I am so angry at Chris Matthews' Hardball, and similar ill mannered screaming cretins on TV that I could spit! Tonight, his featured rant was that all this stuff about filibuster and judicial nominations is REALLY about abortion. What world do these people live in?
Unfortunately, I can answer my own question: the ratings world. Television discourse is really about conflict with some titillation and gore thrown in as much as possible. If you can get Pat Buchanan to square off against Ellie Smeal, then the culture wars are alive and well, and advertisers are happy to provide a consumer interlude. And guess what? If we can focus on (but not understand...) abortion or gay marriage or filibusters then we won't really think about how our whole economy and the future we are offering our kids is bankrupt. Keep people riled but don't have any real conversations.
But does it have ANYTHING to do with abortion? No. At least not the abortion world I live in, where women--both pro choice, pro life, and many who try not to have an opinion about it, actually terminate pregnancies for their own good reasons. In my waiting room there is actually a sort of common ground movement going on and its called KINDNESS. One patient to another, one parent or partner to another, and if a pollster asked their opinion on abortion or anything else they would have opposite opinions on it, guaranteed. But they are all in the same unfortunate situation--being pregnant when it seems ill advised to bring life into the world.
Who in the world thinks that abortion is the most important issue in American politics? I live and breathe abortion and I don't think it's the most important issue. The destruction of the environment, maybe. The export of war and unsustainable consumerism, perhaps. American arrogance and total lack of awareness of the rest of the world.
I would like to send Chris Matthews and every whiney Congress person to sub Saharan Africa for a month to live. I mean to try to subsist on 1/4 cup of rice a day and unsafe water amid the AIDS orphans and terrorized by rival thugs. Then come back and tell us what the most important issue is. Abortion will be on the list, in the same column as being able to feed your family, work, and educate your kids, but it won't be the same issue manipulated by the power brokers in Washington DC, it will be about the people in my waiting room.
--Bon
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