The Texas GOP Is A Grand Old Piece of Work

The Texas Republican Party, that bastion of tolerance, goodwill and forward thinking, just released its policy platform. I can't say I was surprised by the contents therein, but nevertheless, I was taken aback by the stunning absurdity emanating from a "mainstream" political party. And they run the state! Of course, these were the folks who gave us the revamped Texas Board of Education, with its textbook whitewashing of the slave trade, and its crimes against truth and reason masquerading as legitimate curriculum changes.

So, in its 25-page manifesto, the Texas GOP really provides a clear sense of its convictions. Some of the positions in the platform are mundane and without distinction, but the devil is in the details. And for people who claim to be Christians, there's little Christ and a lot of devilishness in there.

With regard to government power, the platform calls for the elimination of all executive orders, and the repeal of all previous executive orders. It strongly rejects D.C. statehood and "adding unconstitutional voting Congressional members," and supports non-participation in the census. Further, the Texas GOP platform opposes affirmative action and reparations based on "discriminatory criteria." And the party is against nationalization of land for protecting endangered species or conservation.

In the area of voting rights and elections, the party advocates for the repeal of motor voter laws, re-registering voters every four years, and felon disenfranchisement -- a Jim Crow remnant.

Not surprisingly, the Texas GOP supports public displays of the Ten Commandments, and penalties for desecrating the American flag, and the restoration of some Confederate plaque that was removed from the state's Supreme Court building.

Now here is where it gets really interesting, and Talibanic, dare I say, as if what you've already heard was not sufficiently out of pocket. On the issue of family values, whatever that means, the Republican's policy paper condemns homosexuality and opposes the legalization of sodomy and supports a prohibition on all pornography and strip clubs. Further, they would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, or for a civil official to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony. Of course, the platform is solidly anti-abortion and anti-reproductive rights for women. And it supports lifting the bureaucratic restrictions on corporal discipline for foster children, because foster kids really need more beatings in their life.

Social security would be eliminated under the Texas GOP plan, as would what they euphemistically call "ObamaCare."

Apparently, sex education is a no no, other than the teaching of abstinence before marriage. And the teaching of multiculturalism is out because Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican, would have wanted it that way.

To round out an astonishing set of policy positions, the Texas Republicans are against any regulations on gun ownership. Oh yeah, and they declare that this is a Judeo-Christian nation. And there should be capital punishment for rape convictions (like the good old days). Deep water oil drilling should resume in the Gulf of Mexico, employers should be able to discriminate, and the minimum wage law should be repealed, they say. No more birthright citizenship -- citizenship by birth would be limited to those born to a U.S. citizen. Finally, the Texas GOP assert that the U.S. should get out of the United Nations.

Meanwhile, one of the standard bearers of the Texas conservatives, Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), recently created some controversy when he apologized to BP for Obama hooking up that $20 billion fund to pay for damages related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In fact, Barton called the fund a "shameful... shakedown." Other Republicans such as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Tea Party poster boy Rand Paul expressed their opposition to the fund.

Barton and the Texas Republican Party appear to have a great deal of compassion for the plight of poor behemoth oil companies who wreck the Earth, with oil spills of biblical proportions through corporate malfeasance. Ultra-conservatives reserve their outrage for the times when they believe the rights of large corporations are infringed. And they seek to criminalize homosexuality and those who are different. Yet the Lone Star GOP is not outraged by the crimes committed against the environment, against God's creation, about which these so-called Christians seem to care jack.

This policy paper represents the culmination of bad political decisions that have turned the Republican Party into the hot mess it has become. The Texas case is just an extreme example of the problem. Nationally, the Republicans hitched their wagon to a Southern Strategy that depended on the scapegoating of black people and manipulating white fears for votes. Fundamentalist Christian conservatives and the religious police were a part of the mix, as were pro-business, anti-tax, anti-regulation right-wingers. Moderate whites fled the party, as did all but a few token people of color. So what remains of the base -- for the most part -- is a dwindling coalition of white nationalists, the morality police and the exceptionally greedy.

Texas -- good barbecue, hot weather, and a brutal history of racial violence. We can add to that one of the most egregious public policy documents in recent memory. Blue Texans, as you know, your work is cut out for you.

