John McCain is buried, may his philosophy soon follow.
Now they lay his body down
Sad old men who run this town“Kings,” Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen), 1972
Novelists can align their stories with whatever deeper truth they’re trying to convey. Real life is seldom so neat, but the death of John McCain can neither be separated from nor understood without appreciating its symbolic elements. The mourning functionaries and hagiographic media that laid McCain to rest symbolically buried, without realizing it, the philosophy he so epitomized. Send not to know for whom the bell tolled, it tolled for what they so fervently believe.
John McCain venerated the state, of which he was a product. His grandfather and father were admirals in the navy. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy and spent his entire career working for the government. His philosophy was consistent: there are no constraints on the state. As was his ambition: the accretion of state and personal power. Championing government both at home and abroad, he achieved bipartisan splendor.
Nobody in attendence or watching, when considering issues of war and peace, will preface their thoughts by asking themselves, “What would John McCain do?”.
As far as I’m concerned, he’s dead, he’s burried, let us speak of him no more.
Sadly his rotting corpse may well prove as much or more valuable to the establishment elites of both parties than it ever was alive. And they will have the advantage no longer having to deal with his unpredictable, contrary and hypocritical nature. Just prop up the manufactured image and pontificate a policy not simply as “the right thing to do”, but as a manifestation of “McCain’s legacy”. He will be elevated to such a level of sainthood that any cause associated with his name will be unassailable.
https://theeveningchronicle.blogspot.com/2018/05/speaking-ill-of-living.html