Pro-Life...unless that life differs politcally

I've been wanting to write about the death of Doctor George Tiller for some time now, and I've probably missed the boat as far as saying something that hasn't already been said given how fast our news cycles move these days, but I still feel it is important for as many voices as possible to denounce this heinous killing of, as Jeremy Scahill said on Real Time with Bill Maher, "a provider of women's health care." Despite having always been of the belief that women must have the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy without any pre-conditions or constraints, it was really upon reading John Irving's The Cider House Rules that cemented that belief that for this country to truly be considered free, women need to have full control of their own bodies and there need to be doctors able to perform these operations in modern, safe, and hygenic environments.

The fallacy of the pro-life movement is that even if abortion is banned outright throughout the 50 states, that does not mean that abortion will end as a practice. What will happen instead, is that abortion will be pushed underground and performed by people without the training, or the professional conduct of today's ob-gyns who perform these procedures. Anyone who claims to care about life should be appalled at the possibility of America's return to the days of back-alley abortion clinics and other horrors of our oh so glorious past.

As has been reported by any journalist worth their paycheck (of which there are fewer and fewer every day) no providers of women's health care are taking women who are 9 months pregnant and giving them a late-term abortion. In the United States less than 2% of all abortions were conducted after the 21st week of gestation, and an estimated figure from 1997 suggests that less than 1% were done after the 27th week. For those bothering to listen to the doctors who perform these abortions, it becomes clear that these are done not because the patient suddenly feels like taking a trip to Europe and doesn't want a baby along, but are done because of some very serious health problems with the fetus or a potential danger to the mother.

The "right-to-life" movement has been sickeningly been pretending to denounce the death of Dr. Tiller while in the same breath excusing it because of his willingness to perform abortions. This deceptive double-speak is mostly to blame for the crazies like Scott Roeder who actually go out and commit these atrocities. And while I believe that we need the inalienable rights of free speech in this country, I think it is false, and disingenuous for those spewing the most hateful and uncompromising vitriol to pretend that the death Dr. Tiller, and the terror it spreads among women seeking abortions or doctors providing health care to women, isn't exactly what they want to see happen.

While I disagree with many of the terror statutes being used to hold prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base, or any of the other black sites the CIA has, Mr. Roeder is the textbook definition of a terrorist and should be shipped out to one of those facilities. In his Falwell/Robertson/Limbaugh/O'Reilly motivated killing of Dr. Tiller, he has killed more Americans than many of the detainees in Gitmo over did and he has terrorized more people than Omar Khadr, the last remaining westerner still held at Camp X-ray.

Americans need to stop being fooled by monikers. Focus on the Family and the American Family Association don't give a shit about families. The Patriot Act isn't patriotic. Pro-lifers do not care about life or they would work harder at making things better for the lives that are already here on this earth rather than focusing all of their energies on the lives that do not yet exist.

As crafty as they are...

From the sidelines one can almost admire the efficacy and the cunning that the flapping lips of the Conservative movement (since no one but Colin Powell still calls themselves Republicans anymore) have when attacking the Progressives' agenda. It conjures up a feeling, if only for a second, of awe and even a little bit of jealousy as you ponder what might be if Harry Reid lashed out with even 1/10 of the vigor and passion that Karl Rove seems to expend on his porcelain throne before going on FoxNews. But alas, that's one of the big differences that exist within our two party system.

Certainly, without any doubt, the Conservative attack machine is always fueled up and ready to go, waiting with bated breath for a signal, or an order to come down the Rove/Limbaugh/Hannity bat-phone and announce who the day's target shall be. As it turned out yesterday, the target was Sonia Sotomayor, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals judge that President Obama has just nominated to replace Justice Souter upon his retirement. It was no surprise to see Karl Rove jump out in front and begin his typical attempt of labeling her "a liberal". Truth be told, I wouldn't even mind all this incessant labeling if it was even remotely accurate. The sad truth of the matter is that most of the people FoxNews and friends label as being "unabashed liberals" are really Liberals in the Phil Ochsian definition, meaning that they are unabashed moderates.

Consider this Supreme Court nominee and her history. While the one case that Sean Hannity harped on for half of his show on Tuesday focused on a decision to allow a fire department in Connecticut to choose to not promote anyone in favor of only promoting white firefighters, that's not that earth shattering of a decision since all she did was affirm the lower court's decision in the case.

