Friday, March 25, 2005
Sad State of Affairs.....
.....down here in Florida. Anyone that caught The Daily Show last night saw Jon Stewart skewer the media circus surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. Incredible, these folks (who never even met any of the family) lashing out with terms like "killer" and others. Guess what that kind of reporting stirs up? Yep, you guessed it, death threats:
"A man has been arrested and charged with offering a $250,000 reward for killing Michael Schiavo.
Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview, North Carolina by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.
On March 23, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office forwarded an email to the FBI in Tampa which purportedly offered a $250,000 bounty on "the head of Michael Schiavo." The email placed an additional $50,000 bounty for the elimination of a judge who recently denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case."
Nice. This is the result you get when real thought-provoking debates and conversations about issues are run over by the shouting that passes for journalism these days on the 24-hour news networks. It isn't about finding common ground and actually having empathy with someone you disagree with, it's about being right at all costs.
What has happend to the Republican Party? I thought less government intervention and deficit reduction were their mantras, not this insane religious fanaticism. John Cole wonders about the members of his party as well:
"They don't give two hoots in hell about Terri Schiavo- this is about abortion, religion, and most of all, about power and control. Their concept of morality is king, you see- your behavior in the bedroom, your choice in sexual partner, your desires about end of life decisions, abortion, even the medication you use to ease the pain when you are dying of terminal diseases- their religious text should have authority over you, and if all these 'small-government strict constructionists states right's advocates' have to attain that through government proxy, so be it."
Exactly. There will be a slight backlash (most polls today show a large revulsion for the level of governmental involvement in the Schiavo case) against the Republican Party, and I have said all along that Dubya and his crew had no idea that they would have to pay the piper one day for aligning themselves with the far-right religious folks. All of those moral-majority folks saw Dubya as the second coming, and they want their seat of power as well. That's what this is all about, power over the public. If these compassionate conservatives really cared to "err on the side of life," as Dubya put it, then there would be just as huge of a reaction to mercury poisoning of fetal brains and our recent sale of killing machines to Pakistan.
.....down here in Florida. Anyone that caught The Daily Show last night saw Jon Stewart skewer the media circus surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. Incredible, these folks (who never even met any of the family) lashing out with terms like "killer" and others. Guess what that kind of reporting stirs up? Yep, you guessed it, death threats:
"A man has been arrested and charged with offering a $250,000 reward for killing Michael Schiavo.
Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview, North Carolina by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.
On March 23, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office forwarded an email to the FBI in Tampa which purportedly offered a $250,000 bounty on "the head of Michael Schiavo." The email placed an additional $50,000 bounty for the elimination of a judge who recently denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case."
Nice. This is the result you get when real thought-provoking debates and conversations about issues are run over by the shouting that passes for journalism these days on the 24-hour news networks. It isn't about finding common ground and actually having empathy with someone you disagree with, it's about being right at all costs.
What has happend to the Republican Party? I thought less government intervention and deficit reduction were their mantras, not this insane religious fanaticism. John Cole wonders about the members of his party as well:
"They don't give two hoots in hell about Terri Schiavo- this is about abortion, religion, and most of all, about power and control. Their concept of morality is king, you see- your behavior in the bedroom, your choice in sexual partner, your desires about end of life decisions, abortion, even the medication you use to ease the pain when you are dying of terminal diseases- their religious text should have authority over you, and if all these 'small-government strict constructionists states right's advocates' have to attain that through government proxy, so be it."
Exactly. There will be a slight backlash (most polls today show a large revulsion for the level of governmental involvement in the Schiavo case) against the Republican Party, and I have said all along that Dubya and his crew had no idea that they would have to pay the piper one day for aligning themselves with the far-right religious folks. All of those moral-majority folks saw Dubya as the second coming, and they want their seat of power as well. That's what this is all about, power over the public. If these compassionate conservatives really cared to "err on the side of life," as Dubya put it, then there would be just as huge of a reaction to mercury poisoning of fetal brains and our recent sale of killing machines to Pakistan.
Friday, March 18, 2005
I'm Back!
For those of you who were wondering what happened to this blog, I've been preoccupied the last month: started a new job, and have just now got the family settled into the new house and school. So, let the blogging start again!
For those of you who were wondering what happened to this blog, I've been preoccupied the last month: started a new job, and have just now got the family settled into the new house and school. So, let the blogging start again!
