No. Even though Tories thought so, he was not.
I ask this question facetiously, in response to the two or three commenters here who keep posting negative articles about John McCain and calling him a “war criminal.”
McCain served his country with honor. He spent five years in brutal captivity and rejected the chance for an early release because he didn’t want favorable treatment. He said he would not leave until his fellow captives were also freed.
I did not share his political views. If I were a Senator, I would have voted differently than he did. I oppose his views on almost every issue.
But from what I hear, Senator McCain had friends on both sides of the aisle. He represents an era when people could disagree but still be friends.
The great British political philosopher Walter Bagehot wrote many years ago that one of the great features of a democracy was that there are good people on different sides. If your side lost the election, you knew you could try again next time. You knew that the victor would not jail you and other members of the losing party. There would be no show trial and execution of the losing candidate. There would be no chants of “Lock her/him up” because the other side did not support the winner.
The fate of the Republic was secure because we shared a consensus of democratic values and love of country that were more important than a single election. There would always be another election, another chance.
In that sense, McCain was an exemplar of the democratic values that he fought for and suffered for.
Even though I did not agree with his politics, even though I hate war, I have the greatest respect for John McCain. He was a great American. In the current climate, his voice and his spirit will be missed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Do our schools need to teach a democratic catechism, or shall we trust that kids will learn democratic values by osmosis? If they need a catechism, how much time does it take to teach it well? Are we giving it enough time now? Are we doing it at all?
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The best way for kids to learn democracy is for them to practice it. Give them control over their classroom and their educational experience. Let them work out rules and conflicts for themselves. Stop intervening and dictating everything to them – that teaches the opposite of democracy. It teaches obedience to authority.
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This sounds like it could be valuable under certain conditions, but I doubt it’s enough. I think knowledge matters a lot. For example, knowing how bad things were under autocracies is the antidote to blasé attitudes about protecting democracy. Also: knowing lots of details about our government could inoculate against crazy conspiracies theories that paint the government as a den of sinister Illuminati.
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I don’t think there is any law that requires a public school to teach “democracy”.
But there is for teaching what the US Constitution means and since the US is a Constitutional Republic, that might be more important than teaching “democracy”
“The law requires every school that receives federal funds — including universities — to show students a program on the Constitution, though it does not specify a particular one. The demand has proved unpopular with educators, who say that they don’t like the federal government telling them what to teach and that it doesn’t make the best educational sense to teach something as important as the Constitution out of context.
“We already cover the Constitution up, down and around,” said August Frattali, principal of Rachel Carson Middle School in Fairfax County. But, he chuckled, “I’m going to follow the mandates. I don’t want to get fired.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801585.html
“Contrary to Popular Belief, the Problem isn’t that Students Receive No Civics Education.
“All 50 states require some form of instruction in civics and/or government, and nearly 90 percent of students take at least one civics class. But too often, factual book learning is not reinforced with experience-based learning opportunities like community service, guided debates, critical discussion of current events, and simulations of democratic processes.”
http://neatoday.org/2017/03/16/civics-education-public-schools/
In fact, I challenge anyone that thinks the US Constitution is not taught in the US public schools before a child graduates from high school, to start calling all the public schools and find one that doesn’t teach the US Constitution.
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Is teaching the Constitution enough?
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Depends on the teaching methods used. I think one of the pull quotes I used with a link to the source pointed out that book work isn’t enough and what’s missing in too many classrooms. I agree with that pull quote.
The easy way out for a history teacher is to only use the textbook (with films) and have no discussions and group activities and more to emphasize the importance of what they are being exposed to in the text.
This is the challenge. When a teacher relies only on the textbook, the odds of a student remembering in any detail what they were taught is much smaller than when students go into the material in depth, through it, and beyond to gain more meaning and a much better chance to hang on to what they are taught.
But in an education environment where high stakes tests are used to rank and punish, teachers end up time-challenged because of all the “crap” they have to teach through the shotgun approach for the test and that means excluding discussions, debates, group work, presentations, research reports, and/or projects designed to reinforce what’s printed on the textbook’s page.
It’s complicated.
