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TechnoratiCourage, Cowardice, and John McCain
'Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life', by John McCain
"To have courage for whatever comes in life-everything lies in that."
- Mother Theresa, frontisquote"Suck it up, for crying out loud."
- John McCain, p. 35
John McCain is a senator from Arizona, was an underperforming student near the bottom of his class, a mediocre pilot, a former naval captain and POW in Vietnam, and a best-selling author of two books of memoirs (Faith of My Fathers and Worth the Fighting For). In the face of rising corporate interference in the political system, Senator McCain has very vocally pushed for campaign finance reform. With the tone of partisanship in Washington, D.C. becoming more shrill in recent years, McCain has decried that divisiveness and called for bi-partisanship to efficiently and effectively get the work of the ruling class done. Now, McCain is the Republican nominee for president.
McCain has written a book, with his longtime staffer Mark Salter, on the important subject of courage entitled Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life. In the spirit of JFK's Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage from forty years earlier, and also filled with tales of courageous people-what they did and what they said-McCain's book can be both entertaining and inspiring. McCain talks about courage in this book and can, in fact, be courageous himself at times.
One might wish, however, that he more consistently walked the talk. In spite of his complaints about too much partisanship instead of "bipartisan resolve" and honest politics, McCain (twice!) supported and strongly endorsed George W. Bush for president... because of "party loyalty". McCain's "party lotalty" also extends to supporting Bush's policies about 90% of the time. (McCain also incredulously praises Cheney's "resolve, experience, patriotism".) Making matters worse, McCain once unequivocally stated in a 1996 New Yorker essay: "Going to campaign against John Kerry is something I wouldn't consider". So much for principles and promises. We might hope that McCain were as courageous as his colleague Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who when conscience called, defected from the Republican Party to become an Independent, thereby tipping the balance of power in the Senate and maintaining his sense of dignity.
Even with his occasional criticisms, McCain has been an ardent supporter of Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, declaring them fights "between right and wrong, good and evil" while campaigning with Bush. "It is no more ambiguous than that", McCain continued. Indeed, his longstanding criticism is that Bush isn't being hawkish enough, isn't fighting hard enough, isn't sending even more U.S. troops to kill and die in there. Indeed, McCain praised the "courage" of US troops, invoking the threat of weapons of mass destruction. McCain, here, is unfortunately not exhibiting courage, but is instead employing a weapon of mass distraction. If only McCain would re-read his own book and muster the courage to be as brave as his military brother, General Anthony Zinni, who has been criticizing the war in Iraq, arguing that Bush is fighting the "wrong war at the wrong time", suggesting a major change of course instead of "staying" this disastrous one.
"If it takes courage to kill or be killed in a war", McCain declares, "it is a courage often prompted by an instinct for survival", often including an economic one as well as physical and psychological ones. Undoubtedly, some soldiers fighting a war might be courageous. Soldiers and others, however, who refuse and resist illegal and immoral orders in an illegal and immoral war are certainly courageous, as well. For some, an instinct for survival extends to others, not just themselves, enlarging their circles of compassion. We can only wish that McCain were as courageous as his colleague in the House of Representatives, Barbara Lee, who was the only one in either the House or the Senate to vote against the war in Afghanistan.
McCain refers to those who held him captive in Vietnam as "gooks", the derogatory and racist term used by Americans to describe Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians. He has defended this practice by claiming that he isn't referring to all Vietnamese, only those who acted in certain horrible ways. Selective racism, however, is still racism. In this regard, we could at least wish McCain were as courageous as his fellow politician, former Alabama Governor George Wallace, a symbol of virulent racism and racial apartheid in the Jim Crow-era US, who now publicly regrets and rebukes his former beliefs and espouses racial tolerance, equality, and harmony. So much for "moving on", as McCain often claims to have done and hypocritically advocates for others.
