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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2018 16:56:24 GMT
I just went through every page of this branch to see if there was a place where I could put this, but I didn't find one. But I thought it would be interesting to see this video in which POW John McCain was interviewed by a French journalist.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2018 17:02:06 GMT
Don't forget that President Trump does not consider John McCain to have been a hero, because heroes are never captured.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 26, 2018 21:24:57 GMT
Trump looks at the world like a superhero comic book. Even Jean Moulin would not have been a hero in his eyes.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 27, 2018 0:38:50 GMT
His actual quote was “I like people who weren’t captured.” SMH.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 27, 2018 1:12:13 GMT
Yeah, well -- McCain never had to undergo the agony of heel spurs.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 27, 2018 1:34:41 GMT
No argument that John McCain was brave and heroic in his military career and terrible capture.
But ....
In the fairly recent past it became common for everyone to laud McCain for standing up the more egregious stunts of his vile party. Sorry, you're not a hero for helping blow a hole in the dam and then sticking in some rags or something to stanch the flow. Yes, of course I feel terrible for what he suffered with his illness and do in fact admire him a little bit for his last-minute attempts at acting like a decent human being instead of a Republican. But the bottom line is that he was perfectly willing to let Sarah Palin be vice-president of the US and proudly stood on stage at her side as she vocalized the worst of American ignorance and hatefulness. He had so many opportunities to either leave his evil party or to much earlier object and try to put a halt to their long and obvious adherence to beliefs and programs that marginalize and hurt Americans, but he didn't do that. So, enough about his being a conscience in the Republican party.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 27, 2018 4:58:59 GMT
Frankly, I do not spurn people just because I disagree with them and think they are completely wrong -- otherwise I would have ditched my parents when I was a teenager. I try to understand what has made them the way they are and in many cases, their life experience and environment has turned them very logically into who they are. If they defend their ideas with integrity and intelligence, I can completely accept them on a human level while still fighting their ideas.
I save my scorn for dishonest weasels who will say anything or trample anyone if it gets them ahead. John McCain probably could have been a "better" presidential candidate if he had lied about certain ideas and policies, but he seemed to stick with what he really believed. So he was swept aside exactly as he should have been, but it didn't make him a worse person.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 27, 2018 10:17:50 GMT
Well his background and ideas were utterly at odds with mine, being from a prestigious military family and convinced that making war on other peoples (who had done nothing to the US, or to France beforehand) was somehow justified. It isn't even a mentality I can understand.
And the Palin episode was a bad "reality show". How can a country that produces so many Nobel Prize winners select village idiots to lead them?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 27, 2018 16:20:01 GMT
Thank you, Huckle, & thank you for that link. I had seen it in The Guardian, but only read it after you highlighted it. And I have no doubt that anything I can say, you can say better and more gracefully. It isn't even a mentality I can understand. I'm with you there, LaGatta. Of course I understand how the US's warlike outlook evolved, but there is too much information out there now and too many people speaking reason for that outlook to be followed blindly anymore.
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Post by questa on Aug 28, 2018 0:40:03 GMT
This is in my opinion his high point...having anything to do with Sarah Palin his lowest.
At a town hall in Lakeville, Minn., McCain didn’t hesitate to correct supporters who leveled racist accusations at Obama.
“I have to tell you: He is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States,” he told one supporter who said he was “scared” of Obama. The crowd initially booed McCain for his candor, but he didn’t back off his stance.
After another woman said she’d read that Obama was “an Arab,” McCain took the microphone from her. “No, ma’am,” the senator said. “He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 28, 2018 4:23:30 GMT
interesting how different countries react to things
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 14:08:02 GMT
So, Trump and Palin were not invited to the funeral. I guess the votes are still out on whether he was a good guy or a bad guy.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 14:17:24 GMT
I just wish that they would get on with burying the man. It just seems to drag on and on every time I look at a TV or turn on the radio.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 15:14:31 GMT
I think there is a contest between him and Aretha Franklin.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 15:49:18 GMT
I thought to add the same.
I have to admit that I am disappointed that with Aretha Franklin, whom I believe deserves much tribute, the degree of opulence in my opinion has been a bit over the top.
The expense for it all I would have liked to see that amount of money go towards a worthy cause that benefit all that she believed in and the people she fought for, particularly the poor downtrodden folks in Detroit.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 18:17:54 GMT
Since I was attacked on an adjacent thread for being (apparently) anti-American, I am wondering if it is also the case here, even though Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and other pro-American personalities paid their respects to John McCain. From what I read from certain other members, it seems like they should be tarred and feathered or at least denounced as being complete hypocrites.
Personally, I am rather easy-going and rarely get enflamed in my opinions, which is not the case of everyone here. In any case, I think that all of us are too quick to post links to the opinions of the "experts" rather than pausing to formulate our own opinions. Should we just blame the internet?
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 18:54:41 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on Sept 1, 2018 21:03:42 GMT
As an outsider is/was he that important? His funeral is the first item on the 10 o’clOck news.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 21:21:31 GMT
Let's say that he was the senior statesman of the "legitimate" right wing in the United States, unlike the person currently in power. Of course, that means accepting the idea that there is a legitimate right. Obviously, there always is, but sometimes there are people who have trouble accepting that any opposition to their ideas can be legitimate.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 21:32:44 GMT
Has anyone heard what Palin's reaction or any statement made by her at being shunned?
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2018 21:46:04 GMT
I haven't, but I was rather surprised that some people here thought that McCain had selected her as his running mate. That shows an incredible naïveté about politics (not just American politics) if one believes that such a thing is under the control of the candidate. It is all decided by the party system and imposed on the candidate. Probably from now on, it won't even be that -- it will be decided by an algorithm cooked up by GAFA.
Am I the only person here with a degree in political science?
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Post by bjd on Sept 2, 2018 6:13:45 GMT
It was mentioned in several articles I read recently that the choice of Palin was imposed by political advisers who were trying to pull in the right wing of the Republican Party. McCain claimed afterwards that his first choice had been the independent Joe Lieberman.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 2, 2018 11:33:04 GMT
I agree about Aretha's funeral. While of course she did have a "regal" side with the fur coats and all, it was a bit unseemly in a city with so much poverty and crumbling infrastructure. I think some "social" monument would be more appropriate.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 2, 2018 16:08:12 GMT
McCain did have a choice, a great deal of choice, and he went with Palin. Yes, he admitted to regret about that decision later, but it was his choice.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 2, 2018 16:57:22 GMT
Pillow talk?
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 3, 2018 2:07:08 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2018 2:35:22 GMT
"Risible" indeed.
One could easily say that certain politicians were/are most certainly "groomed" by their particular party to go on to become major candidates, JFK to be sure, Obama likewise. But, to state that someone who was already a major player within their party as McCain was, to be "strong armed"to choose Palin? No.
And, I have no clue at all what "pillow talk" pertains to.
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