The Totally Worthless Currency of The American Taliban

It's a dangerous thing to be making medical diagnoses by looking at an edited video, by reading a holy text and determining that a person has no right to exit in a manner of his/her choosing. It's also a crime to lie and accuse someone of physically abusing and eventually killing his former wife. And, I guess, it's utter stupidity and a disservice to the American people and the truth when the mainstream media gives a forum to charlatans to claim that a dead-brain patient can fully recover, and/or she can communicate with us via a ..seance!

Would those people, who are exposed today as frauds, liars, agitators, entertainers of the lowest denominator, peddlers of the supernatural & the superstitious, feel any shame or the need to apologize? No, not at all. The Terri Schiavo autopsy revealed more than what her doctors, the 20 judges, and her husband had been saying about her being brain dead. It revealed that her case was more about a religious debate raised by the fundamentalists and exploited by the far right and charlatans of all stripes, some of which, like majority leader Frist, unfortunately, hold leadership positions in our government.

The Schiavo issue wasn't about a "culture of life" but whether a person has the right to choose his medical treatment at the end of his life. The Republicans had circulated a secret memo in the Senate saying that this case would be "a great political issue." President Bush got on the bandwagon too. He conveniently forgot that, as the Texas governor, he had signed a law giving the spouse & the patient's doctors the final say in matters of life and death. Bush also had signed a law that the state could turn off life-support when a patient like Terri Schiavo didn't have insurance to pay for such extended care! And, it had happened with babies in Texas!

Science told us that Schiavo's brain had atrophied by 50%, much of it replaced by spinal fluid--an irreversible condition, known as PVS (persistent vegetative state). She was also blind and not responsive to external stimuli. No thoughts, no self-awareness. No PVS patient has ever recovered. This is different than a coma. It's insane that we spent so much time, energy and money preventing a person from exercising her oft-stated wishes in a terminal situation, while those who supposedly propose a culture of life also oppose universal health care available to every single American! We lost some 3,000 people on 9-11-01. That was tragic indeed. Since, we've spent thousands of lives and several hundred billion dollars with more to come in Iraq. Yet, every month, thousands of Americans die because they don't have health insurance and no access to healthcare! Aren't these Americans "innocent?" Our indifference can be deadlier than a few fanatics blowing up a building.

I'm in favor of the culture of life, because life should be protected, enhanced with quality and individual choice! All this when it clearly matters, which includes the period from birth and throughout our existence in this physical world! Liberals believe in freedom of choice, especially when it involves our own self. But, having the freedom without any real choices it's pointless. And, more and more choices are being taken away, not by our foreign enemies, but by our own government. I'm not just talking about civil rights, important as they are, but about limiting our ability to move up the socio-economic pyramid. Even if I'm free to vote & speak up, if I can't feed and shelter myself, or if the quality of my life diminishes because of lack of health care, then obviously there is something wrong here.

As the Schiavo case proved, the American Taliban and the neo-cons are not interested in the truth--which is discarded if it's unpleasant or doesn't fit within their own narrow & distorted world. If it weren't so, then I'd expect anyone who "made a mistake" in the Schiavo case to come out and apologize today. After all, the autopsy totally confirmed what the doctors had been telling us in the last 15 years. But, don't hold your breath. No one, not a single person from the irrational side, will come out and admit his error. Reason is not their currency; superstition and fear are!