“Better Love It Or Leave It, Because We Cling To Guns”: The Hatred Is Still Out There, Waiting For The Next Crusade
The times they have a changed. I remember when the extreme right-wing nuts were social pariahs. No mainstream politician or national media organization would openly embrace or advocate for them. They were either percolating as white supremacist racists, shamed KKK holdouts, Hell’s Angels road bandits, or grouped into a category labeled “survivalists.” They were all armed and willing, had caches of enough weapons and supplies sometimes hidden in bunkers, and they were going to save America. We knew they existed, sometimes gave them some thought, but mostly ignored them as pesky bugs that one just has to monitor and avoid as best as possible, because there was a powerful sense that the rightness of the American Dream machine would prevail.
This was also a time when America’s youth were “crusaders” against government over-reach. Despite their being armed only with the first amendment, idealism, and organizing peaceful and mostly non-violent protests, a majority of Americans angrily called them unpatriotic and yelled for them to “love it or leave it!” Odd to realize now how that slogan was never aimed at the right wing nuts.
During the same period of social discontent when the Black Panthers “stood their ground” armed with the second amendment, the FBI and all shades of law enforcement agents either killed many of them in shoot-outs or imprisoned others. Americans, in the mid-west, and from coast to coast supported the government and its agents with patriotic fervor for ridding society of those illegal treasonous Hanoi Jane and black militant types. The chaotic unrest of the ’60s and ’70s faded as the social crusaders donned work suits and NBA team uniforms and assimilated back into the melting pot.
Fast forward to Cliven Bundy’s “home on the Nevada range,” where the big ugly truth stood its ground that America is still a Civil War house divided across one hundred fifty plus Aprils. What first appeared to be a resurgent state rights sagebrush rebellion on steroids took a prickly cactus turn.
There was the usual and now quite predictable circus of “Republican” characters that jumped on this event to spin the narrative, score political points, spend Koch brother monies, stoke the base, create another poster child victim of Obama’s illegal government over-reach, and gain another propaganda win.
The shocking surprise was the turnout of “first responders.” The neo-minutemen and women that flocked to the Nevada “Concord” from other states, forming a volunteer armed citizenry, that took up sniper positions, and were ready to place women as the first receivers of bullets against federal agents enforcing the law against the cattle welfare queen, Cliven Bundy. This group was more than ready and desirous of martyrdom to bring about their larger cause, the overthrow of the evil empire.
Just when did it become fashionable and acceptable, and not punishable for armed treason against the government? That is exactly what occurred there. No one was saying, “love it or leave it” to this posse, because they cling to guns, because they have become embedded into a way larger fabric of American society than their predecessors were able to. I wonder if the gush of the Republican power elite somehow legitimized and thus emboldened these folks? Could this have become the first shots of the rewriting of the Civil War?
Thankfully, the same guy that started this defused the standoff. Cliven Bundy talked. No longer an obscure desperate lone ranger, Cliven had the embrace and love from the Republican machine that empowered him to spew his Civil War era racism. The same machine that gaveth him a platform, now couldn’t find enough cactus, sagebrush, or moral platitudes to distance themselves fast enough. Oh well, no one promised unconditional love.
It is beyond me why the extreme right wing Republican power machine doesn’t do a better job vetting the Cliven Bundys. Does so much power and money breed such stupidity? I guess in their mind they won anyway. They know the hatred is still out there waiting for the next crusade, and it isn’t the sort of group that anyone other than me might politely ask of them, but here goes, please, “America, love it or leave it!
By: Alen Schmertzler, The Huffington Post Blog, May 2, 2014
“Why Even Pretend?”: There’s No Humane Way To Carry Out The Death Penalty
No one who supports the death penalty should have the slightest problem with the way Clayton Lockett died.
Lockett, a convicted murderer, spent 43 minutes in apparent agony Tuesday night as the state of Oklahoma tried to execute him by injecting an untested cocktail of drugs. Instead of quickly losing consciousness, he writhed in obvious distress and attempted to speak. Witnesses described what they saw as horrific.
Prison authorities halted the procedure — they were going to revive Lockett so they could kill him at a later date, presumably in a more aesthetically pleasing manner — but the condemned man suffered a heart attack and died.
The state postponed a second execution that had been scheduled for the same night, but I wonder why. We fool ourselves if we think there is a “humane” way to way to kill someone. Sure, the second inmate, Charles Warner, probably would have suffered an equally agonizing death. But isn’t this the whole point?
