The Road to Perdition

Every now and then a malignant ideologue rears their ugly head in the body politic. Some are charming, some charismatic, and some just intimidating and ugly. They all have three things in common. First, they are generally liars, usually fanatics and always name callers. Without exception they seize upon a term with which to define others as social pariahs and use it freely. Secondly, they are not interested in the common good. For all their mouthing off about freedom, patriotism, Christianity and the wonder of democracy they are without exception self promoting power junkies. Finally, they all come to an ignominious end generally at the hands of the institutions that supported them.

In the 1930’s - during the Great Depression - a priest known as Father Charles Coughlin took the job. He was a rabid anti-Semite and supporter of many of Hitler and Mussolini’s policies. He hated Communism. After initially supporting Roosevelt Coughlin turned on him and the New Deal. He spewed his detestable venom over the public airways via a series of radio broadcasts. In 1942 the Bishop of Detroit, Edward Mooney, ordered Coughlin to clam up and go back to his parish duties. He did until he retired in 1966. However, this particular ideological nut case introduced the world of demagoguery to the media. Therefore, he is the grandfather of the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks of today.

Some twenty years later along came Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin. This guy was a paranoid tyrant who saw little red communists under every car and dining room table. Using the bludgeon of the Senate’s subpoena power he brought countless innocent people before that august body to be intimidated, slandered, filleted and ruined. They were all communists to him, and all communists looked alike. He served from 1947 until his death in 1957. It is worth noting that McCarthy was never able to prove any of his charges of Communism, and that in 1954 the Senate voted to censure him by 67 to 22. This effectively put him back in his box for the duration of his tenure.

The brilliant journalist Edward R. Murrow once said of McCarthy, "His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. . . We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law." (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

If you substitute the word terrorism for the word communism you will have exactly what is going on today. The right’s lies, the blatant hypocrisy, the false accusations and the distortions are all designed to confuse, muddle and mislead the electorate. This has nothing to do with serving the public good. It is about power and political gain pure and simple.

There are so many demagogues slithering through the political scene today that one is hard pressed to identify a single primary perpetrator. Like Coughlin and McCarthy they are for the most part on the far right tending toward the lunatic fringe. Unable to articulate any kind of coherent public policy argument, lacking any pretense of a serious commitment to the electorate, willing to say anything to get their face in front of a camera, profoundly judgmental, prone to name calling and hypocrisy - at times cruel - they are the most destructive personalities on the public stage. Most of them have a large following as did Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy. All of them are extremely adept at inspiring fear, hatred, and anger. As were Coughlin and McCarthy.

How far they will rise in the political world isn’t so much up to them or the Republican power brokers as it is up to us. We are a people who love to follow a Pied Piper with a mouth full of ear candy until it becomes obvious that we are being taken for a ride. By then we have generally paid dearly for the privilege. I give you George W. Bush, the run up to Iraq and the subsequent fear mongering of the next several years.

McCarthy was worse than Coughlin, because he was more powerful then Coughlin. The new breed of ideologues have a definite potential to be worse than McCarthy because they have access to greater wealth and a slavish media. With only a few exceptions there are no more Edward R. Murrows.

When someone inspires fear in me I don’t automatically think of following them. Fear mongers are fear mongering for a reason, and it is never a noble or honorable reason no matter how well it is wrapped in Christianity, integrity or patriotism.

If we believe that it is possible ". . . to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. . ." then we had better stop following every snake oil salesman with a false face and a fall guy down the road to perdition.

The Big Lie

We have always had abortion on demand in this country. We do it in hospitals now instead of garages. De-legalize it or restrict access to it and we go back to the garage. That is the real choice in prochoice.

When I entered the hospital setting back in the late 60’s/early 70’s - long before many of the women who now take their reproductive rights for granted were fully formed ova - I had the appalling misfortune of watching a 13 year-old girl die from what a back alley abortionist had done to her immature womb. Her death was long and hard and cruel. Her parents kept asking, "Why didn’t she tell us?" "Why?" Perhaps it was the twin, cardinal virtues of the "good girl" back in the day, fear and shame. Perhaps it was a mistaken confidence that anyone who called themselves a doctor wouldn’t hurt you. Whatever it was it cost her life.

Today, decades after Roe v. Wade became established law, a handful of Conservative Democrats in the House and Senate along with their enablers in the leadership, Obama included, have decided to send women back to the alleys to exercise their reproductive options. The pathetic and sniveling excuses for health care reform legislation dribbling out of both chambers of Congress are fully informed with the idea of making a Woman’s Right to Choose irrelevant by drying up access to safe, therapeutic abortion. This tactic of supposedly enfranchising one group of people by disenfranchising another is called leverage in politics. It is called extortion in the real world. These narcissistic, self serving, seedy politicians - yes I include Obama - are engaged in misogyny of the most evil kind. Once again women are reminded that our minds and bodies are of secondary importance in the urine laced sandbox that is the affairs of men. We will follow the tenets of a bloody faith we may not accept and have children we can’t care for because the power grabbing of our politicians, including so-called feminists, Goddess help us all, is more important than the life and safety of generations of women.

Lest you take all the bible thumping and pre-born loving too seriously in a country that has been content to accept one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and the denial of prenatal care to women having their second child on the grounds that pregnancy is a preexisting condition, all of this in the name of profit, let me tell you a little more about the bad old days before abortion was legal. If you think that the Obamas or Stupaks or Nelsons or Pelosis or Boxers or Reids, etc., are going to abide by the lousy laws they shove down the public’s throat - think again. We used to see the wealthy, the powerful, the well connected and the holier than thou slink into the hospital years ago. Their surgical procedure was listed as a DC. The procedure done was a DC with suction. Their diagnosis was recorded as abnormal uterine bleeding. The diagnosis in reality was a therapeutic abortion. The tissue removed was documented as uterine tissue. In reality the tissues evacuated were the productions of conception. We came to suspect that many of these people lied for a living and compulsively. They lied to constituents, themselves and probably to their god. One thing we knew for sure, they didn’t end up in alleys. This was elitism and class warfare of the most gruesome kind.

There is no doubt that there are many decent people who are prolife. Certainly, there are many committed prolife women. To them I respectfully say, abortions is an individual woman’s question. Her decision to terminate a pregnancy is between her, her Deity, her partner, and her doctor. This is not a societal concern. It is not a government issue, and above all it is not the province of any organized religion. A Pagan woman is not bound by the teachings of the Catholic Church. She has as much right to the protection of the Constitution and secular law as any other woman. Roe v Wade is the law of the land. Insisting that women be denied equal protection under the law because some religious coup d'état enjoys the ear of our legislators is obscene. The very idea of laws dictated by religious groups would have seemed insane to Thomas Jefferson, but then he didn’t lean on the Catholic Bishops to make laws in his time as Ben Nelson did during the debate over health care reform.

Obama promised us change. I had no idea that he intended to change the early 21st Century for the mid 20th Century with regard to women’s rights. Back then women routinely died because they couldn’t obtain a clinically safe abortion. I am afraid they will start dying again, and when they do the blood will be on Obama’s hands. After all he keeps telling us that the buck stops with him.