A Campaign To Divest From Mideast Apartheid

People around the world are mourning the loss of life that resulted from the Israeli Navy commando raid on a flotilla of ships bringing humanitarian aid to a blockaded Gaza. Nine activists were killed. Prosecutors have characterized the incident, which occurred in international waters, as an act of piracy and a violation of international law. And top-ranking Israeli Navy reserves officers denounced the attack and slammed the Israeli government for blaming the activists for what transpired. "We do not accept claims that this was a 'public relations failure' and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning," the officers wrote in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In many ways, the handling of the flotilla tragedy mirrors Israel's policy of Occupation of the Palestinian territories: inhumane treatment and a disproportionate use of force against those who have been labeled as terrorists. This is a response born of arrogance and hubris, and a disregard for international public opinion. Add to that the confiscation of news cameras and media censorship, and a propaganda campaign perpetuating the notion of perpetual victimhood-- that the Israeli government can do no wrong.

Israel is a prominent nation in the region, but that does not justify apartheid. The nation's historical origins do not give it a pass in acting ethically or in compliance with human rights law. The Occupation must end if democracy is to flourish in Israel, and public pressure can bring about a just and equitable resolution to the conflict. Some Jews of conscience believe that economic divestment--taking the profit out of violations of human rights and of international law- is the way to make it happen.

The group Jewish Voice for Peace just kicked off a divestment campaign. Their focus is on TIAA-CREF, a Fortune 100 financial services company and insurance giant. The company serves 3.6 million people and manages more than 27,000 retirement plans and over $400 billion in combined assets. TIAA-CREF's motto is "Financial Services for the Greater Good," and it proudly calls itself "a global leader in socially responsible investing." And earlier this year, the company divested from four petrochemical companies that refused to stop doing business with Sudan.

JVP seeks to persuade TIAA-CREF to stop investing in companies that profit from the Occupation, such as Caterpillar and Motorola. The former manufactures bulldozing equipment for destroying Palestinian homes, while the latter supplies cell phones to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for use in the Occupied Territories.

Occupation means profits. A settlement industry of hundreds of companies has been built around the servicing of 562,000 Israelis living in 135 settlements and outposts in the West Bank, Arab Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. These companies enjoy special government support, including tax breaks, lower environmental and labor standards and low rents. And they exploit Palestinian workers, land and resources as they maintain an infrastructure of buildings, walls and checkpoints to keep Palestinians separated and out of the settlements. Many of the companies serve the Jewish settlers, while others exploit the captive nature of the Palestinian population and charge them exorbitant rates. Meanwhile, Palestinians who work in these industrial zones face labor violations and severe restrictions on their movement and right to organize.

Divestment is a time-tested tool to bring about nonviolent social change. The divestment movement against South African apartheid is perhaps the most poignant example of such a strategy. Similarly, a U.S.-led campaign hopes to bring an end to Israeli-Palestinian apartheid.

Israel considers itself a member of the "First World" and the only democracy in the Mideast, as it maintains a forty-three year military occupation. "To maintain the Occupation, Israel uses harsh and often brutal controls that are widely perceived around the world, if not in the U.S., as an apartheid system. The truth is that even within Israel, only Israeli Jews have enjoyed democratic government and equal rights," says Barbara Harvey of Jewish Voice for Peace. "Every person who values democratic freedoms and equality has a personal stake in ending Israeli apartheid, because its continuance threatens to redefine democracy in ways that none of us who live outside Israel accept for ourselves."

Harvey also suggests that Israeli policing practices are having a bad influence in the U.S.: "How many Americans realize that many of our local police forces and even private security forces receive training in Israel, where the Israel Defense Force is taught to dehumanize Palestinians? If the world pretends that Israel's free society for Jews only is a democracy, the unacceptable will inexorably become acceptable beyond Israel's borders, threatening every one of us."

The West Bank consists of a multitude of fragmented enclaves, many of which are connected to adjacent towns only through checkpoints. Settlements, outposts and Israeli military infrastructure place nearly 40 percent of the land out of the reach of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Gaza is a prison. As Amnesty International has reported, the blockade of Gaza has left nearly 1.5 million men, women and children trapped in a strip of land only 40 km (25 mi) long and 9.5 km (6 mi) wide. The situation in Gaza is one of collective punishment, where poverty, unemployment and food shortages have left four in five people dependent on humanitarian assistance. "Ghetto" is a word associated with pain and deep historical symbolism for both black and Jewish folks. The ghetto is a place where people are packed in and stacked up, by design, and where dreams die and people suffer. Well, Gaza is the ghetto, and one shouldn't have to live in Gaza or be a Gazan to appreciate that suffering. As one Israeli official stated plainly, "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

Further, Arab Israelis are racially profiled, treated as second or third class citizens, and regarded as a fifth column that cannot be trusted. The efforts to strip an Arab Israeli Knesset member of her citizenship because she participated in the humanitarian flotilla (along with Holocaust survivors, European lawmakers and Nobel laureates) is a prime example of the discrimination Arabs face.

