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Saturday, March 26, 2005

The beast is out of control now
Posted by Jill | 6:54 AM

One of our commenters has posted some interesting and thought-provoking stuff about the kinds of capacities some brain-injured people may have that are not readily apparent. If we're going to be talking about whether Terri Schiavo is or is not in a persistent vegetative state, and/or what kind of cognitive abilities she may or may not have, THAT's the field on which this discussion should take place.

The people who are claiming now that Schiavo is alert and talking are NOT doing this discussion any favors. The public has been bombarded with four-year-old video of someone whose eyes are open, and who appears to be smiling (though photos I've seen taken from the video indicate that much of that expression depends on the camera angle; at other angles it looks like a rictus of terror). To the lay person, open eyes = alertness. To be awake but not able to think is as incomprehensible as death itself. We try to put ourselves in Terri Schiavo's place, and we really can't.

Comedian Wanda Sykes has a hilarious bit about how women are always thinking. "Have you ever once had a moment of silence in your head?" I can't speak for anyone else, but for me the answer is a resounding "NO!" Those who know me know that I rarely stop talking. What they don't know is that this patter goes on even when I'm not. To me, the idea of having that silence in my head is beyond comprehension. Does Terri Schiavo have that silence in her head? Or is the patter still going on, but trapped?

It's clear that there's much we still don't know about how the human brain works. If anything good comes out of this whole mess, it'll be because more people will think about what they do and do not want done for themselves in a similar situation, and will put those wishes in writing. And it just might spur additional interest (and hopefully funding) for brain research.

Those are the potential positives. The negative is that the fundamentalist faux-Christian beast that's been rattling the bars of its cage since the mid-1970's has finally broken out of its so-called prison. It's hungry, it's angry, and it's out to destroy everything in its path if it has to in order to feed itself.

Steve Gilliard:

That line from Red October is running through my head again:"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it."

Why? Because the Republicans are still counting fundie votes. They think they can control this, that nothing will happen and the base will be excited. But most of the base is revolted. They are horrifed at the sanctimony and the increasing rhetoric from people who should know better. Ignore judges? Kidnap a dying woman? Are they kidding?

Why is this happening? Because they thought it would be a gimmie. That the only people who would care is the radical right and their foot soldiers. They could get their way and trap the Dems in the process. But now, the Dems stepped out of the way and let the GOP take every bit of heat for this. You have the spectacle of Randall Terry, has-been, making demands on Jeb Bush, who meekly says "I can't go beyond my powers."

Bush and Bush seem to be puppets of the fringe elements, a group who would let their kids get arrested, which horrifies most people. All that political capital has been squandered, as Jim Wolcott said, on a Sunday flight from Crawford.

But Bush has never spread political risk. He has always heaped it on and expected to be rewarded in the end. There has never been a downside for this. But there is now. If Judge Greer or Michael Schiavo is harmed in any way, that turd is going to land right on the doors of the White House and Congress. They unleashed this madness and the idea that they could escape it is unlikely.
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