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The conservative attempts to politicize the swine flu have been the only funny thing about this pandemic that has killed over 100 people and threatens the globe. It’s really shown that your average wingnut was one black President away from spinning straight from nutty to completely conspiracy theorist militia-starting bonkers. There is nothing that can’t be turned into a political conspiracy about their own pet hate. Immigration nutters blame Mexico. People whose every waking moment is dedicated to hating latte-swilling liberals are trying to make this about Obama. Knowing as we do that conservatives are streamlined projection machines, we can learn something about all this paranoia.
1) They really do think everything is about them personally.
2) They wouldn’t hesitate for a second to either exploit a disease for base political reasons or make one up completely if they had to. The latter is the next step in the paranoid thinking, and most of that comes from, I suspect, wishing they’d thought of it as soon as the political dividends from exploiting 9/11 weren’t paying out anymore.
But of all obsessive conservatives who think any and everything, including the swine flu, is about their pet political cause, I think the anti-choice nuts win the prize. (Hat tip.)
The Obama administration’s actions to respond to the outbreak of swine flu, including its declaration of a public health emergency, smacks of an attempt to cover up this week’s Senate vote on the confirmation of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) as secretary of Health and Human Services, a prominent anti-abortion-rights activist told the Washington Independent.
“Some people think that declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to push the Sebelius nomination through,” Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright told the website’s Dave Weigel.
“Some people"=me and my friends.
There are many layers of paranoid, self-obsessive batshit craziness going on here. First of all, you have the obsession with Kathleen Sebelius, whose appointment anti-choice nutters have been clogging up. From a normie’s perspective, the obsession with Sebelius doesn’t make much sense. Sure, she’s a pro-choice appointment to a department that will deal directly with women’s health. But any fool, even a wingnut fool, could tell you that the odds of Obama picking a wingnut-approved misogynist for the position of HHH Secretary was somewhere between zilch and laughable. And that’s even with the way that Obama plays footsie with religious conservatives, as if their “faith” that women are inferior to men was something worth respecting. That she’s from Kansas should be no thing to them, since it just means that it might be easier for a Republican to get the governor’s seat back.
Really, their obsession comes down to two things. One, she is herself actually female, and that just adds insult to pro-choice injury. After all, the whole point of anti-choice nuttery is rolling back the clock to the halcyon days when women didn’t get jobs like Secretary, and were lucky if they got jobs as secretaries. This is true even though the same group of nuts will eagerly support women like Sarah Palin, because intellectual honesty isn’t their strong point, especially when someone’s a good-looking woman who most likely has not had any abortions. (I think a lot more of their choices become easier to understand when you assume that they assume that every liberal or unmarried woman is an immediate suspect for having had an abortion at some point.)
The other is is that Sebelius is the governor of the ground zero state that anti-choicers have marked off for killing, maiming and traumatizing women in the name of hating abortion that much. Kansas is where Dr. George Tiller works, and he is one of the two doctors in the country that specializes in the very small percentage of abortions performed late in pregnancy (but before viability) done for health reasons, usually because the pregnancy is a danger to a woman’s health or life, or because the fetus is dead or dying. Dr. Tiller obeys the law, but anti-choicers refuse to believe this. They have dogged this man in ways that would make Bill Clinton marvel. He’s been shot in both arms, stalked by by the attorney general’s office under Phill Kline (who had a lascivious need to demand that clinics who performed abortion turn over all the files on patients so he could read them, presumably to find evidence of illegal behavior, but personal gratification doesn’t seem to be off the table as an added bonus), and charged with the crime of performing a bunch of illegal abortions, for which he was acquitted.
