The impossible has happened.
President Bush finally gave in and used his veto power to stop a Senate-House stem cell research bill from being cannonized into law, and not a moment too soon. If he had not taken action, we might have found ourself hurtling towards some dark future in which major human disease and ailment was a thing of the past. A grade A nightmare, for sure. If this measure had been allowed to go forth, opponents tell us, it would have started us down a steep, slippery slope that begins with gene tampering, and ends in harvesting organs and nothing less than the End of Times. You see, God is angry at us, and one or two more dead blastocytes might cross that invisible line where Enough is Enough! I'm even afraid to masturbate, fearing that I will be struck dead at the moment of highest pleasure and follow my little fishies down the drain, straight to Hell.
Alas, this is what its come to. A nation scientifically crippled, cut off at the knees by a screaming, hysterical minority who wants to teach your children fairy tales in biology class and sees no conflict between their professed Pro-Life label and a rabid, bloodthirsty support of Capital Punishment, war on "Evildoers," or any number of venegful acts that make decent people feel like squirming out of their own skin. Yes, the tenticles of this crazed beast are all over the place, spreading slime and ick wherever they go. Somewhere in Washington there is a conversion chart that politicians use to determine whether a particular murder is acceptable. Save the embroys! Fuck the Lebanese!
But, I'm getting off track here. Where was I...? Oh, yes, Bush's braindead decision to veto one of the first, if not the only bills with broad bipartisan support that was not tainted by the spectre of 9/11.
WASHINGTON, July 19 — President Bush on Wednesday rejected legislation to expand federally supported embryonic stem cell research, exercising his first veto while putting himself at odds with many members of his own party and what polls say is a majority of the public.
Source: New York Times, June 20, 2006.
First, I am left to wonder why "many members of his own party", so endebted to the Christian right for getting them elected in the first place, would back such a measure. But then I remembered Ronald Regan, and his 12 (some may say more) year fight with Alzheimer's disease. Even in death, this man exerts some weird pull over these fuckers. They get giddy just thinking about him. Alot of Republicans, now seeing the continual failure that is the Bush machine, are disowning the current President in favor of # 40, telling supporters and anyone else who will listen that they are "Regan Republicans." None of this appears to have fazed Bush, however, who swatted down the measure the way normal people swat flies.
The move appears to have two completely contradictory effects. On one hand, he, and his supporters, can continue to refer to him as a man of principles, poll numbers be Damned! On the other hand, it completely obliterates that notion by revealing him to be a spineless, butt-sniffing Yes Man to the funamentalist Christian lobby. I wonder how long these loonies will savor this "victory" before they forget that they are largely in control of all three branches of government and start complaining about 'What happened to the good 'ol days' and 'What are all these niggers and faggots doing on the television set?'
Others opponents, however, took a different approach.
“This is a profound moral issue," said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, after the White House ceremony. “The issue is whether or not it is morally right to use the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans who find this research morally objectionable."
Okay, Mr. Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana. In that case I am asking for a refund from the federal government of my tax dollars that have gone towards, among other things, the massive war machine operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, our longstanding military support of Israel, and the
War on Drugs, a farcical wild goose chase initiated by that paragon of virtue Richard Nixon, and still humming along today, over 30 years later.
Oh, yeah, and I want all of my money back from any agency that has done any kind of pharmacuetical research for the United States government. It is bad enough that we help to fund the development of medicines that are then sold back to us at ever higher costs, but now to take a potential
miracle cure off the table because some batshit crazy religious men and women from the "heartland" object to it is infuriating. Aren't these people always looking for a miracle? Well, this is it, folks! An honest-to-God can-you-believe-this-shit? miracle that could cure cancer, parkinson's, alzheimer's, brain & spinal injuries, and you-know-who-knows-what-else, and it is turned down because you would rather tolerate the suffering of the living than the "death" of the never born.
Somewhere, Terri Schiavo turns in her grave, and Bill Frist is there to diagnose her alive and well.
