Tag: justice

If you were with us on Christmas Day you heard the story of Betsie Gallardo, who, unless something changes quickly, is going to be intentionally starved to death in a Florida prison after being convicted of spitting on a cop.

In fairness, the State did not decide simply to starve her; instead, the Department of Corrections (DOC) first chose to withhold any further treatment for her inoperable cancer…and then they decided to starve her to death.

Her adopted mother is trying to get her released on humanitarian grounds; the DOC recommended in October that she be allowed to go home and die, the Florida Parole Commission refused.

Governor Charlie Crist chairs the Executive Clemency Board, who could also agree to let her go…and so far, they’ve also refused to take action.

Funny thing is, the Governor and his Board have been more than willing to step in when other Floridians requested pardons and commutations, even in situations that seemed a lot less dire.

Today, we’re going to look at that history-and to be honest, as with many things in the Sunshine State, from the outside…it all looks a bit bizarre.

Robert Freeman  . . .

For the past 30 years, the rich have been waging war on the middle class. It’s been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared. But even that pretense is now being abandoned.  The President’s National Debt Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it.  If allowed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom.

That’s the agenda of the bankers, it’s the agenda of the courts, it’s the agenda of the corporate media and the politicians in D.C.  

Machiavelli was an idealistic proponent of political virtue and a paragon of integrity compared to the moral debris in two-party suits who “govern” America.  He wouldn’t last 30 seconds inside the Beltway, that crowd of thugs would fold, spindle, mutilate and deep-six him so fast he’d be inhaling mud at the bottom of the Potomac before he even knew what hit him.

That’s what we’ve been up against, a political system of ruthless efficiency masquerading as a partisan circus of flip-flopping acrobats, tax-and-spend trapeze artists, high-wire tightrope-walkers from swing districts, lions and tigers and bears growling about gridlock, and plenty of elephants trumpeting all over the place.  In the opinion of eager ticket buyers like Tweety, it’s the greatest show on earth.

But the politicians seem to be growing weary of the charade . . .    

The Commission’s proposal is the most naked, undisguised declaration of class warfare possible.  It’s agenda is not to reduce the deficit, but rather to reduce what is left of the American middle class and American workers to a condition of servitude, of feudal peerage.  This will make possible the final looting of America by those whose sociopathic greed has brought it so low already.  The battle over this proposal is the last bulwark against the devastation and final destruction of America.

Justice and equality are being taken away everywhere, by politicians and generals, by dictators and ayatollahs, by lawless regimes from Burma to Moscow, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, from Pakistan to America and everywhere in between.  Oppression takes many forms, “leaders” trot out different justifications, they may even believe some of them, but that does not erase their guilt, it does not absolve them of their crimes, it will not wash away the blood on their hands.  

Justice for bank fraudsters: Throw them in Guantanamo and sort it out later (speaking of the crooks at J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc., etc.) Just like they do with “terrorists”.

If a military tribunal is good enough for Osama Bin Laden’s driver, it’s good enough for the bank fraudsters…and a firing squad at the end.

Justice for Karl Rove: Extraordinarily rendition him to Afghanistan, paradrop him into Kandahar wearing a sandwichboard saying “I Love Salmon Rushdie” on one side and “Death to Islam” on the other.

Justice for opponents of repealing DADT:  Fire them from their jobs and then enlist them in an organization that makes referencing, justifying or speaking anything in reference to Christianity or religion a court martial offense.  Assert that they have “freedom of speech” despite this but they have no rights in this organization.  Give them no privacy, forbid them heterosexual relationships and make them serve their country, only at the end to kick them out because they’re “immoral” and tell them their existence is “contrary to good order and discipline”.

Justice for Teabaggers.  Send them the full bill for their sewer, water, police and fire department protection.  If they object, call them dirty socialists.

Justice for opponents of granting GLBT couples full marriage rights and repealing DOMA:

First, dissolve their marriages and tell them they don’t have the right to use that word in regard to their relationships.  Then put them in a state that has “civil unions”.  Tell them these civil unions are the equivalent of heterosexual marriage and they ought to be happy with that.

Wait until said people get old with their unmarried but civilly unioned partners.  During this period, they have to file federal income taxes separately and cannot move to any other state while keeping their supposed “rights” intact.  

Then, when old, take one partner to the hospital, refuse to let the other partner see the first or make medical decisions on his or her behalf, then sell their belongings on EBay.  Let the first partner die in the hospital, confine the other to a nursing home and then tell him or her you don’t know what s/he is whining about, because s/he has “equal rights”.

Then tell them that Obama feels their pain.

Polluters and other defendants in numerous lawsuits brought by Law School Clinics in behalf of the victims of corporate and state government abuse have discovered their adversaries’ Achilles heals.  Reprising events in the early history of the Legal Services Corporation, the defendants are now actively moving in state legislatures to cut off funding to the law school clinic lawyers who represent their adversaries.  The result, they hope, will be continued immunity from legal inquiry and a continuation of business and pollution as usual.

Many years ago, during The Great Society, the federal government funded the Office of Economic Opportunity, (OEO) which provided many services, including civil legal services to poor people.  These legal services were obviously capable of transforming society in fundamental ways.  Poor people, for so long disenfranchised, found they had access to federal and state courts and free lawyers to pursue fundamental violations of their civil rights.  Instantly, poor people had allies in enforcing their legal rights.  In response, those who favored the status quo immediately sought not to remedy poor people’s complaints, but instead to cut them off from their lawyers, to forbid the lawyers from pursuing these important cases.

Tavis Smiley has produced a special report comparing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama, focusing on their attitudes to war, empire and the consequences for society and the world.  

Smiley speaks out against what Cornell West has called “The Santa-Claus-ization” of King.  In typical goody-two-shoes, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” fashion, the mainstream has chosen to concentrate on what it considers the good, positive King, not the one who criticized U.S. foreign policy and called the United States the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”  

That was true when King said it in the sixties, one year before he was assassinated; and, sadly, it remains true today.  

The show airs on PBS tonight (8 PM Pacific, check your local time).  I’ve e-mailed the link out to my list, hoping some will hear, perhaps for the first time, King’s views on war and his contrast to Obama.

Read the Black Agenda Repost article on the program:

King and Obama.

Leahy’s Senate Committee… Live Webcast LINK

Guess I missed most of it. Oh well. Marcy is livebloggin it over at FDL.

I just caught this and there doesn’t seem to be much on it yet

U.S. to Appeal Blackwater Case Dismissal, Biden Says

There isn’t a time mark on the NYT piece but the few others I found had it as about an hour ago.

This is a cut from the Times piece.