Can you hear me? You, out there in suburbia, on the freeways, at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, yakkin’ on Yahoo Chat or Everquest, blowin’ your wad at Nordstrom?
This is how bad it’s gotten: We can’t even have a real riot in this country over the execution of a repentant gang leader.
Although, in a faint reminder of days gone by, three witnesses to Tookie’s execution raised their fists in the Black Power salute and cried out that the state was executing an innocent man …
Then, like a wisp of smoke, it was gone … along with the fire …
Nope. It’s all about business these days. Hometown fans and college students riot when their teams win the big game, which is all about business, back-slapping or gloating. Drug dealers and gang leaders assassinate each other’s employees because that’s the price of doing business. Some disgruntled employee or ex-husband is always in the news, blasting away the object of his rage, usually at their place of business.
And I guess it’s a sign of the times that Raw Story posted this kind of important item the other day, and it just went on by …
About that annoying conspiracy theory that most of us can’t let go, and shouldn’t …
Raw Story has linked a revised version of “No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election* … from Project Censored. (Posted in ‘Round About the Blogs” on Sunday)
“Why bother?,” asks Howie in Seattle — who still has that fire in his belly as he posts the following:
This is a question that deserves an answer.
“If by “victory” is meant a majority vote cast at the polls, then the Democrats achieved “victory” in 2000, 2002 and 2004. And yet, the Republicans remain in control of the Congress and the White House.
Small wonder! Republicans build the voting machines, Republicans write the secret software, Republicans count and compile the totals. The Republican machines allow no auditing of the vote totals they report. So Republicans have the ability to “win” elections, regardless of the will of the voters. There is compelling evidence that they have done just that.
And so, if nothing is done to end the privatization of our elections and to introduce reliable verification, the Republicans will “win” again in November 2006 and then in 2008. Today, eleven months before the mid-term election, the outcome is fore-ordained – as certain as Soviet elections under Stalin, and Iraqi elections under Saddam. For, as Stalin said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything.”
In the United States today, the GOP counts most of the votes, and there are no means to verify up to 80% of those votes. In view of this dreadful situation, when the Democrats ask me for a contribution I must reply: “What’s the point? It’s already been settled! What remains is an empty charade.”-excerpted from Ernest Partridge on The Crisis Papers, via The Smirking Chimp, via Howie In Seattle.
Just below Howie’s e-mail to me with this news: “Yahoo! Shopping.” Cool. Back to normal.
God damn, does George Bush love you. All that shoppin’ and gassin’ up and pollutin’ and keepin’ up with them Joneses.
Yassir, he does, That chimp ain’t grinnin’ like that cuz he’s stupid. He’s grinnin’ cuz he thinks he’s really pulled one over on you.
from AP: BAGHDAD, Iraq – Four U.S. Army soldiers died in a roadside bombing, gunmen killed a Sunni Arab candidate for parliament, and militants tried to blow up a leading Shiite politician in separate attacks Tuesday, the last day of campaigning for Iraq’s election…
Just so you know — but i’m sure you do anyway — i was riffin’ about the feared riots following Tookie’s execution. I don’t wish riots on the city of L.A. But I do find it totally bizarre that nothing happened. Jesus.
I dunno, but I suspect the gangbangers know that a) it would just give Bushahnold an excuse to roll the tanks in and put them all in chains and b) it kinda defeats the whole point Tookie was trying to make in his last years in prison… violence doesn’t solve anything… (and they probably realized after the last riots that they ain’t gettin’ anywhere near Rodeo Drive so the only property they would be destroying would be their own).
I’m glad they’re that smart… gives me hope.
Very good points! Very sane analysis.
(But, oh .. just a couple windows at Prada and Gucci? For ol’ times sake? … being silly)
You and me both.
It was completely quiet last night, in my little Venice Shoreline Crips neighborhood. As I said somewhere in the Tookie thread, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of trouble until people started bringing it up and calling for calm and all that, and then I definitely thought about it…
I’m tempted to write about LA in 92. It’s one thing to wish for some smashed Prada windows (and I mean, who wouldn’t??), but when people start talking about how we need another “uprising” I have to wonder how many of them have actually experienced one.
I was never worried about my personal safety or anything like that, but it was a very sad time. I was working on a political campaign at the time and was able to tour around with the candidate and get a first hand look at the destruction. As usual, it seemed like the people who lost the most were mostly those who could least afford it.
When the whole thing exploded, I was actually on the phone talking to Jonathan Kozol, the author of that excellent (and blood-pressure raising) book, “Savage Inequalities,” about how the poor are basically being screwed out of any kind of decent public education. I didn’t have an office at the time and had had to duck under a table for a modicum of privacy and quiet, but around me the office got louder and louder, and I finally had to sign off, telling Mr. Kozol that I wished we could talk longer, but something strange seemed to be going on…
For sheer surrealism, nothing beat the sight of armed personnel carriers bristling with rifle-toting National Guardsmen patroling a deserted Venice boardwalk.
Sometimes I’m just at a loss. Is this kind of event really the only thing that will get the powers-that-be’s attention? Does any good ever really come out of it? What are the alternatives?
…what do you think will happen, after all these scandals and it gets worse for the GOP, that come November they still win? I mean, I see folks taking a lot of heat on blogs about their opinions on the presidential election and Ohio as tinfoil. But what if it happens again? They win ’06 and ’08? Will it be so blatant then? Will people riot?
Or is it just complacency?
I have no mercy for killers and gangmembers but I don’t believe in the death penalty. I think this man was doing some good and redeemed himself to a point – and yes, I believe he was guilty because the jury system, though not perfect since they’re human beings, sentenced him. Nevertheless, I think he should’ve been able to live and continue the works he was doing.
