I once admired Senator John McCain. We even appeared together 16 years ago on a national radio call-in show, just after I returned from my first trip to Iran. I complimented him then for his “independence” and for then having one of the better observers of the Arab world on his staff (Tony Cordesman). One of my best students then was a niece of the Senator. During the last decade, it was Senator McCain, despite his own harrowing ordeal as a POW in North Vietnam, who helped normalize ties with Vietnam, even without “regime change.”
Alas, I don’t recognize the McCain of late, especially this past month amid his “Straight Talk” campaign to be President. His “April Fool’s Day” Alice-in-Wonderland tour of Iraq was bad enough. His comments last week at a South Carolina VFW rally hit an even lower “note.” Challenged with an uber-hawk question about “when are we going to send an air message to Iran,” McCain started by singing the version of the famous Beach Boys tune, “Barbara Ann” with a few bars of “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb…” (Iran.)
The video-clip of McCain’s performance has been played far and wide, and is now enshrined at YouTube.
One wonders if McCain was familiar with last year’s sardonic anti-war video spoof by Adam Kontras, found, naturally, at letsbombiran.com.
More likely, McCain remembers, as I do, the 1980 “propaganda parody” version of “bomb Iran” by “Vince Vance and the Valiants” amid the diplomatic hostage crisis. I found an “mp3” version here. Note the pronunciation then of “I-ran.” Their record label, a sign of the times then was, “Towel Records,” as in “Towel-heads.”
Alas, McCain’s handlers may figure that most Americans are still hostage to those same black and white images of Iran from 1980. In the following clip McCain laughs off a question about the “insensitivity” of his bomb joke with the reply, “Insensitive to what, the Iranians?”
One suspects McCain has watched 300 too much. Or maybe he was trapped by a leading question, cracked a nervous poor-taste joke, and now can’t figure out how to take it back without offending his shrinking base. That would be a charitable interpretation.
Regarding McCain’s quip for critics to “get a life,” Ali Moayedian’s rejoinder will “strike a chord” (if you will) with many:
“Mr. McCain, I will get a life. I do have a life. But what do you have to tell to all the dead? How can you look into the eyes of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children and sing your happy bombing tune? Can you tell them to get a life? I wouldn’t be surprised if you can. I always wonder if people like you have a soul?”
And on the matter of being “insensitive” to Iranians, Moayedian, who writes from California (where hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Americans vote), poignantly asks what Iranians of all stripes will be wondering,
“Mr. McCain, I know it’s too much to expect you to be sensitive to Iranians. After all they must be less of a human. You don’t care about Americans. Why should you care about Iranians?”
Ironically, on the day McCain’s “bomb Iran” clip began circulating, Iranians around the world were commemorating Sa’di day, in honor of the great Persian poet.
Writing seven centuries before Nelson Mandela spoke of “we are humans together or nothing at all,” Sa’di may be best known in the west for his poetic lines on the oneness of humanity:
The sons of men are members in a body whole related.
For a single essence are they and all created.
When Fortune persecutes with pain one member solely, surely
The other members of the body cannot stand securely.
O you who from another’s trouble turn aside your view
It is not fitting they bestow the name of “Man” on you.
Not bad for a writer in the 13th Century – anywhere
Sa’di’s works have been translated into English since the 18th Century, and several recent works on Sa’di are available. I gather too that leading World Literature texts in American high schools now include passages of Sa’di wisdom and wit.
McCain too should be familiar with the “oneness of humankind” poem, as it has graced the walls of the United Nations since its founding. The UN recently put on display a priceless carpet, donated by Iran, with Sa’idi’s original words woven into it in Gold.
Even the current Iranian Mission to the UN features a modern, gender neutral rendering of the same passage on its web home page:
All human beings are limbs of each other
Having been created of one essence
When time afflicts a limb with pain
The other limbs cannot at rest remain.
