Troy Davis | BIG GREEN

The Pew Research Center released a study this week examining attitudes about the ongoing wars, one of which is celebrating a grim little birthday this week. The war in Afghanistan is turning ten, and showing no signs of letting up. Yet the study shows that maybe a third of the American public is actually following the wars. For most people, it’s like a reality show that has lost its luster; there is really no more profound an investment in the enterprise than that. This is, some have pointed out, the longest continuous conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in, and certainly (I suspect) the most serious war “we’ve” ever fought that didn’t involve some kind of conscription. Less than one percent of Americans have fought in these wars, and none of them have paid any higher taxes to underwrite them.

It’s hard to imagine how a war this difficult to justify could last a decade or more on the backs of anything other than an all-volunteer force. If there’d been a draft, these wars might never have started. If the true costs were passed along to taxpayers, they certainly wouldn’t have lasted as long as this. Our nation’s war making power has been effectively insulated from public involvement and, consequently, from meaningful public input as well. America’s wars are now self-contained and self-perpetuating; they are fought by a separate nation of military families – one that bears every burden, pays every price, while we continue our normal lives, only vaguely aware of the catastrophe our elected leaders are visiting upon these unfortunate men, women, and children.

So I say unto you, on this ten year anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan (Bush’s first war of choice), don’t simply thank a soldier; apologize to them for not doing more to stop this war. That’s a start, anyway.

Knox out. Amanda Knox was freed, as I’m sure you heard. Fortunate for her that she is not a black man wrongly accused of murder in the state of Georgia; she might have been put to death, exculpatory evidence be damned. I’ve heard a lot of tut-tutting about Italy’s justice system from this side of the pond, but what the hell – look at Troy Anthony Davis and tell me how those commentators have a leg to stand on. Our system is a disgrace, and the killing of Davis a crime. Would that he had stood before that Italian judge – he might still be with us.

luv u,

The killing of Troy Anthony Davis has demonstrated one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: that we as a people cannot be trusted with the death penalty. To that I will add my modest opinion that no people can be trusted with this brutal and most final punishment.

I am not suggesting that that is the most compelling reason to abolish the death penalty. I think the reasons are legion. The first should be no surprise to anyone who calls themselves religious in any major monotheistic tradition – killing is morally repugnant, particularly in a situation in which the intended victim is powerless, such as someone who is incarcerated and therefore a danger to no one. Beyond simple humanity, it is legally and ethically indefensible – the ultimate denial of due process under the law. So long as you may be proven either innocent or not as guilty as first thought, there is no justification for execution.

Also, in a nation so fraught by its racist history; a nation whose justice system is shot through with the remnants of that history – particularly, it seems, at the state and local levels – there is no chance that the death penalty will be applied fairly. In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that it has been applied in an unjust and biased fashion over the last three decades. In light of our very recent past – still very much with us, as evidenced by Wednesday night’s execution – we are simply incapable of conducting such a policy in any way that could be considered remotely equitable.

Not that being equitable would result in anything other than an atrocity. Uniformly applied, capital punishment might add up to thousands upon thousands of executions each year, depending upon where we draw the line on heinousness. Speaking of heinous, Governor Perry (a distant cousin, I hear) feels comfortable with a standard he claims Texas has set regarding execution of only those perpetrators who have committed the most horrible crimes. With 240+ judicial killings under his belt, one might think that the standard could apply to the governor himself. (His predecessor, of course, had opportunity to make that record seem positively progressive.)

It’s too late to save Troy Davis, I’m sorry to say – deepest regrets to his family. I only hope that Troy will, even in his absence, open the national conversation we simply must have if we are ever going to put a stop to this visceral, vindictive madness.

We have prisons that could hold the incredible Hulk. We don’t need to kill another prisoner, ever. We need to stop… now.

luv u,

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Two nations.

Requiem.

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