Going beyond this modest bravery, we might further hope that McCain could be as courageous as the millions of ordinary people around the world-women and men, activists and organizers, workers and farmers, students and teachers, writers and others-who stick their necks out to uphold vital principles and thereby make a positive difference in our world. But McCain may be too elitist and out of touch for this.
While this is an interesting book on an important subject and at an important time, there is a disconnect between the book and the author. To his credit, though, McCain admits his lack of courage, saying that his exhortations to be courageous "have too often failed to inspire me in difficult circumstances to do the right thing" (71). Cynically choosing the unqualified and reactionary Sarah Palin as his running mate may have been one of these moments. McCain can effectively and approvingly quote Winston Churchill-courage is "the first of human qualities...because it guarantees all the others" (39)-but he apparently doesn't measure up to him, even if he shares some of Churchill's racism and militarism.
In many people's minds, Senator John McCain's name is synonymous with the words independent, maverick, and courageous, even though he supports Bush's imperialist oil wars, Bush's tax cuts for the rich, Bush's Supreme Court nominees, Bush's use of torture by the CIA, Bush's authoritarian anti-choice position, Bush's call for building scores of new nuclear power plants, and other tired, old policies of the right wing. Why Courage Matters may increase this misplaced sense of McCain's supposed virtues. Unfortunately, when it counts, he is neither independent nor courageous. When it comes to real courage, McCain is missing in action.
32 Comments so far
Show AllI have been around talkers and around heroes. I have yet to hear a hero publish his own exploits.
My father said a few times that he never sent for all his medals from WW2. At his funeral we found out that he had the bronze star. The army said the records were lost in a fire and that I would have to pay for a search of secondary sources to reassemble his records. As far as I know, no one alive knows just what the details of Dad's bronze star are. I have a feeling it was big from the behavior of the people who knew.
When he was with his army buddies at reunions certain members were close and had a strange respect for each other no one else seemed to understand. When the other members of that group died my father didn't go to the reunions anymore.
I smell BS all over everything McCain says about himself, his record, and his beliefs.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/18-7
The truly courageous are quiet and humble and have little need or desire to capitalize on their nature or exploits.
"He's wimpy - as wimpy as he can be.
From Phoenix to Tempe he bends his knee.
He's wimpy. How wimpy? When the Right says pee
He unzips and shakes his hips and irrigates the sea."
That's from a song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/Eskit.com
titled 'John McCain Music Video'.
I wonder how many Vietnemse, men, women and children, that John McCain killed and maimed with his bombs and missles think he is a hero?
Thomas More -
With sincere respect for many of your other posts on this site, I strongly disagree with your honoring of McCain's alleged physical courage or, by any implication therefrom, his alleged moral courage.
McCain is no hero for having been captured by the people of N. Vietnam; a people who never first-initiated any physical aggression toward him or his country, but against whom he nevertheless had been [then] mindlessly following orders to blow apart with bombs and burn alive with napalm from,to boot, the advantage and relative safety of his high flying jet aircraft.
Only in a morally hypocritical [and likely morally-insane] society could a soldier's obedience to such objectively outrageous and inhumane official orders be considered 'heroic,' or a 'soldiers' patriotic duty.'
And while you can agruably condemn his N. Vietnamese captors for torturing him as a POW, McCain is certainly no physical hero thereby: simply for having 'held up' under torture done to him by those he'd already been killing to begin with - with zero moral or physical justification.
Had McCain ever, in his war subsequent-to-present public career, EVER expressed even half-way honest moral regrets about the immorality of that war, and/or about his youthfully-naive, misinformed participation in it, then a charitable interpretation could now excuse at least that part of his past, as he seeks higher political power today.
But McCain has never done anything even remotely like that: not regarding the Vietman War nor any other disastrously mistaken policy position he's taken as a US senator who coted with Bush 95% of the time.
All of which means to me that, as a presidential aspirant, McCain remains the same a dangerously unconscious power and glory seeker he's been as a senator; a character type politician who all-too-easily snuffs personal moral conscience whenever it stands in the way of political ego aggrandizement, but who's a good enough liar to make it look like he's always doing nobly the opposite.
