Fortunate Son faux Business Warrior
Here is Trump in his bluster - “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. Sarcastically, Trump quipped, “He’s a war hero because he was captured.” Then, he added, “I like people that weren’t captured.”
He also tweeted that John McCain "should be defeated in the primaries. Graduated last in his class at Annapolis--dummy!"
Ok, so who is Donald Trump for saying all these things about John McCain. Where was The Donald during Vietnam when McCain was a POW. The topic is covered in both articles. The recent one from Slate and the last year one from the Washington Post. I will quote the Slate one because it gives a little more detail:
Donald Trump’s selective service file reads as follows: Between 1964 and 1966, as American troop commitment in Vietnam escalated and the military draft began in earnest, Trump received three 2-S classifications—student deferments—for being enrolled at Fordham University and later at Wharton business school. In the ’60s, graduate school was an easy way to extend a student deferment until you turned 26, at which point you aged out of the draft. Unsurprisingly, graduate schools became wildly popular destinations in the ’60s. One survey showed 90 percent of MBA applicants were motivated by fear of conscription. Trump’s reasons for pursuing a business degree were, like anyone’s, surely mixed, but the real story lies in Trump’s two medical exams. In July 1968, Trump received a 1-A classification, signaling he was fit to serve on the basis of a physical he had taken roughly two years earlier. Then, in October 1968, Trump was examined again, and classified 1-Y. He was no longer protected by a grad student deferral, but it didn’t matter. He had been made exempt from military service due to an unspecified medical condition.
Not surprisingly, Trump has dissembled on the issue, claiming his high draft lottery number prevented a call-up. But Trump’s publicly available files show he received his 1-Y classification before the lottery went into effect, in 1969. When Trump’s biographer confronted him about the timeline, a curious exchange ensued. “As he talked, Trump slipped off his black loafer and pointed to his heel, where a little bulge pushed against his sock. ‘Heel spurs,’ he explained, ‘on both feet.’ ” By his own account, Trump was a golden boy athlete through high school, “always the best player” on the field, one who excelled “not just in baseball, in every sport.” Yet somehow, thanks to a minor protuberance, he was declared unfit for military service.
I think Postman may have been right (and McCluhan before him) ... modern news, tv news has spoiled our ability to remember. Postman argues, in a number of places, that tv by taking you from gut wrenching news, itself in machine gun fire snippets, to luxury car advertisements destroys our ability to remember and think in a linear fashion.
Or how about this comment from McCluhan -
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
Or this one ...
The modern Little Red Riding Hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objection to being eaten by the wolf.
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