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Originally Posted by ibex
I agree with the principle of the op ed, that it's always dangerous to turn any leader into a god who shits marble. Obama's skills in oratory, his photogenic appearance and his youth have made him something of a media darling for the moment so it's all too easy for an opponent to use his popularity against him, but he's hardly the first public figure in American history to have this double edged sword of Damocles hanging over his head. It took a whole decade to debunk the mystique surrounding JFK and most conservatives today talk about Reagan as if he were Jesus Christ. Obama gets my vote simply because the Supreme Court is just two justices away from becoming a Fascist rubber stamp for the next GOP administration. If he can deliver on one tenth of his campaign promises I'll be shocked but to be honest, I would have voted for any Democratic candidate against a ghoul like John McCain or any of the other reactionary creeps that the Republicans cared to foist on the electorate.
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We live in a nation where the feeble minded need everything dumbied down for them. Thus the Hero/Evil-doer contrast fits the needs of those people who were neither "left behind" nor "educated".
We have people --- right here on this board --- who glorify lack of knowledge as though being stupid or ill informed goes hand in hand with some sort of folk hero image.
Sure there are people who are undereducated who have never pursued any greater knowledge than they happened to pick up in their school yards or on the streets who excell in a variety of endeavors. Those people are very few and far between! Moreover, for each and everyone of them I have ever encountered---they had the gumption that led them to complete their education on their own.
Now every liquored up/drugged up, drop out in the nation wants to be accredited for accomplishments and accorded the respect earned by those men and women who struggled to overcome the disadvantages they choose for themselves (or were dealt by life). Part of the pipedream promises of these folks INCLUDES over attribution of any number of traits to those who have not in fact, quite made the sacrifices or efforts of those who rightfully stand shoulders above them in their careers.
The saddest part of this is not that we NOW have reached the point of diminishing the achievements and will and efforts and sacrifices of our true heroes---but that we are teaching our children that it should be okay for them to be the least that they can be to get buy and still they can expect the most from life.
It is dishonest. It just doesn't work that way!
McCain's service in the military should be respected --- for what it was! It certainly should not suggust that he has any knowledge or accumen that would make him a competent president.
For him to suggest otherwise is to piss on those who have spent DECADES in service to our military climbing the arduous and slow ladder of promotions in rank. Fighting and serving valiantly in not one---but two or three conflicts!
McCains military resume is scant by comparison to those of many in the Pentagon presently.
I find it despicable that HE HIMSELF is not humble enough to make that clear to this nation each and every time he mentions his service! Unfortunately is seems that McCain thinks his time in service is of more important than that of those who faced the enemy of several wars from the front lines of action, in hand to hand combat, with live rounds all around. Or of those who for 20 or 30 years returned again and again and again to war zones knowing that their knowledge of combat would be the only thing between some of the child/men in service and death!
I have more respect for those whose mission has been to "get their boys out alive" EACH and EVERYDAY --- worrying and training and calculating to enhance their chances --- using as their only superweapons --- experience and know-how! Those men are the angels who place their lives between frightened armed KIDS --- who have been trained to fire a weapon but who no way of knowing all that they will face --- and lifetimes of disability or lifetimes curtailed in the whir of an instance! Many of THOSE men don't have to go their. They have the seniority and more importantly they have no moral obligation to this nation to keep letting the kit and kaboodle (their lives) ride on the next roll of the dice.
But they return! Without the titles of generals or the protections that those titles provide! I for, one thank God for their existence!
THEY are my heroes!
Not the generals and admirals! And certainly not the pretty boys who spend lifetimes pimping their service for personal prestige!
McCain's service, for what it was, was respectable---but for HIM it is not enough that we respect it!
He is NOW insisting that we WORSHIP it! That we REWARD it with the office of the Presidency! I could not be more disgusted!