# John McCain Passes Away



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

No matter what one’s politics, he was a hero and one of the few remaining grand Republicans of the old school always ready to cross the aisle for the common good. Even though his passing wasn't unexpected, I’m still awfully sad. My condolences to his family.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Farewell, John McCain! What a grand showing you make, compared with a certain contemptible creature who would deny your heroism in that North Vietnamese prison.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Interesting fact: Ted Kennedy, a good friend of McCain, passed away from the same tumor on the same day, 8/25.


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Farewell, John McCain! What a grand showing you make, compared with a certain contemptible creature who would deny your heroism in that North Vietnamese prison.


and a triple like!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

An exciting development is the drug BXQ 350 that in (very) early trials appears to attack solid tumors, including glioma, which is the broad category of the McCain cancer, but leaves healthy tissue alone. It has been allowed to be used in Phase 1 trials on humans with terminal disease with remarkable results in a few of them.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Grand Republican? He was his own man and often voted against the Republican line. Wish many more in Congress thought things through instead of blindly following Pelosi/Schumer/Ryan/McConnell.

John McCain was a true RINO:Republican In Name Only and I believe he would have made one terrific US President.

RIP Senator McCain. You made me proud to be called an American! :tiphat:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

hpowders said:


> Grand Republican? He was his own man and often voted against the Republican line. Wish many more in Congress thought things through instead of blindly following Pelosi/Schumer/Ryan/McConnell.
> 
> John McCain was a true RINO:Republican In Name Only and I believe he would have made one terrific US President.
> 
> RIP Senator McCain. You made me proud to be called an American! :tiphat:


He was pretty conservative on some issues, particularly military, but surprisingly liberal in others (voting down the Obamacare repeal). I think I meant 'grand' more in keeping with your thoughts than not.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

RIP Mr. McCain.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"John McCain's former Vietnamese jailor says he always respected the late senator"

It's very difficult for me, who served in SE Asia during the war, to reconcile John McCain's torture in a North Vietnamese prison with the accolades that country is currently heaping upon him. There's even a John McCain monument in Hanoi!

I guess it's best to let bygones be bygones. My own country used "enhanced interrogation techniques" against inhabitants of Muslim countries after the 9/11 attacks. These things can fester for a very long time unless we simply recognize that we are, all of us, imperfect beings capable of moral outrages when our blood is up.

"The U.S. Embassy announced it will launch a McCain/Kerry Fellowship in which a young Vietnamese leader committed to public service will be chosen each year to travel to the U.S. on a study tour to deepen ties between the two peoples."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/08/27/former-vietnamese-jailor-says-respected-sen-mccain.html


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

The one that sums up his dignity and grace for me is when he defended Obama from "accusations" of being an Arab by pointing out that, no, Obama was a decent man, NOT an Arab - accepting the premise of the question that the two are intrinsically in contradiction. 

McCain never met a war of aggression he didn't wholeheartedly embrace, voted six times against imposing sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime, voted against making MLK day a national holiday, drove Navajos off their land at the behest of corporations that eyed it for resource extraction and, of course, paved the way for Trumpism by choosing the brain dead woman from Alaska as his running mate. Which are the things that constitute his actual legacy, not the fact that he was gracious in defeat and affable with media bootlickers.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

You don't have to agree with his political stances to show respect in death. Some have shown a complete lack of decorum on this.

Looking in from the other side of the Atlantic, it seems the outpouring of respect elsewhere in the USA has been really genuine. More so than with quite a few deaths in recent years. I sense the same goes for Aretha Franklin.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

Robert Pickett said:


> You don't have to agree with his political stances to show respect in death. Some have shown a complete lack of decorum on this.


When one's political stances are responsible for the deaths of, say, hundreds of thousands Iraqis, I believe that being indecorous and speaking the truth is the moral imperative. There's a real removal in the US (and other Global North countries) from the consequences of hawkish policies that kill millions of non-white people overseas - as if the lives of those people are a matter of political disagreement that should be handled politely and not a matter of tragic urgency.

Aretha Franklin was a great singer. What were McCain's talents besides being born into naval aristocracy?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Unless you yourself reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, my comments were not aimed at you. 

That said, time around death = time to hold one's tongue, IMHO.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Five days of worship? I doubt when I die if I even wind up getting two days. Better I don’t know.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> When one's political stances are responsible for the deaths of, say, hundreds of thousands Iraqis, I believe that being indecorous and speaking the truth is the moral imperative. There's a real removal in the US (and other Global North countries) from the consequences of hawkish policies that kill millions of non-white people overseas - as if the lives of those people are a matter of political disagreement that should be handled politely and not a matter of tragic urgency.
> 
> Aretha Franklin was a great singer. What were McCain's talents besides being born into naval aristocracy?


McCain himself admitted that he made many mistakes. The fact that you apparently aren't aware of his many accomplishments indicates to me that you made note of his mistakes and ignored his positive contributions, or are simply ignorant of them.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

DaveM said:


> McCain himself admitted that he made many mistakes.


Tellingly, all he admitted re Iraq is that it was a strategic mistake, not a moral one. As recently as six months ago, McCain voted against a bipartisan effort ago to end the Saudi slaughter of Yemen that's killed upward of 15 thousand people and created a million cases of cholera. He had routinely backed the war and the selling of arms to the Saudis. If the idea is that you're supposed to learn from your mistakes, then...

