Posted on 03/28/2005 12:05:51 PM PST by Brilliant
PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 28 - The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here.
In numbers, they were not as great on Easter as they were on the previous three days, when the legal and public relations battle came to its bitter climax. But like soup simmered for hours, what remains is a concentrated stock of the angriest and most devoted, the prayerful and the publicity hungry.
"No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead."
Ms. Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler, said he had visited his daughter today and that she was very weak but still responding.
"She is still showing facial expressions," Mr. Schindler told reporters. "I hug her and I kiss her, and she is reacting to that and she is trying to talk. But she is very, very subdued. She's failing but she is still with us, and she is showing a determination to live that is incredible," he said, speaking outside the hospice.
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice.
Like many of the protesters, Mr. Tierney said he had experienced proof in his own life that God is real. He held out his left hand showing the traces of scars from injuries he suffered in a gas explosion in 1987.
"You can hardly see it anymore," he said, the tears cascading down his sun-darkened cheeks. "And I was burned all the way from my waist up. By the laws of physics, I should be dead. So I've seen miracles."Who are these people who have spent so much of their time and their passion on behalf of Terri Schiavo? They seemed to come most often from two frequently overlapping groups: those who are religiously devout, a group about evenly split between conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and those eager to champion the cause of the disabled.
At one point, about eight people in wheelchairs, members of Not Dead Yet, a disability rights organization focused exclusively on end-of-life issues, blocked an entrance to the hospice when they lay across the driveway chanting "We're not dead yet!"
There were no arrests, but five other protesters were taken into custody when ministers tried to cross a police line and to take Easter communion to Ms. Schiavo.
Carol Cleigh, a member of Not Dead Yet, said her group's message was that society needed to alter its attitude that a life of severe disability is not worth living.
"I'm very happy," said Ms. Cleigh, who has been in a wheelchair since she suffered brain trauma in a traffic accident in 1989. "I have a wonderful life."
There were, to be sure, the simply curious, wishing to get a glimpse of the circuslike scene.
Only about two dozen people turned up for a dawn Easter service outside the hospice. But by early afternoon, as the muggy heat intensified, the crowd had swelled to over 100, still far fewer than in previous days, but louder, angrier, more demonstrative.
An emotional cluster of worshipers applauded the news late Sunday afternoon that Ms. Schiavo had received communion -- a few drops of wine on her tongue -- and been given Catholic last rites for a second time.
Interviews with more than three dozen protesters found people who had come came from across the country, though most lived within an hour's drive of the hospice. The farther they had traveled, the more likely they were to express a deep religious need to be here. Tales of personal miracles, like Mr. Tierney's, were not uncommon.
The street the hospice is on is one of countless dead ends in the Florida coastal sprawl, a narrow strip of concrete leading off a broad thoroughfare lined by convenience stores, strip malls and fast-food franchises. On the corner is a bank. Beyond that, a few small office buildings, the hospice, then a school, a trailer park and a riot of foliage.
Even without the crowds, it would have been a tight squeeze for two vehicles to pass on the speckled strip of concrete. Outside the hospice complex, barriers of orange plastic had been erected to keep the protesters on the grass and to maintain a walking path nearest the hospice.
All day long, protesters walked back and forth. One man periodically blew a ram's horn. Another chanted. A young woman stopped every few feet to offer a prayer to the hospice, at one point cupping her hands gently around a quivering butterfly.
About a half-dozen tents and shade shelters were scattered around. Others slept on the open, uneven ground.
People held up signs, taped them to the orange barriers, tied them to trees and poles. Their targets were constant: Judge George W. Greer, who ordered the feeding tube removed; Gov. Jeb Bush, who rallied around the cause of Ms. Schiavo's parents but now says he has done all he can; the local police guarding the hospice; and, of course, the stricken woman's husband, Michael Schiavo. The signs included these sentiments: "Hey Judge, Who Made You God?" "Hospice or Auschwitz?" "Murder is Legal in America." "Murderers!" "You Wouldn't Let a Dog Die of Thirst." "Next They Come For You: America = Nazis." "Has Anyone Seen Jeb?"
Governor Bush has spent the last few days out of view, observing the holiday. But he interrupted his brief vacation on Sunday to again try to explain that he had exhausted every means of helping Ms. Schiavo.
"I cannot violate a court order," the governor said on CNN. "I don't have powers from the United States Constitution, or, for that matter, from the Florida Constitution, that would allow me to intervene after a decision has been made."
