Culture of Life!

Just when my contempt for the GOP Death-Cult has plateaued at "Stroke Level" they manage to kick it up a notch.

I must now feel my cranium each morning to make sure my head hasn't exploded.

Now, indeed, is the Winter (turning into Spring) of our Discontent.

The Rapture brigade language of the "Culture of Life" is thrown about by the Bush and the GOP with all the simplistic hypocrisy of any mantra.

Atrios has noted, and the mainstream press too busy giving the White House their lubed and ready assholes, has not; Bush certainly is one fucked up vessel for such language. Having signed a law while Governor of Texas allowing hospitals to kill those too inconvenient to keep alive on machines, their family members be damned.

I'm just going to quote Digby in full just as the main man did because every goddamned word sums up my feelings (actually my utter loathing):

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schivos because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.

The "Texecutioner" was certainly all into the "Culture of Life" enough to execute as many people as possible. Oh, "Culture of Life" advocate certainly believed in it for Carla Faye Tucker:

The case concerned a woman named Carla Faye Tucker. Tucker was a convicted killer on death row, but she was also, like George W. Bush himself, a reformed drug addict and a born-again Christian. She plead for clemency, begged for forgiveness.

Bush, however, was not sympathetic. According to Talk magazine writer Tucker Carlson, Bush mimicked Tucker's plea for her life. "'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'Don't kill me.'" (quote from Time Magazine) During the same interview, then-governor Bush reportedly used the word "f***" repeatedly throughout the conversation.

And, of course, there is the ultimate expression of their believe in the "Culture of Life" -- the application of of the implements of mass death:

Based on the number of Iraqi fatalities recorded by the survey teams, the researchers calculated that the death rate since the invasion had increased from 5 percent annually to 7.9 percent. That works out to an excess of about 100,000 deaths since the war, the researchers reported in a paper released early by the Lancet, a British medical journal.

The researchers called their estimate conservative because they excluded deaths in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that has been the scene of particularly intense fighting and has accounted for a disproportionately large number of deaths in the survey.

"We are quite confident that there's been somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 deaths, but it could be much higher," Roberts said.

When the researchers examined the causes of the 73 violent deaths collected in the study, 84 percent were due to the actions of coalition forces, although the researchers stressed that none was the result of what would have been considered misconduct. Ninety-five percent were due to airstrikes by helicopter gunships, rockets or other types of aerial weaponry.

Forty-six percent of the violent deaths involving coalition forces were men ages 15 to 60, but 46 percent were children younger than 15, and 7 percent were women, the researchers reported.

Also of depressing note is this:

At least 108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. Roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel.

The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, CIA and Justice Department. Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although most have been freed.

108 Dead. Wonder what the comparison of deaths of those Americans in captivity in North Vietnam during the near decade long, Vietnam conflict:

So how many American POWS died while captured by the insane and lawless North Vietnamese during the entire Vietnam war? One hundred and fourteen. From all causes. What killed the 108 (so far) reported in our custody?

Mostly "violent causes".

Care to fucking comment Senator McCain?

I suppose not!


Culture of Life!


Culture of Life!


Culture of Life!


Culture of Life!