9 thoughts on “McCain: ‘We Make History’ – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. I listened. It was late last night for me and I was concerned enough. McCain bombed, spin it how they may Not only was the speech poorly written and abominably delivered -and to professionally ( I assume) lead cheers and roars, mentioning God countless times, but as to the end which you mention, it was chilling. After the hate & bitterness, fear-mongering & divisive rhetoric of the convention, us against them, McCain wants us to believe he is the best man to bring about peace in this world and bi-partisanship here at home.

    McCain goes out ( after the “we never quit, we never hide” part) to a string of we will “fight fight fight fight fight”, the crowd cheering and roaring, I assume, on cue. It was just chilling.

  2. I must diver from these observations. I listened to the McCain speech and came away with a different view. To suggest that his words to “not hide from history” mean not to read or study or learn from history is just wrong and disingenuous. It is not faithful to the meaning of the words and twists it to mean something other than what it says. It is clear to me that McCain meant that we do not shrink from our historic responsibilities and in so doing we make history. America has proved that over and over. When Pearl Harbor was bombed or when the Twin Towers were leveled, history was made in the worst way. We did not shrink nor hide from these historic and fateful events. We took up the cause of freedom and, dare I say, fought to protect our land and our people.

    To counter McCain’s words with the specter of the weak and feckless administration of Jimmy Carter only serves to reinforce the rightness of McCain’s position. If Mr. Carter were so successful, where is the peace in the Middle East that his talking and compromising was supposed to produce? It was gone in a moment. You do not enter a game with a weak hand unless you are a master player. When you set aside the might of the U.S. military, as the opposition knew Mr. Carter did and knows Mr. Obama will do, then you definitely are playing with a weak hand. I fear that, like Mr. Carter, Mr. Obama is no master at the game of negotiations. When he is playing with evil men who wish us ill, Mr. Obama will squander his hand. And that, my friends, is a very deadly game for this country to lose.

  3. Suzanne-that’s what I like about you “progressives”, you are not “divisive”, no, not at all. You show nothing but respect for conservatives, neo-cons and President Bush, right?

  4. @Gregory Hill:

    We did not shrink nor hide from these historic and fateful events. We took up the cause of freedom

    Well, that all sounds nice. But what was the substance of actions taken? A disastrous invasion of Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11 & everything to do w. a neocon agenda involving settling scores w. Saddam. And now how would McCain define “not shrinking fr. history?” Staying in Iraq for 100 yrs if necessary so that our gamble isn’t lost.

    the weak and feckless administration of Jimmy Carter

    That “weak & feckless” administration negotiated a peace treaty bet. Israel & Egypt who only a few yrs before had fought an incredibly bloody & costly war. That weak & feckless administration’s peace treaty had held since 1979 when, in the interim there has been endless bloodshed bet. Israel & its other Arab neighbors like the Palestinians, Lebanon & Syria. If that’s “weak & feckless” I’d like to know what “strong & tenacious” is.

    The 1979 treaty didn’t solve the entire Middle East conflict. It only brought peace with Egypt & did that extraordinarily successfully. So much for yr. grasp of Israeli-Arab history.

  5. @bar_kochba132: Actually many progressives had great respect for the 2000 McCain who really was a “straight talker” & willing to stand up to the evangelicals & Bush. But few respect the “new & improved” version bought & paid for by lobbyists & willing to tack in the wind to the prevailing political currents.

  6. If McCain is like most Americans, he thinks history is some political fiction that he wants to believe because it’s flattering.

    Speaking as a real historian/archaeologist, history is what people really do, and it’s mostly “the follies and vices of mankind”, to quote another historian, Gibbon.

  7. “We took up the cause of freedom and, dare I say, fought to protect our land and our people.”

    Well, I fought in Viet Nam, and it was *NOT* about freedom, but vanity and the lust to dominate.

    Zhu Bajie

  8. “weak and feckless administration of Jimmy Carter”

    Carter wanted to conserve energy, invest in new energy technologies. If we had done so, the US economy and the world in general would be in far better shape.

    McCain and supporters think their playing Risk. But the people killed are real human being.

    Zhu Bajie

  9. Gregory:

    When you set aside the might of the U.S. military, as the opposition knew Mr. Carter did and knows Mr. Obama will do, then you definitely are playing with a weak hand.

    That’s an indiction of US foreign politics often implied but rarely heard explicitly from right wingers. It’s even half true. With their bellingerency the US have squandered much of the soft power they once had, they have diplomatically neutered themselves to an extent.

    Obama’s proposition to extend the war in Afghanistan, possibly even more into Pakistan is not exactly promising in that regard.

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