The vigil zone for protesters is on the same side of the street as the hospice, on the grassy verge between the center's perimeter and the road. The tent city of television cameras, their mobile antennas reaching higher than the palms, is across the street, cradling around the parking lot of a small office building in which Ms. Schiavo's parents and siblings have watched the unfolding scene.
Mr. Schindler and Ms. Schiavo's mother, Mary Schindler, passed word to the crowd late Saturday that they wanted everyone to remain calm and to cease acts of civil disobedience. Still, there were frequent flare-ups on Sunday with protesters who were unwilling to tone down the rancor.
At one point, Mr. Schindler could not get into the hospice because the police had it locked down, nervous about a protester who had unexpectedly crossed their lines and about four particularly angry men who were shouting "fascists" and "Gestapo." That prompted Bobby Schindler, Ms. Schiavo's brother, to cross the street to try to calm the demonstrators.
"You are not speaking for my family," Mr. Schindler said. "We are not going to solve the problem today by getting arrested."
Initially, the men seemed confused. Then they reacted defiantly. But after a few more minutes of shouting, they cooled and melted back into the crowd.
"We've always known that the closer we get to Terri expiring, the more emotional it's going to get out here," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition.
One of the angry protesters, Robert More, was sitting a few hours later at a folding table, collecting signatures for a network of government watchdogs he was hoping to organize. He was affiliated with several survivalist groups, he said, and wanted to help instruct people on how to live in the wilderness.
"Today, it's Terri they're coming after, but later, it will be all of us," Mr. More said. "We have to be prepared."
Many who showed up on Sunday arrived, like Mr. More, with their own set of political grievances.
Two women from New York City arrived late in the afternoon with blank sheets of poster board that they intended to emblazon with the messages "Leave the Dark Ages in History" and "We Need Morality, But Not 'Traditional' Morality."
One of the women, Sunsara Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, said she and her colleague, Debra Sweet, an abortion rights activist, intended to spend two days at the site, to make sure "the other side" is heard.
"What we intend to say is that we don't want to live in a theocracy," Ms. Taylor said. "We don't want to creep towards Christian fascism in this country."
Ms. Sweet said she recognized several people from protests outside abortion clinics around the country. "This is their whole life," she said.
Mary K. Porta, who has been an almost constant presence at the protests, said she was trying to respect the family's wishes to keep the atmosphere calm and prayerful.
"We're being told by the pastors to tone it down and to say only positive things," Ms. Porta said. "But I don't know. I think there is a place for anger, for righteous anger, and this is one of them."
If the "ass" you speak of is Michael Savage, he's been the loudest and most helpful voice in America trying to stop Terri Schiavo's murder. Through his efforts tens of thousands of dollars have been donated to Terri's defense fund, and millions of American have been enlightened about the judicial tyranny and inhuman facts in her case.
"Barbara Bush, are you happy with your two sons now??"
"Jeb Bush = (swastika)"
Look, I can understand people feeling compelled to do what they are doing and I support their right to do it. But are these people Republicans or just fanatics? I just don't like the party being associated with signs like that.
Yeah, this was a cut by the NYT. Basically claiming that it's the same ole faces--those tiresome abortion protesters. Trying to get up the feminists' ire against the protesters. And at the same time discourage other potential protesters who might think it's something new and different.
Agreed. Attacking Bush is not helpful. If it weren't for the fact that you read the comments on FreeRepublic and see some of the same idiot comments over any over, I'd say that these guys are just leftists pretending to be conservatives. But since there are so many on the FreeRepublic, I've gotta assume they are simply misguided conservatives. Attacking your own leaders is not going to get you anywhere.
Unfortunately, conservatives have a long history of doing that. Not just in this instance.
Save your venom for the liberals. When you attack your own leaders, you're finished. There are some battles you can win, and some you can't. If you destroy your leaders after they lose a battle, then you will be leaderless when the next battle comes along.
Not true... Courts only have the power to rule, they cannot enforce their rulings. This check is inately built into the system.
historical reference:
Another landmark in Jackson’s administration came in 1832 when the president defied an explicit order of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote a majority opinion barring Georgia from removing the Cherokee Indians from the state. Jackson supported Georgia’s effort to remove the Indians and reportedly said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Jackson secured congressional funding for the massive removal program, which forced 18,000 to 20,000 Native Americans to move west, taking the lives of about 4,000 along the way. His defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue showed that the Constitution’s formal separation of powers would not in itself rein in a determined president.