What’s interesting about the Tiller situation is it’s a perfect example of how the anti-choice movement presents a baby-loving case to the public, but is actually motivated by this deep fear and loathing for women (and yes, that many women feel fear and loathing for women doesn’t change this). The argument for attacking Tiller is that he performs late term abortions, which are supposedly worse than early term ones, even though anti-choicers claim that a fertilized egg is the same thing as a 5-year-old child, so that shows that their targeting of late term providers is cynical politicking on its face. But if you actually bother to look at why women get late term abortions, the targeting Dr. Tiller becomes even more horrifying. Generally speaking, you’re talking about women who really wanted to have a baby, but who can’t have this one, because something is wrong with her health or that of the fetus. Because of the sensitive nature of the situation, Dr. Tiller’s office offers a great deal of counseling services to their patients, who are often suffering trauma because of what’s happening to them. In addition to counseling, there are baptism and funerary services, as well as photographing and footprinting, for people who want to say goodbye to the baby that they expected to have but couldn’t. The levels of hate projected at Dr. Tiller are directly proportional to the levels of care he shows for women during this rough period of their lives. But to the anti-choice movement, sacrificing these women is all the more juicy, because it shows the anti-choice levels of commitment to sacrificing women for Jeebus. It’s similar to the way the Catholic church goes to bat for forcing raped 9-year-olds to give birth.
Anti-choicers blame that woman Sebelius for getting between them and traumatizing a whole bunch of already traumatized women, because she has largely resisted efforts to turn the Kansas government over to anti-choice nuts who are seeking to make new and unwilling martyrs for the anti-abortion cause. I have no doubt that her own gender is considered part of the reason she’s such a softie with the ladies.Taking a stand against Sebelius is political theater for misogynists, to show the base that even when the War Against Women seems helpless, they will continue to fight until we have a government that forces women to die for the crime of having gotten pregnant while being female.
Really, that alone should be enough to consider these wanks too crazy to be taken seriously at all, but the swine flu paranoia just adds to it. It’s not just Concerned Women for America, either. The Family Research Council’s gotten involved, too.
What do sick pigs have to do with widespread, taxpayer-funded abortion? More than you might think. This week, as panic spreads over a potential swine flu pandemic, liberals are already scheming how they can use the health scare to win the confirmation of pro-abortion extremist Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) as Secretary of Health and Human Services. No doubt the empty seat at HHS was keenly felt this weekend, as Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, stepped into the void at HHS and declared the swine flu a “health emergency.” Although the Senate leadership will use the urgency of the flu to try to force Sebelius through the chamber, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the government’s response to the outbreak “has not been hindered by the lack of a secretary at HHS.”
It’s true. No one could possibly want a pro-choice woman in that seat because they actually think a woman could do the job of providing leadership during a public health crisis. This has to be about abortion. You can’t tell Tony Perkins that the Obama administration is actually going to front like they’d let a woman handle the actual work of the HHS Secretary. She can’t handle that job while scheming to turn every other woman in the country into an abortion party-throwing slut. So they’re not going to buy this story about how swine flu is a real problem, because obviously, if the Democrats thought it was a real problem, they’d give up on Sebelius and show that they’re serious by appointing a man, preferably one who shows that he’s serious by fighting against doctors who provide life-saving care for pregnant women.
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Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 08:16 AM •
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The wingnuts get more disgusting by the day.
“Sick Pigs”? That stupid is just too sad, but really, what do you expect from the wife of the ‘Left Behind’ guy—would that make her a ‘Right Behind’ or just an ass?
I’m sure Napolitano is up to the job (I *STILL* get her confused with the singer from Concrete Blonde, but really just to amuse me), but I’m not certain expanding the role of DHS to cover pandemic (getcha PAN-demic!--Wire S4) is a good precedent.
Whoops--shoulda read more carefully. The Concerned Women thing didn’t concern Madame LaHaye. I stand by the rest of my jokes. Fighting off a sudden stomach acid revolt, and waiting for the ranitadine to kick in.
Sure, she’s a pro-choice appointment to a department that will deal directly with women’s health. But any fool, even a wingnut fool, could tell you that the odds of Obama picking a wingnut-approved misogynist for the position of HHH Secretary was somewhere between zilch and laughable.
Is there such a word as ‘negazilch?’
