Why John McCain's Brain Cancer is Not a Tragedy

There's a sketch from The Jeselnik Offensive that saw the comedian's entire family put in danger, and it was only aired once.

The controversy stemmed from Jeselnik celebrating the death of a New Zealand man who had been eaten by a Great White. Jeselnik's logic makes perfect sense under certain moral and ethical codes. If you believe that life itself is valuable and that all life is equally deserving and meaningful, then a shark deserves life like anyone, or anything, else. If sharks are killed by the million for sport, sustenance, and luxury, then a bipedal meal is fair game; a victory for the underdog.

If the sea is Great White's home turf, then this is a victory for the home team. Could you imagine, a bunch of clown fish doing the wave and flipping over coral reefs in celebration? If you aren't biased in favor of humans, it's a pretty cool scene.

Prisons are privatized and many institutions put prisoners to work for wages well below the federally mandated minimum wage [1]. The United States is one of the wealthiest nations in the history of organized society, it is also presently the most unequal by some metrics [2]. Presently, health care (also a heavily privatized industry) takes center stage as legislation is drafted that greatly favors those already able to afford health insurance at the expense of those who cannot [3]. Our more developed peers are laughing at us, they don't have a president willing to let thousands die to prove a point and feel superior to someone who's gracefully dodged every Twitter punch Trump's thrown thus far. Actually, seems like not much has changed for Obama as far as Trump's fucking mouth is concerned.

John McCain served in our military and he served in dire conditions, having been kept as a prisoner of war while commissioned as a fighter pilot [4]. I respect that, and I respect anyone who has the courage to risk themselves for what they believe, irrespective of how I feel about what they believe in. Radicals be damned, but they are willing to die for their cause, and that means something.

But things are different now, and the man in the cockpit is far from courageous today. With respect to John McCain, he traded in his stars and stripes for a title, a parking spot, a security detail, money and the respect that comes with a seat in Congress. It's a hard bargain and some take it for the right reasons, and I'm not saying McCain isn't one of those people, but he has failed. They all have.

American politics are a thinly veiled profit machine not so different than the industries politicians tend to work for. The principal difference is the interview process where no resume is submitted and it's all about the connections and the interview itself. Actually, not so different from the American job market I guess [5]. In a country where the greatest predictor of a child's earning potential is their parent's earning potential, I guess it has to be that way right [6].

And so this is a victory for the home team, for the American people. When the government loses focus on protecting the general population because they do not come close to even coming close to approaching an acceptable sample of the American people.

I have no study to cite here, but something tells me there are more federal employees in Washington who have worked in positions of power for Fortune 500 companies than there are that have siblings that suffered life threatening injuries at war. I understand the importance of education and the correlation between getting the training to become a federal employee and not having your leg blown off in Syria, but the point remains that the elected are far removed from their constituents.

As a working class person, workers are my family. John McCain is not on my team. His team is trying to take away my brother's healthcare. John McCain's team's boss is taking vacations every week at an astronomically expensive golf resort while my sister skipped college to work because she knew she couldn't afford it. My trans family member has to go shopping and watch over their shoulder because with all this bathroom legislation going on you just know they're going to be the topic of conversation in aisle three and odds are it won't always be such nice words the trail their tail.

My team is suffering. My team has been suffering. My team works hard. My team is the working people and we deserve better.

We deserve respect, we deserve a dignified life and we deserve to enjoy the splendor that our labor has created be it public parks, giant corporations or hospitals. Companies don't make executives wealthy, workers do. President's don't win wars, soldiers do.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it is. Until we have affordable housing, until we have a single payer, until no one factors whether or not they can afford it when deciding whether or not to seek treatment, until prisoners aren't harvested for slave labor and gays, women, trans and people of color are represented proportionally in positions of influence, until the police are our ally instead of our oppressor, until we have mandated parental leave for parents of any gender, well, until that day...

Fuck John McCain.

Win one for the home team.

[1] National Strike in Prison Labor (New Yorker)

[2] American Wealth Inequality (Fortune)

[3] Trumpcare Takes From the Poor and Gives to the Rich (Rolling Stone)

[4] Mccain was a Navy Fighter Pilot (Washington Post)

[5] The Creeping Influence of Nepotism in Trump's America (Financial Times)

[6] Parent's Income Determines Child's Success (Bussiness Insider)