Terry

[undergroundpanther]

Our culture hates a loser,it hates weak,sick,"defective" people.
It hates victims,it shoots messengers if the message is about an abuser. This sick abuse dynamic plays out over and over in private homes, schools,institutions and governments.


Eugenics is an American invention too.Hitler made Eugenics national policy.Good Germans rationalized it.
There is a socio psychological war on the weak,on anyone who isn't"normal" on the handicapped,the mentally ill,the poor.
It has been going on for millennia.
The Nazis killed off the disabled,the retarded and mentally ill first.People like Terry Shiavo were the first to die.Nobody noticed because they could not cry out,they were helpless and produced nothing of value.They were useless eaters.A burden on the utilitarian utopia of Hitlers Aryan nation.
To many top down competitive cultures with an internalized elitism expressed by this sociopath pull yourself by your own bootstraps "ethic"and contrasted with success stories/Horatio Alger type myths like ours, the disabled and those who do not produce enough are throwaway people,resented for being weak by the strong..Just nobody says it out loud..

People say,
Terry is a vegetable, she can't feel pain, starve her to death.
Be rid of her because she will never have a quality life.( it's quality always as defined by normals ) They are concerned about her Quality of life for themselves.
So many people are so concerned about her quality of life they'll gladly starve her to death unsure of whether she will feel pain or not and calll it "mercy".

But the unspoken side is also Terry takes up a room,she drains bank accounts,she taxes her families emotions,Other people have to maintain her life for her.She takes up the time,employees,space,and liquid feed and all that a more able brained person could use.How much is terry worth? Terry in effect if she is starved has the status of a throwaway person.She is helpless to say no,don't kill me. The able bodied cry she'd be dead if "the miracle of medicine" wasn't keeping her here..

Remember Ronald Reagan would have died much sooner if we let nature take it's course with him. We don't know what kind of vegetative states Reagan was in ,they kept him out of the public eye.We never debated removing his feeding tube.
Why?


Science tries to tell us who can and cannot feel pain.
Sometimes scientists are like a bully who's caught as he tries to convince the authority figures who could punish or restrain him..that his victim must be blowing the abuse and pain all out of proportion to reality.The bully has an INTEREST in mnimizing his victims voice of suffering.Utilitarian beliefs are the salve to numb empathy..Whos voice is missing in the Terry Shiavo case? The victims voice,Terry.So her family fights for her because they love her.They are by proxy the person who FEELS the pain. And The able bodied don't want to bother with Terry.
Scientists and Bullies both have made mistakes on the pain issue before.Politicians and the public together created Holocaust and Genocide on all kinds of people declared inferior.before..

It was once thought fish could not feel pain..turns out they do. It was thought that babies could not feel pain either,operations were done on infants without anesthesia because it was widely believed babies lacked the ability to feel pain like we do..turns out science was wrong again..


Terry will not feel being slowly starved.. She may or may not feel it.And It's ok to starve terry even though her family loves her, and she is a human being,and we shudder if we had to live like her,because of why?
Terry is not your daughter.You are not Terry.
And yet people who do not know her can in effect hold her life in thier hands.

Starvation as"mercy".

We give criminals sentenced to death lethal injections we are all so concerned we are not cruel to them. We give sick dying dogs lethal injections so they will not FEEL their bodies in the worst states of sickness. We abort fetuses ASAP so they will not grow brains to feel the abortion procedure and just to be sure both mother and fetus are numb through it all.
Why do we do this? Could it be EMPATHY? and utilitarianism both working on a complicated personally agonizing case by case situation?
A decision that cannot be accomplished in a sound byte.


Why do we not give this kind of quick numb death to Terry that we grace Convicted Death row Child Killers and rapists with?

Is ti because to deliberately inject an innocent grown woman with drugs that would kill her fast looks and feels like murder?

Maybe it's because that's what it IS.

Yanking out Terry's feeding tube and letting her starve that too is murder,and it may be torture too.How is torture and muder mercy? When lethanl injection is quick and painless? No matter what we believe about her capacity for feeling pain,our beliefs don't make it so..We believed fish could not feel pain once,we believed babies could endure surgery without anesthesia too. But it turns out science was wrong.
And we are going to risk torture to get Terry out of our sight?

Why all the rush to be rid of Terry? Is it because she takes up space,drains bank accounts,uses up employee time,why what is so evil about her existence that it MUST end right NOW? Kill the helpless they are a drain on the economy!! The Brain dead must go they aren't Productive enough to live???!!Productive for Whom?
Her family loves her,enough to fight for her empty life.

So who are we to yank her feed tube and torture her because our scientists who also cut the vocal chords of animals they vivisect to remove their own capacity to feel compassion for tortured animals,to do"science" believes consensus of experts" she can't feel pain.

Are they Terry? No so how can they say.

And why not give her a lethal injection instead of risking torture on top of death?

Why are people not discussing this option?

Too Hitleresque? Too close to the truth?



Are you willing to let a nation of hypocrite,able bodied people possibly torture a helpless woman,who cannot cry out,by telling yourself she can't feel,because she's brain dead..Science is not all that good at empathy..And neither is our culture..It's kinda sick the idea of lethal injection is not discussed here because it looks like what it is, murder or "ghoulish". But the silent torture of slow starvation is OK as long as the victim does not cry out or complain. She is sorta like people in the 3rd world we starve so CEOs can make profits and we get"jobs" The victims of"economic development"that we never hear about it's almost like they don't feel it. Once in awhile there is a Live aid show,or some protests.. Funny how this silent starving,silent torture issue in the 3rd world in some ways is so similar to terry's plight.
Victims of abuse by the strong unable to be heard because maintaining the comforting beliefs about other people is more important to us than feeling real empathy FOR them where they are at..

