October 27, 2011

Dear Sis~

No sooner had I written and sent in my my last blog bemoaning the mainstream media's failure to adequately cover the Occupy Wall Street movement when suddenly it was on every TV channel and front page news in the written media.  These folks have very legitimate grievances; they see (and live) the handwriting on the wall re the direction democracy, and unconstrained capitalism, is headed in this country, but they are easily dismissed by the status quo due to their muddled messages, their lack of a single voice and their inability to translate their anger into a unifying political platform.  The gaggle of clowns vying for the Republican presidential nomination tow the Wall Street party line and disparage these protestors as "a dangerous mob" or as "jealous malcontents" but these people are the warp and woof of our society: teachers, firefighters, construction workers, students, the great middle class who have been squeezed until it hurts, while the wealthiest few have been growing ever richer.  There's no shortage of telling statistics re the economic inequality that now defines our society, but here's one you can chew on:  the wealthiest 400 people/families in America are worth more than the bottom 150 million citizens...
I can't recall if, in my last entry, I told you that Governor Scott signed his second death warrant (just 12 days after Manny's execution), scheduling a Nov 15th execution date for Oba Chandler.  I don't know Chandler personally but I know his case and it's an ugly one, involving the brutal murder of a woman and her two daughters down in the Tampa/St Petersburg area.  It was a very high profile case at the time, and our current attorney general, Pam Bondi, was a law prosecutor down there back then.  I'm sure she has very vivid memories of that horrible case and so it did not surprise me that Chandler's name got pulled out of the hat considering that Pam Bondi is now the person responsible for providing Gov Scott with the name(s) of D/R guys who are ready (in her opinion) to be executed.  Chandler's is the type of viscerally emotional case that gives even the most ardent abolitionist pause.  Anyway, what concerns me is that Gov Scott signed his second death warrant less than  2 weeks after the previous execution.  What I'm wondering is whether Scott plans to emulate Texas' assembly line approach to capital punishment.  We will soon find out, huh?  

Love & Peace,

Bill