McCain has learned absolutely nothing in all his years as a presumed public leader: wittness most recently the embarrassingllyy obvious and chronic lies he knowing propagates about Obama's hardly wonderful positions, merely to -- and by whatever means necessary --gain a forensic, campaign/ego edge for himself.
Back to you, Thomas More: it amazes me that you persist in believeing McCain to be anything but a pathologically-clever, self-packaged solopsist, irredeemably unfit to hold any position of public trust, whatsoever.
In this respect, you seem to believe in your own,self-wonted images of civic nobility, far above and beyond any objective pudding's proof to the contrary.
"Had McCain ever, in his war subsequent-to-present public career, EVER expressed even half-way honest moral regrets about the immorality of that war, and/or about his youthfully-naive, misinformed participation in it, then a charitable interpretation could now excuse at least that part of his past, as he seeks higher political power today"
He may not share your view of it. I don't. If you insist on condemning the men that fought there as immoral, then you condemn me and I know I'm not immoral.
"McCain's alleged physical courag"
There isn't any question of that. Never has been. I really have no doubt that they would have broken me and I'm no physical coward. Surviving that speaks for itself.
"Only in a morally hypocritical [and likely morally-insane] society could a soldier's obedience to such objectively outrageous and inhumane official orders be considered 'heroic,' or a 'soldiers' patriotic duty.'"
Obviously I don't agree with you. I and the others that served there did our duty. That the war was wrong, there is no question in my mind. But I simply don't buy your alternative description. By your rationale we should all have surrendered or allowed ourselves to be killed I guess. I would remind you that your vision, unless you served then or were an adult then is formed in hindsight whaen things seem to be much clearer. I usually say, please don't try to judge someone elses actions unless you have been in the same situation.
"In this respect, you seem to believe in your own,self-wonted images of civic nobility, far above and beyond any objective pudding's proof to the contrary."
I will accept your dsrespectful insult since you don't seem to value civic duty or responsibility. Just remember, if you enjoy privilages without the responsibilities, you soon lose them.
In the end I don't know what McCain is, but I have no doubt of his physical courage, his moral courage I can't be sure of. I don't defend "him," but at the same time its going to take a bit more than disagreement about serving to swallow that kind of judgement and unless someone war there with him as a POW or can get someone to validate the chareges everyone keeps making (which those guys say is bogus)then they are false.
As to his voting record, I don't judge someones moral courage just because he doesn't always agree with me or has different values. I'm not voting for him because I've come to believe Obama is the better choice to lead our country. Not because he doesn't always agree with me.
I don't buy your suggestion that I have no mkral courage, so its no surprise I won't buy it concerning McCain.
"Had McCain ever, in his war subsequent-to-present public career, EVER expressed even half-way honest moral regrets about the immorality of that war, and/or about his youthfully-naive, misinformed participation in it, then a charitable interpretation could now excuse at least that part of his past, as he seeks higher political power today"
He may not share your view of it. I don't. If you insist on condemning the men that fought there as immoral, then you condemn me and I know I'm not immoral........................................(.We are not always, actually rarely, the best judge of our own morality.)
"McCain's alleged physical courag"
There isn't any question of that. Never has been. I really have no doubt that they would have broken me and I'm no physical coward. Surviving that speaks for itself...............................(You and no one else has any idea what actually went on in that prison camp. It's all heresay...good or bad. BUT, remember that McCain is the son of an Admiral, much as Bush in the National Guard.)
"Only in a morally hypocritical [and likely morally-insane] society could a soldier's obedience to such objectively outrageous and inhumane official orders be considered 'heroic,' or a 'soldiers' patriotic duty.'"
