Remember Gordon Gekko, that character from the Charlie Sheen/Michael Douglass movie, "Wall Street?" The guy who, according to Charlie's buddy at the brokerage firm, "had an ethical bypass at birth?" As we count down to election day, Mitt and Gordon are starting to resemble one another. Both are Ayn Rand types in that each firmly believes in completely unrestricted, no holds barred, winner-take-all, "let the people eat cake," capitalism. This disturbs me. And here's what bothers me the most.
In her book, "The Fountainhead," Rand writes of her main character, Howard Roark, "Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty... it was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist." Neither Mitt Romney or his fictional counterpart, Gordon Gekko, really see people. And the ability to see people, I mean really to see them as real flesh and blood with real flesh and blood struggles and sufferings and joys and loves and concerns; that, to me, is one of the fundamental principles of ethics. When I hear Gov. Romney set forth his positions, I get the feeling he doesn't see me, my mother, my kids, whole groups of people but most especially those caught between the rock and the hard place. He makes me feel as if I don't really exist.
By one estimate, Gov. Romney's plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program administered by the states, would, within a decade's time, deny health care to thirty-million kids. Does Gov. Romeny really see our children?
Under the Ryan budget, which Gov. Romney supports, a single mother of two earning minimum wage would pay $1500 more in taxes since he proposes to drastically slash the child tax credit. Does Gov. Romney see the that single mother?
What about the unemployed, the under employed? The Romney/Ryan plan, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would destroy 4.1 million jobs. Do either of these candidates really see the unemployed? Hell, have either one of these guys ever experienced, even for a week, what it's like not to have a job when you really want one and will pretty much take anything you can get even if it's flipping burgers to keep a roof over your kids' heads and a box of mac-and-cheese on the table?
Speaking of the poor, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, points out that the Romney/Ryan plan would end up cutting as much as 3 trillion (yea, the "t" is correct) from programs for the poor. "It's ideology run amok," says Stockman. The ideology of Ayn Rand. The ideology of an economic war of all against all where the participants never truly see those less fortunate than themselves where the rich get tax cuts and the poor are left destitute.
Tim Dickinson, writing in "Rolling Stone" a couple of weeks back, summed up this mess pretty well. The Romney/Ryan plan "would roll back clean-air protection, gut both medicare and medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts for billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran's benefits." Do the Republican candidates really see any of these people? Or are we merely abstractions, statistics on a balance sheet?
Message to Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan: Neither I, my parents, my neighbors, my children, nor any of the rest of us working stiffs are mere abstractions, and we will not be reduced to statistics. And we are not invisible. We will be seen.
And come November 6th, we will also be heard.
The Jawbone
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
We Are the 47%
Not since that snake-in-the-grass Richard Nixon have we seen a more loathsome political viper than Mitt Romney slither across our political landscape in an attempt to occupy that most powerful plot of real estate. Born of the worst breed of political creatures, he is among the most dangerous and most rightly to be feared. Should he and his Koch brothers' Tea Party backers be allowed to buy the nation's highest office, they will do more damage to the 47% than we can imagine in our most vulgar nightmares. Keep your feet up everybody. It will be snakes on a plane all over again.
It's not his wealth that makes Mr. Romney so dangerous. Like Mitt, Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy were also born with a golden horseshoe up their small intestines. Properly earned and responsibly managed for the larger good, wealth can be a blessing. Or it can be a curse. And it is a curse when it shields its possessors from the plight of the common folk.
If success is determined by the bottom line, then no doubt Mitt has had a most successful business career. But the question must be asked as to how that career affected the larger community. Here is where moral failure masquerades as financial success.
As a vulture capitalist, Mitt Romney was nothing more than a corporate raider, a robber baron of the first order. His tactic was to purchase companies in trouble, run them into bankruptcy as quickly as possible, close them down, then make off with whatever was left in the company safe, leaving the workers standing outside locked factory gates to wonder how someone could have so thoughtlessly destroyed their livelihood. This is public record, not hyperbole; capitalism unfettered to do its worst. This is business by the Golden Rule in reverse: Do unto others before they do unto you.
