Help abolish the death penalty

When we look back in time to 150 years ago, we wonder how Americans could have condoned slavery. How could we have been so cruel and wrong in our thinking, in our everyday lives?

When we look back on 2012 from 150 years from now we will feel the same way about imprisoning huge numbers of people, and even allowing our government employees to murder them. We will ask, "How could we have been so wrong in our thinking" and we will agree that reforming our justice system was painful but necessary. 

I oppose the death penalty and hope to persuade you to also. If you already oppose the death penalty, feel free to share this and try to persuade them, and skip ahead to the last paragraph for suggestions about actions you can take.

I read a good article in Sojourners Magazine today (you have to register for free).  As the author notes, the pragmatic arguments to oppose the death penalty are simple: 

• Capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. 
• Death sentences are disproportionately handed down to people of color, or to people convicted of killing someone white. 
• It is a staggeringly expensive process for states.

But 6 out of every 10 people in America believe that it is necessary and just for the government to murder our fellow citizens.  60%.

Some people think that murder victims, (survivors, family, loved ones) feel better, get "closure" because of the death penalty. Most say that they simply do not. Can you imagine losing a loved one to murder, then getting over it? Survivors have to live for decades while legal hearings continue and they are called on again and again to testify about the pain caused by the murder of their loved ones. Would a sentence of life without parole and no more hearings provide better opportunities for healing?

We all know our government makes mistakes. 140 people have been freed from death row after having been found innocent. 

Public opinion is changing in favor of abolishing the death penalty. As the article says" the voices of innocent people nearly put to death for crimes they did not commit are ultimately what will turn the tide against the death penalty: “That’s what’s beginning to create the change of opinion. When the punishment is irreversible, nothing but perfection is acceptable. We can certainly improve the system, but we can never guarantee that we can make the system perfect.”

So please join me by working in your state to abolish the death penalty. Share these articles or this blog. Attend meetings of people who also want to abolish it. Write letters to your political leaders and local newspapers. Talk to people in your church and community. 

Be part of the wave of people working to end this medieval abomination. 

Today's Doonesbury

My views are pro-life, pro-choice, and anti-death penalty, and this is funny in a funny-because-it's-true way.

Milo's Janus Outlook: The Power of Boycott

Milo's Janus Outlook: The Power of Boycott

A great blog post from a great man, Milo Thornberry.

BOYCOTT HATE.

I who was once the wanderer

Reading another blog: A Damn Fine Cup of Coffee, and putting together a book of poems, I ran across this one, about five years old, and thought I would share it here...

I who was once the wanderer

I who was once the wanderer

am now the still point in a turning world

Who was once the heart of chaos

saying “let God sort it out”

now stand with a camera on the front porch

while the car pulls out of the driveway

two girls waving saying “I’ll call

when I get there” and “Bye!”

I who was once the wanderer, who

wrote wistfully “All who wander are not lost”

am now standing in the sun setting

am now the still point in a turning world.

Want to read the paper from 100 years ago?


Sometimes our government does things well. 


Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. 


http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Best of the Web - Sunday January 22, 2012

QUOTATION

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka

WHY THERE IS STUMBLE UPON

http://mikengreg.com/solipskier/ie.html fun ski game

SMILE FOR A WHILE

http://youtu.be/p3JcHhA7M-Y Scottish voice recognition

THERE IS A POEM IN THIS SOMEWHERE:

http://deshoda.com/words/100-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language/  I love the word “dulcet” (sweet, sugary).

SOMEONE MADE A WHOLE WEBPAGE JUST FOR THIS:

http://eqcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/snail-mail.jpg

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

http://vimeo.com/32001208?sf2549231=1    Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over

ENGINEERS RULE THE WORLD

http://youtu.be/aeQL-dUjlOg  Flying car new-fangled thingamajig

SONG

http://youtu.be/Furzql6aNwI  “Another Day” by James Taylor. (I’m learning to play this: he makes it look easy!)

