I’ve been riveted all day to the news coming via Twitter about Iran.

I seem to recall an election in the US in which there was a similar dispute about who had won.  I don’t recall millions going into the streets.  I don’t recall the “defeated” candidate calling on people to bring on non-violent, silent protests and mass gatherings.  I wish that had happened in the US. But, sadly, it didn’t.  And look what the next 8 years brought.  The Iranian people unlike the US seem to understand the significance and the consequences of a stolen election.  And they appear to want to do something about it.

So it appears that Iran has at this moment a time of both intense risk and enormous opportunity.

As I type this, hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets across Iran because they know that their election was stolen, that their votes were not counted, that the election was a sham, that their democracy has failed them.  They are angry, and they want a restoration of their democracy.  And they are going to demand a fair election and a fair counting of the votes.

How do we in the US support the Iranian People’s Protests?

I turn to you for the answers, for the tactics, for the approach.  The Iranian People’s Protests deserve our support.  Let’s put our heads together.

Here are two small examples of what we’re looking for. Twitter users are being urged to change their location to Tehran and their time zone to GMT +3 to give protection, however slight, to those in Iran who are reporting the news who are being followed by the authorities.  A second example:  Twitter was scheduled for maintenance this evening.  That would have shut off the Iranian news tweets.  Twitter re-scheduled its maintenance.

And now I ask again: what can we do to help?

Update: 6/16/09, 8:40 ET: Green icons for twitter are a click away.

When the Traditional Media ^TM seem too slow, or too far from the event, or too stilted, or too unwilling, it’s time for citizen journalism to take over. Journalism in 140 characters is a tough order.  But it works.  And it’s far, far ahead of the Trad sources.

To follow the events in Iran as they unfold, just click this tweetgrid.

This is great stuff.

h/t to TPM for photo

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Today’s New York Times tells the story of yet another travesty of justice from Alabama in a death penalty case.  This is the kind of thing that unfortunately is no longer a revelation.  It’s what you might expect.  And it’s happened over and over again.

Please join me in the Death Belt.

Cross posted from The Dream Antilles

According to the New York Times, the Obama Administration may modify the military commission rules to permit require have Gitmo prisoners plead guilty and be executed:

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

What a disgrace.  On Friday, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill abolishing the death penalty.  I asked readers of my essay to call or email Governor Rell to ask her please to sign the bill.  There was, I pointed out, a strong chance that the Republican Governor, a long time death penalty supporter, would veto the bill.

Today’s Hartford Courant says that Governor Rell vows to veto the measure when it gets to her desk.  It might take a few weeks to get there:

Just hours after the state Senate gave final legislative approval Friday to a historic measure abolishing the death penalty in Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell came out with an expected announcement:

She said she was going to veto the measure as soon as it hits her desk.

“I appreciate the passionate beliefs of people on both sides of the death penalty debate. I fully understand the concerns and deeply held convictions of those who would like to see the death penalty abolished in Connecticut,” she said in a statement.

“However, I also fully understand the anguish and outrage of the families of victims who believe, as I do, that there are certain crimes so heinous – so fundamentally revolting to our humanity – that the death penalty is warranted.”

What nonsense.  The families of victims are far from unanimous that the death penalty is warranted.  In fact, as the Courant pointed out in its photo caption, Friday “[f]amilies of victims of murder [spoke] at a press conference in support of a bill passed by the legislature Thursday that would abolish the death penalty. Pictured are Gail Canzano, at podium, Elizabeth Brancato of Torrington, State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield of New Haven, Rev. Walter Everett , Cindy Siclari of Monroe and Anne Stone of Farmington.”  So the Governor’s invocation of wishes of the families of victims rings hollow.

We can all easily understand how appealing revenge on killers might be, but the overwhelming majority of civilized societies in the world have now abandoned that barbarian argument.  Rell chooses, however, to dress up the old canard in victims’ rights clothing.  The fact is that she’s not doing anything for victims’ families by permitting the state to kill killers.  And she’s certainly not doing anything for the rest of us, in whose names these state killings will be carried out.  State killing doesn’t deter killing, and it doesn’t bring “closure” to the families of victims.

Governor Rell’s vowing the veto because she allegedly “believes” in the death penalty.  And when Republicans enact policies just because they believe in them– surely the memory of George W. Bush has not been forgotten– you know that irrationality has prevailed.

You might want to tell Governor Rell that the death penalty is a bad idea, that we can live without it, and that she’s making a mistake if she vetoes this bill.

Please telephone Governor Rell (860.566.4840) or email her ([email protected]) and let he know that it’s time for Connecticut to step into the 21st Century.  It’s time for her to sign the death penalty abolition bill.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Put in the simplest terms, the proponents of “prolonged detention” think that dressing up preventive detention with post detention procedures will make it constitutional.  Procedures= whip cream.  Detention= manure.  This will not make the prolonged detention policy palatable.  It will not preserve the sentiments behind the US Constitution.  And a debate about how many dollops of whipped cream are required will completely miss the point.  The point imo is that prolonged detention is in a single word unacceptable. It should not be countenanced. The idea should be shelved and abandoned.

Cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Early this morning the Connecticut Senate voted to abolish Connecticut’s death penalty.  The vote was 19-17.  The bill now goes to Governor Jodi Rell (R).  She sounds like she will veto the bill.  So, if you care about the value of human life and making Connecticut and America more just and ending the barbarism that is the death penalty, this is an important time to spend a few moments to call or email Governor Rell to ask her to sign the bill.  The phone is 860.566.4840.  The email: [email protected].  

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Aung San Suu Kyi

Evidently, the military junta running Myanmar (Burma) has decided to make life for Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, even worse.  Today was the second day of her trial.  The New York Times reports:

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

The Times Record Herald reports that the New York Prison Guards Union has managed to kill a performance of an inmate musical production.  The prisoners, it seems, wrote a play, a musical to be exact, produced it, directed it, and act, sing and dance in it.  They were going to show it to prisoners at another, nearby prison.

Why has the production been canceled?  Because the guards’ union is mad at the Governor because of closings, supposedly for budgetary reasons, of work release centers in which union member guards are employed.  Not content to fight the Governor directly, not content to picket the Governor and the legislature, the Union has stepped in to stop the prisoners’ showing their play to other prisoners by threatening to picket the performance:

State prison officials have lowered the curtain on an inmate theatrical performance.

A troupe of 18 convicted murderers, robbers and other felons at Woodbourne Correctional Facility had been scheduled to perform an original play Wednesday at Eastern Correctional Facility in Ellenville.

But the state Department of Correctional Services has canceled the show because union workers threatened to picket.

“The commissioner does not want to jeopardize the program or the people in it by putting them in the middle of a statewide labor issue,” said DOCS spokesman Erik Kriss.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

   Pee Wee Reese

When I was ten I loved the Dodgers. The Brooklyn Dodgers. Especially Pee Wee Reese.  And Duke Snyder.  And Carl Furillo.  I loved baseball.  And then one day, to my utter amazement, the newspapers reported that the Dodgers were leaving me for their new love, the kids in Los Angeles.  How could they do that?  What had I done to be unworthy of them?  Had they been cheating on me throughout the season? It felt like a bad break up, a contested divorce.  It felt terrible.  There was no loyalty to me and to Brooklyn.  Only dollars.  And betrayal.  And leaving and going to LA.

Baseball back then was a game for kids. There were Sunday afternoon double headers with one admission fee.  There were day games.  You took a portable radio to school during the world series, because you hoped that Mrs. Powderly would let you hear the game.  And you ran home at 3:15 to catch the last innings.  Baseball’s all star game, which was a dream come true for a kid, was a day game.  It was played in the afternoon.  So I could see Joe Dimaggio, and Jackie Robinson, and Pee Wee, and Willie Mays.  And buying things was cheap: hot dogs, and soda and cracker jacks.  These were for kids, except for beer, which was for the adults.

Players didn’t play baseball all year.  They had other jobs.  In the off season they sold cars or insurance or worked in an office or on the farm.  They didn’t make big bucks.  You could see them doing their real jobs.  Baseball was their reward.

But now we’re in an entirely different era.  Today Mannie Ramirez, who might have been one of the greatest right hand hitters, earned a 50 game suspension for using steroids.  So now he’s got his asterisk, he’s the greatest right hand hitter*.  And A*Rod.  He’s got an asterisk.  And Mark M*Guire, and Sammy S*sa, and in addition to an asterisk, Jose C*nseco needs money so he’s doing ultimate fighting.  And we have no idea who the other 103 players were who tested positive for drugs along with A*Rod.  And all of them have *s also.  It used to be that the asterisk was reserved for Roger Maris whose sin was that he hit 60 home runs in a 162 game season, not in 156 games.  Even the asterisk has now been devalued.  Now it denotes cheating and drug use.

Now the all star game is at night.  The world series is at night.  The division series is at night.  The first pitch in these games is at about 9 pm ET, so any east coast kid who wants to see his/her heroes is not going to get past the third inning.  And beer at the ballpark is more than $6.  And hot dogs are more than $4.  And there are few day games.  And there are no double headers with single admission.  And there are new abominations: corporate boxes with glass windows facing the field and air conditioning, and restaurants with table cloths and silverware, and take out, and microbreweries, and there are no really cheap seats.  I could argue that the designated hitter was a debasement of the game.  But compared to these other, appalling changes, the DH is nothing.

It used to be a ritual to sneak off from work or school to go to Ebbetts Field for the afternoon game during the week.  There is no equivalent now to that spontaneous act of childishness, of playing hookie.

I still follow the Mets.  I still love major league baseball.  The green grass of the outfield.  The roar of the crowd.  The sound of bat on ball.  The bright lights.  But today’s announcement of Mannie Ramirez’s 50 game suspension shows the dark shadow of the kids’ game I used to love.  It used to be about hitting a round ball with a round bat.  Now it’s about something else entirely.  It’s about money, and enormous salaries to players, and great profits to owners, and public financing for private stadiums, and naming rights, and having agents, and endorsements.  It’s about everything except that naive, joyful game of hitting a round ball with a round bat and 3 strikes still being an out.

There used to be a Ballantine Beer sign in the ball park.  It had 3 rings for Purity, Body, And Flavor. Ironically, it’s the purity in the game that has gone.

I mourn its loss.