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I suspect the job requires many “coats of paint”. Teach the democracy curriculum, in some form, every year from K-12. One period of the day for one or two years, the norm now, is probably far too little. In my canvassing in a nearby swing district, I encounter many people who do not know what Congress is, how powerful it is, how it can check Trump’s power, how the minority in Congress is basically impotent, etc. Very many do not know what “Democrat” or “Republican” mean, that elections normally happen in November, that members of the House represent districts (as opposed to the entire state), etc. The magnitude of the knowledge deficit is staggering. These low-information citizens may have been exposed to this info once or twice, but clearly it did not stick. I encounter many who say they “do not ‘do’ politics” and never vote. When you scratch the surface, you find that many of them are intimidated by politics because it’s so confusing to them. Many are genuinely interested and want to be taught. I’ve met several who don’t vote because they’re intimidated by the wordy ballots (in CA we usually have several ornery, confusing ballot initiatives).
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I’d support lessons starting in kindergarten that would cover how our Constitutional Republic works and then continue every year to 12th grade and beyond. I’m not sure about an hour a day. Maybe start in kindergarten with 15 minutes minilessons suitable for five and six-year-olds and build on that through scaffolding. The reason I suggest 15-minutes is that’s about as long as most children’s attention spans last thanks to TV, texting, video games, et al.
In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process.
In the beginning (K) simple and at the end in 12th grade, complex. In fact, I’d fold this curriculum into English and reading instead of limit it to history and government classes and the history and English classes could team up in middle and high school as the scaffolding became more complex.
In addition, college students should continue this education with a mandatory class or more than one as a requirement for a college degree.
https://www.edglossary.org/scaffolding/
The only way the majority of children will remember this stuff is if they are exposed to this information every year, repeatedly, and the exposure becomes more complex and interactive through scaffolding.
But, NO high-stakes rank-and-punish tests — ever. The K – 12 scaffolding with a final project in high school should be enough with only teacher-made tests designed to guide the teacher so they will learn what works and what doesn’t.
History and English departments should also work together as teams without any interference from administration, state or federal governments.
Instead, highly trained public school teachers must be treated as professionals and trusted as they are in Finland.
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“He was a great American.”
Well, on that I guess we can agree, considering that America is such a brutal and bloodthirsty nation.
Where we disagree is that I don’t see how someone who has consistently favored (and voted for) every single war of choice, most based on false pretenses, that have resulted in the deaths of millions of people across the globe, can be considered a good person. I don’t see how a person who dropped Napalm bombs on civilians is a good person.
This, to me, is the heart of the sickness that plagues our country. The idea that war is patriotic, heroic, a fight for “freedom”, when, in fact, we’ve known for decades that it’s nothing but a racket ( https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html ).
And please don’t compare John McCain’s wars to the Revolutionary War. The colonists were being oppressed by what was then the imperial global power and they fought to free themselves from that oppression. Today we are that imperial global power doing the oppressing. War is not about freedom – ours or anyone else’s. It is about advancing American hegemonic and economic interests. But no one cares because it’s only brown people who suffer.
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Yes, as usual it is all America and Putin is blameless.
Charles Lindbergh and you have a lot in common.
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I didn’t say anything about Putin. For crying out loud, do you understand that A is bad does not mean that B is good?
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This is a myopic, naive view of both war as an instrument of government power and those who are entrusted to make those decisions. Until you are in that place and have been forced to make those decisions, don’t assume you understand anything of the difficulty in making those decisions.
Subscribing to the simpleton news-hour feed opinion is the provenance of the armchair quarterback who never played football but only listens to the commentators.
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“And please don’t compare John McCain’s wars to the Revolutionary War. The colonists were being oppressed by what was then the imperial global power and they fought to free themselves from that oppression. Today we are that imperial global power doing the oppressing. ”
You certainly got a sanitized version of the Revolutionary War. Did you ever wonder why were not able to convince the Canadians to join our war of independence? The British were no doubt heavy handed in their approach to collecting taxes from the colonists for the French and Indian War, but I can’t say they weren’t justified in expecting the colonists to pay for some of its cost.
I’m not sure anyone can live up to the test of ideological purity that I read in your comments, not that we shouldn’t aspire to them. I see the same deadlock in government created by the far right continuing on the left with an insistence on ideological purity in thought, word, and deed. Whatever happened to compromise?
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“…not that we shouldn’t aspire to them.”
But that’s the point I’m arguing. John McCain didn’t aspire to any such ideology. He didn’t war was a regrettable choice that still has to be made sometimes in an imperfect world For McCain, war was the preferred solution to any and every international problem. And if there weren’t any international problems in need of war, then war is a convenient way to make international problems.
