Putsch and the Blob Squad

The Case of the Flattened Thumb

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

8/9/01

They weren’t going to yank Putsch’s strings just yet. Word was that he wasn’t going to announce "his" decision on stem cell research until sometime after a trip to Wisconsin, in late August.

But then the media noticed that he had been taking a lot of vacation time for a guy who hadn’t even been on the job six months, and someone sat down and figured that by the time he got back at the end of the month, a full 42% of his "Presidency" to that date would have been spent on vacation.

Even Reagan, considered heretofore the laziest and least involved president of modern times, didn’t goof off at quite that embarrassing a level, and certainly not during the first six months in office. Most Presidents find things to do during those first six months, since the opening period is considered vital to the subsequent success of the term.

So the initial response was pure GOP: hang a vaguely patriotic name on it, and pretend it’s the opposite of what it really is. So they called the vacation something like "Tour back to the Heartland" or something equally idiotic, and dubbed it a "working vacation". Just to show that it really was a working vacation, they shipped Putsch out to a Habitat for Humanity site, figuring to get some heart-warming shots to him pounding a few nails on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged.

That didn’t work out so well. Not only did he wind up smashing a thumb (who the hell thought it was a good idea to give Putsch a hammer, anyway?), but it came to light that the official schedule released to the press only had him allocated fifteen minutes for doing Good Works for Humanity, and about ten of those were involved in getting out of the limo and shaking hands with dazzled local officials, leaving only five minutes in which he could hammer his thumb flat. As an example of commitment to the poor, and compassionate conservatism, it left a bit to be desired.

In the meantime, controversy continued to arise over the amount of vacation time that was being used here. Most people would give a pass on the number of treaties Putsch was cavalierly discarding, or the growing evidence of deliberate malfeasance in the Florida election or his efforts to suborn the constitution in the name of some weird pseudo-Christian theocracy, but most people can grasp that when you get a very important job that pays 400 large plus a lot of perks, a little effort is expected. At least average three days a week, you know?

Clearly, they had to make the feeb look busy so people would think they were getting something for their money.

There was a second pressure point causing the GOP discomfort, and that was the growing clamor for a policy regarding stem cell research. Stem cells, as most people know by now, are regarded as an incredibly valuable tool for research into genetic therapies, cloning, growing replacement organs and neural tissue, and a host of other potentially revolutionary medical applications. Where the problem lies is that while stem cells can be found in placental and umbilical blood, and even extracted from adult blood, the best place to find a rich stock of undifferentiated cells is in human embryos.

Enter the Blob Squad. This is the anti-abortion crowd, and they’ve decided that at the instant of conception, the soul enters the neoblast and immediately begins writing sonnets, appreciating music, and proving that there is no god. That an absolute minimum of one third of all human pregnancies spontaneously abort, placing into serious question God’s opinion on neoblasts, seems to have escaped these people. The Blob Squad has decided neoblasts are humans, even if they are differentiated-cell impaired.

The Blob Squad insists that an undifferentiated mass of cells is a human being, one that, in the event of abortion, will scream "Mommy! Mommy! I love you! Why are you killing me!" if some of their more lurid propaganda is to be believed. Mind you, these are people who seem to honestly believe that the fact that late-term abortion is permitted if the health of the mother is threatened means that thousands of women are going to rush into clinics and get vacuumed during their eighth month, just on a whim.

The Blob Squad insists that neoblasts are human, and destruction of same is murder. Thus in the event of stem cell research, they want to show everyone that murder is wrong by calling for the conviction and execution of the donors, the doctors, the nurses, and the security guard at the door. Just doin’ god’s work, folks.

Fundamentalists of all varieties (Christianity, or for that matter, religion in general, is far from alone on this) tend to wear their beliefs like a ring through their nose. Exploit that belief, and they are easily led. That’s why no politician who waves a Bible, or a flag, should be trusted.

Putsch exploited that belief in order to get elected, and solemnly promised the Blob Squad that he would halt federal funding of stem cell research.

