Florida: Getting Away With Child Murder

Trayvon Martin was murdered in a shocking act of violence clearly motivated by racial bias, yet it looks like he won’t even get a slap on the wrist.

It appears that George Zimmerman drove up to Trayvon when the 17 year old was returning from a shopping trip with an iced tea and some skittles, got out of his car, attacked the youth, and shot him (emphasis mine):

According to 911 recordings released late Friday by Sanford police, Zimmerman said the person was walking slowly, looked drugged and appeared to be looking at people’s houses. Police would later learn that Trayvon had gone to 7-Eleven during the NBA All Star game halftime to get Skittles and Arizona iced tea.

“These a–holes always get away,” Zimmerman complained.

What happened next is unclear, and has already reverberated nationwide. Calls to 911 alerted police to a scuffle and someone crying for help. In one, the chilling howl stopped after the clear, crisp blast of a bullet. Trayvon was lying face down on the ground near a pathway that runs through the townhouse community.

One 911 caller sobbed to the dispatcher over not having helped the young man who wailed.

Zimmerman told police that was him crying for help and that Trayvon started the fight. He claimed self-defense and was not charged

The history of consequence free violence against black people in this community suggests a systemic problem (emphasis mine):

n 2010, police waited seven weeks to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was caught on video sucker-punching a homeless black man.

In 2005, two security guards — one the son of a longtime Sanford police officer and the other a department volunteer — killed a black man they said was trying to run them over. Black leaders complained of a lackluster investigation. The guards ultimately were acquitted.

Police Chief Bill Lee is not helping the situation with his comments (emphasis mine):

“We are taking a beating over this,” said Lee, who defends the investigation. “This is all very unsettling. I’m sure if George Zimmerman had the opportunity to relive Sunday, Feb. 26, he’d probably do things differently. I’m sure Trayvon would, too.”

What the hell could Trayvon have done differently?

George Zimmerman has no need of going back in time to do things differently.  He apparently killed a child – and from the looks of things – will get away with it.

Silsbee Texas: Apologists for Rapists

A girl was raped in the Texas town of Silsbee by a student athlete.  Since the rape, she has been ordered to “lay low”, kicked off the cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer (when ordered by superintendent Richard Bain Jr) for her rapist.  The community turned against her, supporting the rapist (and his accomplice), calling her a slut, and a bitch (one cowardly family even going so far as to put their 2 year old up to the task) and even threatening her life.  The Supreme Court of the US has shown brazen moral bankruptcy in refusing to hear her free speech case (rape victims don’t rate as high on their priority list as corporations seeking to influence elections).  As a result she now owes school district $45,000 in legal fees.  (You can donate directly here, or commission comic art with all proceeds going to help pay the fees here (via)).  Trigger Warning: Full Details Here.

While it is worth calling attention to the heroic actions of the two young men who broke down the door (putting an end to the attack) and even attempted to chase down and confront her attackers (in one case succeeding), on the whole the town of Silsbee and its citizens have shown themselves to be the very worst sort of people.  There is a vile rotting husk of flesh where there ought to be a heart, and their actions epitomize so much of what is deeply wrong with our country.  They need to be taught a lesson in morality.

I’m not sure what form that lesson ought to take, whether a boycott will have any meaning for instance.  Given the campaign of shame and harassment aimed at this young woman, I think it only appropriate to respond – legally – in kind.  Below the fold is contact information.  For the superintendent of schools.  For city hall.  A link to a google search with a list of Churches.  Call the superintendent and let him know what kind of person he is.  Call city hall and let them know their town is no longer the home of “Tiger Pride”, their new public face is “Rapist Pride”.  Call the churches and ask ministers and priests to work their thoughts on rape into their sermons.  Clearly communicate both what you think of the people you call, the community at large, and what it is their moral responsibility to do: Regardless of their court victory, the school district owes the rape survivor and her family an apology – and to absolve them of any responsibility for paying the district’s legal fees.

Selective and Brutal Enforcement

Some thoughts about my last post…  I’ve been on subways where NYPD officers ignore people breaking the law in a number of ways.  They’ve done nothing.  Which leads to a situation of selective, yet brutal, enforcement of laws.

What does that do to citizens, knowing that the police might beat you and arrest you for something you’ve previously seen an officer walk by like it was no big deal?

