The Case for Life

This past week's events in the Terri Schiavo case were traumatic for her family and for others throughout the United States who have had to make similar decisions in the past.  President Bush made the comment (I am paraphrasing) that whenever we err as a nation, we should err on the side of LIFE.  After I heard that comment, I waited for some courageous Senator to stand up in the U.S. Senate, quote the President, and propose a bill to bring our troops home from Iraq!!  Did any courageous person stand up and do so?  Of course not.  Which begs the question, "Are there any courageous people in Congress any more?"

When I hear the news that the President has proposed a budget that will essentially end Head Start, Upward Bound, Medicaid, food stamps and child-care assistance for the working poor, nutrition assistance for pregnant low-income women, and education funding (at a time when the federal government is placing additional requirements on states), I become sickened by the fact that this administration "believes in preserving life."  Isn't it ironic that the only lives the neo-cons want to preserve are the unborn and the debilitated while ignoring:  hungry children of poor families; the young men and women of our Armed Forces; wrongly convicted death-row inmates; men, women, and children suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other terminal illnesses that currently have no cure; and, the innocents who are losing their lives in Iraq and other nations of the world because of the U.S.'s incompetent management of its foreign relations and post-war planning.

At what point do we finally speak out against the evil actions of this President?  Just because the man CLAIMS a moral compass with respect to TWO emotionally charged issues does not mean that he is a MORAL man at all.  In fact, if we evaluate his performance on every moral issue--FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY, LIFE, LIBERTY--how can we say that he has any moral center at all?  I would argue that in fact, this President has the moral aptitude of a three-year old child--and that is being generous, because I am not certain he is capable of evaluating complex moral issues even at that level.

Nevertheless, I have included a commentary from Bob Herbert that I think makes my case much better than I can.  Enjoy!

From the NYTimes Op/Ed page--March 25, 2005 

The Era of Exploitation

By BOB HERBERT

Congress is in recess and the press has gone berserk over the Terri Schiavo case. So very little attention is being paid to pending budget proposals that are scandalously unfair, but that pretty accurately reflect the kind of country the U.S. has become.

President Bush believes in an "ownership" society, which means that except for the wealthy, you're on your own. The president's budget would cut funding for Medicaid, food stamps, education, transportation, health care for veterans, law enforcement, medical research and safety inspections for food and drugs. And, of course, it contains big new tax cuts for the wealthy.

These are the new American priorities. Republicans will tell you they were ratified in the last presidential election. We may be locked in a long and costly war, and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the moon, but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the era of entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be made by working people and the poor, and the vast bulk of the benefits will accrue to the rich.

F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P.

While the press and the public are distracted by one sensational news story after another - Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, steroids in baseball, etc. - the president and his party have continued their extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that were designed to fend off destitution and provide a reasonable foundation of economic security for those not blessed with great wealth.

President Bush has proposed more than $200 billion worth of cuts in domestic discretionary programs over the next five years, and cuts of $26 billion in entitlement programs. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which analyzed the president's proposal, said:

"Figures in the budget show that child-care assistance would be ended for 300,000 low-income children by 2009. The food stamp cut would terminate food stamp aid for approximately 300,000 low-income people, most of whom are low-income working families with children. Reduced Medicaid funding most certainly would cause many states to cut their Medicaid programs, increasing the ranks of the uninsured."

Education funding would be cut beginning next year, and the cuts would grow larger in succeeding years. Food assistance for pregnant women, infants and children would be cut. Funding for H.I.V. and AIDS treatment would be cut by more than half a billion dollars over five years. Support for environmental protection programs would be sharply curtailed. And so on.

Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the roaring federal budget deficit under control. But they have trouble keeping a straight face when they tell that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in the deficit. Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-money crowd.

The House has passed a budget that is similar to the president's, except it contains even deeper cuts in programs that affect the poor. In the Senate, a handful of Republicans balked at the cuts proposed for Medicaid. Casting their votes with the Democrats, they were able to eliminate the cuts from the Senate budget proposal. The Senate also added $5.4 billion in education funding for 2006.

All the budgets contain more than $100 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, which makes a mockery of the G.O.P.'s budget-balancing rhetoric. When Congress returns from its Easter recess, the Republican leadership will try to reconcile the differences in the various proposals. Whatever happens will be bad news for ordinary Americans. Big cuts are coming.

The advances in areas like education, antipoverty programs, health services, environmental protection and food safety were achieved after struggles that, in some cases, took many decades. To slide backward now (hurting millions of people in the process) because of a desire to siphon funds from those programs and hand them over as tax cuts to the wealthiest members of our society, is obscene.

This is not a huge national story. It's just the way things are. It was Herbert Hoover who said: "You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists. They're too damn greedy."

