How did McCain end up in a Vietnamese POW camp?

Dennis Perrin points out that the Vietnamese didn't sneak into the United States and kidnap John McCain from his bed, and that maybe incinerating children from his A-4 Skyhawk didn't make him a hero, and in return suffers the slings and arrows of a group of scandalized liberals.  By all means, read it for yourself.

Comments

[SteveB]

Afterward, in the building's lobby, Barrymore took me aside and said that if I wanted to have a career as a media talking head, there were certain things I shouldn't say.

I always knew that the media was censored, but I never suspected the job had been outsourced to Drew Barrymore's mom.

And I wonder: how long can this continue, with entire realms of human thought ruled off-limits for radio and TV? Historically, when regimes have tried to do this explicitly, people devise alternatives and tune out the official media. How far along in this process are we? The internet is growing, traditional media is shrinking, but the most popular "news" sites on the web are still CNN.com and the like.

This practice of trying to limit discussion to a few well-worn paths seems, like so many practices of our ruling class, unsustainable in the long run. But how long is that run?

[Serafina]

For serious. War Hero McCain always bugs the fuck out of me.

I sometimes wonder whether to point this problem out when I'm arguing with McCain-loving liberals. Usually I stick to pointing out that he's no moderate, despite what they've long thought. But sometimes I can't help pointing out the shammery of the war hero business.

[John Caruso]

Steve: I don't know that it's not sustainable. It wasn't when it was overt, heavy-handed, centralized, direct censorship, but it's far more sophisticated and diffuse these days. People generally have the illusion that they're getting more or less straight and relatively complete information (true of conservatives as well, now that they have Fox). You can see major refinement of the techniques even if you just go back 20 years or so, and they're getting better all the time.

So I think it's possible that this prepackaged, corporate-approved version of reality that we're bombarded with could last indefinitely. There'll always be a few people on the fringes escaping the web, but I can't imagine that becoming the norm rather than the marginal exception.

[ms_xeno]

What Serafina said. In spades.

It was a crushing disappointment to me to realize that all along what liberals really wanted was their own Rambo/Reagan. One would hope that Kerry's overall repulsiveness would have cured them of this longing for good, but I have my doubts...

[John Caruso]

I went from being a garden variety liberal to a raving leftist during Clinton's assault on Yugoslavia, which was a great time to do it, because not just liberals but so many progressives were snowed by it (I remember articles in the Nation and the Progressive praising Clinton's righteous killing). So right from the beginning of my political awakening, any illusions I might have had about the ability of "my side" to see through bullshit were torn apart. It was a difficult but important lesson, and one I'd have had to learn eventually, though really, it might have been nice to live in ignorance for a little while.

Liberals love blood as much as anyone else, so long as it's their guy spilling it. If a Democrat wins the presidency this year, just watch and see how much more popular war suddenly becomes.

[ms_xeno]

...though really, it might have been nice to live in ignorance for a little while...

I routinely wish I could kick myself in the head for not seeing it twenty-five years ago, personally. But better late than never, I suppose.

[SteveB]

John:
I'm not predicting revolution, but more like a gradual turning away from "approved" forms of political engagement and information. Fewer and fewer people voting, fewer and fewer people reading newspapers or watching the news, not because they've been radicalized, but because it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what they think (or so they think) so what's the point of being "informed", anyway?

And that doesn't seem sustainable, to me. When voter turnout drops to 25%, when the average age of people watching Katie Couric reaches a hundred and ten, seems like something should happen. Although I have no idea what that something will be.

[John Caruso]

Maybe you're right. But I don't think there'll be time enough for it to happen before something else comes from the outside to force a huge change—whether it's a worldwide pandemic, global warming reshaping the planet and leading to chaos, blowback (again) in the form of a nuke in a major city, or some other unforeseen catastrophe.