It looks like in able bodied America the value is no suffering is as important as your own..is what matters most.
And who is suffering here in Terry's case really?
The hospital tired of tending her? A bank account? A corporation? A husband? Who?

Reagan had a slow death ands no one DARED debate yanking his feeding tube out and starving him to death..Why not? He lived as a vegetable ,he was kept out of the public eye.Regan was"permitted" his time of brain dead weakness,because he was of a certain rich and famous class that is not to be thrown away..

Terry is not an idol to the rich like Reagan was..she is another person like me or you who is weak,a citizen turned throwaway,She will be starving to death because we able bodied don't want her here taking up OUR time,our space, we are so merciful yo her,and because the experts tell us, we believe she can feel no pain,the experts with stunted empathy trying to tell us it's OK to starve the weak who cannot scream to death.. It smacks of Eugenics..
We are so ever alert to see if a fetus is aborted a fetus that could grow up to be cannot fodder or line a rich man's pocket..Terry just has no potential to be used or give anyone pleasure by existing now.Her time is up.

America is full of hypocrites, cowards, bullies and posers when it comes to actually facing the ugliness of our human condition and the frailty of a quality life and bodily weakness and the need sickness imposes upon us that happens in life or the disabilities that can happen to all of us.

Here is another side of the Terry Shiavo case nobody talks about:

Many soldiers coming back from Iraq now are brain damaged. Some become like Terry,due to "better armor"And we Don't see these soldiers,they are overflowing army hospitals and hospices...And Bush cuts veterans benefits and veteran health care to buy more hi tech weapons because he wants to take over the world..He is killing our economy to dominate and plunder the world.And if we attack the helpless,the poor,the different among us we will be misplacing our anger and not get around to seeing who is the real danger.. Terry Shiavo's case is another'ethics' test run ,a public spectacle illustration to gauge how much of our American empathy for the weak among us is dead or dying....Remember MSNBC last summer was asking the public in a poll if torture was something wrong to do to enemies or not.Around that time MSNBC for a couple of days showed Al Queda gassing puppies?.I wrote about this..I see a pattern here.

http://upits.pitas.com/082302.html

.The Bush admin is using the media as a psychological assessment tool gauging the publics' psychological willingness to accept torture as national policy....than Abu Gharib happened later.. but there were no riots,nobody storming the Whitehouse to keep the government from breaking Geneva,this inaction on our part was seen by them as PERMISSION.......Can't you see the really disgusting fascist Underpinnings of the Agenda to destroy American Empathy motivating this case to be in the spotlight? ..It's Eugenics...The war on the Weak the disabled..Is it OK or not to kill off useless eaters?

Is it OK to get rid of useless eaters..or not??
Come on people, throw away your sentiments..Survival of the fittest nature would have her dead...and nature is no moral..Riiight..

I think to myself what monsters Americans are becoming in the name of efficiency and I shudder.

[Sugarbleus]

1. XLNT Essay on the matter!!

As this case revved up, I didn't see you or the other pro life posters in here for several days. I though you'd all taken off.

I stayed out of the debate in DU, BUT I went to other places online and posted my comments which are almost identical to yours.

I don't how much interference I want from the congress into personal lives and situations, but I was APPALLLED at fellow dems who can't understand the root message here. They call it Mercy, I call it pseudo-eugenics.

If this woman or anyone else similar were to be totally alone or FLAT LINED, I would understand letting her go. I would NOT understand letting her go by starvation/dehydration though. Indeed, animals and prisoners get better treatment.

I ask myself what's next? Killing off the Alzeimers patients? The profoundly mentally retarded? The stroke victims? Those quadraplegics who also need feeding tubes, and oxygen, and massive drugs and constant care?

LOVE is a precious thing. Love needs a target. Terri is the target for her family. Terri cannot balance her checkbook, she may seem useless to the general population, she's certainly useless to her husband (ahem)..but she IS NOT USELESS TO HER PARENTS. Her life has meaning to someone. All of our lives have meaning to someone besides ourselves.

I'm not against right to die for those who have made their wishes known CLEARLY, not hearsay. Many people will say: Eewww, I'd never want to live like that (disabled).......until it is THEM in a dysfunctional condition. Some WILL make their wishes known and decide to check out but we can't "assume" that all the people wish to be done away with when faced with similar situations. I worry that this sets a precedent for doctors and courts and screwed up families to just start offing people who have become a "burden on society".

I don't know what will become of Ms Schiavo, but the debate has been a good one to air a "few things". One of those things is the RIGHT AND LEFT'S ideas about HEALTHCARE. If the right is going to insist on helping the incapacitated and disabled, then they MUST help all of them/us everywhere with medical/financial assistance. The left has to recognize the humanity and right to life in even the most disabled person. If they don't, then both sides--one for financial reasons, the other for Utopian/idealistic reasons are BOTH PARTIES to Hitleresque "cleansing".

There's a creepy trend in todays enviromental movement also. NOT ALL MIND YOU..SOME who believe that there are too many people on this planet; that we should allow the poor and sick to disappear from across the globe so as to bring a utopian green world back into some kind of schematic balance.

