Saturday, March 19, 2005
Plans and being pissed off
Well, I am having a mini-spring break of sorts. Tomorrow, I am taking the Amtrak train from Chicago to Osceola Iowa, which is 40 miles south of Des Moines. A friend is then picking me up. The next morning I rent a small truck and load up the remaining furniture and my much missed other half of my CD collection. Then with the help of another friend who is riding with me, on Tuesday (please whichever God truly rules the universe make the weather permitting!) I drive back to Chicago to move all my possessions into my studio (plus small kitchen/dining area) and make it into a home. I've been sleeping on a very comfortable air mattress for 3 months, but I think my real mattress will be better. The rest of my week will consist of working on some papers, hopefully not too intensely, and actually visited some of the awesome Chicago sites, you know like a tourist would do, except I live in this awesome place!
So, some of my readers are pretty apolitical, but maybe you've heard a few things about the Terri Shiavo case. Latest Yahoo News headline on this story is right here . It absolutely disgusts that the powers that be (Republicans in Congress, White House, and the media) are so intensively getting involved in this one specific case that covers the personal turmoils of one family, just in order to please their mindless base that continues to vote for them despite their basic lack of initiative on doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please.
I can dump links that you won't read, but I think I'll limit myself to two.
First, this brings to mind all of the REPUBLICAN leadership smiling behind closed doors with Grinch-like smiles at an opportunity to put their foot down in the right-to-die debate. Shiavo has had her feeding tube removed and replaced before TWICE by REPUBLICAN governor Jeb Bush, and now after the courts have JUDICIOUSLY INTERPRETED THE LAW to allow this completely incapacitated woman to pass away (and by some interpretations let her soul fly up to heaven), REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN, who have never met this woman or her spouse personally, want to clean their desks of all the cluttered war profiteering investigation request, or Tom Delay ethics violations, and pass legislation from the highest authority in the land to shove that feeding tube back in. Because surely if Shiavo has an ounce of consciousness left, there's nothing that would be more humane or painless than bringing her back from imminent death several times in order to maintain her vegative state. This isn't a matter of a sick person in a hospital having Code Blue's or whatever and being kept alive constantly. This is a person, or what's left of a person, being allowed to die for 4 days or so, only to have the Governor from his desk miles away forcibly have her feeding tube put back in. A dark recess of my mind couldn't help but think that in this situation a more humane death would have been the smothering of her with a pillow when no one was looking. I can see this getting into murky moral ground here, so lets get back to REPUBLICAN hypocrisy, or in this case just last minute political maneuvering inconsistent with any moral values.
Here, read this damn thing and also this . REPUBLICANS and the Bushies don't care about the sanctity of life. They only care because this is an issue the religious right's base could fixate on instead of 1500 Iraqi dead, Tom Delay's corruption, and billions of taxpayer money for protecting our solidier's siphoned off by a shadowy greedy Halliburton VP. They also didn't raise a stink in the above linked cases, when issues like sick blank infants, or people too poor to be hooked up indefinitely to machines to keep them breathing raised to many "complicated issues" to publicly advocate against right-to-die laws.
If Terri's parents and spouse got along and decided to not their loved one's condition tear them apart, this would just be a private trajedy that no one would be involved with, including these folks , who could probably better spend their time serving the homeless or volunteering at a public health clinic in the inner city. But, no, REPUBLICANS, with no real ideas, have to gnash their pointey teeth into this, and destroy whatever humanity is left in Terri Shiavo's body by throwing her in the spotliight. Oh yeah, some even want to SUBPEONA HER to appear before Congress . As the blogger said "What the HELL?!?".
Many good writers and well-known bloggers are just as angry at this, and are just as shirll but more articulate. As a progressive liberal type there are so many things on so many levels to be outraged about, but this is one of the few news items that I can add to my evidence file for a future LD-style debate where the Contention is "REPUBLICANS are monsters".
