Volume 6 Issue 39…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 3, 2003

Man in Black

By Johnny Cash

Well you wonder why I always dress in black

Why you never see bright colors on my back

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone

Well there's a reason for the things that I have on

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down

Livin' in the hopeless hungry side of town

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime

But is there because he's a victim of the times

I wear the black for those who've never read

Or listened to the words that Jesus said

About the road to happiness through love and charity

Why you'd think he's talking straight to you and me

Well we're doin' mighty fine I do suppose

In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes

But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back

Up front there oughta be a man in black

I wear it for the sick and lonely old

For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold

I wear the black in mourning for the lives that could have been

Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

And I wear it for the thousands who have died

Believin' that the Lord was on their side

I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died

Believin' that we all were on their side

Well there's things that never will be right I know

And things need changin' everywhere you go

But till we start to make a move to make a few things right

You'll never see me wear a suit of white

Oh I'd love to wear a rainbow every day and tell the world that everything's okay

But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back

Till things're brighter I'm the man in black

About Me: Country music legend, singer, writer, author and actor, Johnny Cash died earlier this month; he was 71. Winner of 11 Grammys, Cash starred in movies and wrote two autobiographies. Fourteen of his songs rose to number one on the country music chart, including Folsom Prison Blues and I Walk the Line. Since joining the Grand Ole Opry at the age of 25, Cash was the "Man in Black." (Source: www.maininblack.net)

The Life of David Gale

The "Life of David Gale" is an R-rated movie starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney. On the state of Texas' death row, Dr. David Gale, a once respected Austin University professor, claims he is innocent. Days before his execution, he agrees to an interview with reporter Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet).

As much about Gale as the humanizing of Bloom, the film employs flashbacks to show how easily one's life can go from seemingly successful by most materialistic measures to social misfit with a few well-placed lies and coincidences. Accused of raping a student, a charge that was dropped, Gale loses his job and his unfaithful wife. Gale and his colleague, Constance Harraway (Laura Linney), are activists in Deathwatch, an anti-death penalty group. Gale turns to alcohol, and she is there for him. When she is raped and murdered, Gale is charged, convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Armed with details that point to Gale's innocence, Bloom goes from dispassionate reporter to a human being trying to save a man's life. For proponents and opponents of capital punishment, "The Life of David Gale" is highly recommended viewing.

Factoring

By John Burl Smith

Surveying the Democratic Party's presidential primary events, media talking heads pondered the Wesley Clark "factor." Factor analysis, as a means of identifying strengths and weaknesses of a general who knows the value of camouflage, is useless. A free radical by most accounts, Clark is capable of bonding with any political or economic element or several simultaneously, then morph to fit rank and file expectations.

A product of the military-industrial-complex, Clark eludes being isolated by specific components and functions in his approach to government. Chameleonically, Clark built credentials as a party stalwart. Thus, ascertaining Clark's true form and structure can only be determined by the litmus test of democratic humanism.

Searching for unique factors, as a means of separating democratic humanist "wheat" from Straussian "sheaf, " the pallet is Bush v Gore. United in opposition to the Supreme Court's intervention and decision, rank-and-file Democrats demand candidates who see correcting this travesty as a major motivator for Democrats. Antithetical to one-person-one-vote, Article 1 Section 2 of the US Constitution mandates that our votes do not elect the president. We vote for electors of the Electoral College, who elect the president. Based on the 3/5 Compromise (black vote equals 3/5 white), strict construction judges agreed that black votes could never be allowed to elect the president of the USA.

Frustrated rank-and-file Democrats want party debates to reflect their humanistic concerns for family needs. Witnessing poverty rising and standards of living falling, Americans see Congress prepared to finance schools, hospitals, water and sewage treatment and other infrastructure improvements in Iraq. Confused by Bush's refusal to propose the same for cash-strapped US cities and gripped by a so-called "jobless" recovery, voters want candidates to talk about jobs' programs, steps they will take to improve public education, the return of freedoms lost under the Patriot Act, cures for ENRON-itis/corporate malfeasance, pledges to repeal tax cuts for the wealthy, commitments to solving the health care crisis, prison reform, the death penalty, the Social Security "lockbox," and the IOUs (the public debt) that Bush's economic policies are passing on to our children. Far from class warfare, such humanistic concerns should factor into compassionate conservativism, instead they separate blank-check-signing "I support the president" Blue Dogs from the Democratic Party's base.

