Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Monday, February 28, 2005
Clint Eastwood, Hunter Thompson, and the "right to die"
i read this first on counterpunch. It confused me and so went to ragged edge. Thanks. I think alot of lefties equate the rights of people with disabilities with pro lifers, plus there is the fear of what would I want, fear of being disabled and being dependent on others. Yet, the narrative of the left has to listen to those left out. Wow, sometimes I am so ignorant.
Posted by Rhondda Wilson on from Williams Lake BC Canada 02/28 at 08:44 PMHi Rhondda,
Thanks for the post. If you have a moment, please let me know what you found confusing about the article. When I interviewed Mary, she provided me with so much great material, I found to tough to edit. So, if it came out confusing, I’d like to know.
Thanks,
MZ
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 02/28 at 08:46 PMNo the article was not confusing. It was me that was confused. The thing about the right to die versus the right to have a decent life. What I mean is the whole superman thing and that there must be a cure, instead of seeing the whole person as human despite any disability. The articles at ragged edge complimented everything you said. I read the one about Dr. Phil and seeing oneself as the problem instead of seeing the whole system as somehow very inadequate for the needs of real people. I support the right to die, but I do not support the idea that someone should think that they should die because they are disablied. Does this make sense? I am not disabled, but the fear of it is huge, so denying the fear becomes denying the reality of others.
Posted by Rhondda Wilson on from Williams Lake BC Canada 02/28 at 08:57 PMIt makes excellent sense, Rhondda...thank you.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 02/28 at 09:08 PMDitto for me - really clarified what is a confusing issue. Great article! I wasn’t getting it all at first, but by the end, it all made perfect sense. What we do is blame the victim, just like the right wingers do on poverty, etc. And in truth it’s a social issue just like those. Wow! Real eye-opener! And the ‘right to die’ thing - which I’ve always been ambivalent about - is much clearer in the light of the “crip” (can we say that, or just them?) perspective.
Posted by John Eden on from Georgia 02/28 at 10:09 PMI was profoundly disappointed but not at all surprised by the article titled, “The Million Dollar Interview”.
Mary Johnson’s arguments against the “Right to Die”—as if such things could truly be granted from on high—were flimsy, transparent, and nonsensical at best.
The fact that Mary Johnson had all the behind-the-scenes skinny on Hunter Thompson at-the-ready reeked of old fashion damage-control.
And what if it’s not an issue of “Tragic to have that kind of fear.” What if it’s an issue of “I don’t want to live that way”? Or are they both “not allowed” in polite and “civilized” circles?
I guess I walked right into that “anti-crip” trap. Label me if you must.
I for one didn’t think Hunter Thompson’s suicide was “tragic”. I thought it was an act of autonomy. I felt happy for Hunter Thompson. Just as I felt happy for Spalding Gray, Paul Gruchow, and the thousands upon thousands of other human beings who found a way out of their living hells, or who had had enough of life, or who just wanted to get out while the gettin’ was good.
I should qualify that with this caveat: I am never happy in knowing that the majority of the multiple-thousands find freedom and release through means not of their choosing but of last resort and desperation.
I understand the reasons and fears behind the Disability Rights Movement’s “party line” but it offends and disturbs nonetheless.
And let’s face it, it’s easy and even popular to bash the Right to Die movement. It’s a safe albeit hypocritical bash. Sort of equivalent to black folk, or African Americans, or whatever they’re calling them these days (*sound familiar?) bashing the GLBT community.
[*And don’t get her started on the topic of mercy killing...or assisted suicide or whatever they’re calling it these days. ( http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/MickeyZ0124.htm )]
I’m not the right person to talk-about or defend the “Right to Die”.
Have you ever considered interviewing Philip Nitschke (http://www.euthanasia.net/ ) and/or some of the people he helps and advises?
Specifically those who are NOT “disabled”? They do exist you know.
The stigma distancing all of us from death and suicide is strong and runs deep.
The Disability Rights movement is doing no one any favors by strengthening and reinforcing it...least of all themselves.
I said it before I’ll say it again, you don’t and can’t transcend stigma by imposing it.
And “no” that doesn’t mean I support the repugnant and despicable “better off dead than disabled” mantra, quite the contrary.
Mary Johnson’s sophistry and rhetoric did nothing to address the fact that the Right to Die is in fact a matter of autonomy.
We can dance around the issue with all the Orwellian doublespeak and legal mumbo jumbo we want. That will not change the fact that it is MY LIFE. Not your life or the state’s life.
According to the logic of people like Mary Johnson and Lucy Gwin a woman might as well gouge out her insides with a coat hanger in a back alley...no need to seek a dignified, safe, and humane process to remove the unwanted fetus.
I might as well blow my brains out ("you first") alone in a room...rather than be “allowed” a dignified, safe, and humane process to end my OWN life.
I guarantee you there are crips in cripdom who want to die but who feel guilty for feeling that way...thanks in no small part to people like Mary Johnson and Lucy Gwin.