To be certain, none of the Kennedy boys were saints. Yet they seemed, because, and some times in spite of, their privileged upbringing to be on the right side of history. They were in touch with the everyday realities of those whom they were elected to serve. The working stiffs who know what it is to get up every morning, go to a job they probably don't like very much, for which they are mostly underpaid, so they can sit down at the kitchen table near the end of each month and figure out which bills will get paid and which will have to wait.
The Kennedy's were born to wealth, but Jack could identify with the black man in the South who couldn't vote or even set down for a burger and fries at an all-white lunch counter without getting the living shit beaten out of him. Bobby toured the poverty stricken ghettos and share croppers' shacks, sat at kitchen tables and talked with mothers whose children were forced by law to attend segregated schools. On his way back to the limo, he remarked to a reporter, "I'm going back to Washington and do something about this." Ted made health care for everyone the central focus of his legislative career.
To be on the side of the outcast, the poor, the sick, the hungry, the jobless, of those whom the powerful choose to exclude from the political process by systematically denying them the right to vote; this is to be on the right side of history. This is where Mitt Romney is on the wrong side of history.
We are the 47%, Mr. Romney. And very few of us are irresponsible loafers who choose not to take responsibility for our lives.We are the veterans who stand to lose 11 billion dollars from much needed assistance. We are the elderly having to choose between food and medicine and doctors visits if medicare is replaced with a voucher system. We are African-Americans who marched, demonstrated, and even died for the right to vote; a right Mr. Romney's Republican Party is hell bent to repress. We are women in need of the reproductive health care, the cancer screenings, birth control, and access to safe abortions to whom Mr. Romney would deny funding. We are the college students depending on Pell grants and low interest student loans that will provide us with economic opportunity. We are mothers on medicaid who would love to find more than a minimum wage job waiting tables so we could afford decent day care for our kids and go back to school part-time and get our degree. We are fathers who have stood long enough in the unemployment line. Mr. Romney, we are the 47%; and you right us off at your peril.
And, Mr. Romney, despite your Republican Party's desperate attempts to keep us out of the voting booth, we will show up, and we will vote. Because we are on the right side of history.
The Jawbone.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Why I Will Continue to Support the Salvation Army
I was about seven or eight, if memory serves, and my GranGran and I were walking across a parking lot through an early December snow when we heard the familiar ringing of the bell and saw the uniformed young lady standing beside the little red kettle. "Never pass by the Salvation Army," my grandfather said. "They do a lot of good for folks who are down and out, really poor. Always give them what you can, even if it's only a little." So he'd reach into his pocket and pull out a couple of wrinkled dollar bills, give me one, and we'd each put one into the pot. GranGran would tip his hat to the lady; she'd nod a thanks, and we'd be on our way.
Years later I'd relate that same story to my two daughters as we were walking across some snowy New England parking lot, reach into my pocket, pass out the dollars, or quarters, as I was able, and we'd give what we could. "They help the poor," I'd explain. "People who don't have enough to eat tonight, and maybe even their kids; people without a roof over their heads won't have to sleep out in the cold tonight because you cared enough to help out."
This is the background I bring to the annual controversy that pits the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community against the Salvation Army. A controversy that runs down a two-way street. You see, the Salvation Army is a very conservative Christian organization that firmly believes the LGBT lifestyle is contrary to the SA's interpretation of certain Scriptures. Naturally, the LGBT community holds the opposite view, and calls upon me to withhold my cash in protest.
I happen to have long advocated, in the various denominations I've served as minister, the full rights of inclusion for the LGBT community. And we've made a great deal of progress as witnessed by the Episcopal Church, of which I'm now proudly a full member, having been confirmed by the Bishop just a couple of weeks ago. A few years back the Episcopal Church elected Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is openly gay. Quite a step forward. Progress is often slow. But progress is made.