The current adversarial, as opposed to informational, format for the debates does not serve the interests of intelligent voters who make decisions by evaluating facts, nor does it speak to democratic humanistic concerns. Bush v Gore begs the question, "does democracy in America mean one-person-one-vote?" The fact that Al Gore beat Bush by over 500,000 votes, yet loss the election, leaves Democrats without guarantees that future controversial vote counts will not yield similar results. With such a loophole hanging over Democrats like a noose, nominees should abandon "trash and burn" attacks and articulate plans to prevent Bush from nullifying black votes again in 2004.

On Ward's Prop 54

Ward Connerly, the Sacramento businessman and University of California regent who drafted California's anti-affirmative-action law, Proposition 209, is a black man. He claims this nation will become a color-blind society, when we stop gathering race-based statistics and talking about racial disparities. Ward is spearheading California's Racial Privacy Initiative, commonly known as Proposition 54. While Ward is the front man on this issue, it is common knowledge that his backers are white conservatives. This group violently opposed black civil rights. Yet, with Ward's help, its has hijacked words and phrases from the civil rights movement to promote Prop 54 and oppose affirmative action.

If passed, Prop 54 will prohibit the state from classifying anyone by race, ethnicity, color or national origin or collecting racial data relating to public education, hiring or contracting. Without statistics, social scientists and lawmakers will be unable to measure success or address racial differences we know exist in areas from health care and education to crime and punishment. On October 7, in addition to voting on the recall of Governor Gray Davis, California voters will decide the fate of Prop 54. Californians are urged to reject Prop 54. Blah on Ward and his proposition!

Sir Frederick Stanley Maude: The Liberator

Frederick S. Maude, son of General Frederick F. Maude, was born June 24, 1864. Educated at Eton, he entered the army at age twenty. He saw action during the Egyptian campaign (1885) and the Boer War in South Africa (1900 to 1901). At the outbreak of World War I (1914), he went to France and saw action on the Marne, the Aisne, and at Armentières. In October, he was made brigadier general. Wounded, he returned to England to recuperate. Promoted to major general in July 1915, Maude took command of the 13th Division.

After overseeing the retreat from Anzac Cove and Sulva Bay, where Maude's division suffered a 50% casualty rate, the 13th Division was transferred to Mesopotamia. Maude became commander of the Tigris Corps. After reorganizing the British and Indian forces in the region, Maude advanced, driving the Turks from Kut-al-Imara, which carried him on to Baghdad, where he concluded his campaign in March 1917. After a pause for preparation, he again moved forward on to Tikrit, site of his final victory. Back in Baghdad, Maude was stricken with cholera. He died November 18, 1917.

Maude's battlefield victories made him the most successful commander to serve on the Mesopotamian Front during WWI. The British dubbed him "the liberator." Ironically, he freed the region of the Ottoman Empire, but failed to liberate its inhabitants from foreign occupation. Determined to retain control of the strategic oil-rich region, Britain's Winston Churchill, Minister of War and Air (1919-20) and Colonial Secretary (1921-22), used controversial and repressive tactics. After reducing the number of British and Indian troops needed to control Iraq, he relied on air power to quell uprisings, killing thousands. When that failed to end Arab and Kurdish resistance to British rule, Churchill used poisoned gas to rein in the "uncivilised tribes."

In the 1930s, the British imposed a king (Prince Faisal) on the Iraqis. He signed a treaty giving Britain military and economic control over the country. The British established an Iraqi army that overthrew the king in the late 1950s. After invading the British Embassy, they tore down the statue of Sir Stanley Maude, "the liberator." (Sources: www.socialistworker.co.uk, www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, www.iraqwar.org/chemical.htm and Encyclopedia Britannica)

Death Penalty Moratorium

With DNA evidence proving the innocence of death row inmates across the country and racial disparities in incarceration rates and sentencing growing, death penalty opponents are calling for a moratorium on capital punishment. United Against the Death Penalty at www.pa-abolitionists.org is also calling for an end to the practice of executing juvenile offenders. The US is the ONLY industrialized country executing persons for crimes committed under age eighteen. International human rights treaties signed by the US, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, prohibit the execution of juvenile offenders. For more on this group's humane efforts, visit their website.

US Supreme Court ruled capital punishment constitutional in 1976. More than a third of the 875 persons executed since then were put to death in Texas. On September 10, 2003, convicted killer Larry Allen Hayes became the 310th inmate to be executed since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982. Hayes' execution marked the first time over this period that a white person was executed for killing a black person.

Statistics show capital punishment is far more likely when the victim is white, highlighting the different value society assigns black and white lives. Beyond race, more than one hundred persons convicted of capital crimes and sentenced to death have been exonerated, lending credence to calls for an end to capital punishment or at the very least a moratorium until systemic problems are addressed. Every effort should be made to assure no innocent person is put to death.

