Friday, January 27, 2017

The alternative facts of (pro-) life


Some folks find it "very, very encouraging" that the Trump Administration "has given the pro-life movement more support at the March For Life than any other administration in history."

I guess you could fairly say that if the "alternative" definition of "more support . . . than any other administration in history" happens to be "blowing smoke up willful dupes' asses at a rate 'unpresidented' in modern political history."

No, I am not happy at all that the Trump Administration is so openly “supportive” of the March for Life . . . or of the pro-life movement, such as it is today.

And when I speak of the “pro-life movement,” what I mean is the old, institutional and political primarily pro-birth movement, which has shown precious little interest in continuing its support of human life once the child emerges from the womb. That “pro-life” movement has sullied itself by becoming a de facto arm of the Republican Party and spending too much of its time and resources in support of politicians who have done precious little to actually stop abortion in this country.

What those lawmakers have done, however, is push manifestly anti-life positions like repeated cuts to social services, as well as reductions to welfare and food stamps. The old “pro-life” movement has sold its soul to a party that backs the death penalty and gave us “enhanced interrogation” — the “alternate fact” designation for torture, which happens to run just as afoul of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. criminal law as it does Christian teaching — and an insanely foolhardy, unjust war in Iraq.

The old “pro-life” movement has sold its soul to Donald J. Trump, who got elected in no small part by scapegoating Muslims and Mexicans, demonizing the American press and otherwise summoning the blackest instincts of the human psyche and spirit.


IT HAS SOLD its soul to the man who vows to give us The Wallthe big, beautiful wall on the Mexican border — which now, we learn, is to be built at American-taxpayer expense and will be defeated as easily as digging a tunnel or hopping on an airplane and overstaying one’s tourist visa.
It has sold its soul to the president who intends to publish a list of crimes committed by immigrants in “sanctuary cities,” a move taken directly from the Nazi playbook in Germany.  Look up The Criminal Jew on Google.

It has sold its soul to — endorsed and campaigned for — the candidate who now, as president of the United States, is ending the refugee-resettlement program and banning all Muslim immigration from countries “linked to terrorism.” Thumb through your Bible (Old Testament and New) to see what the deity of our “Christian nation” has to say about that.

And it has sold its soul to a candidate who campaigned through the Big Lie and now is governing by the Big Lie, which now has been rechristened as “alternative facts.” Joseph Goebbels would be so proud — the March for Life organizers invited Kellyanne Conway, who invented the term “alternative facts” to alternative-fact marchers to death today.
 
“Pro-lifers” today are hailing their impending political victories at the hands of our new, all-GOP political order. If any victories are ever realized here, which I rather doubt, I fear they will be wholly Pyrrhic ones, because when this unstable, budding fascist of a president is done bringing this country to ruin, tyranny or both, “God’s name will be reviled among the Gentiles” because of the sycophancy of these “Good Christian People,” as a liberal, gay high-school classmate derisively refers to right-of-hedonist followers of Jesus Christ.
And those of us Christians who fought this present darkness are going to get it just as good and hard as those who sold out their faith and their cause to a short-fingered vulgarian.

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