Just as there are those who want to die who are not disabled but who are shamed into thinking “there’s something wrong with me ‘cause I don’t want to live”.
I realize the things I’m writing are “crazy” in light of common doctrine, mainstream belief, and sociocultural taboo.
Thankfully—after 39 years of inner-struggle, disbelief, and mistrust in myself—I have faith in my gut.
I know my instincts are straight and true.
May more evolved descendants of humankind—or other forms of intelligent life—prove and affirm my devolved intuition.
Providing of course that humans and life-as-we-know-it survive till then…
An extremely hopeful thought by the way.
I found Kirkpatrick Sale’s “Imperial Entropy” ( http://www.counterpunch.org/sale02222005.html ) one of the most hopeful and forward-thinking articles to find the light of day within so-called “radical-Leftist” circles.
Finally someone told it like it is with no fairytale endings in a non-tin-foil-hat venue.
David Emanuel
Posted by David Emanuel on from Yonkers, NY 03/02 at 12:24 AMI was wondering when you’d join in, David...but I am disappointed by the result and wish I had more time to reply. It seems to me you went into this article with a powerful pre-bias. The timing of Thompson’s death and Eastwood’s Oscars made for ideal entry point for this discussion. As far as I can tell, no one in the disability rights movement is denying anyone--disabled or not--the right to shuffle off this mortal coil. Considering the state of things, it’s miraculous to me that more of us don’t choose that path.
I truly think you would benefit from re-reading the interview. Mary and others are trying to help “crips” from a rights perspective. Clint’s “better dead than disabled” message is a blow to their efforts.
Gotta run…
P.S. I don’t know what “a dignified, safe, and humane process” you refer to.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 03/02 at 06:12 AMDavid Emanuel writes,
<I guarantee you there are crips in cripdom who want to die but who feel guilty for feeling that way...thanks in no small part to people like Mary Johnson and Lucy Gwin.>Hi David,
This is an interesting comment. I shouldn’t speak for Lucy Gwin, but I’m going to because I know her fairly well. Neither Lucy nor I are trying to force anyone to live against their will.
If you, David Emanuel—and I do not know you so this is a rhetorical question completely—if you decided for whatever reason that you wanted to commit suicide, and I knew it, I would probably ask you what was bothering you; if there was anything anyone could help you so you didn’t want to end your life. Now maybe you’d tell me to butt out. Or you might be grateful someone cared. In either case, it would be your call.
That’s the “right to die.” Everybody’s got it.
What some of us—Lucy and me included—are worried about is “assisted” suicide—the legalization of a process whereby a doctor will help you die by giving you pills an injection or whatever.Now that might be fine, too. It would be fine in a world free of prejudice and bigotry. But we’re not in such a world. We’re in a world where a whole lot of people who become severely disabled discover that they’re a burden, that they cost their families way too much money, that they’re stuck in a nursing home—and in those cases, we say, society is already got the cards stacked against them. Add to that a system that says “we’ll help you die easy” and we say—this isn’t right; this is a subtle encouragement to die.
Here’s a story about one place where it happened:
http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/archive/berg.htm
I hope you’ll read that article and then we can continue discussing it offlist if you want.
Mary JohnsonPosted by Mary Johnson on from 03/02 at 04:48 PMFirst, thanks to Mickey Z. for getting our perspective out to people who haven’t encountered it before.
David,
I don’t know if I even know where to begin with some of your statements. Some of what you seem to be arguing has little to do with what Not Dead Yet, Lucy Gwin or Mary Johnson are actually saying.
There’s a big leap between the individual act of suicide itself and granting legal immunity to those who aid in the act or actually do the killing.
I don’t know if we should treat every suicide as a tragedy. But I know that something is wrong with the picture when the majority of suicides are viewed that way and the suicides - assisted or not - of old, ill or disabled people are portrayed as “courageous” or “acts of autonomy.”
Already, garden variety cases of domestic violence - typically a husband murdering his wife - get written off as “mercy killings” if the spouse was old, ill or disabled.
If you think I’m exaggerating, I suggest you check out the two following articles:
From Mercy Killing to Domestic Violence: Shirley Harrison, the Chicago Media and Not Dead Yet.
http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/0302/0302ft7.htmlAlso check out “No Mercy” by Michael Miner: http://www.chireader.com/hottype/2002/020802_1.html
Thomas Szasz wrote a book called “Fatal Freedom” might also be of interest. Szasz has been a long-time critic of the power psychiatry has over those deemed “harmful to themselves.” Yet, as a thoughtful and consistent libertarian, he thinks the assisted suicide movement is ridiculous, just further medicalizing the whole issue of suicide.
On a final note, the brief Not Dead Yet filed in the Supreme Court stated that if assisted suicide is to be legalized, it should be legalized for all people who want to commit suicide or no one. Anything else is just a policy based on the idea that some lives are less valuable than others.
Posted by Stephen Drake on from Forest Park, IL 03/02 at 04:58 PM
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