Sounds more “human” to me than, “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”
A final irony here: The original “Barbara Ann” song was not written or first performed by the Beach Boys. Rather the song was a 1961 “doo-wop” hit by The Regents. Fred Fassert, who wrote the ditty in honor of his little sister, and Chuck Fassert who sang it, were of Iranian descent….
I realize I may already be on thin ice with translation specialists here. The first oneness of humanity passage above is the one my mentor, R K Ramazani, frequently used in his writings.
A particularly “rich” survey of the English translations available of this famous Sa’di passage is provided by Esfahan University professor Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi in “Translation Journal here:
http://accurapid.com/journal/30liter.htm
(and here too)
http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/265/1/Translation-of-Poetry:-Sa%60di&%2339%3Bs-Oneness-of-Mankind-Revisited
Good Poems. So, how about:
“For Whom the Moving Finger Writes”
Omar Khayyam said something much, I think:
Who from iambic couplets did not shrink
To say in verse that each relates to all
As all relates to those of us who crawl
Beneath that huge inverted dome of sky
Which rolls, indifferent to you and I;
Which writes with moving finger and moves on
From twilight through the dark until the dawn
Regarless of what piety or wit
We beg to live again a word of it
Nor with our tears wash out a single line:
The poem of our past we can’t refine
John Donne wrote also of a clod of earth
From off a continent defined at birth:
An island in itself, as is no man
Who yet connects to all the human clan
So that which we of others would compel
Ourselves must suffer and endure as well
For we and they can not identify
A reason why yet one more soul should die
To mark with tolling bells its passage plus
The knowledge that its passing lessens us
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2007
“Not bad for a writer in the 13th Century – anywhere.”
What a curious idea.
So as to make both stanzas of the above poem equal at twelve lines (not quite the fourteen required to make formal sonnets, I admit) I need to add one final couplet:
So let us not ask what fate’s finger writes
For it but chronicles our pointless fights
As Bullwinkle Moose used to say before each failed attempt to pull a rabbit out of his magic tophat:
“This time for sure!”
Which brings to mind Deputy Dubya Bush’s paraphrase of yet another Bullwinkle aphorism: the one Dick Cheney’s propaganda catapulter keeps mouthing after each failed attempt to pull a magic “victory” out of his bungled Iraq-Nam imbroglio:
“No doubt about it: I just gotta get me some new generals!”
Nice essay here on how John McCain “the statesman” and “maverick” would have answered the question….
http://www.payvand.com/news/07/apr/1264.html
I complimented him then for his “independence” and for then having one of the better observers of the Arab world on his staff (Tony Cordesman). One of my best students then was a niece of the Senator.
Helena, jsut in case your student not well loved by his boss or he is inline with John McCain foreign policy “expertise”
More than any other candidate in the Republican presidential field, John McCain argues that his foreign policy “expertise” makes him qualified for the Oval Office. But when it comes to getting policy advice on international affairs, who does the senator turn to? None other than Henry Kissinger.
Salah, this post was by Scott, not by me. I’m not sure what you were trying to say there??
Anyway, kudos to Scott for a great little essay on comparative cultures there– including all those handy links, and of course the info about the Fasserts, which was completely news to me.
Helena,
Oooh not again, my apologies Helena,
Just to clarify my point, scoot is proud having “One of my best students (Tony Cordesman) the better observers of the Arab world on his staff”
I think his student is not different from others Senator John McCain’s close adviser Dr. Kissinger, what a surprise here.
Apologies to Scott too.
لو أحرقوا النهار … ـ
لوأطفأوا الشموس والأقمار … ـ
لو قتلوا الأزهار … ـ
لو دفنوا الحب بأكباد الصغار … ـ
لو جففوا الغيوم والأمطار … ـ
لو سلطوا الإرهاب والخراب والدمار … ـ
لو شيـّدوا ألف جدار … ـ
فالأعظمية دأبها بدء المسار … ـ
والأعظمية دومها تبقى المنار … ـ
ها هنا نور و نار … ـ
فليخسأ الآتون من خلف البحار … ـ
وليخسأ الطاغوت والشذاذ أحفاد التتار … ـ
الشعب قلب واحد … ـ
والشعب دم واحد … ـ
والشعب صوت واحد … لا للجدار ! ـ
طالب البغدادي
ـ24 نيسان 2007
Hi Salah, all…. Sorry if I put to many different references into such a short space. A few quick clarifications:
jwn regulars like yourself may recall that Helena has often mentioned Anthony Cordesman. (check via jwn search enginge) Long before McCain was a Presidential contender, Cordesman indeed had been a top advisor to Senator McCain…. Cordesman long ago moved on to his current CSIS senior position….