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“Where we disagree is that I don’t see how someone who has consistently favored (and voted for) every single war of choice, most based on false pretenses, that have resulted in the deaths of millions of people across the globe, can be considered a good person. I don’t see how a person who dropped Napalm bombs on civilians is a good person.”
If McCain is guilty of voting the way he did, then every other Senator and Congressman the same way is also guilty, but … but …. your opinion is just that, your opinion.
As for him being a bad person because he allegedly dropped Napan on civilians, once he joined the military and took his oath if he refused, he would have been court-martialed, sent to a federal military prison for years and been dishonorably discharged losing some of the rights that citizens take for granted just because they were born in the U.S.
That’s the reason thousands of American pilots dropped napalm on civilians in Germany and Japan during World War II. Do you know how many Japanese civilians were roasted one night in Tokyo during the firebombing by US pilots of that city?
War is hell and regardless of rules of warfare created by idealistic noncombatants, war remains hell, and the troops follow orders in combat or risk being shot or court-martialed.
Once you wear a US military uniform and you refuse to follow orders, you can be shot on the spot without a trial depending on the circumstances. In McCain’s case, because he was a pilot, he probably wouldn’t be shot and maybe his dad as an admiral could have saved him from a guilty verdict or a dishonorable discharge in a court-martial but his career would have been over even if he had been found innocent.
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“As for him being a bad person because he allegedly dropped Napan on civilians, once he joined the military and took his oath if he refused, he would have been court-martialed, sent to a federal military prison for years and been dishonorably discharged losing some of the rights that citizens take for granted just because they were born in the U.S.”
Don’t soldiers have latitude to refuse immoral orders? If, for instance, you are commanded to shoot a fellow soldier, can you refuse?
Wouldn’t you say that dropping Napalm on civilians would be immoral? Or does unthinking obedience trump morality?
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What’s moral and what isn’t is an individual choice when it comes to war. Acting in a civilized moral way can get you and the troops you are with dead.
Last week in my combat support group one of the members read something he wrote from when he was in Vietnam back in the 1960s. He was in special forces and his team was on its way through the mountains in Vietnam near Cambodia to rescue another special forces team that was surrounded and taking heavy fire. They were moving as fast as they could.
They never made it. With a few miles to go, they listened on the radio as the squad leader of the other team called in an air strike on their own position because they were being overrun and he was the last one standing. The rest of the team was dead or wounded. When he made that call, he knew he would die either by enemy or friendly fire.
The combat vet reading that true story had to stop to maintain control. His eyes were swimming in tears. His voice was breaking. Two of his good friends were on that other team and that happened about fifty years ago. Many combat vets come home with scars etched in their minds that never heal.
Bombs and napalm were dropped on that position killing hundreds of the enemy and any possible survivors of that other special forces team.
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BTW, what about McCain’s allegedly famous maverick bravery? Shouldn’t a brave maverick be willing to face court martial by refusing an immoral order?
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If you are drafted and forced to serve, maybe yes, even if refusing lands you in prison for twenty years of your life and ruins the years you have left if you survive and get out before you die.
If you volunteer, no. Those who volunteer know what they are getting into. They know they surrendered the right to protest and accepted a form of warrior slavery where you follow orders even if it means you die a horrid, violent death.
War is hell and all the idealistic rules in the world meant to tame war into something it can never be, will never change the fact that war is hell.
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BTW, from the Geneva Conventions:
“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works.”
The day John McCain was shot down, he was bombing a civilian light bulb factory in a densely populated urban capital city. This is a war crime under U.S. and international law. The people who order these kinds of attacks are war criminals and “just following orders” is not an excuse for those who carry them out.
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I have one answer for Geneva’s rules of war. War is hell and it’s worse than total insanity. Unless all combatants are honorable men, there are no rules.
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You and I are in a very small minority in understanding what you say. I concur.
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Thank you.
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The U.S. has been actively supporting a Saudi-led coalition for many years now (pre-dating Trump) which has been bombing and destroying Yemen with such ferocity that the rest of the world considers it a genocide. The U.S supplies weapons, strategic and tactical assistance and mid-air refueling.
A couple weeks ago the Saudis bombed a school bus full of children in the middle of a crowded market. There was world-wide outcry over the incident and a bi-partisan push to revoke U.S. support for the slaughter. John McCain actively resisted this push – the photos of the dead children had no impact on him.
This is the man that you defend as “honorable”.
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I know your view. Now you know mine.
