Is ignorance bliss? Should not men in positions of power, understand their shortcomings? Does having been a prisoner, wounded, or killed in battle qualify one or one's survivors, as being intellectual? As being infallible? Of being able to connect the dot (singular, indeed). Does having been wounded or disabled make one able to reason better, or is either of those a prerequisite to intellectual perspicacity? Apparently not, in this case.
Somewhere in his metamorphosis from prisoner of war, to Republican Senator, to his undying desire to assuage his ego, or justify his incarceration suffrage in Viet Nam, Senator John McCain appears have lost it. He appears to be dissembling intellectually into a vague and murky sort of illogic. If there was a spiritual side of him, it seems to have disappeared completely in his stumbling bid for the presidency. Either that or he needs to fire his strategists and speech writers.
Here are some of his somewhat less than brilliant, sayings or deductions, Re: "The last vestige of real socialism in the world," is America (?) WHAT? Did that make any sense to you? Most of Europe is Socialist, including Russia, still.
You say you want more, here you go, after the Republicans wasted $2-Trillion on a war, blew Clinton's $5.9 Trillion dollar Surplus, McCain says, that if elected to the White House and a solid Majority of both houses, Democrats would, "recklessly" tax and spend us into poverty.
If you are finished laughing and that is still not enough, okay, then how about this gem from a fellow who voted to build a 30-foot stone and concrete wall across America in the states which border Mexico (As if Mexicans couldn't just rent a boat and motor around the wall.) That is bad enough but now he says; Democrats wish to build a wall around America. (I suppose Halliburton would build it and atop it would sit BlackVader snipers to pick off civilian women and children for fun.)
Would you like more yet, from this paragon of intellectual perspicacity, "But let's have some straight talk: globalization is here, globalization is an opportunity, but globalization will not automatically benefit every American." Of course, not, it will only benefit super-wealthy Republicans. Everyone who is unemployed knows that.
Next he says, and to his eternal discredit keeps a straight face while doing so, "We must remain committed to education, retraining, and help for displaced workers, regardless of whether their job went away because of trade, technological innovation, or shifts in consumer spending patterns. For Americans who have lost a job, we need to expand opportunities for further education and training that can open new doors. We need to modernize our unemployment insurance system to reflect the reality of the 21st century economy: jobs that go away no longer come back when business rebounds. We need to help displaced workers make ends meet between jobs and move people quickly on to the next opportunity." I know that those who regularly vote Republican are nodding in the affirmative on this, but to those who actually have a brain cell that functions does this make even an iota of sense? Why the hell educate people who cannot find a job because there are none, because the jobs have all gone to China, India, Malaysia, where their poorly and underpaid and uneducated people will be highly unlikely to complain because if they do at the request of their slave-seer, er, employer, they will simply, disappear, or be shot on plain view of the other "workers."
More? Boy, you are a masochist, but you asked for it, so, here you go, and, "We need to reform the half-dozen government training programs that are supposed to help such workers As I talk to business people and education experts I hear again and again that community colleges do a great job of providing the right skills to workers and the right workers for firms. We should take greater advantage of this record of success, transform rigid training programs, and get workers back to work." Back to work? Where? His pals in business have relocated all opportunities and destroyed the job market in America, all for temporary profits, lasting long enough for their lifetime. The illogic these fools have is that they have abandoned America's workers for their own personal profit and they are destroying our environment and the government has helped them to do it.
To whom eventually does Senator McCain think his pals will be selling their goods, with Americans dirt poor? Europe, China? Who? Where? They are trying to kill everyone in the Mid-east except the Jews and they are paying their bevy of Oriental and Asian workers so little they cannot afford the goods the Republican industrialists hope to profit by, so what is their goal? Revenge against unions by destroying America's vast ability to produce? Who, then is going to buy their goods? What cracks me up is the temporary nature of their goal, which they cannot see. On the other hand, maybe they do. Maybe they know their goal is temporary, but do not care because a return to a Middle Ages, feudal economy is what they long for. Perhaps they long for the days when riff-raff employees were whipped or shot in the head for no apparent reason, with impunity, as the Mercenaries appear to be doing in Iraq. Perhaps the real goal is to bankrupt everyone who is not avaristic, and then none of those riff-raff will sully their vacation spots or favorite restaurants, or ever again have the balls to ask for a raise or health care coverage or profit sharing. Why not admit that the entire venture of Republicanism is about money and insane, sadistic, mean-spirited, vengeance.
McCain has lost his marbles, if he ever had any, but given the intellectual capacity of those who vote Republican these days, it doesn't matter a bit. In fact, looking at the field of candidates afloat, there are none in either party that appeal either to my intellect or sense of smell.