Putsch thinks secular America has a chill, and wants to knit us a nice new Afghanistan to keep us warm. The announcement was made that he would declare a "decision" on stem cell research the following night at just precisely the same moment that Americans United for Separation of Church and State (http://www.au.org, ) were uncovering yet another effort by Putsch to stage an end run around that silly constitutional thing about having to respect the rights on non-believers and assuring various churches that his federal funds from his "faith-based" scam didn’t mean Churches had to use that money to feed any queers or Jews.

But few people expected Putsch to inflict that suffocating squeamishness that the Blob Squad presents as morality on stem cell research. As tight as his ties are to the Christian Coalition and like groups, the fundies aren’t Putsch’s master. They are his vehicle.

His real masters include the pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, HMOs and other corporate entities that stand to make large fortunes from stem cell research. Can anyone say "Geron Corporation"?

It’s been noted that political fundamentalists tend to cling to a conviction that it isn’t a sin if a Republican does it. Thus they can tell you with a perfectly straight face that Clinton fibbing about a blow job is a far more terrible crime than Bush bombing the hell out of Baghdad and killing nearly half a million people, including fifty thousand children, over a misunderstanding caused by Bush himself. It’s a tenet of fundamentalist belief that the guardians of that belief, particularly self-appointed one, are incapable of sin. And the Republicans have done a marvelous job of portraying themselves as being avatars of fundamentalist belief.

Of course, fundamentalists, while lacking imagination, aren’t crazy. Get right in their face and spit, and they will conclude that they misread God’s intent concerning you, and that you AREN’T one of the elect, and turn on you viciously.

So Putsch’s handlers had to choose between the sensibilities of rabid fundies who are bad for business, and possibly trillions of dollars just from the patents on stem cell discoveries.

Which is why this morning, the fundies are standing outside the iron gate at the Crawdaddy Ranch, rubbing a footprint on their arses, and glaring back over their shoulder at the house where Putsch "works".

The only trouble was that the handlers didn’t quite feel that they could get away with overt rape. They had to toss the fundies a bone, and hoped that the bone would be enough to mollify the Blob Squad even as they betrayed them.

So they stuck Putsch in front of a bizarre matte of Texas hardpan and hoped nobody would notice that, it being night in Texas when he gave his speech, the vista behind him was utterly phony. Putsch then announced, with remarkably few gaffes, that federal funding would be made available for research on existing stem cell lines taken from neoblasts that are now unfortunately vitally inconvenienced, but would not fund the actual growth and use of other neoblasts for study.

That wouldn’t thrill the science community, which is just getting started on this research, and will need more than the 60 existing lines in order to get any meaningful work done. This, in turn, would threaten potential profits.

It might be enough of a bone to mollify all the fence-sitters who are concerned that the fundies have it right and killing neoblasts is bad. (The fundies, of course, will scream to high heaven). But it wasn’t enough for the corporations.

But there’s a loophole in Putsch’s compromise. He stated that federal funding would be made available for existing stem cell lines. What he did NOT say was that federal funding would be available only for stem cell lines NOW existing.

See the distinction? I replayed the speech, and his words were very carefully chosen. What he’s saying is that the funding will cover existing stem cell lines. It won’t pay for the initial stages of neoblast formation and harvesting. However, if that is done on non-federal funds, the feds will be happy to subsidize the results of THOSE neoblasts and the resultant new lines.

In other words, Putsch’s handlers found a way to get exactly what they wanted, and get it without appearing to completely rape the Blob Squad. And the Blob Squad, blinkered as they are, aren’t real likely to figure it out real soon. (No, I don’t think my essays get wide circulation among them, somehow).

It’s a good decision, but characteristically, done in a devious fashion and for all the wrong reasons. But good will come out of it, and it also means that in the field of biogenetic research, America won’t be relegated to third-world status by the resident Taliban.

Putsch has actually learned something from all this. He’s heard Dick and Karl and the rest all talking about this, and how to handle the religious sensitivities of those opposed, and he read a big long speech on national TV that had all these hard ideas about abortion and research and all that stuff, and he’s now a wiser man.

He has learned, for a while at least, that if you hit your thumb with a hammer, it hurts.