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I know, but I don’t understand. This isn’t about his “politics”, Diane. It’s about his actions. It’s like saying that Southern slave holders were “honorable” even if you disagree with their “politics”. There’s nothing honorable about someone who would participate in slavery even if they are personable and collegiate among their peers. Just like there is nothing honorable about someone who advocates world-wide slaughter, no matter how “nice” they are in person (and McCain wasn’t exactly always known for being “nice” either).
I’m sure there are good things that can be said about people like Eli Broad and Bill Gates too, but do you consider them to be “honorable”?
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“someone who advocates world-wide slaughter”
Your mischaracterization is truly shocking.
It takes a lot of chutzpah to claim that John McCain “advocates world-wide slaughter” but the very worst thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he is “oafish” and uses obscenities.
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” It’s like saying that Southern slave holders were “honorable” even if you disagree with their “politics”.
Actually, a brutal war that killed many civilians was fought against Southern slave holders. Some would say it was done only for economic reasons and the death toll it took was not worth it. Are you one of them?
Or do you really think that the sole reason for the Civil War was about “freeing the slaves”?
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Tell me which wars John McCain ever opposed. I can tell you about some he advocated but (fortunately) never got. ( https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/04/19/mccain-sings-bomb-bomb-bo_n_46259.html )
Trump, on the other hand, has continued the wars his predecessors started but has not launched any new ones, with the exception some strikes on Syria (which, incidentally, is far less than Hillary would have done, since we seem to be in the habit here of bringing in other people who are not the subject of this post).
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“I’m sure there are good things that can be said about people like Eli Broad and Bill Gates too, but do you consider them to be “honorable”?
I don’t recall a single instance where Eli Broad or Bill Gates sacrificed themselves for someone else. And directing a small amount of your huge fortune toward a “charity” that you make sure gets you lots of publicity and does exactly what you tell them to do, is not a “sacrifice.”
John McCain made real sacrifices. Despite many flaws and wrong-headed policies he supported, that makes him “honorable” in way that Gates and Broad are not.
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“Are you one of them?
Or do you really think that the sole reason for the Civil War was about “freeing the slaves”?”
Or are you once again putting words in my mouth? Must be fun to frolic at my expense this way while I have my hands tied because I’m the one in moderation.
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“Trump, on the other hand, has continued the wars his predecessors started but has not launched any new ones, with the exception some strikes on Syria (which, incidentally, is far less than Hillary would have done…”
It is interesting to read your comment “with the exception of some strikes on Syria”. When it comes to Trump, you always minimize the negative and accentuate the positive. Why?
Your criticisms of Trump are always limited to his personality (Trump is “oafish” and uses obscenities). I note when Trump bombs civilians — or even worse gives the go-ahead to his pals that it’s fine for them to bomb — you minimize it.
Meanwhile, the words you use to describe John McCain are over the top! “Advocates world-wide slaughter!”
Trump has a bad personality. But McCain and the evil Democrats can’t wait to kill more babies with napalm or drones for fun.
Interesting perspective. Why don’t you just state your bottom line, which is that Trump unleashed with only the Republican Congress to stop him does not scare you one bit.
Does Trump bother you enough to vote for the Democrats to gain enough votes to stop him? You seem much more focused on making sure the Democrats don’t gain power for fear they will go off killing the babies you keep implying they will kill if they win. As you stated above so clearly when you felt so sorry for Trump having to make some strikes on Syria: “which, incidentally, is far less than Hillary would have done”.
Most of us think Trump in power with the Republicans controlling Congress is a far worse situation than Trump in power with the Democrats controlling Congress. I really think you are the exception and you don’t really care whether Trump has another 2 years with a Republican Congress as long as the evil Democrats are kept in the minority.
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The answer to the “why” is obvious. If you are talking about Dienne77 or 666 or whatever number she uses, refer to this: The friend of my enemy is my enemy and don’t expect Dienne to respond to the following fact:
“Civilian deaths from US-led strikes on Isis surge under Trump administration
Nearly 60% of civilian deaths from the three-year military campaign have been reported this year – but human rights groups say true figure is far higher”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/06/us-syria-iraq-isis-islamic-state-strikes-death-toll
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It is, incidentally, possible for someone to do both good and bad and there may be a balancing act to determine overall honorableness. In fact, most of us fall into this category. Johnson, for instance, bore large responsibility for both the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Act. Those things definitely have to be weighed against each other and his historical portrait is that of a very complicated person.