Society is really starting to freak me out.

Best, SB

[Banazir]

2. Freaks me out too.

I don't know if I'd be considered pro-life in the usual sense because I'm not against every instance of abortion. (I do oppose eugenic abortion but I consider that separate from the rest of the issue.) But I'm certainly both anti-eugenics and anti-euthanasia. And I don't like what I'm seeing. At all. Either with Terri or the little boy in Texas or anyone else these days.

The reason I haven't been as active is I haven't been sure I can take it. The anti-disability views -- even outside of Terri -- that have been expressed on this board lately have sometimes crossed the line into saying that it's better to be dead than to be someone like me (explicitly naming things and saying they lead to unacceptably low quality of life). And that sort of thing sends me scuttling temporarily for shelter at times, it's tremendously stressful to see that kind of devaluation going on.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Yes, it's very stressful here lately,

and I should stay away. The awful part is that there are so few of us to say "She's alive, why does everyone want to kill her?" I fear that there will be great rejoicing when Terri Schiavo finally dies.

As a Catholic, I am particularly appalled that this judge timed the removal of her feeding tube so that she might actually die during Holy Week. The judge is Christian so he should have thought about this in advance. And maybe he did. Maybe it's a deliberate slap to the many Christians who oppose the starvation of a human being, however "deficient" she may be.

[Banazir]

4. I think I'm getting hardened.

And I'm not sure if that's good or not. I'm half-numb when I read the things people are saying lately. Which are getting worse. People are joking around about "fun" ways to kill her. They're cheering her on to hurry up and die. Making horribly tasteless jokes about her appearance. All the while chastising people like us for not treating her with 'dignity'.

It's staring hate in the face. And it's scary. But I don't feel much fear anymore, or anger, just this weird glass wall that's come down between me and anything else. I've had a lot of revelations lately, both in terms of this case and not, of exactly how little my life or the lives of people I care about are valued. I know clearly what this devaluation leads to and how it works. I can't see a particular point of attack against this kind of devaluation, though, except to keep re-asserting our value when it's possible to do so.

But a lot of people aren't listening. It's like there's a programmed set of beliefs or something and good liberals couldn't possibly consider themselves prejudiced. Therefore they're not. Or something. So anything against euthanasia, anything from a disability right perspective (and heaven forbid disability rights include profoundly disabled people), and suddenly you're a macabre and ghoulish neocon freeper who wants to prolong suffering, end of story, end of having to think critically.

But somehow we keep bothering to speak up, and I think that's a good thing.

[Sugarbleus]

5. Hi all!

Just tip toed back in here to take a peek at this thread.

What are there, about 4-5 of us who feel similar on these issue? I'm glad I'm not alone.

I stayed out of here over the weekend and some; waiting for the heat to abate. No doubt about it, the bias in here (and elsewhere) is THICK. All of this talk of right to die aka "vegetables" went on while my S.O./ex hubby/companion was IN THE HOSPITAL fighting once again for his life. Talk about stressed out..I stayed in my room for 48 hours!!

Stress and disgust got the best of me; I had to cool my heels--take care of myself. My entire body is stiff with pain due to stress.

I'm also feeling much more touchy these past few days. I guess it can be chalked up to feelings of Insecurity??(Ahem)

I will admit, though, that the Right has made this whole case into a political football and that's just as demeaning--it doesn't address the underlying/ongoing issues we speak of here. If they are so concerned about ONE disabled person's life, they need to be concerned about ALL disabled people's lives. I guess I was hoping the debate over Ms Schiavo's life would open doors for the rest of us to get our concerns addressed. I surly wasn't expecting such vitriol from our fellow dems in terms of their MISunderstanding of disabled person's issues/concerns. That really turned my stomach.

Anyway, glad to see all of you. I hope you're hanging in as best you can. I'm not going to spend too much time in here until the hubbub dies down.

Very best wishes to each of you and to all the "schiavo" families out there. :grouphug: SB

[Tinoire]

6. I am SO grateful for your post!

I see the same thing you do... and it's breaking my heart.

When the left sides with the hard-right fascists that only certain lives are worthy of living - I fear for us. It's frightening how cleverly we are being played to play along with the hard-right's callous disregard for life.

Lebensunwerte Leben... History seems to be repeating itself all over again- repackaged just enough to be palatable. Rarely have I felt so alone at DU. I'm glad there are more and more people voicing these very important considerations.

I posted something along similar veins in thisthread but it was not expressed as well as your post.

Nazi history should have cleared it up for all

Edited on Wed Mar-23-05 06:14 PM by Tinoire
While we're at it should we clamor for Stephen Hawking's tube to be removed also? He exhibits even less mobility than Terry Schiavo, can't speak without a specially designed voicebox and can't survive without a feeding tube yet his mind is one of the most brilliant we have in our age. Should we yank out that his tube too because we the ambulatory are so insensitive, so lacking in imagination that we would deem his life worthless because he is forced to live it in a manner totally different than that the one we live? Who are we to judge whose life is worth the expense and whose isn't? Who are we to declare other people Lebensunwertes Leben (lives not worth living)?

The slippery, slippery slope...

NONE of the physicians whose testimony condemned Terry as a hopeless PVS are qualified medical rehabilitation experts. I really wish we could take our knee-jerk blinders off and examine this with more open hearts. And mind you, I am NOT saying Bush has any kind of a heart. I REVILE those people even more for using this poor girl as their political football as the insurance companies cheer on calculating how many thousands this will save them down the road.