On a side note, I read that in Austria there have been calls to revove the Terminator’s citizenship and renaming the Schwarzenegger Stadium in Graz the Tookie Williams Stadium.
I had the same question. I don’t see many people taking the election fraud problems seriously. At least Wally O’Dell resigned but that company isn’t the only problem.
What happens if the GOP corruption is rationalized as equal in both parties, the exit polls are wrong again and the GOP walks away gaining a few more seats.
It’ll be too late for the ones that didn’t make a stand for it before. They’ll look like pissed off losers more than ever.
Hell, a few hacks could influnce results enough to swing votes to a 3rd party just to take them away from Democrats in order to win.
It’s my opinion that most people who oppose Bush and his policies (including the Tookie execution/murder) are just too shell shocked and demoralized at the moment. There will be a time when something snaps.
When the moment comes the country better be ready for a bad case of whiplash. 🙁
For the time being, however, most of us are still rowing to the timing of the whip. Our ingrained protestant work ethics and our instilled sense of capitalism have helped convince us that life as usual must go on.
The vast center of America, or “yeah, but what does that have to do with me?” And so help me, I understand them. Back in my party girl daze, I use to say, “Some people are born stupid, others have to pay to achieve it.” Back then one could get mightily stupid pretty cheap.
I wonder about the Great Depression. The tipping point, when finally people realized, “yep, this is fucked.” Was it so gradual that by the time it seeped underneath the doors of middle America, it was already high tide?
My sister has a 16 year old son. She says she isn’t political, she doesn’t follow news. She’s the average Bush soccer mom. Does she wonder if the tide of Iraq will reach her son? Does she think about what his world will be like even 10 years from now? Probably not. Something tells me that Bush’s bubble is big enough for most of America.
–Phil Ochs, “There But for Fortune”
Er–how come I always seem to be quoting Phil Ochs around here?
have a 4 for inviting Phil to the party. Back in my high school days, before I entered my jaded “why bother” period (which lasted a couple of decades or so), two of the sparks that started the smolderings of liberalism in me were Arlo’s “Alice’s Restaurant” and Phil Ochs’ “Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends.”
I recite “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” at least once in every course I teach.
Maybe, to take from your other spark, if enough of us walk in and recite lines from Ochs (OK, we could recite from Arlo or his dad, too), maybe we could start a movement.
that the Arlos and Woodies and Dylans and Phils and Pete Seegers and Joan Baezes of the modern day will step forward with songs that will touch today’s youth the way that the folk singers of yesteryear did, but apart from a few isolated efforts, it isn’t happening. Different times and different circumstances, perhaps.
Except in the movies, at least, those times look like some people were having fun as they skated on the thin ice. The US is in as much denial as they were, but it’s dull and spiritless. Worst of both worlds.
Or, perhaps more hopefully, one could compare these times to the American Revolution. That was a minority movement conducted against an apathetic or hostile majority. Maybe our only way back to a half-decent society will happen when enough dedicated citizens decide that the current regime has to be ripped out by its roots by any means necessary, regardless of whatever phony majority that regime claims. Looking at the political “debate” now in progress, is there any real chance that the usual process will lead to anything better than the atrocity it has given us?
True confessions: This is why I have some respect for ELF and ALF.
I wholly disagree with their tactics and would never support them in any way … but at least they have the balls to take on the issues head-on.
And — it’s important to acknowledge — they’re 100% correct in their opinions, if not their tactics.
Bless you for this Susan. It comforts me to know that I’ve got a soul sister away up there in Port Angeles who’s just as angry as I am. Barbara O’Brien posted a good piece about it this morning at her Mahablog.com – called passing judgement, you might like it. Spiderleaf is a wise woman, too. Pretty soon we’ll be surrounded by wise women.
So Susan, How do you really feel about this? All the good riots happen in warm weather when it’s nice to throw bricks and racoons. You haven’t done enough rioting, have you? Why weren’t you rioting up there in Emerald City? Gotta set an example, ya know.
This time of year, when I lived in So. Calif., it was warm — in fact, it was usually the loveliest time of year.
Hey, I was out there at midnight last night .. marchin’ up and down main street (of my mind) … as unheard as a tree falling in the forest …
What’s the sound of one riot clapping? If a brick breaks a window in the forest and nobody hears it, is it a riot?
Gangbangers thought he gave up the life and the majority of the black and latino communities hated him for the destruction that the introduction of the lifestyle caused in his wake. Who was there to riot?
And as far as calling him “repentant,” I take issue with that label somewhat. He never repented for any individual crimes he comitted which is the ultimate test. He didn’t help authorities in any way. You know he did probably murdered as a gang member and was responsible for probably scores of others. I don’t have all the facts of the cases of which he was convicted, but I heard they are pretty good, at least those regarding the murder of the family.
I am against the death penalty and don’t believe the state should be in the killing business. If someone was to be outraged, that would be why one would. However, many of the people who have been the victims of gang violence are in favor of the death penalty. These people, even though they know that the justice system might be racially and ethnically skewed, tend to be religiously conservative in their beliefs about judicial temperance and an “eye for an eye.”
Well, if one assumes that people riot for rational, intellectual reasons, I guess so …
In a diary the other day, I said I didn’t like Tookie. I mean, I really didn’t like him when I heard him interviewed on Amy Goodman’s show. I found him rather arrogant and hard-headed. But, I’m anti-DP.
The fact that an arrogant imbecile like Bush and an arrogant narcissitic cartoon character like Schwarzenegger have become legally endowed with the power of life and death over other citizens is a sure sign that our society is careening off the rails at breakneck speed.
It’s a crime against basic humanity that such creatures have any authority over anyone.