But I’m not seeing a whole lot to balance the evil that McCain did in his life. It all seems to boil down to his choice not to jump to the front of the line being released from Vietnam. I’ll admit that was a hard and noble choice, but it hardly balances with the bulk of what he spent his life doing – waging war and supporting neoliberal economic policies that harmed millions of people worldwide and benefited only the rich and powerful. What else was “honorable” about him? Certainly not his family life. Certainly not his general acerbic temperament. Certainly not his legislative achievements. So what then entitles him to this outpouring of fawning hagiography?
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Your hatred for John McCain is not widely shared.
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Those very same people would claim that Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Bill Clinton, etc. are war criminals.
Everyone who fought against Hitler was a war criminal — because civilians died — but those like Charles Lindbergh who said Hitler should be allowed to do whatever he wants are heroes.
I am very critical of President Obama on his truly abhorrent education policies, but he was not someone who believed in needlessly killing lots of civilian babies for fun. Neither did Obama’s Secretary of States: John Kerry — who knew a lot about war and protested the Vietnam war — nor Hillary Clinton. Nonetheless, he and the Secretary of States made decisions to intervene that hurt people. Of course, they also made decisions NOT to intervene that also hurt people.
But somehow the fans of Charles Lindbergh would say that making peace pacts so that Hitler can do whatever he wants means you aren’t a war criminal and are far superior to the evil FDR.
Note that these are the very same people who keep attacking critics of Trump because Trump is just oafish and uses obscenities and that’s the only criticism to make of him.
Charles Lindbergh is the hero they want.
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There are so many “ifs” that would have made McCain worthy of respect for his legislative career (36 years)- primarily, if he had moved the needle in the direction of democracy instead of oligarchy and secondarily, if the concentration of wealth had not become the danger to stability that it has become.
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Lincoln famously quipped that when he heard someone defending slavery, he felt the inclination to see it tried on him.
John McCain had torture tried on him, and so he opposed it. In this, he held the same view as did George Washington, who wrote:
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” – George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
To injure a prisoner is “base and infamous.” In this belief, McCain and Washington were one.
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Many of the arguments in this thread miss the point you make here. McCain was, like every human being, neither a saint nor a cold-hearted killer, but something in between. On balance, he made a difference; history will judge if they were consequential or not. I think he would agree that his Hanoi experiences were the pivotal moments of his life. They gave him direction and purpose for the first time in his life. We can argue about results, but not about his motivation.
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He isn’t/was’t the white nationalist racist birther idiocy currently running the GOP. Yes, thankfully. He blocked the GOP frontal assault on the ACA. Apparently, he had friends across the aisle. But, otherwise, he never saw a potential war he wasn’t eager to commit Americans to and pretty much voted down the line w/ conservative policies based on the kind of intolerance and class privilege that, inevitably, leads to more conflict and war. So not a war criminal to the degree of, say, Kissinger or Cheney, but another war hawk, to be sure.
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Thanks, Diane.
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Diane,
I agree with you 100%. I too disagreed with McCain most of the time. That did not make him a bad guy. He was a statesman who discharged his duties honorably. McCain was one of the few who was never infected with the tribalism that has coursed through the veins of our political bodies.
He will be missed.
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Disagreeing with more liberal/progressive politics didn’t make him a bad guy, but always supporting war or military engagement, no matter how many lies it was predicated on, did.
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I love it when history becomes the basis for our argument. There are so many angles and interpretations.
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Unfortunately, very few understand the implications of your second sentence.
Been thinking a bit about that statement and how we actually know almost nothing of the past, even our own pasts. Which story of the past does one accept and use in one’s own worldview/being? And yes those “stories” do bear heavily on present being.
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Every memory is a reconstruction, a confabulation, a “just-so story” based on the few bits from the past experience that actually got into long-term memory and a lot of general world knowledge. The brain subconsciously reconstructs the memory. Then, once it has been remembered, some of the reconstructed version goes into long-term memory, and that one is called upon, later, and the process repeats itself. For this reason, LOL, people often becomes SURER about some memories of the fairly distant past as they get older. Ask a group of ten people to reconstruct an event that they all witnessed. You get ten different stories for this reason. Very little actually gets through the short-term memory bottleneck, and the rest is confabulation done for the most part automatically, below the level of consciousness. So yeah, our memories are terrible, but everyone thinks that his or hers is great–that it’s as though there were a video camera on his or her shoulders. One of the many things that most people think that they know about which they are totally wrong.