On Wednesday, September 3, 2003, Pennsylvania Judge William R. Toal Jr. vacated the conviction and death sentence of Nicholas Yarris. Accused of the 1981 kidnaping, rape and murder of Linda May Craig, DNA evidence cleared the 21-year death row resident. This became the first DNA exoneration in Pennsylvania, renewing calls for a death penalty moratorium.

On Saturday, Pennsylvania Abolitionists will hold a rally in support of a death penalty moratorium. Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who instituted a moratorium in Illinois and cleaned out that state's death row as a final act of his tenure in office, will join the Saturday, October 11, 2003 rally. Participants will gather at 3:00 P.M. at the State Capitol, which is located at 3rd and State Streets in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Disgruntled says: W.E.B. Dubois talked about the talented tenth or "black intelligentsia" that would rescue the race. It is difficult to see how when its members, including reparations advocates, think the Fourteenth Amendment repealed the 3/5 Compromise. They fail to realize it merely specified conditions under which persons could be held in bondage, giving us the foundation for the US penal system. With incarceration rates high among blacks, we know who populate US prisons. Had the Fourteenth Amendment repealed Article 1 Section 2, there would be no Electoral College. Moreover, the Supreme Court could not have used its equal protection clause to install George W. Bush in office. Bush wants to appoint "strict construction" judges," because a strict reading of the law leaves the 3/5 Compromise intact. When the 'black intelligentsia learns that, we can discuss making the USA a democracy and demand reparations.

Disgruntled feels: Outted! Inside the Beltway, it is a well-known fact that columnist and CNN talking head Robert Novak is White House political strategist Karl Rove's favorite waterdog. When Novak reported that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative, everyone knew Rove was his confidential unnamed White House source. Exposing an agent is a criminal offense. An independent investigator spent a lot of time and money looking into allegations surrounding White Water and the Monica Lewinsky affair, which led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. Exposing an agent is far more serious than the stain on Lewinsky's dress. It is time Congress demonstrated it realizes this by appointing an independent counselor to out the culprit Rove.

Disgruntled wants to know: A special screening of Samuel Greenlee's controversial 1973 film "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" was part of the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference held last week in Washington, D.C. Playing to a mostly empty theater, the film, which is based on Greenlee's book by the same name, is about a CIA agent, who uses his skills to lead a black revolutionary movement. According to Greenlee, the white ruling class found the film disturbing and the FBI suppressed it. Despite media claims to the contrary, the Congressional Black Caucus is a fairly conservative group. Could one of them be doing research to play a real-life mole as "The Spook Who Sat by the Door?"

Email ensideout@hotmail.com As legal counsel to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales--Now the White House Counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee --prepared fifty-seven confidential death-penalty memoranda for Bush's review. Never before discussed publicly, the memoranda suggest that Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprize Bush of some of the most salient issues in those cases.

Email m_tull@hotmail.co "Where else in the world has there ever been an occupied nation that was forced to safeguard the security of its occupier? The very idea is ludicrous" --Mohanned Tull-- a Palestinian industrial engineer in Arram, West Bank as quoted in the Washington Post, Sunday, September 14, 2003

Email www.nytimes.com New York radio host Bob Lonsberry, a white Republican, apologized for an on-air racial slur against Rochester's black mayor William Johnson, Jr. Lonsberry, who was suspended for a week by WHAM radio, joked about an orangutan that briefly escaped a zoo, then commented that the animal was running for county executive, a post being sought by Johnson. Lonsberry later apologized for "any interpretation" of his "words which would appear to be racist." The radio station is standing by its man.

Email www.newsday.com Southern Methodist University (SMU) shut down a bake sale in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender. Organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas as an affirmative action protest, the bake sale cookie prices were $1, 75 cents, 50 cents and 25 cents for white males, white women, Hispanics and blacks, respectively. College Republican chapters in at least five other states have held similar sales since February.

Email http://news.bbc.co.uk Paul Holmes, one of New Zealand's highest and highest paid broadcasters made the following comments in reference to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's speech at the UN General Assembly: "That Kofi Annan, I've got to say to you, has been a very cheeky darkie overnight. He's been a very cheeky darkie. It's all very well giving a darkie that secretary-general job but we'll only take so much. I'm sorry, we will only take so much. We're not going to be told how to live our lives by a Ghanaian. Holmes later apologized for the inappropriate, racist, remarks.

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