So, this is what the divestment campaign wants to change, so that democracy can come to Israel. Business practices must change, but old mindsets must change as well. Jews who are unhappy with the current state of affairs in Israel should be able to, as a courageous progressive rabbi once said, set limits with the ones they love. They should be able to speak up for Palestinian rights without being branded as self-hating Jews, terrorists or enablers of terrorists. Likewise, non-Jews who come to the table with a love for human rights and a sincere desire to help the situation should not fear accusations of anti-semitism. Displeasure with specific policies of the Israeli government does not equate with hatred towards Judaism or Jewish people. And the rights of Palestinians and Israelis are not mutually exclusive, nor should they be.

A Tribute to Fathers and Children Forever Separated

June was always a big month in my family.  My father’s birthday, my birthday, Father’s Day, and my parents’  anniversary all jammed into a period of a few weeks.


Last year’s Father’s Day was a bittersweet one for me, and I imagine that from now on, Father’s Day for me will always evoke a bit of happiness mixed with pangs of grief.  Last year at around this time, I was mourning the loss of my son Ezra, who had died only months earlier.  Ezra’s placenta tore from the uterus a few weeks before his due date, cutting of his oxygen supply in utero.  My wife had to go into labor to give birth to our son who had already died.  I held him, and laughed and cried at the same time.  I laughed because I was happy to see my son’s adorable, silly face for the first time, and I cried because I would never hold him again, never get to see him grow up and reach all of life’s milestones.  And we buried him several days later, but not before reading him a bedtime story.  And I never thought I’d have to bury my own child, ever.  As I literally buried him in the ground with a shovel, at the cemetery, I felt as if I was burying part of myself as well.      


For those who have lost a child, you know what I mean.  For those who haven’t, I hope you never know such pain and emptiness.  There is no loss greater than the loss of your child.  It is the hopeless nightmare that does not subside.  Eventually, you learn to live with your loss and incorporate the memory of your child into daily life.  You must do so if you are to regain any sense of a normal existence, whatever normal means.  You learn to live as a new person with a new sense of normal.  But the pain never goes away entirely, nor should it.


So on that Father’s Day weekend of 2009, I was a father deprived of my son in physical form, though he remained buried in my heart.  And at the same time, there was joy.  My father was recovering from major surgery, and I had made countless trips back and forth from Philadelphia to New York City to visit him in the hospital.  Though he was frail, immobile and only a hint of his formerly robust, colorful, loquacious and trash-talking self, he was still Dad.  I said goodbye to him that day, wishing him a happy Father’s Day and all that.  He gave me a mile-long stare unlike any he had given me before.  He had a peaceful look on his face, as if somehow he was alright no matter what. 


The next week my father died.


We were so different, yet so much alike, my father and I.  He was a veteran and a union guy, while I have dual Ivy League degrees.  While his tour of duty in the Army took him to Japan and Korea, years later I lived in Japan as an exchange student, studied Japanese in college, and worked in Tokyo for an ad agency and a bank.  Both of us were blessed with a strong sense of community service.  My father was active in his church and his V.F.W. post, while I became an activist, writer and advocate armed with a law degree.  Both of us experienced racial discrimination, which is par for the course for black men in America.  And I’ve had experiences and opportunities my father couldn’t have imagined, and yet he was partly responsible for them happening, and for my access to them.


This year, I observe my first Father’s Day without my father, who lived a full life, and a second Father’s Day without my son, who never had a chance to live life.  And Dad is now looking after his grandson in that far away spirit world, which gives me some comfort. 


In that year since my father left us, my son Micah was born.  And what a joy he is!  He seems to smile all the time, more than his father or grandfather ever could.  Micah, it seems, was made to order for parents who needed smiles in their lives, and once believed they’d never laugh again.  But why couldn’t I have both of my sons with me on Father’s Day?


