Ghouls in Love

Ghouls jump in where angels fear to tread

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

3/19/05

http://zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/ghouls.htm

Back in October of 2003, I wrote a piece on Terry Schiavo called "Nobody’s Home" In it, I discussed the actions of the Florida legislature, that passed a "one-armed-man-with-a-limp" law and forbade disconnecting Schiavo from her feeding tube. I concluded, "Almost certainly, a court will rule the ‘Terri Law’ unconstitutional and reinstate the original decision to remove the feeding tube from the carcass."

It turned out to be a correct prediction. One after another, the courts struck down the law as unconstitutional and ruled that as Schiavo’s husband, Michael Schiavo was within his rights to request that care be discontinued, in a case where there is no hope.

And let’s be clear: there is absolutely no hope that Terry Schiavo will ever "wake up." Her cerebral cortex is gone, replaced by cerebral spinal fluid. That is the part of the brain that makes you a person. Without it, you’re just a kind of a twitchy cauliflower.

However, the parents of Ms. Schiavo were not about to give up, and quickly discovered that there were all sorts of politicians out there who were perfectly happy to curry favor among the religious whack jobs by humping the Schiavo corpse.

Jeb Bush, of course, was the first. Like most right wing politicians, he knew that he could get away with blatant appeals to the dumbest and craziest 10% of the population, and wouldn’t alienate most of the rest just so long as he dressed it up in patriotic and pious verbiage. There are a lot of people whose brains become as non-functional as Terri’s if you wave a flag and a cross in front of them, and tell them "Jeezus wants you to be a True Americun!" To him, the twitch and vacant grin and eyes of Terri translated to several hundred thousand votes. So he used Terri like a 14 year old boy uses a copy of Hustler magazine. It put the Schiavo case front and center before the public, and she quickly became a symbol of something or other pretty profound, or an example of how nasty and uncaring the religious right can be, depending on where you sit.

So, with the nutball right solidly in their corner, the Schiavo parents and some of the sleazier public figures in America keep fighting to keep the corpse twitching. Nearly 18 months later, and 15 years after she collapsed, never to arise, in her kitchen, Terri Schiavo remains clinically alive, oblivious to the political firestorm that surrounds her. There’s that mercy, at least–she doesn’t know she’s being gangbanged by the trashiest load of political vultures in American history.

For Tom DeLay, who is under extreme fire for a list of ethical violations a mile long, the Schiavo thing was a welcome distraction, and it was amazing watching the little exterminator wax religiously sanctimonious about the whole thing, intoning "To friends, family and millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend: do not be afraid. Terri Schiavo will not be forsaken." DeLay supporters both in the House and in the cable right wing chorus quickly pointed out that this proved that DeLay was a moral and compassionate man with a heart of gold. It’s pretty unlikely that this changed many minds about DeLay, especially among those of us who consider him the scummiest and lowest in the whole ratbag-infested House, but it did add an element of comic relief to the proceedings.

But it took the special genius of Doctor Bill Frist, Republican Senator from Tennessee and Majority Leader in the United States Senate, to move the whole fight over Terri Schiavo out of the realm of low farce and into a realm that is a cross between Kafka and Bosch.

Frist decided the way to keep Terri "alive" was to subpoena her to appear before Congress and testify.

The rationale behind this move was clear enough. If you are subpoenaed by Congress to testify, you are granted special protections, much like those accorded witnesses in a criminal trial. Any effort by any person to interfere or block that appearance and subsequent testimony is a felony. Ironically, the felony in question is called "Contempt of Congress", a felonious act that many of us now share. Pulling her feeding tube would be prima facie evidence of interfering with her ability to testify before Congress. I didn’t say it made sense. I just said it was clear.

The thing about Frist is that he has a strong medical background. A lot of Schiavo’s medical files are in the public arena, thanks to the grotesque battle that has raged around her (she don’t know about it; she don’t know about it; hang on to that thought), and he’s had ample opportunity to peruse them. He knows that this woman is never going to walk or talk, and worse, is never going to think or have emotions beyond the most primitive responses to stimuli, such as pain or heat.

Frist is lucky. If it was my wife who was being used as a political volleyball like that, I would have immediately called a press conference and agreed to have her appear before Congress as soon as possible. I would request that certain allowances be made, such as allowing room for a hospital bed and various monitoring and nurturing devices, and that she be excused from having to swear and oath or do any other walking or talking, having been somewhat limited by being dead and all. (My wife does read these essays, and I expect she’ll get a big laugh out of the image of Frist trying to get her to smile for the cameras; he wouldn’t have had any luck even if she wasn’t brain dead. Which she isn’t. Brain dead, that is. Look, I just want to get out of this essay alive, ok?).

But Frist is not funny. He is a ghoul, and worse than a ghoul. More than anybody in Congress, he understands exactly what he is doing. He’s using a body that he knows is in a persistent vegetable state, and will never, ever recover, not one whit or iota, from where it is now, and he’s using it for some political grandstanding. This makes him a disgrace to the medical profession, it makes him a disgrace to Congress, and it makes him an embarrassment to the Christians and Americans in whose name he conducts such ugly, ghoulish grandstanding.

Frist is one sick fuck.

The good news is that his gambit failed. A court ruled, once again, that neither Congress nor the Florida state legislature have a say in the matter, and ordered the doctors to feel free to remove the tube. It was removed later that afternoon.

The New York Times quoted Michael Schiavo’s lawyer, Mr. George Felos, as saying that the behavior of the politicians was "nothing short of thuggery" and amounted to attempts to "coerce and intimidate." The Times quoted him as saying that lawmakers from both parties had misused the Schiavo case to further their political aims, and he concluded, "It was odious, it was shocking, it was disgusting and I think every American should be alarmed by that."

Hopefully, Frist and all the other sleazy little demagogues who played football with the Schiavo corpse will think about that, and maybe next time, exercise a little decency and respect for a family tragedy.

But these guys really are scum, so don’t count on it.