Flashback, John McCain of 2000:
On his campaign bus recently, Sen. John McCain told reporters, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” Although McCain said he was referring only to his prison guards, there are many reasons why his use of the word “gook” is offensive and alarming.
It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.
It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.
Five years in a POW camp. He says they referred to the guards as “gooks”.
How is he responsible for what other people said or meant by a word almost 40 years after the word was originated?
But keep up the yellow journalism. He didn’t call “Vietnamese” gooks, he called his prison guards “gooks”
Stick with plugging in USB cables and stay away from any pretense of journalism.
But keep up the yellow journalism. He didn’t call “Vietnamese” gooks, he called his prison guards “gooks”
So, he called Vietnamese people “gooks.” I didn’t realize racism has a “that person was a bad person” exception.
You can call Osama bin Laden a “raghead,” too. That still makes it racist.
Duh – why doesn’t he phrase it “I hated the guards?” “I hated the North Vietnamese Soldiers?” Even “I hated the damned reds?” If I get beat up by a Mexican guy, is it okay for me to call him a “spic?” Why use language that demeans an entire ethnicity for a particular person you don’t like, even if you don’t intend to demean the entire ethnicity?
I cut him some slack, because his guards dislocated his shoulders and then hung him by his elbows for 3 days at a time. I don’t know, I am a forgiving guy that way.
But seriously, actions speak louder than words. I have always wondered about McCains sanity when he wanted to normalize relations with the Vietnamese after the war. The people who approved of McCains years of torture were now running the country and McCain had essentially forgiven them!
My point about the language was that McCain and his compadres were the original users of the term “gook”, at least en masse. His definition of it relates to the original usage, not whatever it morphed into over time.
Finally, Pollack, there were cubam guards in the POW camps too.http://www.vvof.org/cuba_res.htm
I cut him some slack, because…
No, you cut him some slack because you’re a weak-minded right wing robot parrot troll.
Shorter WMRWRPT duh: Racism in the defense of Republicans is a good thing.
Finally, Pollack, there were cubam guards in the POW camps too.http://www.vvof.org/cuba_res.htm
…. what? Seriously, what the hell does that have to do with anything? There were Cuban(?) guards at his POW camp so that means he…. didn’t use a racist slur?
The word “gooks” has always been racist; it was as much an epithet 30 years ago as it is today; I remember it being used towards Laotian and Vietnamese refugees when I was in grade school in the 70s, and it was not a compliment.
The truth is that the language used by older generations often seems anachronistic and even offensive by today’s standards. I didn’t agree with some of the language my 80 year-old great-grandfather used while I was growing up, but I certainly didn’t correct him and recognized that he spoke largely from ignorance rather than hatred.
If we judge McCain by the same standards I judged my great-gradnfather, he becomes just another old man who can’t let go of the past. But McCain is not just someone’s grandfather, he is running for the President of the United States. And the fact that he is still uses such language without any apparent remorse – either from ignorance or because he just doesn’t give a damn – is disturbing.
yea well quaker the world doesn’t actually revolved around what you remember from the 70’s. See, McCain was imprisoned in….wait for it…the sixties! And according to McCain’s own words, he used the term in reference to his prison guards.
Now, for august, who apparently sits on the short bus of life, if some of mccains guards were Cubans, then he wasn’t using the term “gook” as a racial epithet, but rather as an epithet directed against his guards.
Duh…
Now, for august, who apparently sits on the short bus of life, if some of mccains guards were Cubans, then he wasn’t using the term “gook” as a racial epithet, but rather as an epithet directed against his guards.
So it’s okay because he called someone of a different race a racial slur? So, what, if you call a Puerto Rican a n—-r it’s not racist?
Are you fucking retarded?
My point, dunderhead, is that McCain is running for the president of the United States, that he should have some idea of the implication of the words he uses, and that he should be mature enough at this point to put that word away – no matter how much he may still hate his captors – and understand that it is as patently offensive as the n-word.
And the word “gooks” was as racist in the 60s as it was in the 70s – in fact the origins of the word trace as far back as the late 1800s. It has a long history as a racist way to refer to southeast Asians in general.
Riddle me this August J.: How can it be a racial slur if race isn’t involved?
If you call a white guy a “gook” is that a racial slur against the white guy?
If a rapper says “hey, n….r whats up?” is THAT a racial slur
Seems like your internal contradictions would just make a persons head explode, well, a thinking person’s anyway.
McCain doesn’t have any racist bones in his body. I guess we’ll have to look at his other tissues and organs. Like his spleen or his skin.
So how do those who make excuses for McCain’s racism deal with the fact he opposed divestment from apartheid era South Africa?
Answer the question, duh.
Speaking as a half Vietnamese OIF veteran, I think John McCain has too much pent-up anger to hold a position of great responsibility (like President). Especially if he can’t control himself enough not to use racial slurs directed toward ANYONE. I don’t give a damn who he was talking about, it was just as irresponsible as calling a group of people porch monkeys.