Often I think about the fathers who lost their children, and the children who lost their fathers, whether through disease, famine, war or terrorism— or handgun violence in the streets of America, or corporate malfeasance— you know, crimes committed on offshore oil rigs or in coal mines.  Fathers are separated from their children by prison bars miles away upstate, in this land of the incarcerated, or senseless permanent wars half a world away in Eurasia or Eastasia or another designated enemy.


Men who cannot be with their children, and people who are separated from their fathers might not be in the mood to celebrate Father’s Day, and that is ok.  What is important is that we learn to honor and remember those we love when they are not or cannot be with us now or ever.  And you don’t need a special day for that.       

Miranda ruling proves Supreme Court is out of order

From theGrio:

The recent Supreme Court decision in Berghuis v. Thompkins makes two things perfectly clear: Miranda rights, or what is left of them, will never be the same. And the high court has become a radical and extremist activist body that will take your rights away in a second.

In a 5-4 decision, the highest court in the nation ruled that criminal suspects who want to remain silent and not talk to the police must explicitly tell police they want to be silent. In other words, according to the court, you have to speak up in order to shut up. And that makes no sense at all.

The Thompkins decision was split in the usual way, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joining Justice Anthony Kennedy for a predictable conservative majority. Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Sonia Sotomayor in the dissent.

And this majority has eroded the legacy of the landmark 1966 case Miranda v. Arizona, in which police must tell a suspect during arrests and interrogations of his or her right to remain silent and right to an attorney. That is how the well-known Miranda warnings came into being, a protection against self-incrimination and the abuse of state power. But now, in order to stop an interrogation, suspects must tell the police they are going to remain silent-- the same way they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

Van Chester Thompkins, a criminal suspect, remained silent for most of his three-hour police interrogation, until he uttered a few responses that implicated himself in a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield, Michigan. Thompkins appealed his conviction on the grounds that he invoked his Miranda right to remain silent by remaining silent. Well, the majority said that wasn't enough.

"Today's decision turns Miranda upside down," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. "Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent -- which, counter-intuitively, requires them to speak." The justice added that "The broad rules the Court announces today are also troubling because they are unnecessary to decide this case."

This ruling is typical of a conservative majority that has been out on the attack when it comes to the rights of everyday people. Let us not forget their decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ended the ban on corporate political spending on First Amendment grounds. President Obama said the ruling gives "a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

For all of their posturing at every Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Senate conservatives really do not care about judicial restraint and the threat of judicial activists who write new law from the bench. If they did, they would not confirm radical nominees that, well, legislate from the bench. They key is that these conservatives want judges that will toe the company line of fewer rights for the many, and more rights for the few, especially the corporations. This has been the game plan of the conservative movement since the days of Ronald Reagan, and one must give them kudos for getting it done.

And their latest victory in Thompkins is a decisive blow to an important legal doctrine that all of us with a J.D.learned in law school-- and all criminal suspects learn one way or another.

So, given this mess in which we find ourselves, what are our options? First, President Obama can attempt to mimic President Franklin Roosevelt and try to stack the court with one or two extra seats. However, it didn't work for Roosevelt, whose court packing plan was harshly rebuked, ultimately discouraging any subsequent attempts at the same thing. Plus, there is no evidence that the current president has the stomach or the disposition to take such a risk. But it would provide for outstanding political theater.

Second--and this is the more likely scenario--Congress could add extra seats to the court with a simple majority vote in both houses. This is what FDR should have done. The current number of nine justices is not a rule etched in stone. The number was originally set at six, and that number has fluctuated over time.

But such a move would require guts, courage, and foresight, none of which are readily available in this Congress.

Other than that, there's always attrition, not to sound too cruel. Perhaps Justice Clarence Thomas will look for another line of work other than his current position destroying the hopes and dreams of black people. Maybe we can hope for another retirement or two on the Supreme Court in the coming years, and more opportunities for Obama to shape the court in his own image, any image other than its current form.

Obama refocusing failed war on drugs

From McClatchy-Tribune:

U.S. President Barack Obama is moving in the right direction in the war on drugs, saying it should be a health issue, not a crime.

After 40 years and $1 trillion wasted, the war on drugs has been a resounding failure. It has had ruinous consequences in the United States and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The drug war has given America the world's largest prison population, at nearly 2.5 million people, or roughly one in 100 Americans.

The United States has five per cent of the world's population, but almost 25 per cent of the world's prisoners.

Many nonviolent drug offenders, who shouldn't have been locked up in the first place, are languishing behind bars.

