. It ends all notions and dreams of American exceptionalism and unilateralism.

And America needs to learn that lesson. It will have to do it without John McCain. And it might as well, because McCain was incapable of changing, and of seeing the changes around him. But the American view of the world will have to change, because the world itself has.

Still, you’re right: the real tragedy is not that John McCain wasted his own life. It’s that he helped destroy so many others.

 

 

Home Forums A Life Wasted

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #40619

    Brassaï Cat 1945   What’s happening to John McCain is tragic. It’s not something one should ever wish upon another human being. Nor is it decent,
    [See the full post at: A Life Wasted]

    #40620
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    A very profound thread Ilargi; bravo.
    I will have to read it again to get the full meal deal; but what I got was pretty much right on…

    #40621
    Birdshak
    Participant

    Joseph Campbell wrote, “And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal–carries the cross of the redeemer–not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.” From “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”. Be gentle with John McCain. He endured hardships I hope we never have to experience. What he learned reminds of the old Russian Joke: “Capitalism is about Man’s exploitation of Man. Communism is just the reverse.”

    #40622
    zerosum
    Participant

    A Life Wasted

    The title could easily be that of a book.
    I cannot count the ways.
    The impact of his actions were more than that of a butterfly.
    For every action there is a reaction.
    Time is a factor in a reaction which makes determining cause and effect a complex calculation.
    In our modern world A key stroke can be more effective than a bomb.
    The saying use to be, ” The pen is stronger than the sword”

    Example:
    Still, you’re right: the real tragedy is not that John McCain wasted his own life. It’s that he helped destroy so many others.

    Look at the volume of readers and comments of the following article.

    http://www.wirepoints.com/chicago-feds-answer-for-illinois-pension-crisis-is-a-statewide-property-tax-wirepoints-original/
    May 12, 2018
    comments 54
    By: Mark Glennon*

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-12/audible-gasp-was-heard-when-chicago-fed-unveiled-its-solution-pension-problem
    An “Audible Gasp” Was Heard When The Chicago Fed Unveiled Its “Solution” To The Pension Problem
    5.5K shares
    May 14, 2018 3:45 AM

    comments 668
    viewers 700,364
    ———-
    time line
    May 12, 2018
    to
    May 14, 2018 3:45 AM
    ———–
    A wave has started. Will it require the input of more energy?
    Maybe its a soliton. (look it up)

    #40623
    seychelles
    Participant

    You are too kind, Ilargi. Power loves kind people; they maintain the status quo.

    #40624
    Enginer
    Participant

    “Economic Consequences of War / Institute For Economics & Peace” http://www.economicsandpeace.org provides an interesting review of the direct effect on GDP from various wars. It seems that war makes lots of people lots of money even if they are not won.
    It is not clear how much of this $ reaches the upper 10% or 1% via our non-term limit Kleptocrats.

    #40625
    regionswork
    Participant

    What exactly is the sin of John McCain that brought on this stoning?

    #40626
    nativewater9
    Participant

    I forget who said it, but it was something like this: Citizen soldiers are not suited to doing the dirty work of empires. This work has to be done by professionals.
    The US went “professional”, i.e. mercenary after the end of the Vietnam war because by the end of the war, the citizen soldiers were revolting. They were no longer willing to do the dirty work of the empire.
    Officers were being fragged. Mutinous acts were becoming widespread. Drug use was commonplace. Soldiers became drug dealers while still in the service and stayed behind once their term was over to continue their trade.
    I am not even sure the US military is even willing to fight or is capable of fighting wars that require any kind of sacrifice given the questionable motives for fighting these wars. In any case, what are these wars? Bombardment and missile strikes on civilian targets, demolishing towns etc. followed by foot soldiers patrolling the flattened remains like beat cops in a bad neighborhood. There seems to be very little fighting of US soldiers vs. opposition soldiers.
    etc. etc. etc.
    Guys like McCain who lust after this sort of stuff don’t deserve our attention.

    #40629
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    True and sad.

    History has gone into the cone of silence. The past is avoided, less the wars and the exploitation of 80% of Americas end. The draftees of the Vietnam War are starting to pass on and the lessons learned from half a century ago forgotten.

    The USA is into its 17th year of the forever war that will destroy the Empire. A new Westphalian multi-polar Peace is required now before the West crashes into bankruptcy or a nuclear war destroys the earth.