His anger stemming from his ordeal as a POW was not his fault at all, of course, but it is what it is.
It’s Lieberman with whom we should have the problem. McCain is not a traitor to the Democratic Party. He is a right-wing tool and an hypocrite, but not a traitor.
Grendel plenty of people didn’t think that divestment was the best way to change apartheid. They argued that by maintaining a seat on the board as it were, they were better able to affect the companies policy.
But man, you guys are really on message and wired into the DNC talking points!
If just taking your toys and going home is such a great policy, why is The Obama so interested in talking, unconditionally, with enemy states? I thought this two way communication was a good idea?
Oh and WTN? Read my post above and google mccain normalizing relations Vietnam. As I pointed out, McCain has been one of the driving forces behind opening up relations with Vietnam, to the point of making various trips to that country.
And of course McCain’s opposition to the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, jr. (which he has repeatedly lied about) was just because he didn’t want an extra day off, right?
reference please?
aah yes, I see it now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/01/mccains-memphis-visit-ra_n_94531.html
Mccain didn’t think it should a FEDERAL holiday, but encouraged it as a state holiday. And since then has had a change of opinion, like, I don’t know, Obama and offshore oil drilling.
Now grendel, where would you like to move the goalpost to next?
Mccain didn’t think it should a FEDERAL holiday, but encouraged it as a state holiday.
1987: McCain Supports AZ Governor’s Effort to Rescind Martin Luther King Day
as State Holiday. In 1987, Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded “what he
termed an illegal executive order by his predecessor, Democrat Bruce Babbitt,
to establish a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Speaking to the Arizona Teenage Republican Convention, when asked about
Mecham’s decision to rescind the holiday, “McCain said that he felt Mecham was
correct in rescinding the holiday.” [Washington Post, 1/14/1987; Phoenix
Gazette, 4/13/1987]
This is McCain opposing a state holiday, never mind the federal holiday.
So McCain favored profiting off of apartheid and opposed recognizing Martin Luther King, jr.
You fucking lying racist apologist.
If just taking your toys and going home is such a great policy, why is The Obama so interested in talking, unconditionally, with enemy states?
Duh – I generally give you more credit (and thus the benefit of the doubt) than this sir. South Africa was not leaned on only diplomatically, but also economically, something vetoed in the 1980s, btw, by the Reagan and Thatcher Administrations in the United Nations, because South Africa was – you guessed it, a bulwark against commie influence.
Senator Obama has advocated diplomatic contact with states where the United States State Department currently has no or little presence. I imagine he has done so because it has not de-legitimized them for the United States to cover our eyes and scream ‘LA LA LA,’ and good information can only help us, not hurt us. Diplomatic black holes are deadly, for they leave us ignorant of a region’s domestic politics.
It will not lend them our legitimacy, such as it is, to have their people meet our people. And I can only assume that the phrase ‘enemy states’ refers to countries run by dictators not already allied to us, or maybe dictators and democratically elected leaders (such as Ahmedinejad and Chavez) that replaced our dictators.
And since I’m certain attacks on patriotism are beyond the pale for any poster in this forum, I feel pretty comfortable that we can all grasp the nuanced position of pointing out that America has and currently does support allied dictators, but that that does mean one hates the United States.
In other words, shorter me – economic v. diplomatic contacts. Apples n’ oranges.
**If it was unclear, I was not suggesting that Chavez or Ahmedinejad directly replaced American-supported clients. But both are from regions (or in Ahmedinjad’s case, a country) where America has exercised a heavy hand.**
Grendel, read my damn link
Mecham rescinded Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday, saying it had been established through an illegal executive order by his Democratic predecessor.
You pig-eyed, bigoted jerk.(I figure I need to get in on the ad hominem attacks, it seems like it de rigeur here.
Well said as usual parth.
Then let us also agree that simply disagreeing with a policy of straight divestiture with regard to south africa is also not prima facie evidence of racism.
I am pragmatic enough to recognize that when it comes down to “our” sons of bitches dictators and “their” sons of bitches dictators, I will always be more supportive our ours.
Those of us who have some history with actually supporting civil rights have heard the “we don’t like outsiders coming in and telling us what to do” line repeatedly and know exactly what it means.
1987 wasn’t that long ago, pretty much all of us remember what it was like so you can’t use the Strom Thurmond defense “Oh, it was a different time…” We remember 1987, and a lot of us remember where McCain stood at the time.
He lies about it now, pretending he always supported the holiday. The truth is we can’t really know his position on racism any more than we can know if he really feels the religious right are agents of extremism, because he changes his policies depending on who he’s talking to and what the prevailing attitude is at the time.
Grendel plenty of people didn’t think that divestment was the best way to change apartheid.
Except, oddly enough, for the black South Africans.
Huh. Cubans are “gooks” now? Learn something new every day.
How is he responsible for what other people said or meant by a word almost 40 years after the word was originated?
In other words: “Sure, I said ‘n*****’, but it’s not my fault that word is racist.”