I was listening to NPR this morning, as they discussed Dick Cheney’s recent heart transplant this past Saturday. The news pushed me to tears. The 71 year old Cheney is an anomaly in the transplant business, where scarce, vital organs are usually reserved for younger patients. The reason for the age discrimination is no mere ageism. Young people are much more likely to survive the surgery and aftermath of rehabilitation. Additionally, ethical considerations suggest that young people, who may otherwise have decades of life ahead of them, deserve a chance to live into the old age that older heart patients have enjoyed. At 71, Cheney is only a few years shy of the 74.8 years that is the normal life expectancy for an American man. I can’t help but feel that the heart that now beats in Cheney’s chest could have been put to much better purpose somewhere else.
Portrait of a Heartless Man |
Here is a short but not comprehensive review of Dick Cheney’s accomplishments:
· Cheney engineered the illegal invasion of a sovereign country (Iraq) by deliberately fabricating and manipulating evidence to suggest that the country was obtaining “weapons of mass destruction,” with the intention of using them against the United States. This action resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives in addition to the lives of thousands of US armed servicemen and women (callous disregard for human life).
· When Joseph Wilson revealed in an op-ed entitled “What I didn’t find in Africa,” that the Bush Administration’s insistence that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium in Africa was blatantly false, Cheney masterminded a contemptuous payback by outing Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame. The revelation of Plame’s position as a covert officer of the CIA, placed her in danger and was a direct violation of US law (vindictiveness).
· As a shareholder and former CEO of Halliburton Inc., Cheney made sure that his dividend-granting cronies were first in line to pick at the carcasses of the above manufactured conflict in Iraq (and Afghanistan) for his own personal gain (greed).
· Human Rights Watch issued a report suggesting that Cheney be investigated for ordering the abuse of detainees that amounted to torture (war crimes).
· More recently, Cheney pushed through legislation, known not ironically as “the Halliburton Exemption,” that exempts environmentally disastrous fracking for natural gas from any regulation under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Large scale contamination of air and water resources wherever fracking occurs has resulted (crimes against nature).
Cheney’s struggle with heart disease comes as no surprise when viewed with a bit of insight from the ancient wisdom of Eastern mysticism. The fourth chakra, Anahata, related to love, compassion and forgiveness, flows from the heart center of a body. According to the ancient wisdom, diseases of the spirit in the form of petty vindictiveness, selfishness, fear and hatred manifest themselves physically in the fourth chakra as heart disease.
Cheney suffered his first heart attack in his late 30s just as he was beginning his political career as a Representative from the state of Wyoming. During his tenure in Congress, he voted against the establishment of the Department of Education. He voted against imposing economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime, and voted against a non-binding Congressional resolution requesting the South African government release Nelson Mandela from prison. As secretary of defense, he oversaw the invasion of another sovereign state, Panama, and Operation Desert Storm. Throughout his political career of denying justice to suppressed peoples and violent overthrowing of others, he suffered a total of five heart attacks and had quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty and an artificial heart pump implanted in his chest. The metaphoric perfection of Cheney’s heartless legacy is chilling.
As Cheney pours his karma into this new heart, he will no doubt strangle this one to death in the process too. Some younger, deserving heart patient, whose actions haven’t resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocents, will likely never reach the age of 71 as a result. If my loved one’s heart was now beating in the chest of that monster, my grief would be compounded exponentially. That grieving family has my sincerest condolences.
Who are you to judge who gets a second chance?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, in this instance, my judgement holds no power at all to affect any outcome; however, like all persons living in this fragile and threatened democracy, I am entitled to my opinion. I do not pretend that any of the words contained within this website are anything else.
DeleteAmen!! Great artical
DeleteCheney is a coward, (manipulated multiple exemptions to avoid combat in Viet Nam), a war criminal (see above), greedy (willing to trade human life for corporate profits), and a truly evil man (see above). During his various heart issues over the years (I have followed politics since I returned from Viet Nam in 1966) I often suggested the irony in a seemingly heartless individual suffering from apparent heart related issues. (I was not aware of the 4th chakra.)
ReplyDeleteIf anything, Killing Mother was too generous in her description of this vile example of the worst of humanity. Frankly, I'm not sure he deserved a 1st chance, much less a 2nd and I expect the families of most American soldiers who died in the trumped up war in Iraq and the families of the 10's of thousands of innocent Iraqis who died as a result of our invasion would agree. Cheney is one more in a long list of examples that support my surety that any deity described by organized religion(s) does not exist.
Thank you j. bailey for the enlightening additional details. Of course, nobody should stand in judgement of anybody else, but I find it interesting that I can be lambasted for an opinion of Cheney, based exclusively on his actions, while those who would condemn me are the same entities who would have us all believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, Socialist terrorist without any empirical evidence whatsoever. Double standards abound.
