The blog of a North Country Swede!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

The evil that men do: trial by jury

Trial by jury ... or the threat of trial by jury has too often become the denial of justice to the accused ... for reasons worth exploring in our nation.

From Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish religious leader:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, then when?
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

If the last quotation seems familiar, this is how it is attributed to Jesus in KJV of the New Testament:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
- Matthew 7:12

Please read the following:

Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured Into a Guilty Verdict
Article By
By COREY KILGANNON and NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25jury.html

Colorado Hearings Re-examine ’87 Murder Case
By KIRK JOHNSON and DAN FROSCH
Published: December 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/us/27fortcollins.html

Their are many -- too many -- stories being accumulated in the annals of injustice. Some of the most egregious cases are chronicled in the:

Innoncence Project
http://www.innocenceproject.org/

If ever there was a stench of evil in a land ... have we become so used to it that we do not smell it? Or are our slogans for our type of justice such tribal marks that we dare not question them individually for fear of being turned upon ourselves? When will we question the evil we do to others?

"If not now, then when?"

Friday, December 21, 2007

Putting Ayn Rand to rest ... finally!

Please read Paul Krugman's column in today's (Friday, Dec 21) NY Times:

Blindly Into the Bubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Alan Greenspan was/(is) a brilliant idiot who wrapped old fashioned greed in the false Ayn Rand ideology of free market Capitalism ... destroying the safeguards that are needed to protect ANY market from thieves and charlatans. Even the ancients knew you had to have things like uniform weights, that some things cannot be left to the goodwill of the transient carnival vendors with no stake in the village.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

I am tired of the "us vs. them" around here ...

Whites vs. blacks, GBLT's vs. straights, one religion against another, and on and on and on .... while it's really rich vs. poor.

America, the rich folks have got us laboring folks fighting among ourselves ... jumping up and down. Are we trying to get the attention of the rich folks so they will invite us to join them?

Here we are squabbling over a Democrat US Senator from New York running for President, Hillary Clinton, who shouldn't even be running on a Democratic ticket anywhere in Yankee territory -- and I ain't talking baseball.

Hell, they are making the street-hole covers for New York City in India under sweatshop/slave labor conditions, for chrissakes! We all know what has happened to fair labor practices under the Clintons ... they kiss up to the global corporationists to advance their personal political careers and leave the working families groveling for crumbs from the rich folks feast.

The United States of America is sliding down a Democrat greased slope to banana republic status ... with nothing left to break its slide ... while we the people are totally distracted by fighting over the dwindling scraps falling from the platters we deliver to the table.

And there are so many of us who believe this is a "God thing" based on our devotion to religious belief ... and who are so far removed from practicing what they preach, using their doctrines as tribal identifiers rather than guides to life ... that it's pretty damn obvious that we are going to need the kind of upheaval brought about by the depression of the 30's to actually get this nation back on track ... if it can get back on track and not descend into fascism.

Hope? What's hope got to do with it? We need practical solutions. We need jobs that pay a living wage ... that also don't destroy our health as we work.

That's not socialism or communism ... that is "fair is fair"-ism in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Note (January 5, 2008): Barack Obama has won a transforming political victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Hope" may have a lot to do with it! -NCS

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Concerning organized labor and Hillary ...

From posts to HuffingtonPost.com ... where I post as hglindquist ...

Hoo boy ... did you see the picture on the front page of the NY Times recently of the New York City street-hole covers being cast in India under slave-like wages and conditions? Where was labor when THAT was printed? American organized labor has been contemplating its navel for so long that there are no jobs left to worry about fair treatment over.

Been to Pittsburgh lately? I guess working retail on the river is supposed to compensate for steel-mill jobs?

Unions got suckered into hanging onto their turf as it got smaller and smaller ... when they should have been looking out for all workers. There is no freedom to do anything if you are a worker and you don't have a job that pays enough to meet your needs let alone your wants.