There appears to be one-thing some voters do not get. (I wonder which voters, those are?) It is true that some men become heroes and do incredible things in the heat of battle-things other cannot or fear to do. For that in real wars we are grateful. However, just because a man got drafted (when there was one) or joined and was taken prisoner, or even was heroic in battle, or even merely wore a uniform, there is no reason on the planet to believe that there is anything omnipotent about him. I know of a man who was a war hero. He had ten million dollars and lost all but $800,000 the stock market in less than one year-a lifetime of earnings and saving gone because of avarice and because fantasized that he was a genius at something he'd never done before. He would not even listen to his brokers. He certainly was not possessing of wisdom or omnipotence in his investments. Wearing a uniform, losing limbs or an eye or any other body part or even being killed, or being held prisoner, does not impart some magical higher intellect, nor higher morality, nor mystical spirituality upon a person. More than that, neither does it make them morally superior to those who have not suffered a disabling wound or injury, or death, or anyone who chose not to join the military, any more than does those civilians who suffer similar injuries in accidents.
Many who joined didn't do so because of some higher moral calling, because there is no higher calling/morality that involves killing and maiming others. Some joined because there was a bonus involved, or funding for their education-an education, which they could not otherwise afford, not because they aspired to some higher calling. Many others joined because they could not find a job, so this was their unemployment compensation, and others joined so they could get to carry and play with guns, and maybe even some so they could kill others with impunity. Maybe some joined out of a need to validate themselves physically, or even because they were truly patriotic and were fooled by the lies about Iraq, like most people were.
The most moral, the greatest of our fighting men and women were those who were drafted or joined during WW II, who were really fighting for our freedom truly, against, I might add, the very forces that now seem to grip our nation, materialism, fascism and Nazism.
John McCain has no higher calling. He is no saint because he wore a uniform or because he was a prisoner and he is no saint now when he is taking the low road to getting what God is denying him. He is now, for supporting the slaughter of so many women, children and innocents, more than 1,250,000, including Americans in Iraq, far from being a saint. Neither did wearing a uniform nor being a prisoner, transform what appears to be an ordinary, or less than ordinary, intellect into a genius. Morality and genius are not things that magically appear, they are things that are bestowed at birth and beyond, and uniforms have no effect upon them, nor does being wounded, nor dying, nor being captured. There are heroes who are injured or killed every day in America. Good men and women heroically trying to raise families with no jobs available, no healthcare, and oil shooting toward perhaps $200.00 or more per barrel.
Some Members of my family were drafted into WW II and some volunteered, all were heroes protecting us from a real enemy. However, none of them ever tried to imply that their fighting the Hun (the very same one, which now grips our nation) made them smarter, morally closer to perfection, nor did it allow their logic to improve or their intellect to make Herculean, leaps upward on the IQ scale, nor have greater ability to detect a lie on the part of their government, but neither did it, at least not in my family, allow them to degrade themselves by implying that any of these things magically occurred because they fought in a war. Nor did it, nor should it have, allowed them more knowledge about what is and is not right and just. If anything, true righteousness and justice are marks of men and women, who do NOT want others to suffer the same disfiguring or life-losing fate they encountered, true men and women of empathy and justice do NOT want others to suffer their fate-the fate of being disabled or killed.
I once served in the military, but not in time of war. I was facing the draft, so I simply joined because I would have been drafted anyway. I emerged from my service no smarter, no holier, I did not know more about why or why not we had fought in any other wars, at that time. I was no different than any of the others with which I served except that I seemed less frightened of being in service than most of them. The others cried at night because they missed their wives or families, I never did. I was made Temporary Company Corporal for that reason and because my officers thought, I had no fear to begin with. They wanted me to go to OCS and I had high enough marks in camp Intelligence testing to do so. I had no fear at that point in my life. However, there were things about which I had concerns later and do still. Concerns like why are some people who are so awfully unenlightened, not know how unenlightened they are and why they so unaware of their limitations? You see, I, like most people do not know everything. Therefore, when others discuss the things about which I am ignorant, I listen and do not speak, except, perhaps, to ask questions. However, many people venture opinions, didactically and with false authority, some even lie, making up falsehoods to support their position, about things which they are not only ignorant, but also even were they well informed, lack sufficient powers of deduction to formulate a viable philosophy or technology.