DeleteIt seems that we constantly judge people and whoever misguidedly 'lambasted' you for having a thought may want to consider having a real thought themselves. (one of Webster's definitions for 'judge' is 'to form an idea, opinion, or estimate about any matter'...so, unless you don't think, and there are no shortage of people who don't, you are judging constantly) The non-thinking group who cleave to Fox News and talk radio for their 'thoughts' will always condemn those they don't understand or fear. As Bertrand Russell famously said, 'Most people would rather die than think...many do.' Unfortunately, this behavior is part of our DNA and hard to overcome, but you should not stop doing what you do because of them.
DeleteCheney's antics both in business and politics are laden with failures and bad judgement but somehow his intimidating persona and ability to manipulate U.S. policy made him financially successful and conservatives seem to be 'turned on' by men of his ilk. Hopefully, his changed heart will lead to a change of heart and perhaps he will call for his own incarceration for war crimes and war profiteering...and maybe I'll sprout wings and fly.
j., Savvy psychopaths have infiltrated the management of the world. To them, Cheney is just a paragon of their creed. Take what you want, and forget, remorselessly, about what and who you destroy in the process. Can we judge this behavior negatively? I suspect that if there is good and evil in the world, judging negatively harm done to others is the only moral thing to do.
DeleteCheney poisoned his own heart, and has been totally undeserving of a "second chance" for anything. The man should be in prison. Nice to know that he and Bush cannot travel outside of the United States since they are now wanted international criminals.
ReplyDeletein august of last year, cheney was being interviewed by a spokesprop of the msm, and he unplugged his fake heart (
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/cheney-disconnects-his-heart-pump-battery-during-nbc-interview/). the borg kept on going without a pause. it also has no pulse because the machine delivered a steady flow unlike the real thing, a pulsing pump.
will this thing ever die? where did it come from? the bowels of hell, or maybe a bot from the m/i complex?
i am of course joking, but the symbolism here is beyond fiction... the man who ran the world for eight years (plus the good ol nixon days and who knows how many in the shadows) and killed untold numbers of innocents, blew up their infrastructure, irradiated their land, stole their resources, actually has no heart, no pulse. do we really get the govt we deserve?
lest you think i'm partisan, note that obomber, after wasting untold numbers with sky-bots and claiming authority to assassinate at will w/o evidence or due process, made this little funny at the annual back slapping conference of the gov/media complex:
"The Jonas Brothers are here. (Applause.) They're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But, boys, don't get any ideas. (Laughter.) I have two words for you -- predator drones. (Laughter.) You will never see it coming. (Laughter.) You think I'm joking. (Laughter.)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4
the next day obomber went about casually killing more people while yucking it up on the golf course with a gaggle of banksters and other cronies. think about that... he literally kills innocent men, women and children, and not only shows no trace of doubt or remorse, but F***ING JOKES ABOUT IT.
we are ruled by psycopaths. and on this i am not joking, nor do i exaggerate.
g. I agree. It does seem about time to reclaim the world for the sane among us.
DeleteRichard Cheney. Richard Cheney.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. Now what?
Have we been in a period of lag-time, or something?
Richard Cheney gets a heart transplant.
ReplyDeleteCould I BE anymore pleased, Mr. Edgar Allen Poe?
No, I could not.
tsisageya, I wish I knew what you are talking about. It seems brilliant, but my mind just can't grasp it.
DeleteWhen I first heard about the Dick getting a heart transplant, my feelings were fairly close to those of Dr. Wood's. Just that hers were more detailed while mine were much more wordless emotion, i.e. rage. I also felt that the family of the donor probably would not want to know where that organ had gone.
ReplyDeleteBut there is some hope. Possibly the donor was an immigrant from southern Mexico or nothern South America and was chronically infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. What with immunosuppression treatment, that would eventually flare up from the cardiac cysts and infect his whole body. To my knowledge there is at least one such case that occurred in CA a few years ago. Fulminating Chagas is not a nice way to go.
DeleteAggie, I suppose there could be some justice in the scenario if the heart turned out to be no good to anybody anyway. We can but hope. Wouldn't that be ironic if Cheney ended up with the heart of one of the immigrants he so assiduously attempted to extirpate from this country during his political career?
DeleteWhen my wife told me of Dick Cheney's book including the need for publicizing the benefits of transplants I knew there would be some vitiolic article on the waste of a heart on him. As one of over 100,0000 Americans awaiting life giving transplant, I feel qualified to say that you are not morally qualified to choose who is or isn't for to get a transplant. As a person with cirrhosis brought on my drug use in my teens, there are people who rightfully can say it is my own fault. The present transplant system takes away the power of those with "moral superiority" to choose those that should receive a transplant. If everyone was a donor there could hundreds or even thousands that you could pronounce as unworthy to receive a transplant
ReplyDelete