If that were your child, you'd have Michael Schiavo by his little nuts doing everything you could to rehabilitate your child. It's not one phsyician or two neurosurgeons or three rehabilitative experts saying she's not past gone- it's many.

The parents are asking for a chance to do everything they can for their daughter- to offer her rehabilitative therapy she was deprived of under her husband's care. Why are we so eager to say no? I truly don't understand it.

===

Politically, the logic of Lebensunwertes Leben grants the state, in the name of society, the power to determine who is "worthy" and who is "unworthy," that is, who shall live and who shall die. Those doomed to be "unworthy" are, therefore, "worthless" to society. In such a totally utilitarian setting, the "useless" must be disposed of, like refuse. Such a "pragmatic" society is obligated to rid itself of those deemed to have lost their claim to life. Once this line of reasoning is adopted, the philosophic path to Auschwitz is not so difficult to trace. (snip)

www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Newsletter/ The_Genocide_Forum/Yr_2/Year_2__No_6/year_2__no_6.html


===
The physically, the emotionally and the intellectually disabled.


Historically,, euthanasia has meant a voluntary request for death without suffering by the patient. However, in the 17th century its meaning was modified to grant the right to alleviate suffering exclusively to physicians. While the meaning and implications of euthanasia changed somewhat over time, it was universally accepted that the act of euthanasia was always voluntary. That is, when individuals exercised their right to voluntarily choose the timing and the manner of their death as a means of ending their suffering, it was a physician's responsibility to assist them.

However, in the 1890s the meaning of euthanasia in Europe, and especially in Germany came to include two other aspects. First, the notion of a voluntary "right to die" was extended to mean that in some instances the request for euthanasia could be made by persons other than the suffering patient. Second the extraordinary levels of care accorded the terminally ill and asylum inmates again raised the issue of negative human worth and underlined the possibility of involuntary euthanasia; that is, the economic burden that terminal illness or caring for the insane placed on families, caregivers, and the community was a factor to consider in decisions for euthanasia.
In one sense therefore, the debate quickly shifted from the idea of a "gentle death" itself to who would request or abet the patient's demise. Subsequent branches of the debate took up the notion of suffering among humans as comparable to that of animals and the implication that in certain instances humans could be disposed of in the same way - quickly and painlessly. The distinction between voluntary euthanasia and involuntary killing was thus effectively eradicated, and an ominous term was coined for the first time: "life unworthy of life."

http://www.regent.edu/admin/ctl/uselesseaters /


===

"Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever? - Dr. Tergesten, in the Nazi propaganda film Ich Klage An! (I Accuse, 1941)

===

Lebensunwertes Leben

"...Nazi Germany killed at least 200,000 people because of their disabilities—people deemed physically inferior, ... doctors and hospital staff used gas, drugs and starvation to kill disabled men, women and children at medical facilities in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. . . .

"The Nazis launched the drive to root out what they called 'worthless lives' (and 'useless eaters')

(snip)

In an article in the July 14, 1949, New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Alexander warned that the Nazis' crimes against humanity had "started from small beginnings . . . merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived." That shift in emphasis among physicians, said Dr. Alexander, could happen here, in America.

Actually, the devaluing of apparent "imperfect life" had begun years before, in the United States. Various academics, in and out of the medical profession, had successfully advocated and instituted a eugenics movement—the perfecting of future generations of Americans by deciding who, depending on their hereditary genes, would be allowed to have children. The unfit would no longer be permitted to reproduce.

(snip)

These American eugenicists provided German proponents of a "master race" with inspiration. As Robert Jay Lifton wrote in his invaluable book The Nazi Doctors (Basic Books), "A rising interest in eugenics (in America had) led, by 1920, to the enactment of laws in twenty-five states providing for compulsory sterilization of the criminally insane and other people considered genetically inferior."

(snip)

www.villagevoice.com/issues/0348/hentoff.php


===

Useless Eaters: Disability as Genocidal Markers in Nazi Germany
http://www.regent.edu/admin/ctl/uselesseaters/text/2743414051_1.pdf

[Banazir]

7. Glad someone else knows history around here.

I'd been wondering people just couldn't hear what they sounded like or what.

[Tinoire]

9. And not only are we doomed to repeat it but we ARE repeating it

Heart-breaking. And people won't listen anymore than they did when we said there was no Reichstag Fire and no WMDs.

The parallels are chilling. Read my signature line about the calls from the man in charge of the US Institute of Peace to put people into concentration camps. Shiver. And don't tell me we're not walking down the exact same moral path. Some animals are more equal than others...

[Sugarbleus]

11. I told ya Banazir...There are liberal/progressives who DO get it!

Introducing Tinoire, I cherish this person...

Tinoire has THEE most wonderful historical information on so many subjects, plus being a great human rights advocate.. I could sit all day reading whatever Tinoire offers. :)

[Tinoire]

14. Blush

There are many others too. Your high praise makes me ashamed of my short-comings. I've learned so much from DU, especially in the days of old when converstation was more intimate, more thoughtful, but still today. You know, it's knowing that people like you appreciate the effort that makes it worth it. There are so many thoughtful posters in this forum- you guys truly rock my world!

[Sugarbleus]

20. =o)

Have a wonderful stress-free day, as I hope to have...a little down time is not a bad thing. :loveya:

[DemBones DemBones]

8. Tinoire, chere amie,

:yourock: :yourock: :yourock: :yourock: :yourock:

[Tinoire]

10. Merci chere amie

Toi aussi. Si nous ne gardons pas nos coeurs et nos yeaux ouverts en ce moment extremement dangereux, nous sommes finis - foutus.

