I’m just curious… How many U.S. military personnel do you think have died since the evangelicals set up camp on the front lawn of the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo is being attended to? And, how many Iraqi citizens have died while they’ve been there protesting tearfully on behalf of the sanctity of life?
I realize there’s a strategy here and that it’s not just about this one woman’s life. I know that this is really about abortion and overturning Roe v. Wade, but on the surface doesn’t it seem a little silly that all of these people are so committed to “saving” this one woman’s life when servicemen and women, young people with full lives ahead of them, from their home states are dying on a daily basis?
It seems to me kind of like if PETA protestors were marching outside the home of a family that had decided to put their 15-year old, tumor ridden collie to sleep, instead of at the slaughterhouse across town… I mean, I respect their dedication to life, but if that’s really what they’re trying to preserve shouldn’t they maybe split up, leaving one person at the hospice and sending the hundreds of others somewhere else? Shouldn’t at least a few of them be protesting the death penalty? I’d settle for even one. It would make me take the whole “culture of life” thing a little more seriously.
Speaking of the evangelical protesters, it would seem (at least from the picture that I’ve posted here) that they’re losing patience with the Bush brothers. It seems as though the “culture of life” rhetoric, and all the business of cutting vacations short in order to change the laws pertaining to this woman’s case just weren’t enough. They want action! They want the brothers Bush to bust down the doors of the hospice, regardless of the legality, with feeding tubes in hand, and they won’t be happy with anything less… It would seem as though some more of those chickens might be coming home to roost. (And, yes, my fellow Americans, this is what happens when you start courting the extremist vote.)
(And, while we’re on the subject, it appears as though Ralph Nader has gotten himself mixed up in the whole Terri Shiavo mess… While I respect his opinion, even though it’s different from my own, I was very disappointed to hear that his press release on the matter was issued from the Discovery Institute, the group best known for its attempts to discredit Charles Darwin and the work of evolutionary biologists. My hope is that Ralph just doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, but he’s a bright guy, so I find that unlikely. I hate to think it, but I’m starting to think that maybe he really is just a narcissist who likes to see his name in print. And that pains me to say. I’ve admired him for a long time… Who the fuck knows?)
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Regarding Mr. Ralph…
This is the first time through all the Dems bashing and demonizing of him that I actually am pissed at him. I think he is getting invlved in a place that he ought not to be. I can disagree with my friends of course, but my friends don’t put out press releases with scum bag organizations, either. Maybe Ralph just made a mistake.
I keep wishing that he would go back to his home state and run for the governorship or take fucking Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat. That would be awesome.
I’m also a member of the growing league of disenfranchised Nader 2000 voters. After that election it seemed his goals were less about building viable alternative political parties and more about getting himself into the Oval Office at all costs.
When he started accepting monies from republican groups and signatures from ineligible voters, he started leaving a really foul taste in my mouth.
His core political platform and ideals are still very admirable. It just seems that he only gets really excited in election years and it’s always too little too late.
The governorship idea is a good one.
As for the Shiavo debacle, stick a fork in her already and let these Culture-of-Lifers get back to bombing abortion clinics.
Can we mobilize the anti-choicers er right to lifers to get them to open up “COMA” like warehouses wherein they take and care for those like Schiavo. A nonprofit organization that will take on those bodies holding imprisoned souls whose families wanting their loved one’s bodies kept alive but cannot afford it.
It would keep them busy and out of my hair. But that would make to much sense. Like rallying for affordable childcare, job/pay equality for women, and quality education for children raher than bombing for abortion clinics.
I have not commented lately because I keep feeling like, OK OK Uncle…I give. But I wake up and they are still here. And it seems mere are going over to their side. Now its Jesse Jackson. Whatever.
Hey! Speaking of Coma like warehouses, how do these folk feel aout organ donations? Are they for or against it. Maybe they would liken it to cannibalism which only OK if it is Jesus’ body.
Chris, your comment is the first piece I’ve read on this case that brings up organ donation.
Perhaps progressives should be pointing out that there are other, nonvegatative persons who could greatly benefit from Mrs. Schiavo’s organs. They could spotlight a few children waiting for organs and blame repubs for their ultimate demise. Or is that borrowing from their playbook too much?
Chris: I’ve never heard that Evangelicals are against organ donations. Some religions are, but I don’t think Christianity is one of them.
Why not borrow from their playbook? Since they insist on using the Bible for all their arguments, you almost have to counter them with the Bible as well. It’s easier than you’d think: the Bible has many contradictory passages. Add in a few mistranslations and quotes taken out of context and you can make it say anything you want to say. I once read an entirely bible-based argument on why abortion was *not* wrong, for example.
There are any number of early Christian movements that wold agree with you. I had heard of this pre-“Holy Bood Holy Grail” Jesus fucked his whore and begat Prince Charles bullshit, when attending a Jesuit University. It appears the Cathars were so into the imitation of Christ that their interpretation of the Bible led them to seek out procreation with birth control and abortion.
But yeah, the Christian Right is truly beginning to sound more like the Bitchin’ Right rather than the doin’ Right.