Posted on 04/11/2005 3:54:53 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Wake up America . . . the alarm clock just went off and we keep turning over and going back to sleep. There's an "uprisin' on the horizon" and we refuse to face it. Sleeping through it might make it easier, but the end result will be devastating. We've had a lightning bolt cut through the very core of our foundation forming a crack so deep we could topple by our weight of indifference. This ship is listing badly; so tilted we may never be uprighted again.
Our love affair with America is "breaking apart" because our foundation is cracking. The winds of hatred are blowing hard; the thunderous protests have challenged our will, and the disease of apathy is eating away at our very root system. Go ahead and tell me I'm crazy. I'd actually rather hear that than to believe what I know to be true. I can handle my portended lunacy, but the reality of what I see happening before my very eyes is worse than a Shakespearean tragedy.
Last week was one of the most painful times of my life. I have never been on such a roller coaster of emotion and I can't seem to get beyond it. That's an admission I'm not proud to proclaim, but it's the truth. For a person who's always ready for "NEXT, one-two-three, GO," . . . I was stricken with a paralysis. My country was in great distress over a situation that caused everyone to lose. The visuals still play clearly in my mind and are more painful than I can express.
I was one of those people who wanted Terri Schiavo to live. I was one of those people who could not find any joy in Michael's Schiavo's relentless desire to fulfill his wife's "suddenly remembered" request seven years later. And lastly, I was one of those people you told to sit down and shut up. So I did. I needed just a little more time to mourn; it wasn't that easy for me.
With the passing of the Pope two days later, I could not move away so quickly from thoughts of Terri Schiavo's passing. I knew the Pope would be okay, but I wasn't sure about the rest of us.
I've cried in my quiet moments - not only for Terri - but for my beloved country, America.
My own quietness has brought about much anguish for me because I am not a quiet person. It is frightening . . . it is terrifying, for I realize the line has been drawn. The "crack" was so loud when Terri Schiavo died, I believe the Pope hung his head even lower and gave up his own will to fight any longer. He had been so deeply passionate about her life that we may have cast a blow to his. What a tragedy for all of us. What a sad commentary on mankind.
The "crack" became an earthquake forming a deep divide as a line drawn in the sand. Americans are standing strong on the side of what has become their truth. We are no longer able to discern what the truth really is because the clouds have become so dark. There is an expert on every issue arguing both sides, so what is the truth anymore? The steel that crumpled on that fateful day in September of 2001 may be dwarfed in comparison to the crumbling of our nation's structure -- its foundation. It's a slower fall, but it's happening nonetheless, and could be just as fatal. Our "spirit of steel" -- layer by layer, floor by floor -- is crumbling.
It's not only that Terri Schiavo died . . . it's the way we sent her to her death. We stood by watching it happen as if on a daily countdown. We recorded and showed on the nightly news parents and children trying to give her water. I guess we feared she might stand up and walk. That very act defined who we are and makes me ashamed. Those are the pictures that haunt my heart.
Even if you believe Terri Schiavo had a right to die; and even if you believe her husband Michael had the right to stand by her decision to "not live like that;" and you believe her parents were pathetically selfish in not giving her the dignity she deserved in death, do we truly believe she would not want her parents at her bedside when she breathed her last breath? Do we believe that Terri would have refused her own mother's desire to hold her in her arms one last time and say, "I love you, my precious daughter?"
Then we would also have to believe that Terri would tell her family: "You cannot have a funeral with my body -- I want it burned to ashes immediately -- so go have your own service without me." For some strange reason, this was not the Terri who was portrayed to us as the young vibrant woman who went "religiously" with her family to church every weekend, and not the same person who would refuse a funeral service of her own faith?
It's also mystifying how fervent Michael was to carry out her wish of "not wanting to live like that," never considering how he made her die. But he seemed to know his wife so well -- these were surely her wishes.
Her family could not have her in life, nor could they have her in death. We can argue all day about who was right or wrong, but in the end, we became damaged goods. What we did to each other is unforgivable. What we did to Terri is a sin. And where we go from here is petrifying.
The Pope's death has been a celebration of life, but America has suffered a death that can never be celebrated. A part of us died with Terri.
Yes, the Pope is in a better place, and so is Terri Schiavo . . . but not America.
We have lost our way.
Debbie Daniel can be contacted at: dddtx@yahoo.com
This article expresses the way many of us feel but I'm afraid there aren't enough of us. Very afraid. God have mercy on America.
It's already been legislated. Or have you missed that part of the discusion?
