Feeding Tube Blues

You know, I've been idly following all the rather predatory media hype over Terry Schiavo and her feeding tube, and I have to put in my own two cents here: the "liberal left" (which I consider myself more or less a part of) is fucking up. Or perhaps it's the American judiciary. Something grotesque is happening here, and it's going to do nothing to bring the American right -- drifting into an hysterical, militant Christianity -- back towards sanity, or to aid the cause of people who believe in the "right to die." How can anything good come from this at all? Terry Schiavo is a day or two away from full fledged martyrdom, and her death is going to turn into a cause for mourning and grief for a good percentage of the United States -- mostly the same people who voted for Bush. Nevermind whether Terry Schiavo would want to continue to stay alive in these circumstances; if she was a decent, intelligent person, she wouldn't want to be turned into another victory for the Bush people, another tool they could use to convince the electorate that the Republican party represent them. Something singularly cruel is being done to this woman's parents, too. It's a rather heartless spectacle, depressing all around, not aided by the fact that the most frequently circulated photograph of Schiavo shows someone who apparently is capable of emotion, care, recognition, and probably some form of thought. What the fuck is wrong with the United States, anyhow? I don't understand.