NYPD Police Brutalize Musician, Threaten Crowd

NYPD, as part of a recent crackdown against musicians, arrested a man playing music illegally in a park in Chinatown.  The man, forced face down on the pavement with officers holding him down, displayed a bloodied face.  As of this time it appears he did not resist.  The crowd did voice their opposition quite loudly.  They were rewarded with threats of being maced and threatening movements made by one of the officers.

The video on youtube has been flagged inappropriate, making it harder for people to see, and artificially driving down its view count.

Tea Party vs Abortion – The New Fight

The exceptions for the health of the mother, rape, and incest are under attack.  As the anti-abortion movement exposes its true face – a theocratic desire to control women’s reproductive options in all circumstances – they are also removing all pretense at compromise.  The newly invigorated anti-abortion movement is going to oppose contraceptions.  They are going to force children to give birth.  They will fight tooth and claw to not only destroy Roe v Wade, but to go further and actively pass legislation making childbirth mandatory for any woman fertilized during sex.

This is the battle we are facing and to win it we need to pull its arguments entirely out of the shadows.  (We also need a new consistent and memorable name for the anti-abortion crowd.  Potentially “forced-birthers?”).  When Republicans argue against contraception they are really saying “Women do not have the right to prevent themselves from being impregnated”.  When they remove or reduce the rape exception they are saying “Women do not have the right to withhold consent from being impregnated”.  A woman who is raped can go to the doctor and get medication to handle any std’s picked up – but will not be able to prevent pregnancy – even if that was the rapists aim.  When conservatives oppose exceptions for the health of the mother they are saying “Women do not have the right to life saving medicine if they are pregnant”.

The right wing’s vicious new hard line on abortion is an assault on more than a woman’s right to choose to give birth or not.  It is an assault on a woman’s right to live and aiding an abetting rapists at inflicting trauma.  If we are going to win we need to tackle this extremism head on and aggressively.

Fear Leads to Violence

You don’t have to be Yoda to understand that fear leads to hate and ultimately to violence.  This post by Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon is worth reading in its entirety:

I do think there’s value in talking about the use of inciting language, like Sarah Palin is fond of doing, but I have to say that is probably less of a problem than paranoia. The violent rhetoric encourages people to see violence as a solution, but it’s the paranoia that gives them cause to get that wound up, or in the likely case of Loughner, to latch onto right wing paranoia as a delusion.

It isn’t the violent rhetoric, its the eliminationist rhetoric that is the main language side of the problem.  When the right talks about the left as traitors, scum, or in any way attacks their humanity – they are lowering the intrinsic ethical barriers to entry for violent actions against the left.  That is a huge part of the problem.

That said, Amanda (and Jon Stewart) are right on when they not the large place fear has in stimulating political violence.  Let’s get inside the head of a potential right wing terrorist:

You believe the President is a foreign national from Kenya bent on becoming America’s next hitler.  You think liberals are working to help him destroy the economy, establish death panels and concentration camps, and morally corrupt the nation by attacking Christianity and Christian laws.  You think liberals murder babies and have wet dreams about bringing stalin-style communism to the US.

How could those beliefs not lead to violence?

I think that is the interesting question out of all of this.

Gov Chris Christie’s Real Impact

People like Chris Wallace damage whatever credibility they have left when they shill for the likes of Chris Christie:

He loves bullying state and union workers around during town halls while canceling a major tunnel project that would have meant many jobs for NJ. The Teachers Union is in line this time for his authoritarian act. He loved to tell this teacher that if she didn’t like his merit pay idea it she could stop teaching. And the Tea Party loves him because of this.Already the merit pay scheme has been discredited. Education experts say Gov. Christie’s teacher merit pay can do more harm than good for students

…

Christie and NJ are in crisis and he hasn’t fixed a thing there yet except making job cuts and refusing tunnel projects. He’s also didn’t distinguish himself with his latest showing of arrogance when he stayed on a Florida vacation instead of helping NJ when the snow came. Rudy Giuliani blasted him for it.

It gets better, as his budget policies are about to land one of America’s most crime ridden cities a deadly blow: the loss of a significant chunk of its police force.  They mayor is blaming the unions:

Redd blamed the public safety employee cuts on their unions, saying they have not been willing to make job-saving concessions or accept the reality that the state government will no longer bail out the city as it has for the past two generations.