His work on campaign finance reform is indicative of the nature of his achievements - he made it a signature issue to restore his reputation after the Keating Five scandal; and his crowning accomplishment in the field, the McCain-Feingold Act, was merely successful in redirecting large contributions to outside groups, making money in politics shadier and less accountable than ever before, and politicians being beholden to corporate donors more than ever.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> Tellingly, all his admitted re Iraq is that it was a strategic mistake, not a moral one. As recently as six months ago, McCain voted against a bipartisan effort ago to end the Saudi slaughter of Yemen that's killed upward of 15 thousand people and created a million cases of cholera. He had routinely backed the war and the selling of arms to the Saudis. If the idea is that you're supposed to learn from your mistakes, then...
> 
> His work on campaign finance reform is indicative of the nature of his achievements - he made it a signature issue to restore his reputation after the Keating Five scandal; and his crowning accomplishment in the field, the McCain-Feingold Act, was merely successful in redirecting large contributions to outside groups, making money in politics shadier and less accountable than ever before, and politicians being beholden to corporate donors more than ever.


I don't know why you're bringing all this up here which was obviously meant to acknowledge the passing of the man. Take it to groups if you want. Politics is not allowed here anyway. Acknowledging the man and simply saying a goodbye to someone who meant something to a lot of us is not politics so I'm not responding any further to you.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

In my view, we cannot, or rather shouldn't, discuss a prominent politician in non-political terms. This is what you sign up for the moment you run for your first local campaign, never mind make and promote choices that impact the lives of millions — often, to quote John Cena, "to a permanent end." This is my way of acknowledging John McCain, seeing as the lives of people in the Middle East mean something to me.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I don't know why you're bringing all this up here which was obviously meant to acknowledge the passing of the man. Take it to groups if you want. Politics is not allowed here anyway. Acknowledging the man and simply saying a goodbye to someone who meant something to a lot of us is not politics so I'm not responding any further to you.


I think the problem here is that you invited politics by saying,


DaveM said:


> *No matter what one's politics,* he was ...


This is an assumption that does not hold true for all people, and therefore it will be challenged.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

McCain was first and foremost, and exclusively so to many, a markedly political figure.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Fritz Kobus said:


> I think the problem here is that you invited politics by saying,
> 
> This is an assumption that does not hold true for all people, and therefore it will be challenged.


I didn't think I had to spell out the reasons he was a hero. He was shot down in Vietnam Nam, imprisoned for several years in a POW camp and during that time beaten frequently. Yet, when given the chance to go home, he refused until the men who were imprisoned before him were released. None of that has anything to do with politics.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Refusing to go home before the others was heroic in relation to his comrades, and perhaps-perhaps also a result of national pride. 
All the circumstances were politically and morally loaded, and a result of political and moral decisions. Such as (and I´m just mentioning them briefly here) the bombings themselves.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> Refusing to go home before the others was heroic in relation to his comrades, and perhaps-perhaps also a result of national pride.
> All the circumstances were politically and morally loaded, and a result of political and moral decisions. Such as (and I´m just mentioning them briefly here) the bombings themselves.


So McCain, as a shot down navy pilot, was responsible for the political and morally loaded circumstances surrounding his capture and imprisonment? He had absolutely nothing to do with the politics of the time. If you have followed his life at all, you would find that when he was imprisoned, national pride was not on his mind, but the honor code among his fellow prisoners was.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I didn't think I had to spell out the reasons he was a hero. He was shot down in Vietnam Nam, imprisoned for several years in a POW camp and during that time beaten frequently. Yet, when given the chance to go home, he refused until the men who were imprisoned before him were released. None of that has anything to do with politics.


This is absolutely commendable. A shame his hero status is tarnished by political shenanigans.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I hope Renee Fleming is practicing. I don't want her to screw it up.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

DaveM said:


> So McCain, as a shot down navy pilot, was responsible for the political and morally loaded circumstances surrounding his capture and imprisonment? He had absolutely nothing to do with the politics of the time. If you have followed his life at all, you would find that when he was imprisoned, national pride was not on his mind, but the honor code among his fellow prisoners was.


Our definitions of politics differ, but for one thing, he volunteered as a patriot for combat, and commentators seem to agree that his bombing targets were in the main civilian. I´m not aware that he has expressed regret or been very open about the civilian casualties. If he has, I respect that.

What I do respect him for is his self-criticism as regards Iraq, and especially the famous live tv-clip where he expresses respect for his political opponent, Obama, in contrast to the style of #45. This clip will remain iconic for a long time, I think.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> Our definitions of politics differ, but for one thing, he volunteered as a patriot for combat, and commentators seem to agree that his bombing targets were in the main civilian.


I don't think any definition of politics includes individual servicemen. That infers that all servicemen who signup are now political animals. Politics certainly has to do with these wars, but laying that on an individual serviceman is unfair and rather bizarre. Also interesting is the premise that navy pilots decide whether they fly or not depending on the targets. And, 'commentators seem to agree' is rather vague; one of those throwaway lines when one isn't sure.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

BiscuityBoyle said:


> When one's political stances are responsible for the deaths of, say, hundreds of thousands Iraqis, I believe that being indecorous and speaking the truth is the moral imperative.


I prefer to do so when the person in question is in a position to defend himself. Senator McCain, alas, is not.


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## Überstürzter Neumann (Jan 1, 2014)

I regard him as a most despicable individual, and so far from a hero as one can come. Enough about that.
But I do like the presedence of the making of this thread. That means that when some anti-imperialist leader dies, I can make a similar memorial thread about him/her and then whine if anybody will take umbrage with it.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

This thread was intended to give the news and express condolences.

It has become purely political. The place for politics is in the social groups.

This thread is now closed.


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