In part because Cordesman is so widely read, Helena and I were both dismayed by that poor report he did last August on a presumed Iran-Hizbullah linkage (a report for which he relied heavily on Israeli sources)
https://vintage.justworldnews.org/archives/002068.html
To separate another issue, that former student of mine had a last name of McCain (not Cordesman), and I regret even referencing her, except to emphasize that I once had respect respect for McCain. (a very different JM of the past)
By the way, if we go back into the record on McCain’s statements on normalizing ties with Vietnam, (including one of the links I provided above) we’ll encounter McCain referring to our common “humanity” as part of his justification for how/why the United States had to move past its “mistake” in Vietnam. (which cost him dearly with some Vietnam vet groups)
Maybe there’s an essay or article in that there…. (on why Vietnam, but not Iran….)
As a Vietnam Veteran myself, I never found anything objectionable about normalizing relations between America and Vietnam. Certain reactionary “swiftboat” veterans groups might have, but many other veterans groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War did not.
I never considered the Vietnamese my “enemy,” and I certainly applauded John McCain’s efforts to help America swallow its phony, injured pride so as to begin acting like a mature nation again. Unfortunately, the latent Republican militarist in Mad Dog John has resurfaced vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran, wiping out in my estimation any residual good will I might have felt for him otherwise. His pathetic lusting after the commander-in-chief’s silly little Napoleonic baton makes him unfit for present and higher public office, if not just another right-wing oxygen thief and waste of human skin.
Thanks Michael – for the poem too on “fate’s finger,” and that reminder of Bullwinkle. :-} Now there’s wisdom. You may be right about Vietnam Vets too. (I had worked with a group years ago in Western New York… alas, the “Swift Boat” types are still re-fighting the war and seeking new kin of the “real enemy” to knock down…)
With “bob, bob, bob” still floating in my head, I just read the following grisly story about a very differnt “bob” … in the post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402595.html?hpid=topnews
Same issue of the Post has a lame, MSM-style analysis of McCain’s prospects as he announces today (formally) that he’s a candidate. (duh) (with no mention of the “bomb Iran” incident)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402344.html?hpid=topnews
It includes the following quote:
“The primary challenge for Senator McCain is that all his life he has been a rebel, a maverick who has stuck his finger in the eye of the establishment,” Ayres said. “Today he is running as the candidate of the establishment, and that suit doesn’t fit particularly well.”
Weaver argued that such criticism is a media creation…
I disagree. McCain did it to himself. (including by worshipping at the altar to HAK)
The only “maverick” left (pun not intended) in the Republican party is Chuck Hagel – and I’m increasingly sensing that he’s not even running….
The “GOP” has badly and “fundamentally” lost its way….
Lifelong Republican stalwart Kevin Phillips has a trenchant analysis of the origin and destination of the self-destructing, post-modern Republican Party. He calls it, “American Theocracy: the peril and politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money in the twenty-first century.” Even more amazingly, he still counts himself as a Republican after writing such a deconstructive treatment of the crypto-fascist faction before whose amoral altar Senator John McCain cannot abase himelf enough.
Anyway, it took World War II to learn the lesson of World War I, so one can only hope that with this tragic debacle in Iraq most thoughtful and decent Americans — other than the hopelessly militaristic Cheney/Bush/McCain types — will finally learn the first, last, and only lesson of Vietnam: DON’T DO IT AGAIN!