Now, why have I capped it every time I type REPUBLICANS? Well, basically they have no consistent principles other than callously using any means to hold onto power. That's it. If you identify yourself as a Republican and "damn proud of it", you endorse this kind of exploitation. You don't support a right-to-die, because if you did would be fighting for the lives of poor and minority patients across the country, who due to circumstances beyond their control are allowed to slowly die because they do not have the resources to go on living. The values inherent in Republicanism and Bushisms are so absurd and adapted to the news story today that the party might as well have their binded copy of their platform full of blank pages.
Go ahead and be a conservative warmongerer, or torture-in-some-cases-when-the-person-is-Arab-and-swarthy guy. Be a conservative Christian, be a closet-racist-homophobe, identify yourself with any on of these far-right groups, and possibly you will have a footing on which to debate anyone you are opposed to. But don't identify with national-level Republicans. Not after this. You might as well call yourself members of the Inner Party.
whew, have a great rest of your weekend! Hope I didn't scare you. I would appreciate any thoughts, even comments, like "Calm down Jonah!".
So, some of my readers are pretty apolitical, but maybe you've heard a few things about the Terri Shiavo case. Latest Yahoo News headline on this story is right here . It absolutely disgusts that the powers that be (Republicans in Congress, White House, and the media) are so intensively getting involved in this one specific case that covers the personal turmoils of one family, just in order to please their mindless base that continues to vote for them despite their basic lack of initiative on doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please.
I can dump links that you won't read, but I think I'll limit myself to two.
First, this brings to mind all of the REPUBLICAN leadership smiling behind closed doors with Grinch-like smiles at an opportunity to put their foot down in the right-to-die debate. Shiavo has had her feeding tube removed and replaced before TWICE by REPUBLICAN governor Jeb Bush, and now after the courts have JUDICIOUSLY INTERPRETED THE LAW to allow this completely incapacitated woman to pass away (and by some interpretations let her soul fly up to heaven), REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN, who have never met this woman or her spouse personally, want to clean their desks of all the cluttered war profiteering investigation request, or Tom Delay ethics violations, and pass legislation from the highest authority in the land to shove that feeding tube back in. Because surely if Shiavo has an ounce of consciousness left, there's nothing that would be more humane or painless than bringing her back from imminent death several times in order to maintain her vegative state. This isn't a matter of a sick person in a hospital having Code Blue's or whatever and being kept alive constantly. This is a person, or what's left of a person, being allowed to die for 4 days or so, only to have the Governor from his desk miles away forcibly have her feeding tube put back in. A dark recess of my mind couldn't help but think that in this situation a more humane death would have been the smothering of her with a pillow when no one was looking. I can see this getting into murky moral ground here, so lets get back to REPUBLICAN hypocrisy, or in this case just last minute political maneuvering inconsistent with any moral values.
Here, read this damn thing and also this . REPUBLICANS and the Bushies don't care about the sanctity of life. They only care because this is an issue the religious right's base could fixate on instead of 1500 Iraqi dead, Tom Delay's corruption, and billions of taxpayer money for protecting our solidier's siphoned off by a shadowy greedy Halliburton VP. They also didn't raise a stink in the above linked cases, when issues like sick blank infants, or people too poor to be hooked up indefinitely to machines to keep them breathing raised to many "complicated issues" to publicly advocate against right-to-die laws.
If Terri's parents and spouse got along and decided to not their loved one's condition tear them apart, this would just be a private trajedy that no one would be involved with, including these folks , who could probably better spend their time serving the homeless or volunteering at a public health clinic in the inner city. But, no, REPUBLICANS, with no real ideas, have to gnash their pointey teeth into this, and destroy whatever humanity is left in Terri Shiavo's body by throwing her in the spotliight. Oh yeah, some even want to SUBPEONA HER to appear before Congress . As the blogger said "What the HELL?!?".
Many good writers and well-known bloggers are just as angry at this, and are just as shirll but more articulate. As a progressive liberal type there are so many things on so many levels to be outraged about, but this is one of the few news items that I can add to my evidence file for a future LD-style debate where the Contention is "REPUBLICANS are monsters".