Obviously I don't agree with you. I and the others that served there did our duty. That the war was wrong, there is no question in my mind. But I simply don't buy your alternative description. By your rationale we should all have surrendered or allowed ourselves to be killed I guess........(Not necessarily...maybe you should have fought not to be in to begin with with...I think this is the point)............... I would remind you that your vision, unless you served then or were an adult then is formed in hindsight whaen things seem to be much clearer. I usually say, please don't try to judge someone elses actions unless you have been in the same situation....................(I served and was "lucky" enough to stay stateside in the USMC. The war was immoral and a war of agression...now, that's MY opinion and many others)
"In this respect, you seem to believe in your own,self-wonted images of civic nobility, far above and beyond any objective pudding's proof to the contrary."
I will accept your dsrespectful insult since you don't seem to value civic duty or responsibility. Just remember, if you enjoy privilages without the responsibilities, you soon lose them......................(Responsibility is one thing; agression and war for wars sake is another.)
In the end I don't know what McCain is, but I have no doubt of his physical courage,........(this is only opinion, unless you were there) his moral courage I can't be sure of. I don't defend "him," but at the same time its going to take a bit more than disagreement about serving to swallow that kind of judgement and unless someone war there with him as a POW or can get someone to validate the chareges everyone keeps making (which those guys say is bogus)then they are false.....((then, using that same logic, your "opinion" of his physical courage is invalid.))
As to his voting record, I don't judge someones moral courage just because he doesn't always agree with me or has different values.....(then, on what do you base his moral courage, since you were not present at the time of his imprisonment?) I'm not voting for him because I've come to believe Obama is the better choice to lead our country. Not because he doesn't always agree with me.
I don't buy your suggestion that I have no mkral courage, so its no surprise I won't buy it concerning McCain.
Maverick: A gunslinin',gamblin', con-man with a thirst for cheap booze and pliant young wimmen. Great character for a TV show, wrong characteristics for a President.
Hypocrisy -- that is the answer when you put what McCain writes up against what he's done and who he "pals around with."
Say, I'm on a killing spree and I murder your family without justification.
Then I'm captured, sent to prison, and horribly abused.
Because I'm a rich and important man, I'm released.
I then say, "Why did you stop my killing spree? I wasn't finished".
Am I courageous?
Note that none of the wars the author or McCain mention have got anything to do with defending the USA proper. It's simply (been) a matter of meddling in the affairs of other parts of the world or waging wars of aggression.
This is to this day hardly ever discussed in mainstream(!!) America.
America is not in the danger of being attacked, has never been, since there is NO reason to attack it - Congo for example has tons of the world's most coveted natural resources, now THAT'S a prize, which is exactly why they are in such dire straits and have been for decades - but the USA???? Wars are normally fought for controlling precious resources. What have you got?? Nothing worth the trouble of an invasion.
Don't invoke 9/11: The wars the USA has habitually inflicted on others have meant at least 10 or more 9/11s EVERY SINGLE DAY. So just cut it out.
And still, despite there not being any reason to be attacked seriously, the USA are spending more than anybody else around the world on defense, and when "spending cuts" are mentioned in a presidential debate, this insane military establishment with their 100+ outposts around the world is never even mentioned. Oh no. Although this is what really caused the present quagmire.
It's not that I don't have sympathy with plumbling Joe Sixpack who never had the guts to fight - contrary to us in Europe - for the kind of pay or benefits and vacations that would enable him or his wife to go abroad WITHOUT it being due to him being stationed abroad or having relatives visit him while abroad.
It just strikes me that every American I've met who hasn't been part of the well-healed class exclusively got out of the country with and because of the military. So the US forces are really Club Med for the working class, right?
Quite frankly, there are easier and cheaper ways than creating whopping deficits eventually paid for by China(!!!) to see the world than keeping up this insane level of defense spending. And just give Joe his 5 or 6 weeks of paid leave and a decent wage, then he can go abroad without needing the military to foot the bill.
Would you consider that if "us" in America withdraw, "us" in Europe will be responsible for their own defense? Frankly I'm all in facvor of closing most of our bases there and withdrawing our troops.