:hug:

I propose we put all the people with no hearts out of their misery. The heart after all is so much more important than the brain.

[Sugarbleus]

12. Thank you so much for coming in here Tinoire...

I just breathed a huge sigh of relief....whew

I can't fully express how wonderful it is to have someone of your knowledge, stature, and committed human rights activism come in here to at least give our fears and hopes some credence.

:loveya:

[Tinoire]

13. Sugarbleus - that is too kind

and it's making my eyes well up with tears. I came looking for this thread because I wanted to PM DemBones for a little selfish comfort. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to see such a lack of empathy here. These last few weeks have left me stunned. But it's a disbelief that has been growing since the pre-war days when I saw too many self-labelled "progressives" (because now everyone is a progressive - the quicker we change the labels to differentiate ourselves from the knee-jerkers, the quicker the knee-jerkers adopt them without understanding that there are causes that go with these labels) twist themselves to justify the immoral death/destruction of war by labelling it a humanitarian intervention for the children of Kosovo, liberation of the Afghan women, or liberation of the world from a madman with WMDs. They did not like to own up to the fact that they were justifying death for innocent people in the interests of their capitalistic comfort & exploitative way of life. And it's exactly the same thing right now. The state has decreed that it is no longer interested in the Lebensunwerte Leben and in a blind knee-jerk reaction we're emcracing it, twisting whichever which way to justify exactly as the Germans did during their Reich-decades of national PVS.

Differing opinions we can handle- we've always had those and will always have as many as there are people but this shocking, growing lack of empathy is something new- at least it's new for me to see it so openly expressed and in the most calloused terms.

So I was going to PM DemBones to ask how she was taking all of this... and I saw your post. Thank you Sugarbleus. Coming from you, that is very high praise and it makes me realize that it's important to stick around and make sure our thoughts are expressed.

Jello jokes. Pope jokes. Intolerance of people's deepest beliefs except when it suits the agenda of the day. DU has sunk to a 4th grade level complete with school-yard temper tantrums over who finds common cause with whom. Over the last 2 years I've watched a good many progressives leave for various reasons and was thinking of doing the same myself but then I saw your post, remembered all the progressives who remained to fight this new spirit and realized that there's still hope. Thanks Sugarbleus, you just made me realize how important it is for us to stay here after all how can we retake our party if we can't retake our own board? How can we reform our party if we can't reform our board?

There are greater disabilities in life than a damaged cerebral cortex flooded with spinal fluid such as amputated hearts where the cavity has been flooded with ice-cold selfishness and brains so wet they no longer function replacing their humanity with knee-jerk reflexive reaction instead. Mental and emotional PVS. Surely one should have food and water cut off for that too?

Thanks Sugarbleus. I'm sticking around and will proactively be encouraging fellow progressives who have become disgusted to remain and rock the boat.

Your many posts have often given me food for thought and I am grateful to you for your tireless efforts to educate and rehabilitate us from mental PVS.

:hug:

[Banazir]

15. Similar here.

I'd been wondering about DU ever since this blew up. I wasn't quite as surprised as you were, maybe because I've already seen the knee-jerk pseudo-progressive attitudes on this specific issue for quite awhile. But it's still, if not surprising, alarming and terrifying to watch. And people being here who get it about disabled people's lives definitely keeps me from permanently leaving the place.

[Tinoire]

16. Welcome to DU Banazir

:hi:

I'm glad you're here.

I think you'll find most(?) of the people here very kind, thoughtful and willing to learn from each other. The problem is that we have waves where ugly voices, usually sporadic, overtake this board and dilute its decency by drowning out the thoughtfulness and deliberately try to inflame wars with snippy little retorts and shallow attacks. Do you have a star? If not, I'd recommend you get one so that you can do a "search by author" on people you find particularly PVS. It will help you deal when you see their posting history - many times obvious by a quick glance at the thread titles.

I hope you stay a long time Banazir because we need more people like you to expose the facts so that the rest of us can process the information, transform that information into knowledge, transform that knowledge into sensitivity, and then transform that sensitivity into action.

Welcome and help us weather this storm. Your participation will help us elevate the discussion :)

[undergroundpanther]

17. Great posts

Your history lesson on Eugenics is kickass!(did you ever read the book called War against the Weak? Great read,lots of good information.
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/

Also Check out Culture of Make Believe and Language older than Words 2 great books by Derrick Jensen. Both books get to the heart of the problems with weak VS strong thinking that pervades our culture.
Also I turned this"terri" post into an article on Unknown news If you wanna see in the final form,go here:
http://www.unknownnews.net/050322a-upits.html

A RRrroarrr for Tinore!!
I never Fear 'cause Banazir iz Here!!! Yowza,Got no reason to be blue when the Sugarblues is around to lift me off the ground! I love you guys..
I gotta ask y'all a silly question tho ...what is PVS?
Tinore you said" do a "search by author" on people you find particularly PVS. "What does that acronymn mean?
You know,being of the feline kind,inquiring kitties wanna know!

Purrs to all from the Panther

[IndianaGreen]

18. Seeing the Pope being slammed in DU is nothing new!

Seeing the Pope and Rabbi Marc Gellman being slammed in DU because they referred to the Schiavo case as euthanasia, now that's something!