When I read about the crimes Lockett committed, I wish I could support capital punishment. When I read about what Warner did, I want to strangle him with my own hands. But revenge is not the same thing as justice, and karmic retribution is not a power I trust government to exercise. The death penalty has no place in a civilized society.
Lockett raped, brutalized and murdered a 19-year-old woman who had graduated from high school just two weeks earlier, shooting her and then burying her alive. Lockett and his accomplices also beat and robbed a 23-year-old man and raped an 18-year-old woman. The crimes took place in 1999; Lockett has been awaiting execution since 2000.
Warner, the other man who was to die in the Oklahoma execution chamber Tuesday, was convicted in 1999 of raping and murdering an 11-month-old child who was the daughter of his live-in girlfriend. The baby suffered unspeakable abuse.
The question is not whether Lockett and Warner deserve to die; clearly they do, as far as I’m concerned. The question is whether our society, acting through the instrument of government, should kill them. I believe there is no way to impose capital punishment without betraying the moral standards that our justice system is theoretically designed to uphold. Put simply, when we murder we become murderers.
Perhaps the most powerful argument against the death penalty is that it is irreversible. Sometimes, judges and juries make honest mistakes and innocent people may be condemned to death. Some studies have shown an apparent racial bias in the way capital punishment is meted out, with blacks who kill whites more likely than other defendants to end up on death row.
Put all this aside for the moment and assume that both Lockett and Warner committed those heinous crimes and that each was convicted in a scrupulously fair trial. The judgment of the state of Oklahoma is that both men must die. How, then, are they to be killed?
What about a public beheading, like in Saudi Arabia? No one would seriously suggest such a thing. Yet a razor-sharp sword surely would have been less agonizing — or at least much quicker — than the drugs injected into Lockett’s bloodstream.
The general idea of lethal injection is to give the condemned a powerful sedative followed by one or more lethal agents. But the sole manufacturer of one of the commonly used drugs stopped making it in 2011. Drug makers in Europe, where the death penalty is considered barbaric, refuse to export drugs to the United States for use in executions. As a result, there have been shortages. Oklahoma was using a new, unproven cocktail to kill Lockett.
Reportedly, Lockett’s vein “blew” shortly after the execution began, meaning that he was not getting the full doses. But his was hardly the first lethal injection execution in which the condemned showed visible signs of great pain.
I would argue that there’s no reason to believe lethal injection is a more humane way to end a life than electrocution, poison gas, hanging, firing squad or even guillotine. Of course, we’ll never know. We can tell ourselves any story we want about how quickly and painlessly death arrived, and the one person who could prove us wrong will never speak again.
But why even pretend? Clayton Lockett was a bad man. Those who believe it was right to kill him have no reason to be ashamed of the way he died — and no right to look away.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 1, 2014
“The Rich, Still Different From You And Me”: We Still Treat Them As Though Their Feelings About Money Are Similar To Ours
When the news broke that Los Angeles Clippers owner and creepy racist misogynist billionaire Donald Sterling would be banned from the NBA for life (perhaps resulting in him selling the team) and fined $2.5 million, a lot of people probably said, “$2.5 million? The guy’s got a couple of billion dollars! Why not give him a fine that’ll hurt?”
Frankly, I think any fine at all is a little strange in this case. We usually think of fines as punishment for violations of some rule or law, not as a response to someone just being a horrible human being (though there could well be some clause in the the secret NBA owner bylaws about behavior that reflects poorly on the league). The ban, on the other hand, seems perfectly appropriate, even if when he sells the team he’ll net a few hundred million dollars on his original $12 million investment. But the fine—and the weird fact that he was about to get a “lifetime achievement award” from the NAACP for his contributions to the welfare of black people—remind us that although the super-rich have a fundamentally different relationship to money than the rest of us, we still treat them as though their feelings about money are similar to ours.
Here’s what I mean. Back in the day (and maybe still, I’m not sure), when the United Jewish Appeal was soliciting contributions, they used to tell people, “Give till it hurts.” The idea was that if your contributions hadn’t actually had an effect on your life that you could feel, you could still give a little more. But for someone like Sterling, it would be almost impossible to give till it hurts, whether it’s a contribution to the NAACP to get people off his back about those pesky discrimination lawsuits, or a fine from the NBA.