    #40630
    zerosum
    Participant

    How many follower are needed to make changes?
    A wave has started. Will it require the input of more energy?
    Maybe its a soliton. (look it up)


    2,685
    Following
    Following
    40
    Followers
    Followers
    23.1M

    Likes
    Likes
    104


    37.5K
    Following
    Following
    46
    Followers
    Followers
    51.9M

    Likes
    Likes
    25
    Moments
    Moments
    6

    #40631
    Nassim
    Participant

    “What exactly is the sin of John McCain that brought on this stoning? ”

    You should read a bit of his biography. This guy almost sank an aircraft carrier single-handed – and killed 134 sailors/airmen and wounded 161. McCain’s dad was a 4-star admiral in the USN and the whole investigation was a stitch-up – as is the Wikipedia article below:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

    If you think the USN does not lie, check out how they sacrificed a ship to the Israelis – in the hope that its sinking would be blamed on the Egyptians and allow the US to intervene militarily in Egypt.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

    Also, let’s not forget the Gulf of Tonkin fake incident – which led to a great number of Americans, and many time more Vietnamese, to die.

    #40643
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Vets were super mad at McCain and called him “Songbird” who wasn’t really tortured because he immediately cooperated with the enemy against his own troops. E.g. Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain Pretty in character for a guy who bought his way into being a pilot, then walked away from a reckless, goof-off, court-martial murder of all those guys on the carrier. I ain’t no Senator’s (Admiral’s) son.

    McCain then used his position to suppress and make secret the truth about his time in Vietnam. Classy!
    However, some got out: https://www.oathkeepers.org/breaking-news-john-mccains-1969-tokyo-rose-propaganda-recording-released/

    When he got back, he dumped the wife who had waited for him for a new trophy wife. Classy squared!
    This was in addition to a life of war-mongering, theft, and allegedly child trafficking and murder. Then he took all money raised for his campaign, didn’t spend it on the race, then funneled it to himself via a Clintonesque-charity that can’t seem to give money to causes.

    His push to steal thousands of miles of land (and mineral/water rights) for the NATFA superhighway is what pushed radio personality Dave Hodges to action: he was going to destroy Dave’s new house and steal all the water in town.

    Here’s when he met with ISIS in 2013, shaking hands with al-Baghdahi: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6gjm99/will_mccain_mourn_the_loss_of_his_friend_abu_bakr/
    Who then of course killed thousands high on drugs from Saudi and arms from Libya, including killing children, rape slaves, and eating human hearts. Amazing! Is it natural, or is it John McCain?

    Here’s taking money honestly raised and NOT using it on charity: https://yournewswire.com/mccain-institute-child-trafficking/ Rumor has it this is more than not spending money, like Oxfam, it’s a cover for pedophilia and child trafficking, but although suspicious and in character, I cannot find open proof.

    And worst senator for children: https://thinkprogress.org/mccain-rated-as-americas-worst-senator-for-children-cd0438e4b764/ Straight up voting record.

    This is just some of the most recent allegations that surfaced in public without digging or subpoena power. But you can judge for yourself. Wouldn’t shock me if he’s totally faking being sick at all in order to get out of trouble and retire to a beach in Thailand. If so, it would probably be the smallest fraud/crime he’s committed in the last 40 years.

    Translation: not a fan of the McCain.

    #40644
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    “What exactly is the sin of John McCain that brought on this stoning? ”

    The sin was a sin of omission. I do not really see it as a stoning, as much as a lament that he never became the man that he should have become. That’s true for us all, I suppose, to one degree or another. But McCain is not like you and me, because he craved power, and when he got it, he used it to kill, maim, and destroy without reservation, without restraint, and without boundary. He describes Putin as evil, but without decrying the plank in our own eye? He has nothing to say worth listening to, and I will not miss him.

    #40650
    palloy
    Participant

    McCain knows that to maintain the US Empire, it has to bully the smaller countries into alignment with US interests. So he is locked in to being a hawk, no escape. Bolton and Pompeo the same. And they have convinced Trump, if he wasn’t already on board with the imperial plan. WW3 is inevitable under these circumstances. How can they extricate themselves from Korea merely to make peace with Kim’s piddling little country?! – they can’t, Empires don’t collapse gracefully.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.