Shalom!

[Tinoire]

22. Indy, let's be brutally honest

You and I both know that there's a strong anti-God element at DU that makes religion a scapegoat for man-made problems. God is one issue here where many of us just close our eyes because we'd rather be with a group of people that's concerned over social justice than with Republicans who just want to exploit people's religious beliefs by exploiting inflammatory issues to advance their own agenda.

Is it really anything new?

Our religious leaders are raised as an example for all and then burned at the cross the next day. The same crowd that worships Martin Luther King because it suits their needs can't seem to understand that strong religious convictions in the Black community is what brought about a peaceful civil rights movement rather than the bloody alternative many Blacks were pushing.

There's a lack of willingness to examine what we're about, what we mean by Tikkun, that we just have to ignore as we go about trying to repair and transform the world.

And if you look around, none of the people we've been able to depend on here in our fight for overall social justice have been the ones making those vile or insensitive comments. Of those posters who have been with us from day one demaning justice, maching against the war, even the most agnostic and atheistic ones have never stooped anything remotely vile, critical yes but not vile. I'm just ignoring the few loud idiots we don't know from Adam, who were for the war, who nuanced their way in and out of the war, or were mum at the time because that right there, tells you all you need to know.

Sticks and stones you know... Not going to let a few loud idiots intent on fromenting division because they think my God wants to interfere with their body ;), or worse yet, their property, deter me.

Shalom & belated Happy Purim


On edit: You know- just saw your other thread. Just for fun we should start threads with the words Nader, Pope, Jewish, Catholic, Religion etc to watch the jackal descend. I think they do a search because how certain people we know magically managed to find your Pope thread buried in this forum is beyond me. I think they do a daily search of their buzz-words and swoop down.

[IndianaGreen]

24. What's the difference between believing that an American life has the same

value as that of an Iraqi life? What's the difference between believing that all human life have an inherent value rather than just a utility? Are we to grieve over the deaths of 1,800 innocents on the WTC while we callously disregard the deaths of well over 100,000 innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is the killing of an innocent Israeli or a Palestinian going to be valued differently according to our political beliefs on the I/P conflict?

Something is happening among us. There has always been a conflict between those that see all the issues through the prism of partisanship and those that see them through the prism of their ethical/moral/religious values. This time there is a real fracture.

[Tinoire]

25. None sadly

I'm really trying to retain hope Indy that we are not lost. Really trying as are many DUers who noticed this fracture.

I never pinned my hopes on DUers who didn't value an Iraqi, An Afghan or a Yugoslavian life as much as an American life, or who don't weep equally for both Palestinian & Israeli children; nor on those who subscribe in any way, shape or form to materialistic relativism and see human lives only in terms of bodily or financial utility.

But if we lose all hope, what's left? if we don't overcome this fracture, it's nothing but bland ABB ham sandwiches in the next elections and the cement grip of the mad fascism sweeping this country courtesy of both the Republicans and the Democratics.

If this vileness drives away strong, consistent voices like yours, we are lost. And I don't want to be lost so I'd rather trust that the coalition hasn't been fractured beyond hope.

I know you weren't depending on the people who were vile either. You, as well as I, know who here stood firmly against this war and said there were NO WMDS. You know as well, which posters here never waivered that both Afghanistan and Yugoslavia were obscenities against humanity. I don't believe you're anymore surprised than I am because none of the voices who have consistently condemned injustice were calloused or did anything to cause this fracture, even if their opinions on this differed - just as they do on abortion.

On top of that we had sleeper cells re-awakened during this Schiavo thing. Click on their profiles and you see "member since 200X" yet do a search on their posts and what do you see? Posts during a few specific waves only. That told me all I needed to know about where some of this agitation was coming from.

You're right that a real fracture was caused (an even worse one than the fracture over the war when we lost so many decent DU-ers disgusted at the sinking level of thought) but let's just hope it's a surface fracture that looks worse than it is and can be repaired with awareness.

If it can't, if the insanity has gone that far then I won't be with DU or even the Democratic party anymore. Better to be in a small ship with a clear compass than a sinking ship trying to go everywhich way.

[Be Brave]

19. I'm glad I found this forum and this thread.

It shows that there are still compassionate people in DU. Whatever reasons people have for supporting the removal of the feeding tube and letting Terri die a slow death, it has surprised me how insensitive and seemingly uncompassionate many in DU have been about Terri. It's been an eye-opener.

I'm glad there are people like you guys here.

[Tinoire]

23. What's sad is that you had to find this forum

An unfortunate result of all these sub-forums is that we're splintered off and people take "refuge" in them (not the original intent) effectively weakening the balance in the main forums.

But lol, I'm glad you found it too.

[Be Brave]

27. I actually read one of your posts in GD, and that's how I found

out about this forum. You have a point about weakening the balance in the main forums. There is now no balance there at all about this issue.

[Sugarbleus]

21. Before I sign off for the eveing I want to wish everyone in this

Thread, this forum a Happy Easter, Passover, or whatever your beliefs are or are not. Just have a wonderful day and know that LOVE, Compassion, and Peace are STILL the most precious and rewarding things in life.

Be good to yourselves today, every day. You are special people and I'm delighted and fortunate to know you.

It's been an especially rough couple weeks; time to eat some chocolate--or not ;)

Peace
Shalom
Paz

[undergroundpanther]

26. Happy Spring Equinox!!

Happy Easter,passover, and I forget all the other spring time holiday names. Whatever ones you use, make it happy..ok?

