[Peace-discuss] Re: Liberals and Schiavo

[Tom Mackaman]

I'm sad to see you lining up with the extreme right in your coments below on the Schiavo case, Carl.  Using rhetoric such as "judicial murder", as you do, would be merely juvenile if it weren't so significant.  But such blood-curdling rhetoric has consequences.  If you really think, joining Delay and the quasi-fascist right, that this is "murder," then those who would take up arms and kill in order to "liberate" Schiavo would be within their right, as would those who might seek revenge on her "killers".  The very same language you use, Carl, has incited deranged anti-abortion zealots to kill doctors in the past.  As it stands, Michael Schiavo has already been the target of planned assasinations, and one religious fanatic (from Illinois!) attempted to seize guns in order to attack the hospice.  M. Schiavo and the judges involved have to be under 24 hour police surveillance.  So much for the "culture of life".  

Like all the articles that view the situation as one of murder, that which Carl posted rests on misinformation.  T. Schiavo is not "disabled"(!), nor is she merely "brain damaged."  All the credible neurologists who have analyzed her have concluded that there is zero brain activity and zero chance for recovery.  Her brain is liquified; all that remains is a brain stem (the end of the spinal column) which controls the series of nervous reactions her parents tragically mistake for communication.  The only basis to argue that she thinks, "wants to live," or to believe that she has the chance to recover, is religion.  Of course, that is the principle that her parents and the extreme right operate from.  Yes; Schiavo cannot now say what she wants-- nor will she ever be able to do so.  The courts in this case have based their decision on the aforementioned scientific analysis and the legal guardianship that her husband maintains as next-of-kin.  This is as it should be.   
 
This case is signficant for a number of reasons.  Most prominent among them has been the attempt to pass a number of special laws designed for one person.  That is a striking departure from long-standing Anglo-Saxon legal tradition and presages further erosion in basic civil rights.  It is an attack on both the separation of powers (the executive and the legislative attacking the judicial) and the theory that governance be constructed as rule of law over rule of men.  Second, it shows the degree to which out-and-out relgious irrationality has been embraced as public policy by most of the ruling elite and the media.  Science and rationality prevailed in the court decision, but they have taken a beating at the hands of the press and the political class.  Third, and contrary to what Carl argues, it shows once again the spinelessness of the liberal Democrats in Congress, who either lined up with the religious fanatics or simply vanished, in spite of polls which show that the vast
 majority of Americans--including a majority of born-agains--think the press, the zealots, and the media should butt out!  Fourth, it is reaffirming to see how rationally the public has digested this case, in spite of the media storm and the hysterical calls of "murder", such as Carl deploys here.    
 
As for Nader, this is not the first time he has lined up with the "moralists" of the extreme right.  Nader also openly championed the impeachment of Clinton over the Lewinsky affair.    
 
On a lighter note, Carl closes by writing, in regard to Delay, "my enemy finds inimical is my friend? [sic?] That's a pretty weak argument."  No!  It's more than a strong argument; it should be adopted as a Universal Law.  If anyone ever has any doubts on an issue or no time to think, they will never go wrong by taking the line opposite Delay!

The wsws.org, by the way, has done excellent analysis of the Schiavo case.  Pasted below is a link to an exchange on the matter:
 
Best regards,
Tom
 
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/schi-m28.shtml 
 
    
 
  

Message: 4
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:35:57 -0600
From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Liberals and Schiavo
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID:


Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

[Why are some soi-disant liberals so eager to have Terri Schiavo "made
dead," as Ralph Nader puts it? Because they don't like the people (like
Tom Delay) who are saying publicly that she shouldn't be starved to death?
The view that my enemy finds inimical is my friend? That's a pretty weak
argument. 
Democracy Now ran a shameful segment today in which they pointed
out that Tom Delay and Schiavo's father both took dying parents off
life-support systems (a respirator in one case, dialysis in the other, I
think) -- without once pointing out the difference: Terri Schiavo wasn't
dying. 
I'm glad to see that Ralph, Jesse Jackson, Nat Hentoff and others
are willing to speak out against this judicial murder. As Ralph said, "If
this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand
reconsideration"; or Hentoff: "In this country, even condemned serial
killers are not executed in this way." 
Here's a brilliant piece by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a
disability-rights lawyer in Charleston, S.C., who is herself disabled. Her
memoir, Too Late to Die Young, is in the bookshops. --CGE]

Not Dead at All
Why Congress was right to stick up for Terri Schiavo.
By Harriet McBryde Johnson

The Terri Schiavo case is hard to write about, hard to think about. Those
films are hard to look at. I see that face, maybe smiling, maybe not, and
I am reminded of a young woman I knew as a child, lying on a couch,
brain-damaged, apparently unresponsive, and deeply belovedfreakishly
perhaps but genuinely soliving proof of one family's no-matter-what
commitment. I watch nourishment flowing into a slim tube that runs through
a neat, round, surgically created orifice in Ms. Schiavo's abdomen, and
I'm almost envious. What effortless intake! Due to a congenital
neuromuscular disease, I am having trouble swallowing, and it's a constant
struggle to get by mouth the calories my skinny body needs. For whatever

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