Monday, December 12, 2005

Schwarzenegger Responsible for Violence, Deaths

Looks like Arnold has denied Tookie clemency.

Drudge was the first to point out that this could result in violence in the streets. He's now pointing out preparations in LA.

France was recently burning.

Drudge shows us that now whites are rampaging in Sydney.

There will be much violence tonight in the streets of California, and possibly all over the U.S., if Arnold doesn't grant a last-minute stay of execution. I've walked the streets of Oakland, and these kids are angry as hell at white people. It's not gonna take much to set them off. If Arnold, the God of California, takes it upon himself to administer that poison into Tookie's vein, I am fairly certain that all hell will break loose.

UPDATE: Inteview and info from Democracy Now!.

UPDATE: Don't count on my legal language being correct/accurate. I think, for instance, that the Governor can only grant clemency, whereas the Federal Court could grant a stay of execution.

UPDATE: They killed him, man. Arnold killed Tookie. I could hardly believe it when I heard it. I wanted to go Timothy McVeigh. Europe is livid, too. Arnold is a fucking monster. Republicans are fucking monsters. Gangster mf's.

I saw a lot of people crying last night as I left San Quentin. A lot. Here are some pics. More to follow soon, I hope.

There were at least a few hundred people there. Someone brought a huge Gandhi statue thing - with Gandhi carrying a sign that read "We must be the change we wish to see in the world". Some good speakers. Lots of them very moving. Seeing little boys and girls crying after they announced that took was murdered by the state...too much. Too much.

We need an effective Green Party to make sure this never happens again. There are two more executions coming up in the next couple of months. Arnold started off the holiday season with a murder. The Revered Jesse Jackson pointed out that even Moses was a murdered and was redeemed.

Angela Davis was there. I'd never heard of her before, but everyone there seemed to know her.

Joan Baez was there and led a couple of songs.

Helicopters hovered overhead for hours. A couple of shock-jocks where there from LA. Actually, one shock jock and two body guards - all white.

SF Chronicle has a podcast here. The title of the podcast: 'Tears and cheers outside San Quentin as execution neared'. Tears and cheers. In fairness to the racists who showed up, I didn't actually hear them cheering either before or after Tookie's death. I suspect they were all gone by the time we heard Tookie was dead. I did see people crying before and after Tookie's death. A radio report the next morning said that 'both supporters and detractors' of the death penalty were outside the gate. That's technically true, but there were a thousand-plus detractors and about four pro-death people. This podcast headline similary paints a false equivalency picture that is all too common in the major media these days.

I actually expected much violence if this murder happened. The violence didn't seem to materialize, but I don't think we're out of the woods yet. It's seething. I feel the hate when I walk the streets of Oakland. Something gonna blow up. Maybe I'm too close, emotionally, to what just went down, but people are enraged at this murder.

I was actually extremely angry that most of the speakers did not address my anger - my rage - most didn't even come close.

Arnold just demonstrated 'an eye for an eye' - let's see if he reaps the rewards of what he has sewn.

Jesus Fuckin Christ. It took them twenty minutes or so to put him down. They put him down like a dog. He was trying to help them insert the needles. The killers bungled the job. They strapped him down and took twenty minutes to kill him.

There was at least one nun in the crowd.

How much did California spend on those helicopters and the beefed-up security? How much mf's?!

UPDATE: There was already a moratorium effort already, but Arnold's right-hand man, Tom McClintock, pushed it back until after Tookie would be executed. I don't know if that is true, yet, but here's a story talking about why politics of the decision to murder Tookie - why Arnold did it. Assembly Bill 1121, aka AB 1121. Check it out.

UPDATE: Another innocent killed.

UPDATE: In one of his books dedications, Tookie cited George Jackson. Holy shit. With the help of the FBI, the California prison system killed him, and then they tried to frame Angela Davis. No wonder why people were cheering for Davis last night. No wonder why Tookie dedicated his book to George Jackson.

UPDATE: Two more innocents get off death row.

UPDATE: So much for my 'fairly certain' that violence would break out if Arnold killed Tookie. What could be the reasons? A bunch: people believe in the death penalty; people don't think it is Arold's responsibility to not execute Tookie; people didn't know about the Tookie execution; people thought he was guilty and deserved to die; people didn't see this case any differently than the thousands of cases of severe injustice perpetrated against black people every day in America; etc. Haven't thought about it much since the execution.

When I look back, I don't think I was so sure, if at all, of an outbreak of violence. I think I was probably doing a couple of things: 1) projecting - hoping that it was true that people cared enough to save Tookie that they would be willing to challenge the authorities if the injustice took place, even if that included violence, and 2) scaremongering a bit, for political reasons - aimed at keeping Tookie from being executed. As far as the scaremongering went, I wasn't talking nonsense just to support my political view, but I didn't mind that my raising the possibility of post-murder violence might act as a deterrent to the murder. Maybe that's not even scaremongering, because I really did believe what I was writing. It just seems that what I was writing, an opinion on a situation, turned out to be totally/completely wrong. It's about the most wrong I've ever been about anything on this blog - and that's pretty darn wrong.

So, what's the take-away lesson? Seems like it could/should be a few things:
1) I have no idea what young black kids in the inner cities are thinking and feeling. I say 'young black kids' because if there was going to be violence I suspected it would be perpetrated largely by youngish black kids from the inner cities.
2) Before making bold declarations of any kind, I need to take a step back, analyze my own assumptions, and really, as much as possible, just try to look at the situation from a less subjective vantage point.

UPDATE: NJ stops killing.

UPDATE: Blowback. Via Drudge.

UPDATE: You don't get executed if you 'only' kill black people.

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