Sebelius is a symbol of the cracks in their armor even in the most impenatrable places of Mordor. The loons loathe her. A Kansas Democrat? My God! The next thing you know dodos will be headed for extinction.
Female Wingnut Governor = Savior of Humanity.
Moderate Female Governor = Anti-Christette.
And she is a moderate. It’s tough enough to be a Democrat in Kansas without being a flaming liberal. If she wasn’t a moderate she wouldn’t have been elected regardless of her other sterling qualities. Kathleen is one of my angels.
So they’re not going to buy this story about how swine flu is a real problem, because obviously, if the Democrats thought it was a real problem, they’d give up on Sebelius and show that they’re serious by appointing a man, preferably one who shows that he’s serious by fighting against doctors who provide life-saving care for pregnant women.
This is Wingnut Reflex #2*: There is no such thing as a qualified woman or minority. Any woman or minority in a position of power was put there because of affirmative action and/or political correctness and not because they were thought to be the best person for the job. So it makes perfect sense that the wingnuts believe that Sebelius was given the job simply because she’s pro-choice—they can’t picture any other reason that a woman would be given a job when there are so many men around who are clearly more qualified by virtue of the fact that they have a penis.
* Wingnut Reflex #1: Projection, projection, projection.
The sheer lack of self awareness is amazing.
Pulling stunts like this just help highlight to most Americans that these people are crazy crazies from Crazyville.
I started reading this post thinking “well, at least there is no way that anti-choicers could make this flu thing about abortion” but I apparently lack imagination.
And the hatred against Dr Tiller and his patients just turns my stomach. Of all the clinics you could stake out and harass patients and staff, Dr Tiller’s is the one where you are least likely to encounter someone who is there for a truly elective procedure. People who didn’t want the baby have an abortion a lot sooner at less expense and less pain in a less high-profile clinic. Nobody goes to Dr Tiller on a lark, that is for sure. These people are likely going through the most difficult thing in their lives and to pile harassment from strangers on top of that is just disgusting.
Lunatic Glenn Back said as much yesterday on his show. I don’t watch that insanity (and you probably don’t either) but Keith Olbermann felt the need to show a clip last night on his show where Beck declared the whole thing was made up to distract everyone from Sebelius’ confirmation vote today.
This is just yet more evidence for my theory that most, if not all, wingnuts are undiagnosed psychopaths.
And I mean “psychopath” in the literal psychological sense, not the hyperbolic figurative sense.
It’s not just that no one would want that, Gumby, but it’s also against the law and years of trying to make up charges against Dr. Tiller have demonstrated time and time again that he’s not sneaking a few illegal elective abortions in for shits and giggles. Of course, why would he? Like you said, it’s not really something people do.
I used to think anti-choice nuts thought refusing therapeutic abortions was a necessary evil. Now I’m forced to conclude that they think that maiming and killing women by refusing them basic medical care to terminate dangerous pregnancies is desirable. A woman who died because of pregnancy complications satisfies their desire for drama. That the Catholic Church has started to beatify women who die in childbirth shows what direction this is going.
From The Guardian (UK):
Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas, stayed true to her record yesterday, vetoing legislation that would have imposed new rules on abortion providers.
The veto could be Sebelius’ last as governor - and perhaps her boldest.
The Democrat awaits a final vote in the US Senate next week on her nomination by Barack Obama to lead the department of health and human services. Critics have seized on her support for abortion rights and her ties to late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Wichita.
“While I agree that we should try to reduce the number of abortions, it cannot be at the increased risk to the life or health of women,” Sebelius wrote in a statement announcing the veto.
The article also goes on to mention that Till was aquitted of violating Kansas’ abortion laws.
It has nothing to do with reproductive justice. The flu response is Rahm Emmanuels’s clever ploy to push universal health care on the country. By letting the disease in from mexico, they hope enough people get sick so that the masses plea with the gov’t to save them.
<reichwing>
Yeah, it was yet another bill trying to ban health and life-saving procedures for women. It’s increasingly obvious that the anti-choice right would like to go the way of the Taliban and ban medical care for women.