Were you planning to defend your own lanes of commerce? Once again, I'm in favor of defending only our own shipping commerce.
I'm suggesting thast you may get what you ask for and be surprised that it isn't what you think it is.
Its popular in Europe (and by some here) I know to denigrate us and blame us for the worlds ills, but its never been true.
Yes, I think that the US should close its bases in Europe. And let Europeans figure out how to deal with their defense. No reason to bother the USA with that any longer.
And, BTW, I wouldn't know why it would be attractive for anyone to attack or conquer Europe either. For the same reasons as why it's not attractive to conquer the US. The only (half-)European country, so to speak, which has any interesting resources is Russia, after all.
Russia wanted a glacis after WW2, a buffer zone, as we know. It still wants one, but this is something that can't be solved by stationing troops but by engaging in politics which encourage mutual understanding.
Sable-rattling is not an element of a sustainable foreign policy.
We're not talking about denigration, we are talking about truth and facts. And it is sickening to keep hearing how 100% selfless the US have been acting when all the facts show that most interventions have been a matter of self-interest. Or to test new weapons and show their efficiency to a large audience of potential buyers (latest example: The bombing of Yugoslavia WAY beyond what NATO had intended, it went on for 3 weeks, the other allies were aghast and tried to stop the US but the US air force kept bombing and bombing - I never thought that the US should have been involved in the first place, BTW).
You might want to study the list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_military_interventions and see for yourself.
There is no difference between the USSR's claims of how they "liberated" all the places they occupied and what the USA did most of the the time. Both empires like(d) to support friendly dictatorships.
I agree. He's a coward. It takes much more courage NOT to kill people than to kill them. Hell, I might like to kill a number of people every day but I'm glad I don't.
As far as McCain's loony assertion, described here, about alleged courage in being killed, how would this stuffed owl know? Has he ever been killed himself? Then how is he qualified to make statements about it?
For all he or anybody knows, letting yourself get killed is very easy and the path of least resistance.
After listening to John McCain on subjects such as these, I am ready to make my statement.
Dwight D. Eisenhower should never have been permitted to become president. Neither should Ulysses Grant, that old drunk, or Stonewall Jackson, the miserable Indian killer. And we had better men (and women) available than George Washington. No Military man should be given the top civilian job in any country, ever, on the basis of world history, and of what has then happened far too often.
Military men get trained in war so much that they begin to believe in it. So keep them in the Military. Throw them out of politics altogether.
Senator McCain may have worked for the people at some time in his life but I think he has been working for the Corporate 'Dark Side' ever since George W. and the Evilgelicals stole the presidency from him in 2000, perhaps even longer.
Guess what? Joe 'The Plumber' doesn't even have a plumbers license! And in 2007 the state of Ohio was forced to collect $1182.98 in unpaid taxes from Joe 'The Plumber'!
Fraud, town hall stooge, RNC plant (shrubbery), phony, right wing whiner, propaganda patriot, call it what you will. Joe "The Plumber's" real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. And he's a figment of the conservative parties imagination.
McCain has proved he's a liar and a coward when on one hand he says he's for alternative energies such as solar and wind, but missed every vote on the subject this year (7, I think). For one vote he was hiding in his Senate office.
McCain is not a hero. He is a long time political whore still pimping himself for another political position. McCain has no honor. He will bend with the wind and smile as he bends over for his corporate clients.
Hoa binh
McCain is driven by a quasi-oedipus complex to seek the presidency as a way of distinguishing himself from his military family. He is angered by his own inadequacy both as a student and military man against the backdrop of two admirals in his family. His insatiable wish to become commander-in-chief is a very personal response to that inadequacy and "maverickness" sic does-not-play-well-with-others handicap.
Come to think of it, Commander in Chief out ranks admirals. You may have a point there.
"I find him a coward. A moral coward."