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

BUSHISM of the Day

"I want each and every American to know for certain that I'm responsible for the decisions I make and each of you are as well." ---September 20, 2003

See here--this is exactly the thing that scares the devil out of all of us Liberals and Progressives. We know he feels this way. He has this whole 'manifest destiny' thing going on in his head; we tried to vote him out of office, but he has the conservatives convinced that he really is one of them (when the truth is that he does not act like a conservative--just ask John McCain). Meanwhile, he has the libertarians convinced that he believes in small government and personal freedoms (his 'ownership society'), but has anyone bothered to look at the fact that he has increased the size of government more in his four years in office than Clinton ever thought about doing (actually, the liberal Clinton-Gore administration DECREASED the size of the federal government--SHOCK!!)?

I DO NOT WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR GEORGE'S REALLY BAD DECISIONS!! I DO NOT EVEN WANT TO BE PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS GOOD DECISIONS!!! What can we do?

STOP the Chance of Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...

ATTENTION PROGRESSIVES -

Check out the online petition to stop possible drilling in ANWR at the following link on the John Kerry website: http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rollcall_thankyou.html

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John Kerry proposed an amendment to remove from the energy bill any consideration to drill in ANWR. The amendment lost on the Senate floor by a vote of 51-49 with THREE Democrats voting against the amendment, but several Republicans voting for it. The three democrats? Mary Landrieu (LA), Daniel Inouye (HI) and Inouye's Hawaiian colleague Akaka.

The above link takes you to the Kerry online petition drive that now has over 400,000 names. Possibly the House of Representatives will vote to not allow drilling if they see the public reaction. Of course, the House has voted at least twice before to open ANWR, so the prospects are small. But go add your name to the list anyway!!
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Thank you!

Visit more of the JohnKerry.com website. Even though he lost the election, he continues to make use of the grassroots support that built up around his campaign to defeat GWBush.

Do Individuals Have a 'Right to Die'? ....

and if so, who gets to make that decision if the individual is incapacitated?

Those are the questions that have been argued and fought by the husband and parents of Terri Schiavo during the last eight years. Mrs. Schiavo suffered heart failure at the age of 26 and has been in a vegetative state since then. She did not have a living will, but her husband has fought to have her feeding tube removed to fulfill what he says would have been her wishes. Mrs. Schiavo's parents have been on the other side of the fight, saying that their daughter responds to them during their visits with her and they believe she can recover someday.

The courts in Florida have sided with Mr. Schiavo in nearly every situation, but the Florida legislature has passed at least two special pieces of legislation allowing Gov. Jeb Bush to order Mrs. Schiavo be kept alive against her husband's wishes. This legislation was declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear appeals related to this case on at least two occasions.

Now this week, the Republican U.S. Senate and House attempted several manuevers to prevent the removal of Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube in what became a largely politically motivated activity and one which the Democrats were unwilling to challenge. At what point does the incapacitated person's closest relative have the ability to make the decision to let the loved one die in peace? It could be argued that Mrs. Schiavo might not have survived this long if some doctor had not made the initial decision to place her on life support after her heart failure. Should not a person's life first be guaranteed dignity and respect? The political and media circus that has surrounded Mrs. Schiavo's life for the last eight years certainly cannot be misunderstood as dignity and respect.

I think we all should say a prayer for Mrs. Schiavo and her family that the turmoil they have gone through come to an appropriate end with peace and understanding on both sides. Let the woman find her rest. 'Not our will, but God's be done.'

Oil Prices Are Soaring and OPEC Can Do Nothing

Oil prices increased this week to an all-time high of $57 a barrel (not adjusted for inflation) and predictions suggest it could be as high as $60 by summer. Translate that into gasoline prices -- the current nationwide average regular price is $2.05 a gallon, and may be as high as $2.75 by the peak driving season this summer.

Economists say that American auto manufacturers may be hit the hardest. In fact, both GM and Ford are reporting surplus inventories in their SUV categories, and as gas prices increase experts predict that more people will move to buy fuel-efficient or hybrid vehicles.

OPEC announced this week that it would increase production by 500,000 barrels of oil per day (most of that to come from Saudi Arabia). Even after the announcement, gas and oil prices increased by the end of the week. Forecasters point to the high worldwide demand for oil, particularly in China where there is an on-going effort to create a 750 billion-barrel strategic reserve.

The U.S. Senate essentially voted this week to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (the official vote is yet to come, but a procedural vote this week cleared the way for the official vote) and the House will in turn act soon open ANWR to drilling. Of course, the problem with opening ANWR is that at least ten years of development, construction, and drilling will have to occur before the U.S. sees any actual production results. Yes, you read that correctly--TEN YEARS that we could be making automobiles more efficient, that we could be improving our use of alternative fuels, and that we could be working to decrease our dependence on oil. Instead, we are relying on our oil President and oil-friendly Congress to make their friends and relatives in the oil industry richer by allowing them access to one of the last pristine wilderness environments in the United States.