Now, why have I capped it every time I type REPUBLICANS? Well, basically they have no consistent principles other than callously using any means to hold onto power. That's it. If you identify yourself as a Republican and "damn proud of it", you endorse this kind of exploitation. You don't support a right-to-die, because if you did would be fighting for the lives of poor and minority patients across the country, who due to circumstances beyond their control are allowed to slowly die because they do not have the resources to go on living. The values inherent in Republicanism and Bushisms are so absurd and adapted to the news story today that the party might as well have their binded copy of their platform full of blank pages.
Go ahead and be a conservative warmongerer, or torture-in-some-cases-when-the-person-is-Arab-and-swarthy guy. Be a conservative Christian, be a closet-racist-homophobe, identify yourself with any on of these far-right groups, and possibly you will have a footing on which to debate anyone you are opposed to. But don't identify with national-level Republicans. Not after this. You might as well call yourself members of the Inner Party.
whew, have a great rest of your weekend! Hope I didn't scare you. I would appreciate any thoughts, even comments, like "Calm down Jonah!".
Comments:
<< Home
I'm sure Chris Lyon wanted this to appear in comments, so here it is cut and pasted from my e-mail notification.
Hey Lyon, I'll have a response coming pretty soon. I just had to vent my political frustrations and knew I just might provoke the only devout Republican I have known personally who has a blog. So, regarding any conservative political arguments you want to throw at me, as President Bush so eloquently said "Bring em' on!" Ha ha, cavalier attitudes from people who have never actually risked their lives in combat is HILARIOUS.
Here's Lyon:
Well, I've been waiting for a political post to gnash my pointey republican teeth into. Now, i've got one.
Yes, Jonah, I do identify with the federal republicans, perhaps not DeLay, but most certainly Bush.
I'm not sure that intervention on the federal level is the right thing to do, but I don't think that removing Terry Schiavo's feeding tube removed, and letting her starve to death, is the proper course of action, either.
Frankly, this case has a lot of conservative intellectuals, like George Will, squirming in their seats. One of the contributors to the weblog Powerline (Hindrocket, I believe) felt that this issue shouldn't go beyond state court level. I'll grant you that this is very controversial, but I won't grant you this:
"It absolutely disgusts that the powers that be (Republicans in Congress, White House, and the media) are so intensively getting involved in this one specific case that covers the personal turmoils of one family, just in order to please their mindless base that continues to vote for them despite their basic lack of initiative on doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please."
When a person wants to pull the plug on another person, and we're asked to take his word for it without any written consent, then, bang; That's a socio-political issue, not just a matter of personal turmoil.
Should we take Michael Schiavo's word for it? Here's someone who is passionate about ending his wife's life, but apparently not passionate enough to get his wife to a lawyer. If you're passionate enough abot dying to get a lawyer to get it in writing, then you have the right to die. If not, then you live. And as you have established, we're not talking about poor, black children, we're talking about someone with the means and the time to see an attorney and get it in writing.
Is the Schiavo case being exploited? You betcha. But exploitation is not necessarily bad, or wrong. The bird that eats flies off of the African elephant is exploiting the elephant, but it's a symbiotic exploitation.
Who are REPUBLICANS exploiting harmfully? The family? Nope, they want Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted. Terry? Nope, she either is in a vegetative state, and is not mindfully present for us to exploit harmfully, or she's more than that. In which case exploiting her case could lead to a second chance on a meaningful life.
Maybe Michael Schiavo gets the shaft, but if he wanted to take responsibility for Terry's life, the time for it was far more than 15 years ago. The time for passion has expired, unlike Terry.
And your argument that REPUBLICANS are just being political doesn't wash with me, either. A politician can simultaneously believe in a cause, and believe that they can score a better position with it. This is what politicians do. I don't understand why this shocks people so. When Andy Roddick scores an ace off of a 150 m.p.h. serve, nobody says "Oh well, he's just playing tennis!" Politicians are going to play politics. Bill Clinton did for eight years, and I didn't hear anyone complaining then (talk about not "doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please."! Go ahead, name one, I dare ya!)
Speaking of unemployment, the unemployment rate has gone down from a high of 6.3%, to 5.4% today. Perhaps the reason why Bush hasn't directly tackled unemployment is because he can tackle it quite effectively with indirect means.
Speaking of unemployment...