I won’t be upset if they keep this talk up. They are making themselves look even more insane to the general public.
Late term abortion is a sticky subject, unfortunately. Way too many pro-choicers shy away from talking about it, when we should be on the offensive, pointing out that anti-choicers specifically target doctors who specialize in therapeutic abortions. If you need an abortion for health reasons, they are gunning for you.
So, in short, swine flu is a plot by evil baby-hating liberals to kill unborn babies.
That the Catholic Church has started to beatify women who die in childbirth shows what direction this is going.
It’s funny. In most families I know - specifically my own - the mom is the religious foundation. For my friends and I, if our moms didn’t wake us up and hustle us out the door every Sunday, we’d never make it to Church. They signed us up for CCE. They reminded us to give something up for Lent. They did up the house for Easter and Christmas.
Crazy shit like this makes my mom take a big step back from the Catholic Church. I can’t help but think that others are moving in a similar direction. During the 80s, the Catholics pushed aside a lot of their old rules in an attempt to bring more people back into the Church. Opening their doors to divorcees and single parent families and mixed race/religious couples helped re-inflate their numbers. It seems like they’re moving in the opposite direction now, and I can’t help but think they’ll get the opposite results.
I had a ‘push-poll’ that was voiced by the insufferable Huckabee for some pro-life group about “the removal of state regulations over abortion” and I took the time to answer all the questions the “wrong way”.
I wonder who’s paying Mike these days? 
One other factor: Small-dick insecurity. The Republicans have to block a Cabinet appointe. They just have to. Doesn’t matter who, doesn’t matter how, doesn’t matter how important the seat is. They just have to put that uppity presumptuous Obama in his place, and win a news cycle or two at the same time.
DCFem: I saw Olbermann last night, too, and my jaw hit the floor when he showed Beck ranting about this “conspiracy”. How batshit insane are you when you believe that the entire world is in on a massive hoax that will delay the confirmation of a HHS by maybe a week or so? Glenn Beck is crazier than a shithouse rat and every bit as slimy.
Meanwhile, PoundFoolish award goes to Susan Collins, who insisted that an earmark for pandemic research be cut from the Stimulus (for some good reasons, but she didn’t spin it like that at the time because she was railing against pork for the sake of the teabaggers to be ...). Perhaps somebody should give her the prize for the first grandstand against an earmark to bite a politician in the ass: a silk purse made from a swine’s ear, full of pennies for futile pinching.
Cut pork, get swine. Toss your lot in with the batshit insane and reap the rewards when reality comes around again and again.
Rick, I agree that the main motivation is to get a Cabinet member, any Cabinet member. That they are singling out one on the basis of being a pro-choice woman is fascinating, though. They’ve decided that’s the direction they’re taking this.
Glen Beck is hallucinating again? I can’t wait to see Colbert in his diaper again ... ready for the swine siege!
Ms Kate - Don’t forget Bobby Jindahl’s comeuppence when the volcano in Alaska erupted shortly after his speech mocking funding for volcano monitoring. Although Susan Collin’s railing may effect more people, the timing of the volcanic eruption was priceless.
That they are singling out one on the basis of being a pro-choice woman is fascinating, though.
They didn’t “single” her out arbitrarily. Sebelius stands at the nexus of several major public issues - universal health care, abortion, and now swine flu. The HHS position had a big bullseye painted on it from the start. That’s why Daschele didn’t make it through when Geitner did. It’s why the seat has been vacant for so long. Obama needed a rock solid pick.
And Republicans were equally aggressive against the AG slot and the Treasury slot. Again, because these are hot button national issues. Why do you think Harold Koh is having such a hard time? This has much less to do with Sebelius’s gender and much more to do with her party affiliation.
Speaking as a Kansas resident, Tiller is a freaking hero. The amount of harassment and violence directed against him is unbelievable, and he keeps just doing his job. The problem is that he won’t live forever, and the anti-woman nuts are making it unlikely that anyone will step in to fill his shoes when he’s gone.
