The sanctification of Senator John McCain — an exercise in American propaganda

© 2018 Peter Free

 

31 August 2018

 

 

If I were not already cynical

 

These recent days of the uninterrupted, post-death sanctification of Senator John McCain might have sent me screaming into the Night beyond Despair.

 

One amiably delivered lie has followed another. And one prominent moral idiot after another has lamented John McCain's passing.

 

Not to be left out, the Lamestream merrily prattles on (and on) about Senator McCain's worth as both human being and American warrior.

 

This tediously Reality-denying process illuminates how morally corrupt American leadership is.

 

 

In demonstration, read a few of the following essays

 

The pertinent Internet links are below.

 

The writings serve as an aid to people much younger than I am. Meaning folks who did not witness McCain's record, as it played out in "real time" during our lives.

 

 

For an appropriately pejorative tone

 

Begin with Bruce Dixons' overview. Senator McCain's startling pedigree explains a lot about him:

 

 

The Manufactured McCain: Lifting Up A Bloodstained, Lying, Venal Servant of Capitalist Empire, Black Agenda Report (30 August 2018)

 

 

There are hazy questions surrounding McCain's war record

 

These sound complicated enough to be in Truth's ball park. Life is messy.

 

Ron Unz took a crack at separating myth from truth in the following article:

 

 

John McCain: When "Tokyo Rose" Ran for President: What Was John McCain's True Wartime Record in Vietnam? The Unz Review (09 March 2015)

 

 

Is this a smear? Or might it be credible?

 

One of things that always bothered me — about the way Senator McCain was velvet-glove treated by the media — was how virtually every other prisoner of war (tortured and not) was slighted by American consciousness.

 

Having seen McCain operate for decades, I came to doubt his vaunted character.

 

There were substantially greater — and more modest and self-sacrificing men and women — who passed through, or died in, the Vietnam War.

 

It always irritated me how McCain came, with considerable slyly subtle assistance from himself, to de facto claim the title of the war's one Great Hero of Suffering.

 

 

There is also McCain's reported assistance in the POW cover up

 

Here is the link to the estimable Sydney Schanberg's widely suppressed exposé:

 

 

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up, The Unz Review (25 May 2010)

 

 

Read it. Then tell me what Schanberg discovered does not sound plausible — given how duplicitous and personally self-serving national leaders in American government tend to be.

 

Specifically, in this regard, do you recall how presidential candidate Richard Nixon mendaciously scuttled the Johnson Administration's bid to end the Vietnam War?

 

Does knowing that increase the subsequent plausibility of Schanberg's findings? Which, by the way — if true — do not make John McCain the single fall guy for an excruciatingly dishonorable episode in American history.

 

 

Brett Wilkins addressed Senator McCain's war-loving inhumanity

 

John McCain: War Criminal, Not War Hero, CounterPunch (29 August 2018)

 

 

And Paul Street listed some of McCain's arguably repugnant doings

 

No Remorse: Reflections on Radical “Purism”, CounterPunch (29 August 2018)

 

 

You will need to scroll well down into the article to find those. Look for the section entitled, "AOC: An Unparalleled Example of Human Decency”.

 

 

The moral? — What is striking — with an ostensible record like the one described above — is how emulably saintly Senator McCain has become

 

There is a reason for that. American government, being greedy servant to the Military Industrial Complex, enjoys shining highly favorable light on the characters that keep both afloat.

 

What I do find useful in this parable-making episode is keeping track of all the people, who overly favorably commented on Senator McCain's humanity and performance.

 

I added those names to my list of devils and thoughtless nitwits. In this time of crumbling ethics, it is useful to know whom you can eliminate from the category of courageously displayed human decency.

 

It is, after all, possible — and pedagogically desirable — to state that one misses someone, without implying that he or she was a political and warrior saint.