"I just want to mention one issue of the day with you, and that is Cuba. As you know, Fidel Castro announced that he would not remain as president — whatever that means. And I hope that he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon. But the point is that apparently he's trying to groom his brother Raúl [to succeed him]. My friends, Raúl is worse in many respects than Fidel was. The people of Cuba deserve to have the prisons emptied, they deserve human rights organizations working there, and they deserve free and fair elections. That's our goal for Cuba, not perpetuation of the Fidel Castro regime. And we ought to make it very, very clear that we will not provide aid or assistance until the prisons are emptied of the political prisoners... I'm very worried about people who want to extend aid and assistance now, while this regime is in power [for] that would help them remain in power. And, by the way, unless those things happen, I see no reason, whatsoever — whatsoever — to sit down and have unconditional talks with Raul Castro." — John McCain, remarks in Indianapolis, February 22, 2008
In case some idiot still wants to know the difference between John McCain and Barack Obama, there it is. In off the cuff remarks before an audience of 150 in Indianapolis with nary a Cuban-American around and without even mentioning the name of his likely opponent in November's election, John McCain succinctly explained the difference between morality and amorality, principles and opportunism, intransigence and accommodation as these apply to Cuba. He also expressed without apologies, because such sentiments require none, his hope that the tyrant may soon meet his inspiration. This would surely be a greater punishment to Marx, who could not have imagined that the last Western defender of his superannuated philosophy would be a Latin American, as Marx despised all Latin Americans with a passion, from his brilliant Cuban son-in-law Pablo Lafargue whom he likened to a "gorilla" to Simón Bolívar whom he called "the most cowardly, brutal and miserable of wretches."
It was no surprise, of course, to hear Castro's admirers waxing with indignation at the mere mention of their idol's overdue immateriality. We had heard them before when Cuban exiles were celebrating openly, and those on the island in the secret of their hearts, what seemed then Castro's imminent demise. I have never understood why a tyrant's life is deemed sacrosanct and not those of his victims, or how anyone could possibly wish health and a long life to one whose continued existence implies the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent people. All human life is sacred that respects the sanctity of life. Those who make humans their prey or who degrade the human condition by reducing others to slavery have renounced their own humanity and forfeited any claims to human sympathy. Men like John McCain, who have suffered in flesh and bone man's inhumanity to man, know this well enough. His opposition to torture under any circumstances attests to his own humane feelings and even more so his desire that all tyrants should meet divine justice as soon as possible.
It’s no secret that I’m on a one-man mission to make sure every American realizes that John McCain is little more than George Bush in sheep’s clothing (if said sheep were a bleating old man whose desperation for the presidency is evident in every inch of its wool),but today Drum is...outlining how laughably impotent McCain’s anti-torture bill really is. First, the WaPo:
ReplyDeleten federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."
...."Unfortunately, I think the government's right; it's a correct reading of the law," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "The law says you can't torture detainees at Guantanamo, but it also says you can't enforce that law in the courts."
Way to go, McCain. Nothing like giving the architects of a torture policy that finds the Geneva Conventions “quaint” the ability to claim they're really anti-torture by passing your useless bill, all while they continue to “systematically torture” people. Fine work, sir.
And now Drum:
I have a lot of reasons for wishing that liberals would stop falling for McCain's "straight talk" schtick, and this is one of them: even on the issues where he's one of the good guys, he caves in too often to have much of an impact. His ambition to be president is palpable in everything he does, and it's what's responsible for his routine compromises on issues he supposedly considers matters of honor, his cozying up to George Bush whenever it's politically convenient, and his bizarre recent temper tantrum against Barack Obama. He's certainly mastered the art ofsounding reasonable, but it's only an inch deep. Underneath, he's just a standard issue right wing politician. Caveat emptor.
Exactly right. And because I’ve said just about everything I’ve got to say about this Arizona sun-dried turd.
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteAn "Arizona sun-dried turd" is certainly less offensive and more useful than the golden chicken shit emitting from the mouth of a certain Hawaiian goose.
I love that sense of humor: "meet Karl Marx".
ReplyDeleteAs you sharply point, one thing that people tend to forget about Marx is that he was a self-hating Jew, inspiring anti-semitism with his writings.... from that well much drank Adolf Hitler, a closet (self-hating) Jew, according to some historians. Not to mention that the greatest anti-semite of them all, Joseph Stalin, was an obsessed reader of Marx. The same with Castro, whose Jewish grandfather Pancho Ruz he had denied at all times. By the way, Marx was an unrepentant racist as well, and some of it seeped into the Aryan myth, which by the way was implemented by the very non Aryan Adolf. The darkest forces of European totalitarianism are the two sides of the same coin, and identical twin ideologies. Castro as a racist is something that only a person who lived through his wretched "Revolution" can see in its overwhelming magnitude: blacks were considered only common thieves, sportsmen, and musicians or dancers. I heard that from no other than a big hocho in the field of culture and ideology, who half jokingly said that he was racista leninista. It "evolved" from hating (and fearing) blacks to hating the whole Cuban people (and fearing it too) and specially the hate for Habaneros that Castro harbours is so monumental that the city was not only neglected, but many buildings were destroyed on purpose or defaced with communist slogans, or in the case of Malecon, the Maine Monument was mutilated, the Protestodromo in front of the USIS was built as a monstrous carbuncle, and monuments to independence war generals totally neglected..... let's not talk about the destruction of monuments to the legally elected presidents of Cuba (by the way, Batista did not have a statue in Havana, before some lefty jump at it)
ReplyDeleteCastro didn't need "racial laws" to expropriate Jews or to send homosexuals to camps or to discriminate against black and chinese Cubans. No, he did all "por sus cojones" as he said in numerous occasions. Talk about a demonstration that Nazism and Communism have a common birthplace and genesis. Hitler went back to Aryan mythology (there was not such a thing, there was Viking or Nordic mythology he butchered and reassembled anew) and created the new man. Castro reassembled Santeria and Catholicism (in the form of a reformed ideology to reinforce his discourse) and invented a new man whose character was copied from the fascist new man, destroying the influence of the family. And so on and so forth, for long. I hope he meets Marx, Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler, very soon.
charlie:
ReplyDeleteIf anyone doubts that Fascism and Communism are on the same continuum, there is the remarkable case of Belén's retransplanted Falanguist priests who reared the Cuban Stalin.
I hope he meets Marx along with all the othere despots in hell, I sure hope that meeting comes soon.
ReplyDeleteJohn MCain should be retired
ReplyDeletelol
So far our choices are: Hillary, Obama or McCain . . . I'll take McCain hands-down.
ReplyDeleteThink he's too old? Then I suppose you would have thought Winston Churchill was too old also (plus he used to drink like a fish and suffer from several clinical depression from time to time. . . even with all that going against he was brilliant.