When we gave up on requiring everything sold in this country to be produced under fair labor practices, we gave up on the America our labor had built ... and decided we should become a banana republic.

The horse is already out of the barn on what our old unions should have/could have done. We need a new revitalized labor movement for all workers.

And that is NOT socialism or communism. It is "fair is fair" ism.

And that sure ain't gonna come with Hillary!!!

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India

NY Times
By HEATHER TIMMONS and J. ADAM HUGGINS
Published: November 26, 2007

Photo caption: "Workers in Haora, India, have few protections while making manhole covers for Con Edison and some cities" utilities."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Now tell me again about Hillary's support for fair treatment for workers!!! I know she lived in Arkansas for awhile, but isn't she the U.S. Senator from New York? And isn't New York City in New York?

Concerning vouchers ...

Concerning vouchers ... and being a member of the working class ... with bono fides extending from my parents and their parents to my children and their children ...

Most of us from the small towns and communities that spawned the public education system were part of mostly homogeneous communities ... at least I was in most of my years in public education. My family's values were the values taught in public school ... yes, religious, ethical, and social values were pretty much common ones ... at least publicly ... including prejudices (all one has to do is read the text books).

And I think the majority of folks still believe their particular public school is teaching the values they want taught. (Which is why they are against vouchers. They think vouchers will be net resource losers for their schools.)

But it is appears to be equally obvious that a (growing?) number of families -- particularly the working poor in large urban centers -- are discovering that their children come back from public school in worse condition than when first enrolled ... with the strong arm of the state forcing them to keep sending their children to these schools even though the parents know it is harming their children's value system. They would like vouchers ... but they are a minority.


Sunday, December 09, 2007

Gunfight at the DC Corral

The Baker Boys are shooting it out at the DC Corral with the Cheney Gang ...

A fictionalized scenario ...

Poppy Bush was keeping his hands off the Shrub presidency ... as Poppy watched his son once again slide into ignominy ...

Decision time for the senior Bush evolved through the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003 followed by the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, on December 14, 2004 to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet.

Privately grousing about the situation with his wife, Barbara Bush, Poppy Bush realized "It's like déjà vu all over again". Shrub was screwing up again.

Moma Bush (Barbara) cried, "You have to do something, Poppy! Look what that Cheney Gang is DOING to our boy."

"I know, I know," Poppy replied. "And I will. Those Baker Boys -- our boys -- can shoot straighter than the Cheney Gang." (To be proved later when Dickie -- leader of the Cheney Gang -- shot his hunting companion on Feb 13, 2006.)

The Baker Boys first attempt to extricate Shrub from the clutches of the Cheney Gang failed. Shrub disregards the Baker-Hamilton Report and the cowardly Democrats inexplicably fail to act on it -- even though they had just won majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the U.S. Congress and could hold Shrub's feet to the fire by withholding funding unless he went along with the bipartisan report. The cowardly Democrats were so focused on winning the 2008 election that they stumbled over what was placed in front of them on an oil-slick platter.

Whew, who would have thought THAT was going to happen?!

But the Baker Boys were undeterred. They knew the intelligence had been cooked on Iraq and was being cooked on Iran. With Shrub refusing to be extricated from the manure piling up in the DC Corral because the cowardly Democrats weren't hauling it away -- even though they now had the manure hauling contract for the place -- the Baker Boys realized THEY would have to pump it out -- like NOW -- meaning they would have to shoot it out with the Cheney Gang.

The Baker Boys fire a shot that hits the target. In August, 2007 the new NIE report was issued.

Shrub still doesn't surrender or fall.

Blam-blam, in quick succession the Baker Boys "commence firing at will" ... the NIE report is released and the CIA Director is forced to acknowledge the destruction of the interogation tapes ...

Shrub staggers ... but will he fall? Will the DC Corral be saved? The manure drained or carried away?

Stay tuned, folks ... this is getting interesting.