On Death
and Dying
By
Merrily Davies
I
mean, I was really a square in the 60s. I mean---drugs, forget
it. In all my life I have never even smoked a cigarette. I spent
the 60s on the second story of the library of UCSB while the
bank burned. LSD, I dont think so. I combed and washed my
hair
went to church, too. I mean, I was clean. Would you believe???
I
even voted for Nixon! By all accounts, conservative Republican that
I was, and all, I should have some inkling about what Bush and his
cohorts are all about on this Terri Schiavo issue. But for the life
of me, I havent a clue.
According to
the doctors knowledgeable in this case, Terri Schiavo tragically
can never regain consciousness. Her scull is filled with spinal
fluid. There is zero possibility for recovery. Decisions on cases
such as these are made every day, every week around the country,
24/7. Some of you, no doubt, have had to make a decision about terminating
life support for a loved one when you know the time has come. Yet,
the president interrupts his vacation to charge back to Washington
to challenge the outcome of the courts decision (what a man!!!!).
Yet, a special session of Congress is called. Yet, the presidents
brother, the governor of Florida is summoned to again interfere
with the decisions of yet another court. Yet, the Constitution of
the United States is discarded again.
President Bush
has said that when there is a question of life or death, we should
err on the side of life. It costs thousands of dollars a day to
keep this woman alive. People (who could recover) die every day
from lack of medical attention, because they dont have the
money to pay for it. Yet, in the winter the poor and the homeless
die every day frozen on the streets of our cities. Yet, in order
to keep our oil flowing and the corporate bottom line intact, young
soldiers die every day on the streets of Iraq as a result of lies
that the president told: he knew that these lies would cause the
deaths of our young people as well as thousands of innocent civilians.
Yet, our military continues to litter Iraq with depleted uranium
that is slowly killing our soldiers, Iraqi children, and the rest
of the Iraqi population. Yet, 152 people were executed during Bushs
tenure as governor of Texas, while it is estimated that as many
as 1/3 of the inmates on death row are actually innocent. So much
for erring on the side of life. Yet, many island cultures, coastal
cities and thousands of lives are threatened all over the globe
with the impending disaster of global warming, because the president
refuses to acknowledge the reports of his own science advisors.
Ultimately global warming threatens all life on this planet, while
the president is hiding his head in the gold dust of the corporate
piggy bank.
So, since choosing
life is clearly not really a priority for this President, how can
we make sense of all this? Why would he pick such an absurd case
to champion? What is really going on? The question you have to keep
asking is, "Where's the payoff?" Who benefits from this
media circus? Tom Delay, for one! The longer we focus on this pseudo-news,
the less we focus on his scandals. Those who want us to keep us
slogging away in the Iraq quagmire, for another.
But there may
be an even more sinister side to what's going on. Who benefits when
checks and balances in government are undermined? Who benefits when
courts lose their constitutional power? Who benefits when the tragic
life of this woman is exploited for political theater and turned
into a wedge issue? Do I finally have a clue as to what the president
and his cohorts are all about? In all the hypocritical show of concern
for this one tragically hopeless human life, could this really be
about power? It certainly isn't about Terri Schiavo! Geesh!
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