This is a very good reminder that while people are focused on Terri Schiavo, death and tragedy far exceeds that of a single woman in Florida, or an women's clinic in North Carolina. For there to be a "culture of life," there needs to be inclusion of the gun violence that kills thousands of American children every year. A culture of life movement has to go beyond the abortion and right-to-die if it wants be seen as more than a religious political agenda.
Native Americans Criticize Bush's Silence
Response to School Shooting Is Contrasted With President's Intervention in Schiavo Case
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 25, 2005; Page A06
MINNEAPOLIS, March 24 -- Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.
Three days after 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed nine members of his Red Lake tribe before taking his own life, grief-stricken American Indians complained that the White House has offered little in the way of sympathy for the tribe situated in the uppermost region of Minnesota.
"From all over the world we are getting letters of condolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian who is the founder and national director of the American Indian Movement here. "When people's children are murdered and others are in the hospital hanging on to life, he should be the first one to offer his condolences. . . . If this was a white community, I don't think he'd have any problem doing that."
(Full Story)
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3 comments:
Good post, and timely.
Your remarks at Beth's (MVRWC), were on the money, too- and I think she picked up the ball with her 'Anarchy' post.
Your point is well taken, re 'culture' and so on. I hope we move from that to a more universal 'right and wrong' POV.
You'll be proven right- in the end, post Schiavo, we will have all lost.
I fear that as long as the primary motivator for this "culture of life" is political, no real improvement can happen. It may seem like nothing but religious political agenda (perhaps) because (maybe) that's exactly what it is. It's easy for all these people to talk like they are about the Schiavo case now that's in the news, but what were they saying when it wasn't such big news?
And--tangentially, I admit--I fail to see how a nation at war can claim with a straight face that it seeks a culture of life. Cognitively challenged as I am, it looks like hypocrisy.
Thanks, we try hard here at dingo
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