Yet not every Episcopalian would agree with me. Every year at our annual gathering there is that vocal minority who will get up and rant and rave against ordaining anyone who isn't straight. No doubt it will be so again this year. Equally certain is that their anti-gay agenda will get voted down. Seems the controversy, like the poor, is destined to be always with us.
I think the Salvation Army's stance on LGBT is wrong. But I'm not going to withdraw my money any more than I would withdraw my money from my Episcopal Church. I've seen first hand the good the SA has done and continues to do each year. I don't agree with them on this issue, but if I pulled my pittance out of every organization I can find something to disagree about I'd end up never giving a dime to any charity. So I have to make choices. Or kids sleep in the car and pregnant mothers don't eat.
Change comes from courage within and pressure from without from those who disagree. So I will make my protest known, and encourage a more enlightened approach. Then, some day, probably before long, some long time member of the Salvation Army in good standing will come out of the closet and set off a bonfire of rethinking all the attendant issues. Never fails. So I choose the way of the loyal opposition. That feels like it has more integrity, for me anyway, than the I'll take my dollar and go home approach.
I want that hungry guy on the street corner to have a soup kitchen to go to tonight. And the mom and two kids some chickenshit bank foreclosed on and put out in the cold; I'd like them to have a shelter, and for the kids to get a couple presents this Christmas. I'm funny that way.
The Jawbone
Years later I'd relate that same story to my two daughters as we were walking across some snowy New England parking lot, reach into my pocket, pass out the dollars, or quarters, as I was able, and we'd give what we could. "They help the poor," I'd explain. "People who don't have enough to eat tonight, and maybe even their kids; people without a roof over their heads won't have to sleep out in the cold tonight because you cared enough to help out."
This is the background I bring to the annual controversy that pits the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community against the Salvation Army. A controversy that runs down a two-way street. You see, the Salvation Army is a very conservative Christian organization that firmly believes the LGBT lifestyle is contrary to the SA's interpretation of certain Scriptures. Naturally, the LGBT community holds the opposite view, and calls upon me to withhold my cash in protest.
I happen to have long advocated, in the various denominations I've served as minister, the full rights of inclusion for the LGBT community. And we've made a great deal of progress as witnessed by the Episcopal Church, of which I'm now proudly a full member, having been confirmed by the Bishop just a couple of weeks ago. A few years back the Episcopal Church elected Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is openly gay. Quite a step forward. Progress is often slow. But progress is made.
Yet not every Episcopalian would agree with me. Every year at our annual gathering there is that vocal minority who will get up and rant and rave against ordaining anyone who isn't straight. No doubt it will be so again this year. Equally certain is that their anti-gay agenda will get voted down. Seems the controversy, like the poor, is destined to be always with us.
I think the Salvation Army's stance on LGBT is wrong. But I'm not going to withdraw my money any more than I would withdraw my money from my Episcopal Church. I've seen first hand the good the SA has done and continues to do each year. I don't agree with them on this issue, but if I pulled my pittance out of every organization I can find something to disagree about I'd end up never giving a dime to any charity. So I have to make choices. Or kids sleep in the car and pregnant mothers don't eat.
Change comes from courage within and pressure from without from those who disagree. So I will make my protest known, and encourage a more enlightened approach. Then, some day, probably before long, some long time member of the Salvation Army in good standing will come out of the closet and set off a bonfire of rethinking all the attendant issues. Never fails. So I choose the way of the loyal opposition. That feels like it has more integrity, for me anyway, than the I'll take my dollar and go home approach.
I want that hungry guy on the street corner to have a soup kitchen to go to tonight. And the mom and two kids some chickenshit bank foreclosed on and put out in the cold; I'd like them to have a shelter, and for the kids to get a couple presents this Christmas. I'm funny that way.
The Jawbone
Monday, November 7, 2011
Swearing Preachers and the Hijacking of Democracy
"That," as my grandfather was fond of saying, "would make a preacher cuss." As a brief aside to those who have a rather shallow view of our profession, let me say this: If you ever meet a preacher who can't, when the situation warrants, string together a chain of profanities that would make the saltiest drunken sailor hang his head in crimson-faced shame---find another church. Come Sunday morning, only the swearing preachers have anything meaningful to say regarding the political and economic shit storm swirling around us.