McCain is a politician with the furious desire of a tornado . . . the desire to sit atop "the bright, shining city on a hill", in the revolting, stomach turning phrase of Ronald Wetboy Reagan. In order to accomplish that, you absolutely have to be a moral coward. That's what Americans want and demand. An honest, forthright person who tells you your country is run by con men and casual killers gets a steady diet of electoral knuckle sandwiches.
Let's not confuse mindless rage with moral courage.
Nice article, but I have to remind the author that George Wallace no longer regrets anything. He's been dead for ten years. I don't think that he is publically doing ANYTHING.
Decent article other than that.
Why don't you get another dead horse to beat? Franky I'm very tired of the continual effort to portray the guy as a coward. Obviously he's not.
Is it really a good thing to copy Rovian tactics? I think not.
Why do you need heros in that country of yours???
From Bertold Brecht's play "The Life of Galileo":
"ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!
GALILEO: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes.”
Thomas More: OH, that's funny!
LISTEN to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRvXEsW4Fgg
WATCH THIS! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C53i-juX17s
"Crack open a cynic and you will find an angry idealist!"
Well I listened and watched. I didn't see one POW that was with McCain say anything. When I checked before, all the POW's that were there said these other reports were false. These guys on the video were saying, POW's told me......I'd ask why you wouldn't believe the men that were POW's with him?
The video, a woman whose son was shot down is conjecturing from an article that this or that happened....lots of opinion, light on proofs.
I am not defending McCain, don't care for him as a matter of fact, but I'd need to see solid proof of the charges these folks were making. In fact, I'd say does it really matter now? Should we get Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden and try them as traitors? One guy said recently it time to let these things go. He's probably right.
Aaaah, Thomas,
Methinks you do not like hearing truth succinctly put. The truth cannot be heard too much, while mendacities are played.
When McCain's self assessments turn out to be false what do you expect?
But I could be wrong !
Jimminey Christmas. I'm gonna get it here!
I know he is no physical coward. Nobody that has gone through what he has is. Too much proof.
In my opinon a man that has...throughout his career...stood up for what he thought was right so many times, even going against his own party. Remember last year, he co-authored the illegals bill (I know it could have been because business bought him) and stood by it till the end and it almost cost him the nomination and has surely helped in his defeat. So I don't see that he has displayed moral cowardice.
Now you have moral as to his wives...I simply don't know the real story, I know that he and his first wife are still friends...I just can't judge something like that.
Morals as to he dropped bombs, he fought in an illegal war, he refused to obey "illegal" orders, if he killed anyone he is a murderer, etc....then yes, if someone holds those opinions, they would say he is a moral coward and we will just disagree. Just remember that I am of course always right. (darn, my wife just hit me)
I don't hold that view (big surprise, as I was there and served just as he did) so I don't believe he is a moral coward.
Side point.....I was watching Maddow last night and she had the Smith dinner on with McCain and Obama, watching them both and believing what they said about each other and their "roast" of each other and others....I feel better about our country, about Obama as President and our future. Go figure!
A person might demonstrate courage & endurance at one point in his life & subsequently fail to do so. John Kerry demonstrated courage as a young man during the Winter Soldier hearings; he failed to demonstrate it either in the propaganda war against the American people or in the 2004 race.
"A bully," Chesterton writes, "is someone who laughs when he hits you but cries when you hit him back." McCain is a coward, as his demand for Obama to repudiate Rep. Lewis' observations shows. Confronted with his own misbehavior, McCain always plays the victim & points the finger elsewhere, as a he did two decades ago.
Mere stubbornness is frequently mistaken for courage; the sure sign of true courage is humility, the sure sign of stubbornness is intemperateness & rage. McCain is merely stubborn, which allowed him to endure -- and which permitted him to call the Vietnamese "gooks", and to defend himself, until reporters finally weaned him from the habit in the 2000 primaries. (See David Brock's & Paul Waldman's "Free Ride".)
He's not? I find him a coward. A moral coward.