BUSHISM of the Day

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right." ---in Rome, July 22, 2001

From Daily Kos

I believe that all liberals who opposed the War on Iraq prior to its inception need to read this commentary by one of the best progressive bloggers on the internet. I do not doubt that the neo-conservative mouth-pieces will feel free to use this to somehow support the right-wing position that all Liberal American thinkers are vile, evil creatures who despise their own country. However, we all know that the greatest patriots and defenders of American values have been and continue to be those individuals who stand up for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These are people from both sides of the political spectrum, but mostly it is the people who intuitively understand which actions our nation needs to take to ensure the survival of the republic. Read the following carefully.

The American Taliban

Once upon a time, it was easy for the American Right to smear its opponents on the left -- they could simply equate them with the nation's communist enemies. It didn't matter that the American "left" (Democrats) had more in common with the Right than international communism, the smear was useful.

Now, however, our international enemy -- Islamic radicalism -- is actually the polar opposite of what liberals stand for -- their actions on women rights are deplorable, they insist on theocracy, they loooveee torture and the death penalty, they demand to control the culture (TV, movies, music), they rail against rampant sexuality, they seek to spread their ideology via force, and they have a well-defined black-and-white sense of truth.

Remind you of a certain American party?

That's why hysterical assertions by the wingers that liberals hate America and want the terrorists to win are so absurd. As absurd as it would've been to claim that Reagan wanted the Communists to win the Cold War. The Taliban/Al Qaida/Hezbollah/Jihadists of the world are the exact embodiment of evil in the liberal mind. They are everything we are against, and against everything we are for.

In fact, they are exactly what we see in the Republican Party as the GOP continues to consolidate power -- creeping theocracy, moralizing, us versus them, embrace of torture, the need to constantly declare jihad on someone, hysterics over football-game nipples, control over "decency" on the airwaves, lyrics censorship, hostility to women freedoms, curtaling of civil liberties, and so on.

So it's pretty obvious -- we don't love terrorists. We don't want them to win. For them to win would be to realize our greatest fears. The muslim terrorist is truly the anti-liberal. Like matter and anti-matter.

Republicans, on the other hand, hate the terrorists because they're Muslim. But aside from that, they've got far more in common than they'll ever admit to themselves.

And it's high time we started to make that connection more forcefully.

Dick Is At It Again

Our illustrious Vice-President is putting words in the President's mouth again.  In an interview on Friday, Mr. Cheney stated that if Iran refused to give up its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, the the United States would be forced to take "stronger action."

This response by Cheney comes on the same day that the U.S. agreed to drop its objections to Iran joining the World Trade Organization and that Britain and the E.U. threatened Iran with economic sanctions.  It seems that the United States, Britain, and the European Union are finally speaking with one voice in efforts to use diplomacy and U.N. sanctions to convince Iran to end its weapons ambitions; and then, out of left field, the former leader of the Project for the New American Century speaks up to say that the U.S. may just have to get tough with Iran.

Remember that it was a speech by Cheney that began the drive for War on Iraq.  Just as Colin Powell was making his arguments to Bush in private about the importance of using diplomacy in dealing with Iraq, V.P. Cheney gave a major policy speech that seemed to blindside the President -- at least according to Bob Woodard in his book, Plan of Attack.

BUSHISM of the Day

"As you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." ---October 28, 2003

BUSHISM of the Day

"I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose:  you disarm, or we will."  ---Speaking about Saddam Hussein, October 5, 2002

Army Poll Shows Recruitment is Down--particularly among women and blacks

According to recent polling, U.S. military recruitment is down significantly in the last year (see a complete story at CSMonitor).  In fact, since 2000, recruiting of African-Americans has dropped over 40%.  This drop brings African-American recruitment down to 14% of new recruits from a level of 29% previously.  Interestingly enough, the 14% is a true reflection of the African-American population in the United States.  The polling shows that disagreement with the President's foreign affairs policies, and a growing fear of being sent to Iraq are two of the top reasons youth are choosing not to enlist.  An Army poll conducted last year and just recently reported declares, "recruiting an all-volunteer Army in times of war is getting increasingly difficult."  A more cynical person that I might ask, "Where will shortages in recruiting an 'all-volunteer' Army lead?  Perhaps to some sort of draft?  Or maybe more forced extensions of enlistments?"  We shall see.

BUSHISM of the day

"I understand that the unrest in the Middle East creates unrest throughout the region."  ---March 13, 2002