We can have all the legal protections we want, but if those sick bastards can make the environment for abortion providers so hostile and unsafe that no one is willing to do it, then we’re as bad off as the Dominican Republic.
Zif, I didn’t say they singled her out arbitrarily. They singled her out on abortion and femaleness and health care, which says everything you need to know about the direction they feel they need to take the party in.
BadKitty, Jindal made that pronouncement after the warnings for Redoubt went out.
But Jindal is a well known rubber-room denizen embedded with the crazies of the republican party. Collins is a moderate who was taking crap for playing nice with the Democrats because she isn’t safe in her state if she doesn’t. She was flirting and appeasing the teabaggerite, and now she’s going to pay for it.
“Tiller is a freaking hero”
Yup
To be honest, I did think that the swine flu would help Sebelius.
I thought having a real emergency would point out that the GOP is obstructing important positions over stupid issues that most of the country disagrees with them about.
Most Americans don’t like abortions, but think they should be legal. They elected Obama, and he’s pro-choice. Some may say part of the reason he was elected was BECAUSE he is pro-choice. Of course he’s going to pick a pro-choice head of HHS. He’s not putting a veterinarian in there.
GOP are obstructing over the pro-choice issue, which is a non-issue since everyone he proposes will be pro-choice. If that’s all they got, they need to confirm her, especially with a possible emergency on our borders.
So, not a distraction from the confirmation, but a more serious focus on the issue and the obstruction.. THe more light that shines on the GOP, the more people dislike them.
This is Wingnut Reflex #2*: There is no such thing as a qualified woman or minority. Any woman or minority in a position of power was put there because of affirmative action and/or political correctness and not because they were thought to be the best person for the job…
* Wingnut Reflex #1: Projection, projection, projection.
And Reflex #2 is a result of #1. A troubling number of prominent conservative women and minorities do not have impressive qualifications (see Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin). Since Republicans promote underqualified women and minorities so they can claim to be more diverse than they actually are, everyone else must be doing the same.
Speaking of Clarence Thomas, did anyone else see his skewering on The Daily Show? Thomas is apparently intrigued by that mystical technology—the dishwasher. Proof positive that that man is completely detached from reality.
It isn’t just Sebelius - HHS is short staffed by a large percentage of appointed leadership positions because it does not have a confirmed head yet. This effectively cripples the forward policy making and leadership needed to deal with these sorts of emergent issues.
They aren’t just out to get one woman - they are crippling an entire agency with these antics. An agency that is needed to protect the United States. I strongly suspect that the reichwing is hoping for a big fail and trying to engineer it outright at a huge cost to our citizens. That’s exactly how insane they are.
Let’s just say it’s not reassuring to arrive at New York JFK airport on Monday going back home to Montreal and hearing the first thing about this swine flu while being in an airport in a state which apparently had a rather large number of cases…
I’m monitoring myself for symptoms and hoping my four day weekend in North Carolina didn’t end up causing a pandemic in Quebec. 
Opening their doors to divorcees and single parent families and mixed race/religious couples helped re-inflate their numbers. It seems like they’re moving in the opposite direction now, and I can’t help but think they’ll get the opposite results.
The latest noise from right-wing Catholics is they want a ‘smaller, purer’ Catholic Church, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the GOP go the same way. Meaning we could see a complete wingnut takeover of both institutions and, as their numbers and influence dwindle, we’re likely to see even more intense misogyny, aggression and rage coming from the frustrated remnant. Particularly from the church as they look at the empty pews, decide uppity feminists are to blame and ratchet up the anti-woman rhetoric yet again.
I just wish some of these freaks would bother to listen to the women Tiller serves, find out what chain of events really brought them to his doorstep and see all the things his practice does for them. I think they would feel shamed. Assuming they had any.
I couldn’t care less about a purer Republican Party, but I’d be delighted with a smaller one.
A purer Republican Party would almost certainly be smaller. It would also likely be frakking hilarious.
Counting down until someone claims that Democrats made swine flu up
You need to count down?
