alito’s way part-two: the culture of life vs. the culture of corporate profit

Someone at Metafilter had a good post today concerning the hypocrisy inherent in Bush being both “pro-life” and in favor of legislation that would allow companies to test the effects of chemicals on pregnant women and children. (He framed it as, “the culture of live vs. the culture of profit.”) In the course of the ensuing Metafilter discussion, someone calling himself Optimus Chyme offered the following thought:

You know, I hope they do overturn Roe v. Wade. I also hope that we amend the Constitution to get rid of the Bill of Rights. I want evangelical Christianity to be the state religion and I want practicing any other religion to be punishable by death. I want Creationism to be taught in school. I want physics and chemistry decried as heresy. I want neighbors to spy on neighbors and I want children to turn in their parents for subversive words and activities. I want endless war on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the poor. I want habeas corpus and posse comitatus suspended and I want to see camo’d soldiers directing traffic with M-16s. I want regular citizens to tithe to wealthy, untaxed corporations. I want regularly scheduled book burnings and for the government to make all speech – television, radio, newspaper, internet, standing on the street corner – suitable for only for children and always, always patriotic. I want the United States to be a barren wasteland populated by idiots and Morlocks. Then I want us to unleash every nuclear weapon we have on ourselves and on the whole world. I want the sky to burn and the ground to melt. We are a ridiculous, ignoble species that should never have conquered this planet, and we have no business ever leaving it. I beg of you, spacemen, quarantine us, vaporize us, let us never infect the rest of the universe with our insanity.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit too long for a t-shirt.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard yet, it looks like Mr. Chyme’s wish might be coming true. The Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon voted 10-8 (along party lines) in support of Alito, which means that the matter of his nomination will be brought before the full Senate tomorrow. (The chairman of the committee, the previously “pro-choice” Arlen Specter, apparently didn’t have the balls to vote “no,” in spite of the fact that Alito, it’s almost a certainty, would decimate Roe v. Wade if confirmed.) If you haven’t done so already, contact your Senators and let them know how you feel. (For those of you in Michigan, the most recent thing that I’ve heard is that Stabenow has said that she would vote “no,” and that Levin has yet to say one way or the other.) And when you call their offices, don’t just tell them to vote “no” to Alito because he’ll be taking America in the wrong direction — tell them to fight. Remind them (at least the Democrats among them) that we put them there for just this eventuality. This is THE fight, and we expect that they’ll do everything in their power to stop Alito from taking the bench. This, remind them, is why we fought so hard in 2005 to retain the right to filibuster.

If there was ever a time to use the filibuster, it’s now. This is the reason that the filibuster exists. We absolutely need to use it in order to lengthen the debate, break through the noise of everyday life and reach the average, non-CEO Americans that Alito’s appointment will affect. Women, for instance, need to know his stand on Roe v. Wade, and they need to realize that his taking place of Sandra Day O’Connor (who was the swing vote in favor of a woman’s right to choose the last time it came up before the Supreme Court) will mean that they most likely will not have the same freedom in the future that they do now.

Of course, wealthy women, or those women impregnated by men of means, will just fly off to Sweden to have their unwanted pregnancies taken care of, like they did before abortion became legal here. Or, their private physicians will conduct the procedure under a different name. Such laws, as we all know, don’t really affect those in the ruling class. When Ken Blackwell, who is running as a Republican to be the Governor of Ohio, says that he doesn’t feel as though abortions should be an option for victims of rape and incest, remember, he isn’t talking about Bush’s kids, or his own. He’s talking about us little people…. I could go on and on about this, but I need to just calm down and remind myself that I’m an impregnable, white, straight, college-educated, relatively-Christian male, and, as such, I probably don’t really have all that much to fear.