All of the topics you raise bring out the Classicist's broom in me. It's impossible for me to comment, in a single sitting, on all of the issues that you raise in only ten paragraphs. A greedy, shadowy Haliburton VP, unemployment, terrorism, the Christian Right, minorities, the poor, etc. How did the Terry Schiavo case become about all of this? Perhaps it's a federal issue, after all!
Lyon
P.S.
By the way, my grandmother used to live in Osceola, she's a democrat, too...
Post a Comment
Hey Lyon, I'll have a response coming pretty soon. I just had to vent my political frustrations and knew I just might provoke the only devout Republican I have known personally who has a blog. So, regarding any conservative political arguments you want to throw at me, as President Bush so eloquently said "Bring em' on!" Ha ha, cavalier attitudes from people who have never actually risked their lives in combat is HILARIOUS.
Here's Lyon:
Well, I've been waiting for a political post to gnash my pointey republican teeth into. Now, i've got one.
Yes, Jonah, I do identify with the federal republicans, perhaps not DeLay, but most certainly Bush.
I'm not sure that intervention on the federal level is the right thing to do, but I don't think that removing Terry Schiavo's feeding tube removed, and letting her starve to death, is the proper course of action, either.
Frankly, this case has a lot of conservative intellectuals, like George Will, squirming in their seats. One of the contributors to the weblog Powerline (Hindrocket, I believe) felt that this issue shouldn't go beyond state court level. I'll grant you that this is very controversial, but I won't grant you this:
"It absolutely disgusts that the powers that be (Republicans in Congress, White House, and the media) are so intensively getting involved in this one specific case that covers the personal turmoils of one family, just in order to please their mindless base that continues to vote for them despite their basic lack of initiative on doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please."
When a person wants to pull the plug on another person, and we're asked to take his word for it without any written consent, then, bang; That's a socio-political issue, not just a matter of personal turmoil.
Should we take Michael Schiavo's word for it? Here's someone who is passionate about ending his wife's life, but apparently not passionate enough to get his wife to a lawyer. If you're passionate enough abot dying to get a lawyer to get it in writing, then you have the right to die. If not, then you live. And as you have established, we're not talking about poor, black children, we're talking about someone with the means and the time to see an attorney and get it in writing.
Is the Schiavo case being exploited? You betcha. But exploitation is not necessarily bad, or wrong. The bird that eats flies off of the African elephant is exploiting the elephant, but it's a symbiotic exploitation.
Who are REPUBLICANS exploiting harmfully? The family? Nope, they want Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted. Terry? Nope, she either is in a vegetative state, and is not mindfully present for us to exploit harmfully, or she's more than that. In which case exploiting her case could lead to a second chance on a meaningful life.
Maybe Michael Schiavo gets the shaft, but if he wanted to take responsibility for Terry's life, the time for it was far more than 15 years ago. The time for passion has expired, unlike Terry.
And your argument that REPUBLICANS are just being political doesn't wash with me, either. A politician can simultaneously believe in a cause, and believe that they can score a better position with it. This is what politicians do. I don't understand why this shocks people so. When Andy Roddick scores an ace off of a 150 m.p.h. serve, nobody says "Oh well, he's just playing tennis!" Politicians are going to play politics. Bill Clinton did for eight years, and I didn't hear anyone complaining then (talk about not "doing ANYTHING comprehensive to directly tackle terrorism, unemployment, poverty, any damn issue you please."! Go ahead, name one, I dare ya!)
Speaking of unemployment, the unemployment rate has gone down from a high of 6.3%, to 5.4% today. Perhaps the reason why Bush hasn't directly tackled unemployment is because he can tackle it quite effectively with indirect means.
Speaking of unemployment...
All of the topics you raise bring out the Classicist's broom in me. It's impossible for me to comment, in a single sitting, on all of the issues that you raise in only ten paragraphs. A greedy, shadowy Haliburton VP, unemployment, terrorism, the Christian Right, minorities, the poor, etc. How did the Terry Schiavo case become about all of this? Perhaps it's a federal issue, after all!
Lyon
P.S.
By the way, my grandmother used to live in Osceola, she's a democrat, too...
<< Home
