Troy Davis is Me

It's 21 September 2011. It's the International Day of Peace and a man who is quite possibly innocent, is sentenced to die tonight.

For those of us who are not comfortable with the death penalty at the best of times, these are the worst of times. This is precisely what we fear. The thought that a man's accusers could in later years, recant their testimony and that make no difference to his fate is mind boggling and yet this is the case. Our worst fears could potentially be realized tonight as, in the full glare of the spotlight, Georgia proceeds to do what it claims the right to do.

Whatever the ultimate outcome here, whatever the final decision, the death penalty is hopefully going to get the good hard look it deserves. Are there terrible crimes being committed? Absolutely. Do those crimes need to be responded to with strong and swift action and punishment? Absolutely, but given the propensity of human beings to lie to save themselves (this includes witnesses to crimes and the friends, siblings and parents of accused persons (remember the Anthony family of the infamous Casey Anthony trial), punishment that is less permanent than death needs to be available.

Someone pointed out not too long ago that Casey Anthony, though there was quite a bit of evidence, managed to walk free. Troy Davis, even in the face of evidence of innocence has not, and may not live to see tomorrow. This is an odd system but this is the system we've got. Wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution than to be oh so very wrong?

The status quo that stole tomorrow

When I was a child, there was this character that I read about in some book called the Push Me Pull You (PuMPY). That (mythical?) creature comes to mind when I think of politics today. With one head facing west, the other, east the creature could obviously never travel very far unless there was some kind of compromise as to destination and route to get there. I guess that's why when I think about American politics today, good old PuMPY comes to mind.

There are some obviously competing commitments in the world which need to be balanced if the greatest good is to be achieved for the greatest number*. For the sake of clarity, let's call capital, the pull force and labor, the push force. If that sounds vaguely Marxian, I assure you it's accidental. Maybe. At any rate, the reality is that capital and labor have a shared future (how can they not?) but they have very different perspectives as to how the future is to be achieved. Indeed, they have different visions of how the future should look. Compromise they must, however, if any movement at all is to be achieved and if the future is to be bright for either group.

In the current system however, one group seems to have greater access to the ears, minds and ultimately, the votes of those roaming the halls of power. Strangely enough, it's neither capital nor labor that exclusively holds sway. It's really whomever's got the deepest pockets and the biggest megaphone. Sometimes it's capital, sometimes labor, but mostly it's some vested interest. Vested in what, you ask? The status quo.

It is my firm belief though, that the status quo stands in the way of any real development and growth in this society. I'm not so brave as Bill Maher to think that "...everyone else has their head up their a@#except me" (the title of his new book), but I do have a hypothesis about the lack of real movement around here and it is simply this: the status quo will steal tomorrow.

In a perfect world, the balancing point in the 'push' and 'pull' of the political/legislative process, would be the policy makers. In a perfect world politicians at the federal, state and local levels would be trying to balance the needs and interests of capital against the needs and interests of labor. Unfortunately, the way this system is set up, it's the guy with the fattest wallet (on which ever side of an issue), who puts a bug (or a buck) in the ear of enough representatives who is 'represented'. The scale is heavily tilted towards the side with the cash. This means that even when something needs to be discussed as a matter of urgent national interest (like changes to Social Security, greenhouse emissions, gas taxes,  to name a few), just a little sabre-rattling from vested interests in favor of the status quo shuts down all debate, no matter how necessary.

So off we go, blithely into tomorrow but tomorrow's not there. It's already been stolen. When we get there we'll find out, but by then it will already be too late to do anything about it.




*I am presuming that there is a shared commitment to the idea of 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. If that commitment is not shared then you can stop reading now because the rest of this will just be Polly Anna flapping.