A POEM FOR YOU

Another Day

Wake up Suzy
Put your shoes on
Walk with me into this light
Finally this morning
I’m feeling whole again
It was a hell of a night

Just to be with you by my side
Just to have you near in my sight
Just to walk a while in this light
Just to know that life goes on

Wake up Suzy
Put your shoes on
Walk with me into this light

Another night has gone
Life goes on
Another dawn is breaking
Turn and face the sun
One by one
The world outside is waking

Morning light has driven away
All the shadows that hide your way
And night has given away
To the promise of another day

Another day
Another chance that we may
Finally find our way
Another day

The sun has begun
To melt all our fears away
Another day
Another day

Oh wake up Suzy
Put your shoes on
Walk with me into this light

Someone recently said to me that Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t deserve a holiday in his honor.  They decried the fact that the presidents had to have their birthdays on the same day, (Washington and Lincoln), and that other presidents deserved a holiday more than King. Plus King’s got a street named after him in every city, doesn’t he? You’d think that would be enough.

I have heard other people say this, but I have gone along innocently thinking that by and large Martin Luther King Jr. was revered universally for his work. But I am disillusioned.

My response was that he certainly deserved a holiday, that I wish I had a flag I could fly to celebrate it, like those who celebrate war by flying their flags prominently on their front porches. “He was a saint,” I said.

I told them “Martin Luther King Jr. ended slavery, without violence, and he gave his life for his country.” Which of course was instantly refuted, because of course it was Lincoln who ended slavery in America with his Emancipation Proclamation.

And yes, Lincoln ended slavery. The first time. And Martin Luther King Jr. ended it the second time.

From 1890 through 1940, with Jim Crows laws, we as a nation reinstituted slavery by another name: segregation. We all know now that segregation was wrong, just like the two three presidents named above knew that slavery was wrong, yet they still owned slaves or supported slavery in some places. There is a book called Slavery By Another Name  by Douglas A. Blackmon which I highly recommend, if you are curious about this part of our national history.

And it took a second revolution, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., aided by presidents Kennedy and Johnson, to end the second slavery with The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Slavery is illegal, but racism is far from ended in our country.

Now, I know that Martin Luther King Jr. was not a saint in his personal life. He was a man, like any man, who had his demons and made his share of mistakes. He learned though, and applied the principles of the teachings of Jesus and of Gandhi and others to end a wrong which the nation needed to end, though most did not want to. He was vilified for opposing the Vietnam War, and he was murdered for his beliefs.

So he was saint enough for me, and I gladly attend celebrations of his life in late January every year, and I also I celebrate Washington and Lincoln, who also each made enormous personal sacrifices for all of us. I hope you will join me in celebrating this great American.

For all of us, and particularly those of us who are white, while we still are in the majority in America, it is our moral imperative to stand up to racism when we see it, name it when we hear it, and vote against it when we see it running for office.

The new slavery is the current backlash against Hispanic people. I have heard many good people complain about “those people” taking “our” jobs, using up “our” health care resources, “our” natural resources, infiltrating “our” culture with their nasty foreign habits and  their foul language and godless religions, while we literally eat the fruits of their labors, enjoying low priced farm products, and allow illegal immigrants to clean our homes while supporting legislation to marginalize their rights as human beings.

I’ve heard good people, Christian people, hold that “they” are not as good as us: “we don’t want them mingling with our kids in schools, do we”. (This is the same thing I heard about black people in South Carolina in 1967, spoken by the same kind of upstanding Christian citizens.)  

“Go to any emergency room,” I have heard people say, “and it is crowded with those dirty people, looking for free health care, while we have to pay for it.” I know building owners who will not rent to people who cannot speak English without an accent.

But George Washington had an accent. He and Thomas Jefferson both spoke with a British accent. Lafayette spoke with an accent. The Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers were foreigners, immigrants who spoke with an accent. How would we receive them today?

Racism is alive and well in America today. When you hear it, name it; when you see it, stand up against it.

I wish you all a grateful and glad Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year.