I must admit I'm sometimes guilty for being harsh on Christians on DU. I am an ex fundamentalist. I was really hurt by them.
I might as well give you guys a heads up as to why.
Sometimes with the fundamentalists get riled up I get really scared.
I get messed up around religion,
When I was a kid I was molested by a Christian fundamentalist pedophile neighbor.Revelations imagery was used by the pedophile who abused me as a kid to scare me and as fetish material.I studied the bible for a long time wondering why why is god so unconcerned about people,why is the world so mean,why doesn't god help us? And I found I could not trust god.It really messed me up inside and so I spent a long time in therapy trapped by all the fears, images and the reactions against these beliefs struggling to find my own perceptions about the unknown and the world and I began to see through these beliefs, that I did not choose myself ,that were instilled by parents. And as I saw through I began to realize the dangers of beliefs used in the hands of bad people are dangerous too.

I tried years later to trust god again and it was torture all over again.I got exploited,used,mind fucked by a pastor Denny Nissley,and Assemblies of God Church. I got love bombed while I under great stress,right when my life was falling apart, while I was trying to get off disability because I wanted to"be normal"and not be humiliated and feel like a loser for being"on the dole". But I couldn't cope. I went out of the frying pan and into the fire when the church took advantage of my vulnerable mental state.When I hear about Mel Gibson's 45 minute snuff film,or people buying guns to "rescue" Terri because of their fundamentalism I feel sick..I remember the bible has very ugly sides of meaning.
And it has evil in it that god himself made.
And if people try to live the bible literally it causes you to go crazy literally.The only way you can take the bible literally is to omit certain parts,and emphasize others,rationalize things that cannot be excused, to edit it out in your mind and pretend you are not a hypocrite cherry picker of verses as you become that exactly.

Trying to believe the bible literally like it is true and without error caused me alot of emotional torment.I spent a long time wrestling with it,and because of that I stopped trusting god. I was crying my eyes out as the church walked out of my life because I could not believe as they did anymore.I lost all my friends.Than I was alone in a strange town,,in debt, trying to sell a house,I got very close to suicide nobody knew or cared because I was out of the club I was a heathen scum godless and not worth concern. It hurt me so bad..and the church didn't care,god didn't show me he was there, there was no footprints poem ending for me..
So I think I am very triggered by Christianity period and it's hard to bite my tongue and calm my panic..

Christians I meet still tell me,when I tell them why I don't trust god,say oh so and so isn't a REAL Christian. I shudder and scream inside because to me the abusive Christians are as Christian as the nice Christian is because the bible is not consistent on what a Christian is either it is morally relatavistic..The bible excuses ,elitism,rape slavery,hell,vengeance, and genocide and sometimes it is God wanting it done.. all while it talks about love, charity and paradise and forgiveness.It messes me up psychologically.

Revelations is the scariest thing to me especially with so many politically influential bible literalistic WANTING it to occur..Assemblies of God talked about Revelations all the time.I even once anti-hallucinated in a Wawa,that my partner had been raptured,I couldn't see him ,I freaked out looking for him all over in the small store,and I panicked with dread inside thinking the events to come were going to be torture to go through.And for a split second I was mad at god for leaving me to be hated..and I banished the thought,than I found my partner and I felt so stupid.

I told myself the Devil had messed with me to make me hate god.I blamed myself of course like a good Christian must NEVER blame god for ANYTHING bad..So I sought deliverance.(the pedophile fundie would "deliver me from Satan" too in the most perverse game you can imagine).Instead of realizing the stress of all the big changes I made in my life to be"normal" that were making me lose touch with reality and setting me up to be retraumatized... That's how crazy I got. I was a great "mark" for recruitment by evangelists.


I tried but I cannot trust religion it isn't spiritual to me anymore.And I am wary of religious people. But I long for a community of people,who care about me who long to work together to make the world better, a haven from shitheads.

So nowadays when I see fundamentalists I get scared of them and I want to attack them at the same time.I can't trust Christianity to be honest. Besides the Christian Church's human rights record and moral relativism is a stinker.I hope people aren't offended when I get harsh,but sometimes I feel if I don't say something ,what I say will be glossed over by people who want to deny.

It's the same kinda selective bigotry and excuse making for something horrible I see with Christians sometimes that I see in people dealing with the Terri situation on DU.I am still shocked at how so many on DU see these things so superficially and can't imagine there is a darker side of all this believing that HURTS people. I get disgusted when they talk about "the corpse" as if Terri isn't even a human being anymore. I see shades of hysteria,reaction,hate and the mentality of revelations in their talk .I see my past that never stops haunting me visit in the form of sick beliefs attitudes twords vulnerability and peoples reactions to seeing things different. I see bad rising around me.And I don't like it.

[Sugarbleus]

29. Sokay Panther, I understand. I am a former fundie myself

I am very sorry for your experience. Mine wasn't that drastic but my youngest daughter's was a bit too heavy for her psyche... She would freak out if no one was around and all was eerily quiet.."OMG, the rapture happened and I go left behind" she would tell me later on in life.

Today we are able to laugh about it but some of what her father led her to believe, religion-wise, was detrimental to her overall emotional health even into the present time.

I have no problem with decent, loving Christians or Atheists or Buddhists or whatever. I like to live and let live. I actually still subscribe to some of the teachings of Christ (but not that too many people would notice easily LOL :evilgrin:)

Trust me, I will not ever condemn or reject you for your personal views on religious matters.

