April 21, 2005

David Brooks, Meet Medusa
by Lorraine Berry

Medusa would like to kick your ass today, Mr. Brooks. I don't often wish for supergirl powers, but today, I'd like to be able to use my superpowers to turn you into a woman. A poor woman. A poor woman living in a county where there are no abortion providers. Oh, and I'd make you about 15. With a daddy who can't keep his hands to himself. I'd make you frightened, and helpless, and wishing that someone would help you figure out what to do.

If I was Medusa, Mr. Brooks, I'd turn your man parts to stone, make 'em inoperable. That way, you wouldn't be able to get any woman pregnant. Of course, that wouldn't stop you from spouting off about how it's all the fault of uppity women that our political system is a fucking personal destruction free-for-all. So, I guess as Medusa, I'd have to turn your head to stone, too. Of course, I wouldn't have to do anything about your heart. Turning it to stone would be a redundancy.

How do you sleep at night, Mr. Brooks? Do they pay you well, those good ol' boys that you defended this morning? The party of mass destruction, of the mean daddies who want their own fucking way all the time, the ones who have been taking a sledgehammer to the Constitution in an effort to keep themselves in power, what exactly is it that you owe them?

Do you have any idea what it was like for women before legalized abortion? Have you walked through a graveyard, counted the headstones that bear the names of too many women who died young, of the infants who were often buried with them? Are you really that blind?

Who will you blame next? Lyndon Johnson said when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the Democrats would lose the south for a generation. Well, they've lost it for more than that. And it was still the right thing to do. The politics of personal destruction is not the fault of Rosa Parks or Dr. King, and it damn well is not the fault of Harry Blackmun and the Supreme Court of 1973.

There is passion, and then there is stone-cold cynicism. Mr. Brooks today I have felt its icy blast. I guess I have no need to be Medusa today. You sir, are an unfeeling rock.

Photo credit: Mark Beazley, mbeaz@aol.com

Posted by in Abortion, Bio-Power, Body, Christian Fundamentalism, Civil Rights, Culture War, Culture of Life, Democracy, Empire, Extremists, Fascism, Identity Politics, Journalism, Law, Liberalism, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Reproductive Rights, Republicans, Roe vs. Wade, Sex, Sexual Politics, Supreme Court
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