On the message boards for my local paper, I think that the first couple of posts posted the first day that news about the swine flu came out were various theories on how the CDC created this disease and released it on Obama’s order into the Mexican population, so that it could be brought back to the US without originating in the US. Why? Various reasons, which all condense around hysterical cries of SOCIALISM!
I also hang out at a forum where some anti-vaccers also have a board, and they’ve been ranting and raving about how it’s a plot against them. I noticed the topic from the front page of the forum, clicked through, gaped a bit, and then ran. Apparently Stephan King’s The Stand is a blueprint of some form.
And I feel dirty just typing the above.
The latest noise from right-wing Catholics is they want a ‘smaller, purer’ Catholic Church, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the GOP go the same way. Meaning we could see a complete wingnut takeover of both institutions and, as their numbers and influence dwindle, we’re likely to see even more intense misogyny, aggression and rage coming from the frustrated remnant. Particularly from the church as they look at the empty pews, decide uppity feminists are to blame and ratchet up the anti-woman rhetoric yet again.
Taking this a bit off topic, but my mom grew up in a snall southern Indiana town that is home to one of only 2 archabbeys in the United States. She went to “public parochial” school as a child--public schools staffed by nuns that taught Catholicism. Her parents were threatened with excommunication because they sent her to the public high school her extended family has always attended instead of the bang-spanking new Catholic high school (she transferred).
It’s a very conservative and very Catholic community.
And the people down there are drifting away…
If they’re losing the Catholics of St. Meinrad...gaah. “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers” There’s a reason Vatican II insisted that clerics were called to serve the people and not vice versa. If you don’t serve a literate, intelligent laity, you don’t have them for long.
Grandmother Monk, a practicing Catholic, told me as a child what her mother had told her, which was that even though the Church may change, we as practicing Catholics must stay with the Church.
This was around the time that Vatican II was starting to be implemented, and perhaps she was preparing me for the changes, as when Latin was taken out, and masses were done with guitars for music instead of pipe organs.
I submit that this attitude is a lot weaker than it was 40 years ago.
Tiller is a freaking hero.
I had heard of Dr. Tiller and his service but had never looked him up. Entered his name into Google and his site was the very first listing, which surprised me - I figured he’d have a tiny web presence (why encourage the crazies?) and that I’d have to wade through pages of anti-Tiller sites to get there.
His website is calm and very informative, and he has not only the clinic’s address on the site, but a map and directions to get there. Clearly his interest is in serving the women who have to seek him out, not in hiding from the crazies. That’s real courage.
One other thing that struck me: while the term “fetus” is used throughout the site, in the “Remembrances and Special Requests” section, he uses the words “your baby”. This recognizes that a woman who has to go to him generally wanted this baby and it is a baby to her. It seems especially sensitive to me.
Don’t forget Bobby Jindahl’s comeuppence when the volcano in Alaska erupted shortly after his speech mocking funding for volcano monitoring. Although Susan Collin’s railing may effect more people, the timing of the volcanic eruption was priceless.
BadKitty on 04/28 at 12:14 PM
Ya’know, if we were the wingnutty theistic types, using that as evidence, isn’t this supposed to be where we start claiming that God exists and he’s on our side?
I’m all for Howard Dean as HHS secretary, but damn if this article doesn’t make me want to campaign for Sebelius and fangirl her forever. :D
Amanda:
“Counting down until someone claims that Democrats made swine flu up”
Countdown now officially over:
Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, following Rush Limbaugh’s cue, suggested on Tuesday that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis. She went even farther than the talk show host, implying that swine flu epidemics are a Democratic phenomenon that dates back to President Carter.
“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”
picozilch = 10e-12 zilch. Small enough for you, magis? how about attozilch = 10e-18 zilch? I don’t know what follows atto- prefix.
while the term “fetus” is used throughout the site, in the “Remembrances and Special Requests” section, he uses the words “your baby”. This recognizes that a woman who has to go to him generally wanted this baby and it is a baby to her. It seems especially sensitive to me.
That really is touching and considerate.