In that intentionally irreverent spirit I will go my polling place tomorrow. I go for two reasons. One, voting gives me the right to bitch and generally raise hell about the hijacking of what used to be our democratic process. Two, this is a local, state house, election. What may be the last bastion of something remotely resembling democracy, although that too is disappearing.
My hope for local, state house elections is that they may not be quite as infected with corporate money. I remain idealist enough to still believe that there is, on the local level, at least a chance that a citizen can run for office on a very small budget and still have a chance to win. Rare. But it remains within the boundaries of possibility.
On the national level that is not the case. Here democracy is a thin veneer covering a completely corrupted system. Where is the democracy when both sides are bought and paid for by their corporate pimps? Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows companies like Bank of American and United Health Group and the Koch brothers to purchase candidates with massive amounts of cash. No matter who you vote for, you've already been sold out.
The result is a system made up of two subspecies: whores and whore mongers. The whores need the cash to get elected, but have to sell their votes in the process. The whore mongers are more than happy to provide the cash in exchange for the privilege of screwing the middle class and the poor with impunity. The game is rigged. Which side gets elected is making less and less difference.
Solution? A constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens decision that would ban all corporate money from all elections. No more shadow Koch brother front organizations. Complete transparency and financial accountability. Limit the size of contributions from individuals. Something not likely to happen since the whore mongers will pay their whores ever larger amounts of cash to prevent.
Unless there is a massive public movement against the sham system. The current Occupy Movement has the potential to put together the popular non-violent uprising that's desperately needed. Whether it can evolve into this kind of movement remains to be seen.
The hope lies in the fact that more and more people are realizing voting is not enough in a broken, rigged, system. People need to be in the streets for the whores and whore mongers to fear, and pay attention. The Movement has to grow in size and influence until a tipping point is reached; the point where the whores fear us more than their corporate pimps.
Occupy. Vote. Raise some Hell. Take your hard earned cash elsewhere. Petition. Bring the pressure. Bring the outrage. Demand to be heard, and heeded. There is strength in numbers. And there are more of us than there are of them.
The Jawbone.
In that intentionally irreverent spirit I will go my polling place tomorrow. I go for two reasons. One, voting gives me the right to bitch and generally raise hell about the hijacking of what used to be our democratic process. Two, this is a local, state house, election. What may be the last bastion of something remotely resembling democracy, although that too is disappearing.
My hope for local, state house elections is that they may not be quite as infected with corporate money. I remain idealist enough to still believe that there is, on the local level, at least a chance that a citizen can run for office on a very small budget and still have a chance to win. Rare. But it remains within the boundaries of possibility.
On the national level that is not the case. Here democracy is a thin veneer covering a completely corrupted system. Where is the democracy when both sides are bought and paid for by their corporate pimps? Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows companies like Bank of American and United Health Group and the Koch brothers to purchase candidates with massive amounts of cash. No matter who you vote for, you've already been sold out.
The result is a system made up of two subspecies: whores and whore mongers. The whores need the cash to get elected, but have to sell their votes in the process. The whore mongers are more than happy to provide the cash in exchange for the privilege of screwing the middle class and the poor with impunity. The game is rigged. Which side gets elected is making less and less difference.
Solution? A constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens decision that would ban all corporate money from all elections. No more shadow Koch brother front organizations. Complete transparency and financial accountability. Limit the size of contributions from individuals. Something not likely to happen since the whore mongers will pay their whores ever larger amounts of cash to prevent.
Unless there is a massive public movement against the sham system. The current Occupy Movement has the potential to put together the popular non-violent uprising that's desperately needed. Whether it can evolve into this kind of movement remains to be seen.
The hope lies in the fact that more and more people are realizing voting is not enough in a broken, rigged, system. People need to be in the streets for the whores and whore mongers to fear, and pay attention. The Movement has to grow in size and influence until a tipping point is reached; the point where the whores fear us more than their corporate pimps.