Our country was founded on facing down and utltimately defeating the great odds stacked against us. Our fledgling nation of ragtag, overmatched defenders defeated an Empire. Yours is a very hollow apology for Jeb Bush considering just how far this case reaches into American civil and religious rights and stomps on them.
It's not about the chances of Jeb Bush "winning", it's about doing everything humanly possible to stop Terri Schiavo's murder and preventing our rights from being snatched away by a heartless, pagan judiciary. Our elected 'leaders' are standing around with their hands in their pockets and bemoaning their impotency while a woman dies, fully cognizant that she is being murdered in PLAIN SIGHT. Jeb Bush stopped short of doing evrything possible simply for political purposes.
Once you comprehend the full ramifications of Terri's horrendous death sentence and how it affects EACH AND EVERY AMERICAN IN THE FUTURE, and how it advances by leaps and bounds the Culture of Death and the judicial tyranny that supports it, then you begin to see that this is a major victory for the dark side of our society, because "good men decided to do nothing". Jeb Bush, and all of our craven elected leaders, have miserably failed us all.
Or conservatives with ba!!s?
I agree with you 100%. And your post deserves to be stated again and again.
No, mine is not a hollow apology. Mine is a suggestion of a calculated response. You don't win wars just by attacking. You've gotta have a plan that makes sense. There was no chance that Bush would win this battle. Bush consulted with dozens of conservative lawyers about what more he could have done, and I can assure you that they unanimously told him that he had reached the end of his rope. I'm a conservative lawyer, and I would have told him the same thing. Unless he was prepared to take up arms, he had no options. And a leader who leads an armed revolt doesn't have much chance unless he has an army behind him. Ask John Brown.
Schiavo "remembered' it in '97. According to his testimony in the malpractice suit he was going to take care of her for the rest of her life.
Sure you do, but when every passing moment brings this innocent woman closer to death by starvation, you gotta ACT if you're the Governor or the President, not plan.
As I see it, if Jeb Bush becomes outspoken and brave AFTER Terri's death, his leadership, (and President Bush's), will mean nothing to people. Right now he has the extremely rare opportunity to become a real leader, a leader by example who will stand up in the face of tyranny and go against the odds. (Though in reality the odds are on Jeb Bush's side, because it is the Governor who can enforce the existing laws of Florida, not the county judge). It isn't that Jeb Bush can't go against Judge Greer's order, it's that we won't.
The point is she's honest about it.
Excellent post. Pinging some folks to read it.
Excellent post. "Brilliant", one might say ;0)
Your position is based on the assumption that something can be done as a legal matter to save Terri at this late date. Since I've been practicing law for 22 years, I know better. This matter has been up the appellate chain in both Florida and DC. Both the State legislature and Congress have weighed in on the matter. Both of them have decided to accept the results of the court process.
Bush is not a lawyer, he's a businessman. You can be absolutely certain that he has consulted with numerous conservative lawyers about this, and they have unanimously told him there is nothing else he can do as a legal matter.
What it comes down to is does he defy the courts, or does he not? It's a simple question, and unless he's got a lot of guns and an army, and is prepared to use them, it's got a simple answer.
As a legal matter, this battle is over. It's as simple as that. No matter how many times you insist otherwise, there is nothing that Bush can do to fix this without starting an insurrection.
And if there is going to be an insurrection, it will have to start with the people, not the governor of Florida.
You want Bush to risk jail time over a lost cause, but so far, only about 38 protesters have been arrested for civil disobedience. I've heard a lot of lame excuses from fellow conservatives over this. If this order is one that Bush should defy, then why is it not one that you should defy? There are a whole lot more than just 38 whining conservatives on this website. If you want action, then stop whining and take action.
I recall reading a post on FR indicating that Greer is essentially enforcing his ruling because Terri's guards answer to him. I didn't understand why. Can this be confirmed?
Also, your example references a federal decision in which the President defied the SCOTUS. Are you saying this is proof a state governor, Jeb, has the exact same power to defy a ruling by a state judge, Greer?
No. It was spelled S-A-V-I-D-G-E. I know Michael Savage has been on the side of life.
Ah, but only Bush would have a chance of getting through the blockade. Anyone else would be hauled off in handcuffs as were those 38. Somehow I suspect that they would not stop the Governor.
Especially if he showed up with the Lt. Governor, an entourage of State Police and National Guardsmen.
Of course they can, Courts have absolutely NO ABILITY TO ENFORCE THEIR RULINGS... at any level. It is up to law enforcment that answers NOT TO THE JUDICIARY to enforce laws and also rulings.
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