Dr. Tiller truly is a hero. At http://aheartbreakingchoice.com there are “Kansas stories”, personal stories from people who have had to make the journey to Wichita because it was the only place to get the help needed. While Tiller is not mentioned by name, it is clearly his clinic since these are late-term abortions that were not available anywhere else. The stories are wrenching but these people are truly grateful for the support they received there, he is an extremely brave man to keep on despite everything that has been thrown his way.
I submit that this attitude is a lot weaker than it was 40 years ago.
I think a big reason for that attitude weakening was JPII backing off Vatican II. It’s one thing to do a huge overhaul of the entire Church; it’s quite another to then try and change it all back again 20 years later. For those of us raised entirely in Vatican II, it was incredibly disorienting to see the church slowly change in front of our eyes while they denied over and over again that it was changing and that Vatican II was still in effect.
That’s the kind of thing that raises doubt in your parishioners, and if it’s primarily your younger parishioners who are experiencing this alienation ... well, we’ve seen the results.
A great post, but it would have been even better if you had titled it “Swine Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
#1 wingnut reflex: Projection, projection, projection. Totally.
However, I don’t blame people for being suspicious of a unlikely-to-appear-in-nature hybrid virus being hyped up as a random!ZOMGpandemic911. The When Pigs Fly Frankenswine Virus? ManBirdPig Virus? Aporkalypse Now? Bish please. A globetrotting man did NOT fall out of a transatlantic flight, hit a flying pig and land on a duck. Someone dropped a beaker.
So long as individual cases are still reported as standalone news items we do NOT have a pandemic situation, so this media freakout is curious. The garden variety flu takes out more people than this virus so WTF. Something’s rotten in Denmark, and but it has nothing to do with abortion or Sebelius or any of my own pet obsessions (with corporatists and anal-retentive statists).
FWIW my own knee jerk reaction to this media hype was to turn my hairy eyeball on the crass profit motive (of companies like Novavax, whose head scientist advocates the “priming” of populations with “biosimilars” to prep them for pandamics/mass inocluation). I suppose that makes me crazy conspiracy theorist, eh.
By the way Amanda: All wingnuts are . . . erhm . . . special snowflakes. Agreed. However, lumping all wingnutteries together, shoot-strawfish-in-a-barrel style, makes for great hyperbole but it doesn’t serve the prochoice cause. Case in point: Militias.
The media construct of the “militiaman” was cooked up in the fevered brains of the media during Waco and Ruby Ridge, fiascos all around (blame on both sides). However, “real” small-government conservatives, many who belong to local mililtias, are actually our allies when it comes to civil rights, personal sovereignty, etc. Many militia people are prochoice because they believe it’s none of the Feds gddm bizness what you do when you visit your doctor. They know that “let the states decide” means abortion would pretty much remain legal in most places. They’re generally OK with that.
I see a lot of idealogical overlap between “real” conservatives and “real” liberals when it comes to civil rights and community activism. Militia members are such hardcore constitutionalists/originalists that they think . . . OK, muskets, shoes with buckles, muster at dawn, whatever. But these people are also - gasp! - community organizers! - who work closely with local police and fire units on rescue and cleanup missions, attend town hall meetings, etc. They’re engaged. They’d be the first to help you pull your car out of ditch if you fell in. They’ve also READ the Constitution, shocker. Frankly they do much better, IMHO, than the average armchair liberal commentator. Consequently, when prochoice activists paint militia members like crazed McVeigh nutters, living alone with a stockpile of weaponry, I just groan. There goes a whole subculture of potential prochoice allies. What a shame.
Mnemosyne --
The changes of the RC rolling back the Vatican II accords was what made me, a born-into-the-church Catholic from an Irish-American family in Boston, go “unchurched” for almost 15 years.
Nowadays I’m a member of the Epistemic Church in the US (you know, the one that’s been branded as “that GAY church). When I started to go to services with that congregation I felt like I had rediscovered the Church that had left me.
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The wingnuts get more disgusting by the day.