In Redd’s mind (and the incredibly slanted article by Geoff Mulvihill of the AP) it is the fault of the unions, not the state.  But look at the situation these cuts are going to create.  Who is going to want to work in one of the most dangerous, high stress job environments in the country for a fraction of the pay you could enjoy working as a police officer anywhere else in the state, nevermind the country?

It is Governor Christie’s lack of leadership – his inability to let the citizens of New Jersey pay for the essentials of civilization – that is creating these crisis in his state.  It isn’t that he isn’t experienced enough to lead – his radical right wing policies render him unfit to lead this country.

The Attack on Giffords Was NOT Senseless

To be clear, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her staff was not senseless* nor unspeakable. We MUST speak about it. It was not meaningless. It was the act of yet another crazed and violent far right conservative – and targeted a conservative Democrat.  That is the political atmosphere we live in, and if we are going to stop this violence we need to see it as it truly is – political violence aimed at repressing anyone to the left of Sarah Palin and Rand Paul.

The gunman has been identified as coward Jared Laughner.  His youtube channel favorites one video: America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country – in which a flag is burned to “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”.  His potential Facebook page indicates an interest in Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  In addition to staff and the Congresswoman, he shot others who were at the scene, including a young child who died from the wounds.

UPDATE: The Facebook page appears to be a fake.

Via American Politics Journal, it looks like Gifford’s opponent Jesse Kelly held an event to learn to shoot a fully automatic M16 and Remove Gabrielle Giffords.

This is the face of the Tea Party and the Extreme Right Wing politics of the modern Republican Party.  This is what we face as we approach 2012.

Protest the TSA, and Avoid Flying

A lot of this bullshit article by the AP doesn’t add up. Written with an anti-populist sneer, the article states:

Despite tough talk on the Internet, there was little if any indication of a passenger revolt Monday at many major U.S. airports, with very few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their clothes.

As well as claiming:

Many travelers said that the scans and the pat-down were not much of an inconvenience, and that the stepped-up measures made them feel safer and were, in any case, unavoidable.

According to the article, most people don’t care, hell they don’t mind being molested by TSA officials and feel all warm and cuddly about it.

And yet…

A loosely organized Internet campaign is urging people to refuse the scans on Wednesday in what is being called National Opt-Out Day. The extra time needed to pat down people could cause a cascade of delays at dozens of major airports, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.

If so few people care or are taking action, how will it cause a “cascade of delays”?

“Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays,” said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays. “It doesn’t take much to mess things up anyway.”

Bullshit. They are worried about many people choosing to skip the scan. And not because of the delay. Because with every additional scan they run the risk of more news stories like this one (they broke a man’s prosthetic and left him drenched in his own urine), or this one(patting down a 3-year old child), or this one(a woman is “patted down” underneath her underwear). The negative PR over this is shooting through the roof.

The article’s language (“loosely organized Internet campaign” and “tough talk on the Internet”) screams an aloofness – a desire to minimize the validity and impact of a visceral reaction to police state tactics at the airport. Idiotic politicians are taking one of two routes – use this mess to advocate profiling (guess who… Republicans), or take the time to actual defend this bullshit (you guessed it,Obama). This leaves us with an increasing disconnect between a stressed public who are being subjected to unreasonable and illegal procedures. The pat downs are essentially sexual assault. The scans don’t inspire confidence either from a privacy or a health standpoint (has not seen independent evaluations is technicalese for – the data thus far is just biased jack).

The TSA chief worries about people boycotting the scans. If you must fly, boycott them, slow the line down. Make a statement. Or make a bigger statement by avoiding air travel at every opportunity. That’s what I’m doing. Because when you factor in the cost, unpleasant nature of the cramped seats (coupled with too large passengers), time to and from the airport, time waiting at the airport, risk of getting molested by the tsa, radiation exposure, and the hassle of the security line… Is it really worth the trouble?

Boycott the TSA, boycott the scans, if you get molested let them know “if they touch you inappropriately you will seek all available legal recourse”. Boycott flying. Raise a ruckus.

Religious Conservative Incestual Rape Apologists

Sharron Angle is making public a textbook psychotic position on the horrible matter of incestual rape that leads to a pregnancy.  Digby Reports:

Sharron Angle has a plan for girls who are raped by their fathers and get pregnant. Force the little girl to have a child and then adopt both of them out to a new family!