This Schiavo case is truly a bell weather for things to come or for things to be realized. It is very scary and saddening...I never would have believed people could be so callous about fellow human beings in desparate circumstances. I remember subtle and not so subtle sermons on the poor, the sick, the "lame" (so-called) having not trusted in God enough to be "made whole"......WTF

After they lay hands on ya for faith healing and you DON'T "recover", they begin to back away from you/us. I heard a weirdo Televangelist the other morning (as I surfed past a station) say his grandparents were good people but they didn't believe in religious doctrine. Said they worked very hard to support several children. The grandmother took in washing for $.10 an hour. Then he went on to talk about "Breaking the curse" of familial sin. Said one of the kids (his father) turned to God and broke the curse of poverty. Called Poverty a failure of character and lack of religious spirituality..........SAY WHAT?!

Having so-called progressives going disabled-phobic, becoming jaded to the needs of their fellow human beings needs/rights, is as equally disturbing as many attitudes on the far right Christian side. It's six of one, half dozen of the other. Which way do we turn??

Take heart Panther, I trust there are people, religious and not, of good will who DO care about you and I and humankind in general.

Best, SB :hug:

[DemBones DemBones]

28. I was just going to nominate this thread for the Greatest page but

then I wondered if those of us who have posted here really want a lot of people posting in it. I want everybody to read and think about what undergroundpanther, Tinoire, Sugarbleus, and Banazir have said here but I'm so tired of the people who just want to pop in and say "Terri's been dead for 15 years," etc., etc., ad nauseam. Lots of new posters in this forum tonight, thanks to Indiana Green's fine posts on euthanasia in Nazi Germany and the Netherlands and on Scott Schiavo's statements that suggest Michael never thought Terri ought to die until after their mother died (I'm not saying it very well, you need to read her thread yourself.)

Disturbingly, it seems many DUers think euthanasia is just peachy keen -- tell 'em something's about "right to privacy" and they'll fall right in behind it, especially if you can get a right wing Christian or two on the other side. It seems to me that people have seriously violated Terri's right to privacy and her right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with this starvation order. It seems we are once more through the looking glass into some new and strange territory, like all we've done for five years is fall down one damn rabbit hole after another. As we slide down each rabbit hole, we lose another right. And we're accepting all this. Most of the people in this country seem unconcerned about the people we're killing in Iraq, about the torture of prisoners, about the holding of prisoners we have no evidence against, etc., etc. and most are also unconcerned by the precedent being set by the Schiavo case. We also have accepted these "futile case" laws that allow hospitals to stop treatment of patients who cannot pay, we've accepted the bankruptcy laws that are going to ruin many people -- we're like the frog sitting in the pan of water being slowly heated. Will we jump out before we're cooked to death? Periodically, people say that when they bring back the draft, people will protest the war. Sorry, folks, I think the frog will be dead by then.

[undergroundpanther]

30. That poem ...first they came for...

First the killed the ones who could not complain...
And nobody noticed...
Then they Came for the brain dead and the"corpses"
and I did not speak out or care because I was not a vegetable

They came for the idiots and 'tards and autistic
and I did not speak out or care because I was not that stupid or geeky.

Then they came for the Mentally ill and I did not speak out and say it was wrong.. because I was not crazy,it all might be THEIR own fault anyway.

They came to"fix" the problem kids,the irreligious,disobedient, the hyper and rebellious,the dreamers and depressed the drug users and ones with tattoos
and I did not speak out or get involved ,I told myself it was for their own good,because I was not a kid anymore,I don't have kids and I no longer go to public school.

Then they came for the freaks the gays and trans-gender ones who would not straighten up and"act normal" and I did not speak out or stand up against the assaults I saw
because I was not weird that way,and I never wanted anyone to suspect I might be and kick my ass.

Then they came for the immigrants who have weird gods and strange accents,eat weird food and have dark skin , I did not speak out
because I wasn't like them,and I knew nobody who was like them.

Then they came for the deaf and blind
and I did not speak out or care
because I was not sightless or deaf.


Then they came for the fat chicks,anorexics,crackheads and drunks
and I did not speak out or care
because I was not hooked on any substances I know better than that..I ate healthy and exercised I knew I would never become fat.

They came for the abandoned ,homeless and shut ins,old people on social security,War veterans freezing on the street because they were used up and not productive anymore..and I did not speak out or care because I was not old,shut in or retired ,I was in no wars,my parents were dead, I bathed.

Then they came for the crips who didn't work fast enough,and slowed down the production line who could not get in the door,like everyone else..who always get the good parking spots at the mall
and I did not speak out because I was not in a wheelchair and I don't need a ramp to get around and my body is not a hinerance to my employer.

Then they came for the very sick people with Cancer,infections and Aids,bio weapon victims .. I did not speak out
because I was not ill and I didn't live near a chemical factory or work in a factory.I wash my hands and make sure things are clean.

They came for people,parents and kids,relatives who could not pay their Hospital bills on time I did not speak out
because I had a "nest egg"set aside for just such an emergency.

Then they came for people who were "normal but stood up for the weak the sick and disabled,the fat the gay and the different and saw that they too were vulnerable..
and I did not speak out because I didn't care about any of THEM.

Then one day they came for me, and took my Friends because I realized they don't like anyone different than themselves,Since I was not part of the elite even though I was so sure I was I found there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller
Mutated by Panther.