You would think that if they really cared about Liberal vs. Conservative issues, they would be happy to have Sotomayor given her likely views on abortion, but that's not even what's at stake for the GOP. Better for them to attack her as a Liberal and have it established that yes, she is a Liberal, so that the next person they talk about will seem really liberal in the eyes of the public. The game they are playing is redrawing the lines and trying to move the "moderate" line to the right...and sadly, it's working.

Pundit after putrid pundit on the cable news programs use terms like "unabashed liberal," "out spoken liberal," and "established liberal" when discussing Judge Sotomayor and they go completely unchallenged by anyone out there. If she is those things, what does that make someone like Dennis Kucinich who is one of the only true Progressivs in Congress? And if she is so far the left as they claim, does that make Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), with his record of supporting torture and opposing voting rights initatives, a moderate? It is this kind of rightward shift in the public perception of our political battlefield that allowed John McCain to pretend to be a moderate republican. Truth of the matter is, moderate republicans like Jim Jeffords (Vermont) and Arlen Spector (Pennsylvania) have been forced out of the GOP and the ones that remain (Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) may not last much longer.

Personally, I hope this whole nomination of Judge Sotomayor is Obama's Harriet Myers, albeit far more qualified. It's not that I don't think she'd be a fine Supreme Court Justice, but given the Bush appointments of Alito and Roberts, and the current makeup of the Senate, now seems like the perfect opportunity to seize the day and put on the bench a young, progressive, healthy justice who might break William O. Douglas' record for longest serving member of the Court.

Socialism and other scary words Part 1

While the windbags of the right continue to brandy about the "socialist" label on President Obama, they are either too stupid to remember the past or they are deliberately ignoring it. Take for example all the hullabaloo about taxes. President Obama is promoting the idea that we should roll back the tax cuts on the top income earners to what the rates were under Bill Clinton, that big pinko commie socialist. Forget for a moment all you've seen on FoxNews about how Bill Clinton was Lenin and Stalin's love child and look, intelligently and rationally at the fact that his top marginal tax rate was 39.6%. Under Republican presidents Ford and Nixon it was in the 70s. Under President Eisenhower, who it would be pretty hard to call a Socialist, the top marginal rate was in the 90s.

What this goes to show is what a farce it is to actually believe President Obama is a ramming his socialist agenda on America through a "massive" hike in the top marginal rate. President Obama is no more a socialist than Rush Limbaugh is a decent human being. I wish that we could get ourselves a real progressive candidate into the White House one of these days, but unfortunately, there are so many ignorant, uneducated piles of garbage voting these days that still get goosebumps when they hear words like Socialism because they don't realize that Socialism doesn't mean the government spying on your phone calls; kidnapping and torturing people in secret prisons; or even coming between you and your doctor concerning medical matters.

No, those are all things that are happening and have been happening during that oh so capitalist President George W. Bush. Socialism means your kids can finally go see a doctor when they cut their foot on some rusty metal in the trailer park, or you can go and start that business you've always wanted without worrying that your family might get sick. It means you can send your kids to school and they'll get a good education and you won't have to sell your house to afford it. It's time that America got over its irrational fear of the S word and started fearing the real bogeymen like Rush, Sean and all the others who shout about standing up for the little guy that they then proceed to piss all over.

President Obama is not a socialist, but I really wish he was.

Sean Hannity Gone Wild

Like many cable news junkies, I find myself in a perplexing state of (I can't believe I'm writing this) missing the days of Hannity AND Colmes. Now that he is alone Sean has seriously gone off the deep end. After whining and sobbing for years that the "LIBERAL main-stream media" was being unfair to Bush and not supporting the President. Now, less than one full week into President Obama's first term, Sean already has an entire segment attacking the administration. In the defense of the evil main stream liberal socialist communist partisan democrat tree-hugging chai drinking crunchy granola media, they at least weren't dedicating whole segments of their shows to attacking George until after the man took us into two awful wars and took away the very rights he said those poor soldiers were sent to protect.

Sean, please look over some of your old episodes and realize what a raging hypocrite you are. You aren't an ideologue because to have a real ideology takes integrity and understanding of that ideology. All you are is a stray dog that's frothing at the mouth and snapping at anything that moves. Grow up.