Angle: I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade. Well one girl in particular moved in with the adoptive parents of her child, and they both were adopted. Both of them grew up, one graduated from high school, the other had parents that loved her and she also graduated from high school. And I’ll tell you the little girl who was born from that very poor situation came to me when she was 13 and said ‘I know what you did thank you for saving my life.’ So it is meaningful to me to err on the side of life.

No word on what happened to the incest victim, but that’s really not something anyone should waste much time worrying about.

And anyway it just shows that God provides many good alternatives to abortion for for young girls who are raped by their fathers — perhaps we could just bend the rules a little bit and the little girl could marry her daddy so they could make a new family all their own.

That she leaves out the rape victim – aka the baby carrier (you know, the non-woman as per fellow Republican Christianist David Vitter) – is telling.  Nuts like these really don’t give a shit about mothers.  They aren’t anti-choice, they are anti-mother.  And God help you if you become a mother against your will, or if becoming a mother poses serious health risks.  Because they sure as hell won’t.  At that point you cease to be a woman, cease to be a rape victim, and become an incubator.

Let’s put the positions of these religious nuts who advocate forcing raped girls to bear their father’s children into context.  Consider the biblical story of Lot and his daughters.  He offered them up to be raped by strangers, and later had offspring with them.  Is this what religious conservative mean when they suggest using the Bible as a basis for law in our country?

What Police Murder Says About Us

The Police Officer who murdered an innocent man on San Francisco’s public transit system gets a lenient verdict – essentially concluding that the fear of black people is legally defensible.  As Digby notes:

He was just trying to teach the little bastard a lesson by swearing at him and then shooting him full of electricity while he was already on the ground. People have to learn to obey transit police officers unquestioningly and when they curse you out and threaten you out of the blue you have an obligation as a citizen to take whatever they mete out — including death if they accidentally pick up their torture device instead of their killing device. Shit happens.

Its not enough that we live in a police state.  We live in a racist, sadistic police state.  What does that say about us as a country?

Ignorance and Incompetence Mar Sex Crimes Battle

This article at the BBC bears reading:

“Ignorant” officials are obsessed with punishing victims of trafficking rather than targeting those behind the crime, a report claims.

They cite specific examples, this looks like more than mere claims.  Until we make viciously and effectively prosecuting slavers, pimps, and rape organizers a priority over attacking sex workers and immigrants without documentation, we will not make progress stopping slavery.

Articles like this engender a certain natural rage and helplessness.  How can we help?  There’s a lot we can all do to help fight slavery and human trafficking.  In addition we can organize campaigns from the grassroots to start dialogues and set the tone.  Criminals who force adults and children to have sex for their gain, and who bring in slaves to do unpaid or low paid work under threat, should face the same penalties as cross state kidnappers and murderers.  The crimes are that serious.  We need to recognize their victims as just that, victims.  Thus make every effort you can to set the priority to supporting trafficking victims and taking down slavers.  Every tool for PR is open to you: letters to the editor, blog posts, emails, word of mouth, and social networking status updates.

We need to electrify public opinion so that there is a real demand to end these crimes, rather than the current status quo of prosecuting the victims and letting the criminals escape to prey on more innocents.

Police in San Francisco Commit Murder

This is horrifying (Holly at Feministe, emphasis mine):

On New Year’s morning, the San Francisco BART police–yes, transit cops–dragged a bunch of young men off a train, including Oscar Grant. An officer then proceeded to execute Grant of them with a gunshot through the back, while he was restrained and lying face-down on the ground.

I think you should watch the videos, if you think you can handle it. They made me want to throw up, made me feel dizzy and aching, but they’re important. If bystanders hadn’t been leaning out of their trains with cellphone cameras, this incident might have passed largely unnoticed. According to witnesses, the BART police reacted immediately by confiscating cameras and phones in the name of “evidence.” The two videos that have surfaced were apparently taken by people who managed to keep their phones because the train started moving before the cops could get them. You have wonder why some city governments have been pushing in recent years to criminalize recording video in public without a license.

What was Grant doing to encourage such treatment (emphasis mine)?

It’s not entirely clear yet what happened during the incident, and it may never be. He was apparently not one of the initial group dragged off the train–one of the videos shows him unrestrained and standing up, trying to intercede with the police. According to witnesses, he was trying to de-escalate the situation between the cops and his friends.

This reminds me of a question I had when writing about a case in Maryland:

When will it be enough?  When will police abuse of power be recognized as an issue by the candidates, and addressed in a serious and systemic way?