Occupy. Vote. Raise some Hell. Take your hard earned cash elsewhere. Petition. Bring the pressure. Bring the outrage. Demand to be heard, and heeded. There is strength in numbers. And there are more of us than there are of them.
The Jawbone.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Occupy Roanoke, Wall Street, And Just About Everywhere Else
Not being listened to; that feeling that tells you no matter how many petitions you sign, or emails you send, the people on the other end of the line couldn't care less about whether you have a decent job, can make rent, buy food, or buy your kids pens and pencils for school. It's demeaning. It's dehumanizing. And it's infuriating.
If I had a dollar for every petition I've signed, every email, every letter I've sent to my elected officials over the last few years, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be heading out the back door of my Costa Rica beach house, surfboard underarm, aiming to catch the afternoon glass. I'm not quite ready to say petitions and emails and letters don't matter, but when the signs are clear that no one in Washington is taking them seriously, then it's time to take it to the next level.
In that spirit I headed down to Occupy Roanoke. The first thing to catch my eye were the signs. A young college student with an accent I couldn't quite place stood on the curb holding up brown cardboard on which she'd neatly written: "I Can't Afford my own Politician, so I Made this Sign." Now, I thought, there's a sentiment I can get with. Every once in a while she'd flip it over to the backside where she'd written, "Abolish the Fed." Well, I'll have to give that one some thought.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..." that old song from the Five Man Electrical Band began playing in my head.
Have a concern? Here's the paint. Here's the crayons and markers. Help yourself. Make your own. Stand a post. Or pick up one of the pre-made that reflect your sentiments and get over to the curb. Make your voice heard. "Honk if You're One of the 99%" And I heard a lot of horns throughout the day. I picked up the one that said, "Whatever Happened to Shared Sacrifice?"
We were aging radicals from the sixties. And we were middle school students. And college students, environmental activists concerned about climate change. Some of us had jobs. Some hadn't worked in a long while. We were Vietnam and WWII vets. Conservatives. Progressives. Independents. Republicans. Democrats. Homeless folks taking advantage of the free potato soup. Each and all gathered while folk musicians and drummers provided the soundtrack. Diversity was the order of the day.
An organizer stood at the foot of the monument. "It's about time for the two-o'clock march. So here are the rules: be true to our non-violent commitment; be respectful of one another and of pedestrians, they have the right-of-way; if confronted, let the people with the orange armbands move in to diffuse the situation; invite others to join us; we are the 99%"
Off we went. Down the main drag of downtown, passed the big banks, over to the city market and back up to the park. We chanted "We Are the 99%" as passers-by gave us the thumbs up, or just broke into applause. " And "Tell me what democracy looks like.... THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!" with the drummers keeping time.
Speaker time. Want to make yourself heard? Sign up over there. You've got five minutes to make your case. The case for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case for spending that two billion a month to repair crumbling bridges that aren't safe to drive on and pot holes you can lose a Volkswagen in. The case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision that makes the voice of the people null and void in the halls of power. For banning all corporate money in politics to put and end to corporate Fascism and restore representative Democracy. The case for decent jobs for a liveable wage. The case for Rand Paul and abolishing the Federal Reserve. Whatever....
"Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!
And underlying every word, the deep-felt concern, the awareness, the certainty, that nobody in Washington is listening... So this is why we're here. You can't run. You can't hide. We're tired of not being listened to, and we're just not going to take it any more. Ignoring us is about as wise as sitting on a powder keg while smoking one of your fat corporate-bought cigars.
A sentiment I found well expressed by the young man I passed as I left the park to head home. He had the grizzled look of a young mountain man. On his back was a baby pack with a very young child. Above the pack he'd made a frame for his sign: "Fear Us. We've Already Lost Everything."
Now it begins.... more to follow....
The Jawbone
If I had a dollar for every petition I've signed, every email, every letter I've sent to my elected officials over the last few years, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be heading out the back door of my Costa Rica beach house, surfboard underarm, aiming to catch the afternoon glass. I'm not quite ready to say petitions and emails and letters don't matter, but when the signs are clear that no one in Washington is taking them seriously, then it's time to take it to the next level.