If that’s a sticky wicket, historical memory is even worse. People think they’ve understood a piece of history once they have imposed a narrative form on it, with heroes and villains, for example. And then there’s the problem of insufficient evidence. And the problem of ways of thinking about being that have changed very, very dramatically, so much so that the older ones are often all-but-unrecoverable. ALl this makes history a fascinating field of endeavor. LOL. It’s not JUST story-making, but it’s a first cousin.
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Well stated!
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“History”
The flag is at half mast
And body lies in state
And memories of the past
Are bound to color fate
For history is his
It isn’t ours or theirs
And telling is the biz
Of those who sell the wars
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Since I have such great respect for the opinions of Duane and Bob, I hesitated to respond, especially since I liked Roy’s comment, but they continue to nag. As I read these comments, they seem to cite the failure of the non-linear, human interpretation of reality and historicism to answer all questions neatly as a reason to deny history’s role in making decisions about the present and future. I don’t think that’s what your writing, but that’s the logical conclusion of your arguments.
I would cite reinterpretation as being essential to determining accuracy. It’s not based on pulling opinions out of thin air, but out of experience and documentation built on genuine empiricism and pragmatism. In other words, the exact opposite of the arguments made here.
My favorite riff on historicism comes from Alan Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country” in which one of the protagonists comes across his son’s writings, written just minutes before he was murdered. In it the son writes of South African history that many things upon which the country and its mythology were built “were permissible” given the knowledge of the times. But now, knowing what we know, “it is no longer permissible” to engage in these acts. That’s what reinterpretation can do positively. Unfortunately, we now see ahistorical historicism using revisionism as a political tool. It seems some on the opposing side seem, nevertheless, to buy their logic.
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Millions of people killed by unprovoked military aggression isn’t a partisan difference to be resolved with “another election, another chance,” it is a moral stain on the soul of America.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/27/the-other-side-of-john-mccain/
Re: “There would be no chants of “Lock her/him up” because the other side did not support the winner,” rowdy crowds at McCain and Palin rallies in 2008 shouted “kill him” and “terrorist” when Obama’s name was mentioned.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/mccain-does-nothing-as-cr_n_132366.html
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McCain has said, done, written and endured truly remarkable things, many of which make him heroic in the eyes of most.
We, though, as a nation, a race or a species have not evolved as far as we know we have to. We must get beyond war and bullying and childish games of egoism and retaliation, and torture! We have to evolve beyond a win-lose mentality as well.
Dienne certainly has a point. McCain, however, is not a great illustration of it.
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Prey tell me who’s a better illustration.
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Not who, what. You can make these points without crucifying individuals.
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Akademos,
It’s not a matter of “crucifying individuals”, although we all have conceptions of who WE BELIEVE should be “crucified”, i. e., their actions completely condemned. I’m one to agree with Dienne that McCain is less than deserving all the accolades we are seeing upon his death. Who’s to blame for that? Certainly not the deceased other than what their actions were as a living being. And the record is wide and ample as to why one wouldn’t consider the man McCain from deserving of said accolades.
But America MUST HAVE it’s national heroes. Those stories (not necessarily realities) buttress the shining light on the hill status that most Americans unthinkingly give to this country, accolades that many times are not warranted.
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Yes.
But then when you get down to individuals, and moments, it’s far more tangled than that. We are poor judges of each other. And not even such great judges of ourselves.
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“Hero worship”
We’ve got to have our heroes
To keep the story straight
And even when they’re Neros
Who fiddle at the gate
For Rome is burning brightly
As plain as day can be
But few admit it might be
Replay of history
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This is one of your top ten poems.
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I wasn’t going to wade into the troubled waters here, but here goes anyway…
John McCain is dead. He died. Very recently. We mourn the loss of any life, and eulogize the lives of the dead for a period of time. Eulogies are not supposed to be cuttingly honest reckonings. I believe soldiers and public servants deserve to be especially hallowed when we die, but every human being, with only a few notable exceptions like Hitler, Goebbels, Stalin, and Pol Pot, deserves a decent burial and some words of prayer and praise.
Bene qui vidi bene qui vexit, good is the life lived privately, so have some sympathy for the people and their families who endure fame. Let the family grieve in peace. I despise billionaires like Broad and Koch, but when they die, I will cease my mockery of them for a while. For a while.
On this day, I pray John McCain rests in peace and am thankful he was given life.
And Lloyd, hooorah.