The police have to be held accountable for actions such as these.  Pinning a man to the ground and shooting him in the back is a crime, even if a police officer commits it.  There is no justification for this.  None.  If the man was on the ground face down he could have been handcuffed or knocked unconcious.  Instead he was killed.

As Holly observes, this is a systemic issue:

This is not an isolated incident, not by a long shot. This kind of thing happens all the time: out-of-control police violence in response to non-violent communication. It happens to people of color, and to queer folks too. It happened to me and Jack a little more than a year ago, along with a group of colleagues and friends, for asking the police why they were making an arrest. An officer decided to pepper spray our group, without any real provocation. We’re lucky, and privileged, that it wasn’t a gun.

The officers responsible ought to go to jail for this.  And police departments nation wide need to engage in a serious effort to solve this problem.  As things stand now a police officer could just as equally be an out of control asshole on a life threatening power trip as the source of comfort and protection the police are supposed to represent.

If you are in the San Francisco area, there are protests planned:

There is a protest planned for today from 3-8 PM PST at the Fruitvale BART station, and another one being planned for Saturday.

BART Police have a website here.  Here is their contact info.

There ought to be an investigation immediately.  Not just of the murder, but of the efforts to cover up the crime.

UPDATE: Thanks concerned, I’ve updated the contact info for the correct department.

Immaculate Rape

Immaculate Rape (noun) – Rape in which there is no rapist, merely a victim who may be found culpable due to one or more of the following: ingestion of alchohol, wearing of revealing clothing, living in a society that permits sex outside of marriage, being near a male in the throes of the evolutionary perogative.

Immaculate Rape as an accusation usually grows out of a right-wing religious cosmology, yet any attempts to link right-wing religious cosmology with mysogyny are met with accusations and derision.

Peter Hitchens makes this argument in an article eviscerated by Jessica and Melissa.  The crux:

Of course she is culpable, just as she would be culpable if she crashed a car and injured someone while drunk, or stepped out into the traffic while drunk and was run over.

Getting drunk is not something that happens to you. It is something you do.

I think Melissa shuts that down very effectively (Trigger Warning) in her post.  Jessica does it in the following line:

Hitchens can’t seem to get his head around the idea that rapists rape women, rather than women magically “getting themselves” raped.

But maybe Hitchens and purveyors of the immaculate rape myth ought to be taken at more than face value.  If alcohol is an invitation to get raped, why aren’t we making it a felony to serve rape juice to women?  Why doesn’t every bottle of rape beer contain a surgeon general’s warning: “may excuse rape”?

One things for certain, I wouldn’t be caught dead drinking with Peter Hitchens.

(image source)

Is Karl Rove Above the Law?

Karl Rove skipped out on a subpoena.  Will he be held accountable for breaking the law?  From a Brave New Films advisory (emphasis mine):

LOS ANGELES – A coalition of organizations has launched a new campaign urging the House Judiciary Committee to hold Karl Rove in contempt and send him to jail.  In a clear violation of the law, Rove has refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena calling on him to testify under oath about his involvement in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.  Brave New Films, The Nation magazine, Campaign for America’s Future, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Progress Now Action and CREDO Mobile will host a press conference in Washington DC next Tuesday, prior to delivering a petition to the House Judiciary Committee urging committee members to “let Rove know he can’t decide which subpoenas he obeys and which he ignores.”

The online petition, created by Brave New Films and housed at SendRoveToJail.com, has amassed almost 100,000 names in less than six days.  The website also includes a short YouTube video outlining Rove’s involvement in the Siegelman case and making the case for holding Rove accountable.

http://sendrovetojail.com

“Karl Rove is not above the law,” said Robert Greenwald, founder and president of Brave New Films.  “Rove’s refusal to comply with a Congressional subpoena makes a mockery of the justice system.  Even former high government officials like Rove are accountable to the law. Rove needs learn that we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship.”

“Karl Rove has built a career out of bending the law, but now he seems to feel entitled simply to break it,” says Michael Kieschnick, President of CREDO Mobile.  “We expect the House Judiciary Committee to agree that Karl Rove is in contempt and should be sent to jail if he persists in his flagrant disregard for the laws of this country.”

This isn’t civil disobedience.  This isn’t an unjust law.  Rove is acting above the law to cover up deeper crimes committed by the Bush administration.

Karl Rove should go to jail.