Moreover, this war on drugs also has been a war on black and brown people, who are 70 per cent of the American prison population. Unfair drug sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine targeted communities of colour for years.

Drug criminalization separates parents from their children with prison bars and destroys urban neighbourhoods by shipping their adult population to prisons in white rural areas, often hundreds of miles away from home.

People who could be productive members of society, good citizens, taxpayers and community leaders are rotting in jail because of the war on drugs. And when they return to society, they cannot find a job because of a felony record.

Our drug policies have also helped spark violence in many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Drug mafias have taken over the region because drugs in the United States are illegal and the demand for them is still high.

Look at Mexico, where almost 23,000 people have been murdered in the last three and a half years, as drug-related gang violence has exploded.

Or take Jamaica, which declared a state of emergency after supporters of an alleged drug kingpin wanted in the United States torched two police stations and barricaded the slums of Kingston, the capital.

The Obama administration has taken a step forward with its new National Drug Control Strategy.

President Obama says he plans to treat illegal drug use as more of a public health issue than a criminal justice problem.

And Obama's strategy claims to take a balanced approach by focusing on prevention, treatment and law enforcement.

For example, there is an emphasis on community-based prevention focusing on young people.

The president also calls for early intervention and addiction treatment in substance-abuse cases, curbing subscription drug abuse and breaking the cycle of drug use, criminality and incarceration.

Nevertheless, it is uncertain the Obama White House will put its money where its mouth is.

Nearly two-thirds of the $15.6-billion federal drug control budget request is devoted to law enforcement and interdiction, which is just more of the same old same old.

The strategy's success depends on whether the administration stays true to its own words and devotes the resources necessary to deal with drug abuse as a public health issue.

Treating it as a criminal justice issue doesn't work.

Hip-hop and politics have a long history behind the mic

From theGrio:

This weekend one of hip-hop's hottest acts, Drake, lent his talent to protest offshore drilling. On Sunday, the 23-year-old rapper performed at the 'Stop The Offshore Drilling" rally at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C.

In May, hip-hop veteran Talib Kweli released a single about another hot political topic. It's called 'Papers Please' -- and it voices his opposition to Arizona's new immigration law.

Hip-hop and politics have been together for a long time, and there are no signs the two will break apart soon. Although there were the naysayers who once dismissed hip-hop as a fad and predicted its untimely demise, this is an art form, a culture, and a political movement that is not going away.

Starting out as the CNN of the ghetto, and a medium to express the hopes and frustrations of a disenfranchised community, hip-hop went from knocking on the door of the mainstream to becoming the mainstream. And over the years, hip-hop evolved from hating the president--and vice versa--to dining with the president. Who would have imagined just a few years ago that the president would have hip-hop on his iPod, or even own an iPod for that matter?

Black Music Month is a perfect time to examine the politics of hip-hop--and where it's going next.

"Hip-hop had a long political engagement; hip-hop almost starts as a political movement," says journalist and cultural critic Touré. "People from the street need a voice--we have no voice. So we have to have something to say."

Touré believes that hip-hop speaks up for the underdog. "And it evolves into people like Chuck D who are like shadow-senators for a group of people who felt voiceless and could go on Nightline or could go on other shows or could speak back to Arizona when they didn't want to do the MLK holiday and be a national bullhorn saying 'this is wrong'," he said.

"Black people throughout the African Diaspora tend to be an oppressed people. We have always held our artists, musicians, and writers accountable for using their voice to uplift and educate, especially in times of turmoil," says hip hop artist Giovanni "G." Turner, who is also president and in-house counsel of RAHM Nation Recordings,LLC, and a University of Miami lecturer of English.

"We saw this most recently during the Haitian earthquake. Jay-Z, whom by no one's account, not even his own, is a 'political' rapper, but when the black community was stricken with tragedy, we all turned to him. In fact, not only was it expected he issue a statement, record a commemorative song, and donate money, I argue he would have been ostracized had he remained silent."

"Everything is political," says Russell Simmons, co-founder of Def Jam and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. The hip-hop community, according to Simmons, "speaks to the next America and reminds them of what's important, so that's political." Simmons also believes hip-hop is a very progressive community that believes in giving to others and uplifting people from poverty. These days, according to the hip-hop trailblazer, every hip-hop artist seems to be involved in philanthropy: "You can't name the politicians who have charities, they're on one hand, you can name them. But every rapper has a charity."

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