PRO LIFE?

The following was written some time ago, but remains relevant.


While walking through a parking lot the other day, I was struck by the irony of a huge, gas-guzzling SUV sporting a "WE VOTE PRO-LIFE" sticker. In case it’s not obvious, the irony lies in the fact that hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died, and are dying, because we as a people will not discipline ourselves to be content with mere automobiles. When a small increase in gas mileage (my recollection is seven - yes 7 - miles per gallon) would make this country self-sufficient in energy production without drilling in any wildlife refuges, the question becomes not how many miles per gallon, but - to quote Michael Moore - how many LIVES per gallon[NOTE: the info cited here is probably the result of my misunderstanding but the point remains valid].
Those TV ads that claimed smoking marijuana supports terrorism kind of lost their punch when it was pointed out that drug money is only the tiniest of drops in the ocean of oil money. Without our total dependence on our Saudi "friends," perhaps we could really take meaningful action to combat terrorism.
Then I saw the Bush-Cheney ’04 sticker, which started me wondering (again) how on earth an organization like the Republican Party can call itself "PRO-LIFE" and have millions accept the claim. True, they - or at least the current leadership - have always been green: that is, they have always favored money over everything else. But how can anyone who cuts funding for feeding and educating children, who destroys laws and regulations protecting workers on the job, giving us breathable air and drinkable water, who reduces benefits and - until there was an outcry - even combat pay for the poor and middle-class men and women risking their lives in pursuit of right-wing imperial fantasies, who flouts international law demanding humane treatment of prisoners of war, all in order to support a huge miltary so much greater than that necessary for defense of our legitimate interests as to go beyond absurdity, how can such people qualify for the title "Pro-life" ?
What has this nation come to that forcing poor women to have children that neither they nor anyone else wants - most especially our affluent Republican friends - means one is "choosing life"? I say "poor women," because - as "pro-life" Senator John McCain unthinkingly indicated about his daughter - the affluent will always have choice. Are we to destroy everything that makes this nation great in order to pretend that we are "saving the unborn"?
If the Republicans are so concerned about the "unborn," then why are they completely opposed to controlling emission of industrial toxins known to cause birth-defects? Why are they leaving these precious human beings an incredibly high and completely unnecessary debt burden? Why are they aggravating enmities, and undermining friendships all over the world in pursuit of unnecessary and unprovoked war? What is "pro-life" about the cozy relationship between the party’s leaders and the merchants of death in the arms industry?
How is always choosing cold, hard, LIFELESS cash over living beings of whatever species choosing "life"?

keep Christ in Christmas? How about Jesus in Christianity?

Am I the only one to notice that the most fervent "Christians" of today are far more comfortable quoting some sexist command from Paul or barbaric punishment from Leviticus than the words of the man himself?
It seems to me that there's good reason for this: when one removes the rules according to Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh, and the beautiful but self-serving, anti-semitic and ethereal gospel of "John" - obviously written by some one who surmised correctly that claiming to be the otherwise unmentioned favorite disciple would get his writing farther than its message - what's left is some one who in many ways resembles a modern bleeding-heart liberal. It's obviously easier to pay lip service to him while loudly condemning others than cope with one's failure to follow - indeed, contemptuous dismissal of - such embarrassing commands as "every one who has two shirts must give one to him who has none," and "love your enemies and do good to those who hurt you."
And thus we see that the "Prince of Peace" is the "favorite political philosopher" of one who counsels and conducts pre-emptive war, that one who came "to tell the truth to make men free" is cited by those who can't seem to stop lying and undermining the freedom of those they rule, that the man who had no use for the grasping rich and the self-righteous fanatics is the now claimed as exclusive property by both.
While the Fundamentalist Protestants have essentially thrown away the bulk of the teachings actually attributed to their ticket to heaven, the Catholic right has undermined their church's attempt to avoid doing so with their indefensible rules governing sex - another subject of apparently minimal interest to the man Jesus - and birth control, their partial replacement of him by his mother and her allegedly miraculous abilities, and their overriding determination to preserve the earthly power and wealth of their institution.

Greetings!

Welcome.
Coming soon to a theater near, well, those of you who care to stop back, recent thoughts and comments on American politics. Come back to read my slams of pet peeves, my take on compassionate conservatism, and, perhaps inevitably, the shrub.

In the meantime, have a nice weekend.