Contrary to what some of my readers might believe, I am not a Chicken Little running around crying, “The sky is falling down!” I believe a great many traditional “givens” are being eroded away and I see evidence that this is so in the news. I am just pointing out significant and disturbing signs.
Here at home in Florida, our current governor and the legislature who are conservative in nature but abetted by significant number of supposed Democrats, have pushed through a law that puts a feeding tube back into a woman who has been in a coma for eleven years. The tube was pulled out of her because she is not going to get better and her husband fought successfully to have it removed. He knew his wife would not have wanted her life to be this way before she had the heart attack that disabled her. The governor, not so different from his brother (our current President), is pleased to announce to Conservatives, he leads their fight on the side of “life”.
Over seas in Italy, the current Pope, who may not last out another month or two, has just appointed 30 new Cardinals and will have appointed all but five of the 135 Cardinals who will vote for his successor. This has been a Conservative landslide for Catholic Priests, Bishops and Cardinals because the future of Catholicism is in their hands. I am not sure, but American Catholics who were once solidly Democratic, will probably not agree with the Cardinals’ choice.
Up in Washington, D.C. the Senate has just O.K.’d banning “Partial-birth Abortions”. This approval of the Bush/Conservative coalition picks away at the right of women to choose abortion. It is one more step away from reason into the murk of religious fundamentalism. People, who believe in the miracle of Terri Schaivo reviving because her feeding tube is reinserted, also believe that all abortions are wrong and this type of abortion is really, really murder. President Bush will sign this bill once it gets to him and all reasonable Americans will be faced with the uphill fight, once again, for the rights of the woman who cannot or who will not be a mother.
Then there is the bizarre spectacle of a man nabbed as the sniper in and around our Nation’s Capitol, given permission to defend himself in his trial. He presents well in the courtroom. Evidence to the contrary, he has rights that the Judge gave him to act as his own lawyer. He faces the people he has shot who survived. This is America and he has rights. The people he murdered had theirs torn away by bullets.
These are disturbing signs. There are more.
The President presides over a nation where unemployment caused by his decisions remains high and the economic recovery some claim is already underway has yet to appear. The disturbing thing about the economic problems here at home is that our riches are gone and our resources to care for our own are being sent to Iraq and other politically determined deserving places in other parts of the world. For us to neglect our own citizens in favor of some other country’s citizens doesn’t make much sense but it is the driving force behind the conservatism that supports our current (interim, is a good word) leader.
Religion is the driving force around the world in the 21st Century. Billions of Muslims follow the words of their Ayatollahs and Mullahs. Millions of Catholics wait for the word from the Vatican. Episcopalians are divided on the right of one Bishop to be “Gay”. Southern Baptists are up in arms to keep the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the right to have the Jewish Ten Commandments appear in every courthouse, public building and school in the land.
We are supposed to have reached the epitome of civilization because we have little devices that send messages without wires and pictures too, at the same time. In our country, we have obese people being encouraged to gorge more on fattening “comfort” foods. That fat might be in their heads, too, but they play with their electronic toys, go in droves to the movies or sit at home with their snacks watching TV. These are the citizens of a country that is the most powerful in the world.
Our medical capability has reached the point where we can keep people alive because of drugs developed by the pharmaceutical industry. That industry charges more for drugs in this country and those who need the drugs cannot have them if they cannot pay. Drugs of the illegal kind are more easily available in this country than anywhere in the world. Whole other countries exist because they produce these drugs and can deliver them to the U.S. where people can buy them in preference to food. This is a disturbing sign.
One of the most disturbing signs (and this will be the last for today) is that a former military leader who graduated at the head of his class at West Point, might become the leader of this country if we can Beat the Bushes. Can he be against guns although he led our armed forces in war and peace?
Disturbing signs are all over and my vision is limited. How is yours?