This reminded me of a memorial service I attended a few years ago with a few hundred other people for a billionaire who had just died. All the speakers discussed how moving and inspiring his generosity was, and he had indeed given away hundreds of millions of dollars to a variety of worthy causes. But all the encomiums to his extraordinary character as evidenced by his financial contributions had me shaking my head. He could have given away 99 percent of his fortune and still lived like a king. It wasn’t as though, when he signed a $10 million check, he said to himself, “Well, no going out to dinner this month.” He still had a bunch of homes, a staff to attend to his every need, and pretty much anything he wanted, even if he had parted with half his assets before he died.
To a billionaire, contributions that make people stagger with gratitude are meaningless, no different from tossing a quarter to a beggar. A billionaire who wanted to undertake a truly inspiring act of generosity would give away all but, say, $5 million of what they had. I don’t remember hearing of a single case in which someone did that. And as it happens, poor people actually donate a greater proportion of their income to charity on average than rich people do.
Of course, the NAACP wasn’t going to give Donald Sterling a lifetime achievement award because they were actually bowled over by his generosity and wanted his lifetime of service to inspire others, but because it’s good fundraising practice. When someone gives you a bunch of money, you have to flatter them, tell them how much you admire them, give them a handsome plaque. And lots of the super-rich are narcissistic or insecure enough that when they make a large contribution they want to see their names on the side of the building, so everyone knows how wonderful they are. Likewise, the NBA isn’t fining Sterling $2.5 million because that amount will make him reflect on what a jerk he is and lead to a change in his outlook on the common threads joining all of humanity, but because it sounds to the rest of us like a sizeable number, so they look like they’re serious about delivering a serious punishment. But Sterling won’t even feel it.
On the other hand, given that he is now one of the most (rightfully) hated men in America, he may have a slightly harder time finding women in their twenties who’ll agree to screw him if he buys them a car. Or at least we can hope.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, April 30, 2014
“The Grazing Moocher”: Cliven Bundy Is Free To Be Crazy And We’re Free To Call Him On It
I want to tell you one more thing I know about freedom of speech.
Having pontificated about how “the Negro” was actually better off when not burdened by freedom and government subsidies, fringe hero Cliven Bundy is shocked – shocked! – that people would dare take offense at his musings. He went on CNN Friday morning to explain (h/t ThinkProgress, which was kind enough to add the emphasis):
I took this boot off so I wouldn’t put my foot in my mouth with the boot on. Let me see if I can say something. Maybe I sinned and maybe I need to ask forgiveness and maybe I don’t know what I actually said. But you know, when you talk about prejudice, we’re talking about not being able to exercise what we think and our feelings.
We don’t have freedom to say what we want. If I call — if I say negro or black boy or slave, I’m not — if those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offended, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done then yet. They should be able to — I should be able to say those things and they shouldn’t offend anybody. I didn’t mean to offend them.
Let’s set aside his truly weird suggestion that Martin Luther King Jr.’s “job” was to move society to a place where racism is completely acceptable in the public space. (I kind of thought that he was trying to move the country away from there, but whatever.)
Let’s instead talk about Bundy’s concept of freedom of speech. I get that Bundy – who achieved fame and a level of conservative-libertarian hero cred by asserting his sovereign right to freeload off of public lands – has some novel ideas about liberty and freedom. (Case in point, his belief that anyone could be better off without liberty and freedom.) But maybe I can help him out on this one.
The fact is that he does have the freedom to say what he wants. I know this because he said what he wanted and is still at large and able to make appearances on CNN trying to explain himself. He’s in absolutely no danger of being arrested for his racist views regarding black people. He has, in fact, been furnished a metaphorical megaphone in the form of just about every major media outlet in the country.
The best and most important expression of free speech is in the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” It says the federal government is not allowed to make freely expressing yourself illegal. It doesn’t say anything about a sovereign right to express yourself without other people expressing themselves back.
As a wingnut residing on the conservative end of the political spectrum, I would think Bundy favors free markets, but he seems genuinely mystified at his experience with the free market of ideas. He proffered his thoughts on race and – as happens with markets – consumers of information and ideas weighed them and decided that they weren’t buying.
So Bundy’s feelings are hurt because he expressed and society expressed itself back. But contrary to what he seems to think, this wasn’t an absence of free speech, it was an expression of it.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, April 25, 2014
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