Why They're Really Doing It

Being a native Floridian, I’ve known about the Schiavo case for a long time. It’s a sad tale, and the spectacle being made of it by politicians and activists is nauseating. No longer is it a tragic private matter for an unfortunate Florida family, this case has become the rallying cry for a small group of fundamentalist zealots bent on remaking the world in an image pleasing to them. Once the Delay Republicans in Congress took up the case, I realized it had become a proxy fight for the right-to-life crowd, otherwise known as anti-abortion crusaders. Here Kos provides some evidence:

DeLay thinks Schiavo gives him a reprieve from his ethics woes. The anti-abortion movement, on the other hand, thinks this gives their cause a boost.

Christian evangelicals, a key component in President Bush's Republican Party, believe the case of brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo may help inject new life into their long campaign against abortion.

“The right-to-life issue has been with us for over 30 years but never has it dominated the news headlines day after day as it is doing now," said Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

"This case has generated a kind of inspirational activism. It is giving revival and renewal to millions of people who feel strongly about the culture of life and the protection of life," he said.

Schiavo is a prop for their real agenda.

Not surprisingly, a number of less extremist conservatives recognize the inherent danger posed by a Congressional leadership that decides to override the rule of law. Kos again:

Conservative bloggers aren't standing pat on the Schiavo case, and some are even more passionately against Frist's and DeLay's actions than we are. John Cole is one of them.

It's important to remember that the latest ABC News poll (PDF) on the issue clocked conservative support for removing the feeding tube at 54-40. That's a solid majority, among conservatives. Heck, even among evangelicals, there is narrow support for removing the feeding tubes, 44-40.

What we have here is a Republican Party held captive by a narrow, fringe, extremist part of its base. Your average Republican is looking in horror at the current congressional spectacle. The GOP majority has neatly segued itself into the party of Big Intrusive Government.

Chris Bowers at MyDD has uncovered the financial connections between the big-money operatives of the GOP and conservative movement and the parents of Schiavo, who are campaigning to keep her alive.

Schindler lawyer Pat Anderson "was paid directly" by the anti-abortion Life Legal Defense Foundation, which "has already spent over $300,000 on this case," according to the foundation's Web site. Much of the support for Life Legal Defense Foundation, in turn, comes from the Alliance Defense Fund, an anti-gay rights group which collected more than $15 million in private donations in 2002 and admits to having spent money on the Schiavo case "in the six figures," according to a recent article in the Palm Beach Post. Mediatransparency.org states that between 1994 and 2002, the Alliance Defense Fund received $142,000 from Philanthropy Roundtable members that include the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation and the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation.

Most of the public favors the court rulings, which basically says that Schiavo’s husband is her guardian and his (private) decision that she would not want to go on living is what everyone should respect. So why are politicians jumping on this as a great issue? Because the big money behind the GOP wants them to. As Kos says, this is a small, extremist faction of the GOP. And it’s obvious that they do not care about public opinion, the rule of law, or the privacy of individuals. They will do anything to exercise their power.

And not only are the politicians in their pockets, but so too are the big media corporations. If you’ve seen the network coverage of this circus (or almost anything else recently), you know what I mean.

Unfortunately for those of us in the reality-based community, the country’s political alliances are so fractured, and our public discourse so awful, that no real discussion of the long term consequences of these events can take place. Thus, no coherent argument will form to educate the public consciousness about how this latest action by the Congress and President has eroded the rule of law, weakened our civil liberties, or the further jeopardized our ability to control our own government.

So tomorrow, and each day hence forth, will bring another over-reaching power-grabbing action by a government that has run amok. And each day it will continue until the very foundation of the country crumbles beneath the rubble of the Republican Revolution.