Sunday, December 12, 2004

THE NEXT THING IS HERE

The thing with evil is, it never relents. It never sleeps. It never retreats. It never pauses to catch its breath.

That's what I was thinking last Thursday while watching the last half of ER which featured an absolutely compelling and iron-clad dramatic defense for euthanasia. While, we all are catching our breath from having held the barricades against same-sex marriage on election day, the left marches on, advancing a new front.

I don't believe in media conspiracies, but it is amaziong how everybody in the worlds of mainstream media and entertainment seem to get "on message" so fast. So, this week, for example, on Wednesday, I heard House minority leader Nancy Pelosi note on CNN that there really isn't any looming crisis in Social Security, and that the whole thing has been raised by the GOP to scare young people. Then, most of Wednesday and Thursday, AOL has the lead headline, "Bush says There is a Looming Social Security Crisis." "Hmmmm..." I thought. "Since when, don't we all agree that Social Security is in trouble?"

Then, I catch the ER episode on Thursday night, and I started to see the next horizon. It all fits together for anyone who wants to see it.

The segment on ER - which was, SUPER-ironically the Christmas episode! - has the Chinese female Dr. Chen, selflessly and secretly caring for her father at home. He is a proud man who has now been reduced to the terrible suffering and humiliation of some kind of crazy seizures. The shots of his skinny naked legs flailing around in the air were all about getting the audience to the conclusion, "Good grief! No one should have to live like that!" From those sequences, it was just a short segue away for Dr. Chen to compassionately end her father's suffering.

It was stunning. A lead character, on a prime-time show, ends her father's life with an injection. This is the kind of action that previously was reserved for guest-actors, who didn't have to be safely sympathetic. At some point, the folks at ER and NBC decided, killing your sick parent with drugs is not something that would ruin a character's sympathy with the audience.

But there's more here. And that is the fact that the act of euthanasia styled as so very compassionate on ER unfolds as a daughter killing her father.

See, there is one way for there NOT to be a Social Security crisis in fifteen to twenty years. Do you see it? There will only be a crisis in Social Security, if we are not courageous and compassionate enough to euthanize our elderly.

My sense is, the temptation for Gen Xers to euthanize their Baby Boomer parents will be rationally irrestible for many. After all, Gen X is the group whose siblings were terminated so that Baby Boomers could have complete unfettered lives. What ever goes around...

30 comments:

Fred said...

Do you mean to tell me that ER is still on the air? Perhaps it is time the network considered pulling the plug on this tired old show . . .

Kris Rasmussen said...

Actually George Clooney's character helped a mother euthanize her little boy several seasons back on ER, so this isn't a first for the show sadly. Of course, in George's case this story line was the reason to plan his exit from the show as his character was fired. I doubt such an outcome will happen to Chen. Everyone will be "liberally" compassionate of her dilemma...

We had a huge case up in my area a few years ago where a woman was trying to euthanize her husband and the son had to step in, got to court, try to stop her legally and it made national headlines. So yes, this horizon is getting closer all of the time.

Gregory Peter Carl said...

The other half of our generation that survived abortion is giving back? This is so wrong, it boggles my mind, and is one of the reasons I love JP2 so much, he's showing the world how to die.

Cynthia Duck said...

Wow, I had not made the connection of solving the Social Security "problem" with euthanasia.

Thanks for the Spiritual battle call. Sometimes those of us with a Christian world view understand the real issues so late, we sound like whiners or fools when we finally write about it.

DP said...

I'm with Christy: disgusting, especially as it was done with absolute sympathy and minimum effort to question the decision (one line from Dr. Pratt, if I recall correctly).

Here's hoping that the story line doesn't leave it at that, with no consequences.

Anonymous said...

I didn’t watch ER (not easy from Barcelona), but if you’re worried about this “new front” on social sensitive issues, get ready for the last Alejandro Amenábar’s movie “The Sea Inside”. It has collected several awards here in Europe and the press is already talking about an Oscar nomination. And, no, I don’t think it’s just a marketing manouver, at least not “movie marketing”. Maybe I’m a little bit paranoid (well, just a little) but it looks like another step in this "enthusiastic euthanastic" campaign.
Dámaso

Anonymous said...

Sorry to kick over your conspiracy theory(ies), but:

a) ER has dealt with euthanasia before. So have any number of other television dramas. And films. And books. For decades.

b) No, we don't "all agree" that Social Security is "in crisis", especially so if you define that, as Bush is attempting, as "crisis which calls for privitisation".

Anonymous said...

Before you spout on about Social Security being a disaster, you would do well to read things like this:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_12/005321.php

There's also a number of prior posts, which handy graphs and such, which quite helpfully defuse the hysteria being thrown up around Social Security.

Also: why don't you seem even fainly aware that the Bush "prescription" for Social Security is essentially to euthanise it?

Anonymous said...

For further enrichment of dialogue:

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/12/index.html#005038

Which explains what "bankrupt" really means in the context of Social Security, and why it's really more than a little inconsistent for this President, with his world-record deficit (and even a *preference* for ever-larger ones!), to try and wage that particular argument.

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