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November 14, 2004
I HATE TO SAY I
I HATE TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO, BUT...
Congratulations, conservative America. You got what you wanted. You turned back those nasty liberals with their dangerous thoughts about the Constitution, diversity, and freedom of expression. It's been 12 days since George W. Bush returned to the White House; but that return came under increasingly shady circumstances; it seems that not all of those "most votes ever" were actually real... and wow, what a shock: there were "mistakes" that just happened to happen in swing states!
Can you imagine how loud the Republicans would be screaming if Kerry had been the official winner and then voting machines in Ohio had been proven to be giving Kerry 3900 extra votes -- in the one district where it had been caught? Tom DeLay would probably have flown in at least 100 of his white-shirted intimidation troops -- I mean, "observers" who just happen to pound angrily on the doors of the rooms where votes ar being counted, a la Florida in 2000 -- from DC to try and scare officials into a recount by now.
But because conservatives and Republicans are the self-appointed guardians of our morals and values, we're not supposed to question anything whatsoever about Uncle George W. Bush, his party, or the circumstances in which he was elected. This is the party of moral values, after all!
Well, let's take a look at how conservative values have been applied in just the last 12 days:
1) Alberto Gonzales has been tapped to become the new Attorney General. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in George W. Bush's America, a man deeply involved in the approval of the use of torture by the US now in charge of the Justice Department. Gotta love those conservative values.
2) Chill effect censorship is starting to take deeper hold. Nearly 1/3 of the ABC affiliates in America would not air "Saving Private Ryan," for fear that the film's realistic depiction of war would run afoul of the FCC's nebulous and unwritten guidelines on "indecent" content -- guidelines that are increasingly subjective and adhere carefully to the conservative moral agenda.
You know, given that a number of Sinclair Broadcasting stations were prominently among the stations refusing to air the movie, there's another possible explanation, beyond the American Inquisition nature of the Federal Conservatives Commission under Bush. Could it be that realistic depictions of how horrific war is might run afoul of the conservative agenda? Because if we're all reminded of how brutal and horrendous war is, we might start thinking about how our nation is currently engaged in a war that George W. Bush started under false pretense... and we might not think so highly of him if we remember those made-up words about WMD and how callously Bush led us into war. (He's still not attended one funeral for a soldier or Marine killed in Iraq, by the way.)
Whatever the reason, in George W. Bush's America, we now have a situation where TV stations are afraid to broadcast content for fear that it might upset the government. Gotta love those conservative values.
3) Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. This committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormonetherapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination.
Because women hold such an important place in conservative values, the committee has been virtually ignored by the Bush Administration -- it hasn't even met for more than two years. Of course, during this time, the committee's charter lapsed. And wow -- would you look at that? -- as a result, Bush now gets to fill all eleven positions with new members... none of which require Congressional approval.
Hager, a fundamentalist conservative Christian, is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now," which blends biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice. Hager also recently assisted the Christian Medical Association in a "citizen's petition" which calls upon the FDA to revoke its approval of mifepristone in the name of women's health.
In his private OB/GYN practice, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. In the book Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality Reproductive Technologies and the Family," Hager has endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common birth control pill is an abortifacient... yes, the man Bush is going to put in charge of women's reproductive health in this country will not even acknowledge medical fact - that the Pill does not induce abortions.
Hager has an established track record of using religious beliefs to guide his medical decision-making. But Bush's "conservative values" have led him to name Hager anyway. So for you men, understand now that thanks to Bush, the man in charge of the reproductive health of your wives, daughters, mothers and sisters is someone who thinks that the medical solution for PMS is prayer, and that unmarried women should not receive birth control. Yes, kids, he opposes abortion, but won't prescribe the birth control that would prevent unintended pregnancies.
Gee, guys... hope your wife or mother never needs a hysterectomy -- the US government's solution for her will be that she needs to pray. Hope your daughters don't want to try and use protection to keep herself from becoming pregnant -- the government will prevent her from doing so. Hope none of you have a planned pregnancy with your wife/significant other -- obstetrics and gynecology in George W. Bush's America is hostage to politics and religion, not science and medicine. Women... all I can say is: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Welcome to George W. Bush's conservative values.
4) Want to know the kind of person who's overjoyed with Bush's "re-election?" Check out the letter to Bush from Bob Jones III, Christian Taliban extraordinaire, head of the university that prohibited interracial dating into the 21st century and that still puts anti-Catholic hate literature on its Website.
"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America -- though she doesn't deserve it -- a reprieve from the agenda of paganism," Jones wrote Bush in a congratulatory letter posted on the university's Web site.
First of all, can you imagine all the conservative outcry if a prominent liberal had spouted off about America not deserving something? We get called "America-haters" simply for opposing Bush, much less suggesting America may not deserve anything.
"You have been given a mandate... Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ."
Political opponents "despise your Christ?" Sounds quite a bit like the "smite the infidels" we hear from bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Zarqawi and the rest of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that we are at war with, doesn't it?
Welcome to conservative values, America. Those of you who voted for Bush, this is what you voted for. Nicely done, guys.