In that spirit I headed down to Occupy Roanoke. The first thing to catch my eye were the signs. A young college student with an accent I couldn't quite place stood on the curb holding up brown cardboard on which she'd neatly written: "I Can't Afford my own Politician, so I Made this Sign." Now, I thought, there's a sentiment I can get with. Every once in a while she'd flip it over to the backside where she'd written, "Abolish the Fed." Well, I'll have to give that one some thought.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..." that old song from the Five Man Electrical Band began playing in my head.
Have a concern? Here's the paint. Here's the crayons and markers. Help yourself. Make your own. Stand a post. Or pick up one of the pre-made that reflect your sentiments and get over to the curb. Make your voice heard. "Honk if You're One of the 99%" And I heard a lot of horns throughout the day. I picked up the one that said, "Whatever Happened to Shared Sacrifice?"
We were aging radicals from the sixties. And we were middle school students. And college students, environmental activists concerned about climate change. Some of us had jobs. Some hadn't worked in a long while. We were Vietnam and WWII vets. Conservatives. Progressives. Independents. Republicans. Democrats. Homeless folks taking advantage of the free potato soup. Each and all gathered while folk musicians and drummers provided the soundtrack. Diversity was the order of the day.
An organizer stood at the foot of the monument. "It's about time for the two-o'clock march. So here are the rules: be true to our non-violent commitment; be respectful of one another and of pedestrians, they have the right-of-way; if confronted, let the people with the orange armbands move in to diffuse the situation; invite others to join us; we are the 99%"
Off we went. Down the main drag of downtown, passed the big banks, over to the city market and back up to the park. We chanted "We Are the 99%" as passers-by gave us the thumbs up, or just broke into applause. " And "Tell me what democracy looks like.... THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!" with the drummers keeping time.
Speaker time. Want to make yourself heard? Sign up over there. You've got five minutes to make your case. The case for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case for spending that two billion a month to repair crumbling bridges that aren't safe to drive on and pot holes you can lose a Volkswagen in. The case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision that makes the voice of the people null and void in the halls of power. For banning all corporate money in politics to put and end to corporate Fascism and restore representative Democracy. The case for decent jobs for a liveable wage. The case for Rand Paul and abolishing the Federal Reserve. Whatever....
"Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!
And underlying every word, the deep-felt concern, the awareness, the certainty, that nobody in Washington is listening... So this is why we're here. You can't run. You can't hide. We're tired of not being listened to, and we're just not going to take it any more. Ignoring us is about as wise as sitting on a powder keg while smoking one of your fat corporate-bought cigars.
A sentiment I found well expressed by the young man I passed as I left the park to head home. He had the grizzled look of a young mountain man. On his back was a baby pack with a very young child. Above the pack he'd made a frame for his sign: "Fear Us. We've Already Lost Everything."
Now it begins.... more to follow....
The Jawbone
Friday, September 16, 2011
Should Death Sentences be Chiseled in Stone, or Written with Pencil?
Next Wednesday, Troy Davis may die. An African-American man convicted of killing a Savannah, Georgia, police officer in 1989, Davis is the latest face at the center of the death penalty debate. The operative word here is "may." A petition of over 663,000 names, mine among them, has been presented to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. The petition calls on the five member board, which will meet Monday to decide Davis' fate, to set aside his death sentence. A simple majority is all that's required for the thumbs up, or down.
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Apocalypse Now
I'd just settled into the easy chair at Barnes and Nobles cafe when it felt as though someone had just bumped into the back of my chair. Hmm, some careless barrista banging his cart into the other side of the wall, I thought. Then the growing vibration, the more than occasional bumping, felt through the back of the chair, the floor, the lady over in the corner pulling off her headset, "Do you feel that?" Between strangers, knowing glances asking without words, "When do we run?" A young man at the table in front of me, "It's an earthquake. They're feeling it in Washington."
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
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