What a Life Is Worth These Days:
So there it was, front fuckin' page of the New York Times, the slaughtered, mutilated, burnt, and hanging bodies of the American civilians, security detail, they were, just hangin' on a bridge like so many barbecued pigs. And all around danced the jubilant Iraqis, who know a photo op when they see one. After all, they learned from the Americans and their Iraqi lackeys in the toppling of the Saddam statue (which was attended by about a dozen or so people flown in for the picture). It's interesting that the press has felt so giddy and free to show the gory images after a war in which the TV screens and newspapers were, for the most part, barren of images of injured and dead soldiers and Iraqis (except for that armless kid). It's depressing that these are the images we see, that we are not allowed to see the funerals, the caskets being unloaded, the ironic "honor" of dying for a worthless cause, a lie. But perhaps the bridge picture also shows, in a truly ratings-driven way, how the press has shifted in its approach to presenting the occupation.

A life ain't worth a whole lot in Iraq these days. If you're a soldier or a civilian there, you're just more fodder for hate. God, shouldn't Dick Cheney be forced to have his cell lined with these images so that day in and day out, for the rest of his pacemaker-shortened life, he has to face this horror show? Sure, sure, the Rude Pundit knows, he knows that this is a small group of Iraqis, but the thing about small isolated groups who act is that in order to do so so brazenly, there's gotta be a helluva lot of people who think what the small group is doing is right. Just ask the lynchers in the American south about fifty years ago. Hate has to be enabled.

And life ain't worth much in Uhmerka either, unless you're a preborn human. Then, goddamn, and motherfuck, you're getting the rights you so desperately need. In an "elaborate ceremony," the President signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, where if you kill a pregnant woman, you get charged with two murders. That fetus, by the way, can be in any stage of development, from a few cells to kickin'. By the way, one of the festive provisions of the bill is that no intention is necessary: you don't even have to know the woman's pregnant, or, by extension, a woman who drinks heavily and is unaware she's pregnant and does harm to the fetus may be held accountable. Remember: this ain't just about executing Scott Peterson twice. Ain't that great? It's about time that the government, which could actually give a shit less about protecting the rights of everyone not living inside a uterus (which would exclude the President), now has set the ground work for outlawing abortion. The National Right to Life Coalition has conveniently set up a way to interview family members of dead fetuses, including wonderfully sick ass pictures of dead "babies." Hell, the site even tells you how to download and save the loving image of exploitation of the dead.

And isn't that the point here? How we exploit the dead for our selfish motives? Hung carcasses on a bridge, dead fetuses in their mothers' arms. And a President who talks of a "culture of life" while he creates policy after policy guaranteed to produce more and more dead.