Now, having said all of that, I say, as did Forest Gump, "... and that is all I have to say about that!"
http://www.BagnoloArt.com
Professor Bagnolo is a Renaissance man: Cultural Anthropologist, Architectural designer, painter, writer, novelist, theologian. As a child prodigy, abed with polio for almost two years, with an off the charts IQ, reading at the graduate level by 5th grade, offered an opportunity to skip three grades at age 8. Later He was a recipient of an Art Institute scholarship at age 11, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Anthropology and in Painting and a merit scholarship in art, and was appointed a Graduate Research Assistant position in college. He holds a triple bachelor's degree in Painting and Drawing, Anthropology, Architectural Design Advertising. MA's in Cultural Anthro, Painting and more. After being tenured he taught; architecture, anthropology, Theology, advertising, painting and drawing, entrepreneuring and Creative Profit Making. He produced a star-studded Music festival, had a radio talk show in Chicago, and cable TV show. Now, retired from Teaching, he paints, writes, and pursues other ventures.
The above bio harvested from the comments of Deans, colleagues, students, clients and collector's.
When Bill Clinton said Americans are going to have to retrain for three or four careers, my stomach turned. It's even worse now. You asked the same questions I have: Retrain to do what? And, if American workers are going to be out on the streets with no jobs, or working for pennies, who's going to buy the crap they are selling that we don't need anyway?
Of course, we could all work for OPN, because we all know what fabulous fees our writing endeavors earn us.
McCain has no spine or shame. I lost what little respect I had for him when in 2004 he kissed the ass that spewed its contents at him so badly during the 2000 election. If he weren't so blinded by his own ambition he would have sat back and said nothing. What was he hoping to gain? A cabinet position? His backside-slathering was all for naught anyway. His endorsement of Bush didn't matter; it was another presidential election stolen -- only this time in Ohio.
McCain destroyed his own good name, and no matter how sappy or sympathy-evoking his new commercial with him on a stretcher is, he can't reclaim what he himself lost.
Soldiering, injured or not, hero or not, doesn't make a man any more wise than death makes a most disagreeable person a saint.
by
Sandy Sand (130 articles, 0 quicklinks, 153 diaries, 1174 comments)
on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 9:07:15 AM
To Sandy Sand: Bush said the exact same thing to a lady in a forum who said she worked three jobs, he told her that is "uniquely American".
Pete: We send our poor to go to war. Fact is they shipped out the jobs as an "extortion play" so it would create a gap in the income brackets, allowing the military to offer $50,000 sign on bonuses and paid college and "trinkets" of the like.
A kid coming out of H.S. now-a-days is asking his parents for money to go to college and they tell him "sorry son we had to use that when your dad's job was shipped over sees". So the kid goes to school the next day, during lunch as usual the cafeteria is packed with military recruiters from all branches, offering "candy to babies" with promises of a better life!
So they [bushites] are doing their homework, less jobs=no money for college=go into the military put $50,000 of monopoly money in a non existent account to go to a bigoted school of "higher learning".
So most of the kids are being pidgeon holed into a "shadow draft" and people are saying look at my great son/daughter serving his/her country! All the while the very country they are "serving" forced them into it by putting the squeeze on the parents.
"Give us your poor, your tired, your hungry" SO WE CAN SEND THEM TO WAR!!!
Spot on again Pete keep it comin'!
JR
by (8 articles, 4 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 143 comments)
on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 10:39:52 AM
Watching McCain degenerate into this smirking political creature has been sad. Once upon a time, the guy seemed at least to have some maverick sincerity, but his LUST for political office has turned him in an inhuman thing. Somehow he reminds me of an unsuccessful Bill Clinton.
by
W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (202 articles, 44 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 437 comments)
on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 12:46:03 PM
"kids are being pidgeon holed into a "shadow draft" and people are saying look at my great son/daughter serving his/her country! All the while the very country they are "serving" forced them into it by putting the squeeze on the parents."
A very good description "shadow draft". People don't like think of themselves as the poor. The removal of opportunities in the communities to entice military service is likely true.
by
Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 497 comments)
on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 6:33:46 PM
When the Industrialists sent most factory jobs overseas, it was part of a long range plan. Leaving people with retail or MacDonalds, if they are lucky, desperate for work and only so many can work there or for the Mosquito spraying firms and lawn care firms, (seasonal in most states) which eventually kills them, so they are forced to join the military.
Interestingly enough, there is a technological and brain drain in China. My guess is that many smarter young people will leave the country for Europe and China, take jobs there. I am going to guess that in China they may be greeted like kings. China and Russia are looking at America peripherally as future enemies. The Madmen at the top of the food-chain are driven to sadistic ideas and may set off the Armageddon they day dream about. They are infected with Avarice and sadism and power-drunk. As Eisenhower and Macarthur said, Conservative indsutrialists started WWII for profit, and "...beware the Military Industrial Comple... " Which is now the Military Medical Industrial Complex.
Forcing kids into the service is indeed "A Shadow Draft" system and it was planned.
We will see a brain drain here. With the way our community colleges and mid-quality colleges are being run, the
by
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 95 diaries, 1216 comments)
on Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 8:23:34 PM