Words of comfort for Terri's warriors and the Schindlers!!
Please God let them see this.
I've been feeling I needed to be in Isaiah again!!
Somehow I had missed it, but I'm glad that the ping meant that somebody else got to read these words. For me this has been even more of an education than 9/11 was.
She swallowed her own saliva and she could have swallowed other things as well. It was so stated by several doctors. In fact, one nurse had even fed her jello which she loved. You are just so very ignorant. God gives life and ONLY HE has the right to take it.!! Since when has God ever needed man's help in matters of life and death? Never.
Anyone who would cause the death of someone as aware as this woman on the grounds that they were already dead is guilty of murder. http://www.hospicepatients.org/terri%20big%20eyes.rm.ram . Look at her. Don't look away. That would be cowardly. Look. Really look. Look deep into her eyes. What do you see? If you don't see a living human being, you're not really looking. It is not possible to look into her eyes without being haunted by her murder.
Wimp.
That may have looked like obvious sarcasm to you, but there are people advocating killing all the Alzheimer's patients. Downs Syndrome can't be far behind.
BykerBayb - have you seen the one with Terri and her dad talking to her about her lazy eye? Do you have that one, and if you do, could you post it, PLEASE??? THAT one was the most powerful! Thanks so much.
I think it's called, "Conversation with Terri".
We might as well close all the hospitals, send all the Doctors and Nurses home because patients wouldn't want to "Live" that way. While we are at it all pharmaceutical companies need to shut down because we need to let "Nature" take its course. I guess defibrillators can be used to jump-start your SUV's.
Patients who cannot feed themselves, can't walk, can't breathe without assistance may as well play in a busy highway because they are somehow less than human. Lets not waste money on health insurance either. I could go on and on, but I won't.
How stupid can you be? We're not talking about a 90 year old whose body and organs are failing and can't metabolize nutrients. We're talking here about a person who was an inconvenience to her legal guardian HINO. He starved her because she wouldn't die. He sought legally suspicious means to accomplish this. While her loving family fought tooth and nail against a corrupt system, while the whole world watched.
There are millions of less than "perfect" people who function and are productive, if even just to reflect GOD's grace. My nephew has Downs Syndrome, you would have him dumped in the emesis basin at birth.
Those of us who have been praying night and day know the value of life. Those who don't see the travesty of what occurred don't merit a response.
This was not GOD's will, but mans. Very evil self serving bunch of pathetic excuses for humans at that.
You just don't get it, and you never will.
We don't MoveOn because it isn't over. Terri was not the only disabled person dependant on assistance. The advocates of forced euthanasia have expressed a need to euthanize thousands, even tens of thousands per week. You may choose to concentrate your efforts on a different worthy cause, or a number of other worthy causes. But make no mistake, this is a very worthy cause, which if left unchecked, will affect every one of us.
Excellent, dynamic post, Iula. Thanks so much for your thoughts.
I suppose that those who favored murdering Terri, due to her defects, would also urge the killing of Stephen Hawking. After all, he can barely manage anything associated with his own maintenance. Right?
http://hometown.aol.com/GordonWWatts/myhomepage/ConversationWithTerri.wmv
It's also posted on my profile page. Some of the links to videos are broken. If anybody knows where we can still view them, please let me know.
Wait! I happen to like my medicine. It helps me!
Also, you can't shut down the drug companies because those who want to murder the unwanted useless eaters will need those meds to speed up the death in the death camps once they decide that starvation takes too long.
Kind of like how the Nazi's had the gas rooms and ovens built after they found out suffocating people in trains and trucks with carbon monoxide and shooting people in the head with bullets was too slow and too expensive.
We don't HAVE a foundation anymore!
I spoke too soon. I saved this thread, before a bunch of posts were pulled. One of the removed posts called for euthanizing all the spina bifida & Downs syndrome patients. No sarcasm. No joke. That person was a member since 06/02/2004, but has now been banned or suspended, and all of their posts have been removed.
If Killery gets into our White House, you can expect a streamlined system of social reorganization. She'll put a revised version of her health care ideas onto the fast track. Don't let's EVER forget how she promised, "We're going to take things away from you for the common good."
She'll take away the elderly and the defective, non-functional, non-contributing members of society "for the common good." ........and George Soros will be financing the sparkling new Bessemer furnaces.
Thanks for posting that, that's how I feel about all of this. I'm glad due to the fallout of Terri Schindler, some other poor lady got saved in Georgia so I hope thinks do turn around.
A barometer of how low we've sunk.
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