The Culture of Death

Let us prey, America

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, March 31, 2005.

Family values. Compassionate conservative. Get over it. Support the troops. Freedom fries. Shock and awe. Axis of evil. Coalition of the willing. Enduring freedom. Toppling dictators. No child left behind. Faith-based policy. Protecting marriage.

Our language has been so deeply enriched -- and our nation's collective I.Q. so diminished -- since the Bush Junta staged their coup in 2000, hasn't it? The Bush Crew are masters at creating comforting slogans to mask the malicious lies and cold-blooded policies that really define their rule.

Now they've added another conversation-stopper to the mix: Culture of death.

In case you yourself have been in a coma and missed it, this is the catch-all talking point used during the sad and sordid spectacle that surrounds the last days of Terri Schiavo. Those who would want to honor the wishes of her husband -- or those who simply believe that the government and courts have no business interfering in this family and medical matter -- are said to promote a "culture of death." In the Pot-Calling-the-Kettle-Black Dept., a North Carolina man was arrested last Friday for offering a $250,000 reward for the murder of Schiavo's husband and $50,000 to kill Judge Greer (a Republican appointee), who ordered the removal of the feeding tube. So much for the "culture of life."

Putting aside all the political posturing and fundamentalist fulminating that Schiavo's situation has engendered, it's remarkable that no sensible leader has stepped forward and opened a dialogue about what's really going on here. Get a grip, America. This is not esoteric stuff. This is the every day pain of being alive. Go down to any hospital emergency room, any intensive care unit, any hospice near you, for crying out loud, and see for yourself.

Is there any American who has not agonized over the final hours of a loved one? And is there anyone who has not lost a loved one who doesn't thereafter think of that person every single day of their life? And is there anyone who isn't himself or herself going to one day be lying in a hospice or hospital bed with, if they're lucky, their loved ones by their side and, if they're horribly unlucky, Tom DeLay and Jeb Bush and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and Randall Terry drooling down their feeding tube?

Right. Thought so. These people don't "love life," they hate the freedoms the rest of us so blithely took for granted before George W. Bush was inserted by the Supreme Court in the nation's rectum as a compassionate conservative suppository.

Which should send a collective shudder down the spine of all who are growing more nauseated by the day with the Republican Party and the right-wing extremists in whose grips it has fallen. If the GOP continues to pander to this insane agenda, we may all hereafter be denied the freedom to grieve for our loved ones in peace.

But that's a small price to pay for promoting the "culture of death," just as the loss of our civil liberties was a small price to pay for security.

How can one even respond to such criminal stupidity? It's like trying to argue with someone whose only rebuttal is, "Why do you hate America?"

My rebuttal, then, is this: It depends on what you mean by "death."

— 32,000 Americans are killed each year by guns, including 10 more last week in a Columbine-style and Hitler-inspired rampage in Minnesota.

— 3,487 Americans currently await execution; the U.S. is the only western democracy that uses the death penalty, and is third behind China and Congo in numbers executed.

— The United States dominates the international arms market, selling 2.5 times more weapons ($150 billion annually) than the second and third highest arms merchants combined.

— Bechtel, which has in the past hired GOP stalwarts Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz and William Casey, supplied most of the weaponry owned by Saddam Hussein. Today, those weapons are used to kill American troops.

— Carlyle Group invests in weapons systems and military hardware. Members of the Bush family (including GWBush's dad) and Osama bin Laden's family own controlling interests in Carlyle.

— Lockheed Martin is the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. Its head lobbyist is former RNC chairman, Haley Barbour.

— One in every two casualties of war are civilians caught in the crossfire.

As I said, it depends on what you mean by "death."

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reprinted from The Hartford Advocate