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That was supposed to be “bene qui latuit bene qui vexit.” I don’t Latin too good. Oy vey.
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“Lost amid all the gushing over McCain’s patriotic service is the fact that he voted dozens of times against funding for veterans’ health care and other crucial services, claiming they were “too expensive.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/29/john-mccain-war-criminal-not-war-hero/
Much more in that article.
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John McCain was a genuine American war hero.
But he wasn’t really an American political hero. Far from it.
When push came to shove, he wasn’t very effective in limiting torture during the Bush administration, and he could have been. But McCain wanted to be the Republican party nominee for president. so he helped to craft a bill limiting torture, but admitted that it “deliberately excluded the CIA” and “allowed the CIA to retain the capacity to employ alternative interrogation techniques.” So, McCain could burnish his image without actually doing anything of substance.
He was opposed to a national holiday for Martin Luther King, like other conservatives. He later said he regretted it.
He gave Sarah Palin – and thus the Tea Party – opportunity and validity and “respectability” — when he could and should have chosen someone else as his vice-presidential running mate — and thereby ushering in – officially – Know-Nothingism in the Republican party. He later said he regretted the Palin choice.
As to health care, McCain made a public show of stopping the Republican effort to kill the Affordable Care Act, a plan that was called “skinny repeal” because it killed the individual mandate, because he said that it would strip millions of Americans of affordable health care. Then, not long later he voted for the Republican tax bill that gave billions to corporations and the rich while giving little to regular citizens and simultaneously spiking deficits and debt – and – that tax bill included the repeal of the individual mandate, and would, in effect, do the exact same thing as the previous bill McCain opposed.
That’s called hypocrisy.
If McCain truly had guts and principles, he wouldn’t have changed his vote, giving to the rich while taking from the poorer. McCain often said he was a “flawed man.” He was. If we’re going to accentuate the fact that he served his nation in the military and the Senate, okay. Fine. But let’s be fair.
He let an awful lot of people down and stuck them with a less-hopeful future.
That’s not what “heroes” do.
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Well stated, democracy!
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Good distinction.
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A little off topic but still McCain related news: Roberta McCain, John McCain’s mother, is still alive at 106 years and mentally with it.
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“He represents an era when people could disagree but still be friends.”
I do not understand how this statement applies to a politician. When my exwife and I have different opinion about whether the Iraqi war was good for the 99%, we argue, but we still stay friends—after all, we just had a clash of opinions. But a politician’s opinion/conviction has far reaching consequences: his opinion can become policy, it can mean the difference between life and death.
So when a politician says “let’s go to war to protect the interests of our country” and thousands die as a result, it’s difficult to shrug shoulders and say “I’d still have beer with this politician, after all, he just had a different opinion from mine”.
I doubt that our opinion differences with Trump, DeVos, Gates, the Koch brothers, the current EPA will be or should be resolved in a friendly discourse.
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SHAME ON YOU! YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!
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Who are you talking to?
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An article on McCain from the Nation
I can scarcely remember a time in the last 30 years—from the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s to his two presidential bids, in 2000 and 2008—when he wasn’t a major player on the national stage. He was certainly a devoted public servant, in his own way of defining service to a nation he clearly loved (that, too, is hard to deny). And I take that seriously, as someone who also tries to be of service to society, albeit in a very different way. As a human-rights advocate, I honor the courage and tenacity he displayed as a tortured prisoner of war, even as I will never honor the war in which he flew bombing missions as a naval aviator. I admire his personal and political opposition to the Bush-Cheney regime’s indefensible use of torture tactics in the so-called “War on Terror,” even as I will never abide or excuse his vocal support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his ongoing advocacy for the so-called “surge” and liberal use of drones during the Obama presidency. Even as I understand why some of my friends and family members and students have, like McCain, chosen to serve in the military, I will never accept the term “war hero”—war being one of our chronic national addictions, and “hero” being one of the most overused words in our vocabulary. I say this as the grandson of two men who fought in US-led wars in the middle of the last century, as the brother and husband of two men whose fathers also fought in Vietnam, and as the friend of men and women who have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have seen firsthand how wars can ruin people, physically and psychologically, and how this has pernicious ripple effects across generations. There is nothing “heroic” about war, especially wars led by the United States, even the so-called “great” ones. (I have written about these matters before, here and here, in these very pages.) These are just some of the reasons why I’m a pacifist.
https://www.thenation.com/article/reckoning-with-john-mccain/
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