Ed. Note: This post is by @BlackCanseco, a twitter friend. Follow him, please.

Dear Occupy Wall Street,

For 45 days and counting most of you have braved weather, media scrutiny, and lately, police opposition to boldly proclaim yourselves “The 99%” and stand up to the 1%. Just one problem: You are not the 99%. Not even close. You don’t speak for the masses of America.

As part of America’s 99%, allow me to explain:

According to the US Census Bureau, as of November 1, 2011 there are an estimated 312, 540,000 people in America.

Now given the perceived bias of corporate media and other forces possibly at play towards OWS, let’s go only by #OWS numbers for discussion. Based on info and estimates directly from #OWS participants that I’ve regularly spoken with from #OWS encampments in LA, Oakland, NYC, Chi, ATL, there are, at best, about 5,000 participants at any given time at any given #OWS encampment. But also for discussion’s sake, let’s assume that even these first-person anecdotal estimates are low—by half; let’s say that there’s actually about 10,000 OWS folk encamped/publically protesting in each of our 50 states. Or better yet, let’s again double the estimate and assume there’s 20,000 people in each state marching, sitting, camping out in the name of all movements, “Occupy”.

So 20,000 folk x 50 states is roughly 1 million people. That’s 1 million out of America’s population of 312 million-plus citizens. Folks, that’s not 99%. That’s not 9%. That’s not even 0.9%. In fact, 1 million out of 312 million is exactly .0032% of America’s current population as of this November. So yea… Zero Point Zero Zero Three Two… Percent. That’s what Occupy Wall Street really comes down to: Thirty-two thousands of a single percent of American people. But then again, “We’re the 32thousandthsOfAPercent!” doesn’t look as good as a URL or twitter handle. Definitely doesn’t look as sexy as “99%” does on a t-shirt, either.

In contrast, Apple just sold 4 million units of the iPhone 4S in its first week of release. Adele has sold over 2 million copies of “21,” her latest album so far. “The Mentalist”—a CBS show no one I know has ever watched and I’ve barely heard of and isn’t even in the Top Ten pulled over 12 million viewers for its most recent episode alone. Justin Bieber has 14 million followers on Twitter. Justin Effing Bieber has 140 times as many followers as @OccupyWallSt—the biggest official account dedicated to Occupy Wall Street (roughly 100K followers as of this writing). Hell, I’d be more accurate numbers-wise in calling American Idol’s voting base ‘The 99%’ than conceding that title to the #OWS movement.

Now to be fair, maybe my math is faulty. Maybe Occupy Wall Street’s participant numbers are bigger than anything I’ve seen online, bigger than anything being reported by the co-opted press, and bigger than anything I’ve seen live. But even if you doubled the most generous of accepted calculations a couple more times, one thing’s empirically certain:

A good 99% of the country isn’t out occupying anything beyond their own daily lives. And one big reason for that is OWS hasn’t engaged the actual 99% much at all.

There are 311 million people out here. WE are the real 99% and OWS has largely ignored us in favor of coalescing with each other and yelling at three comparably smaller albeit exponentially more influential groups—i.e. the Obama Admin (roughly 100 members deep) & The US Congress (about 538 deep) and “Wall Street” (a few thousand folks at best) about how you’ve finally had enough of all of them. It’s like the old 300 movie—a few noble souls vs. the savage gluttonous hordes backed by their foul masters. But lest we forget: The Spartans didn’t actually win it themselves. In fact—all other historical conflations aside—it wasn’t until an additional army of reinforcements joined the fight that the Spartans won.

So instead of camping outside of office buildings—where OWS’ presence has not altered, delayed or impeded one single business transaction—why not focus on the actual 99% out here? Why not hit up neighborhoods, churches, schools, townhalls, etc. and physically recruit the average American? Why not knock on your neighbor’s door and ask them to join OWS; and when they say “why?” make your case.

You’ll find that many of us agree with OWS. We want corruption out of politics. We want to feel like we’ve got a fair chance at a good job, a good living and a home. We want affordable healthcare along with an affordable comprehensive education. We want all these things and more. But most of us simply don’t know enough specifically what Occupy Wall Street is all about and want to learn more before we act. And of course some of us don’t support OWS and won’t no matter what you say or do.

But again OWS needs to make the case to us of how taking to the streets, camping in parks and out of random businesses that don’t have traditional retail models that would be threatened by mass demonstration will actually help accomplish anything?

Explain to those of us with jobs, who could get fired for participating in an Occupy Wall Street encampment why we should risk our livelihoods for OWS in its current incarnation.

Convince us.

And please: Don’t fall back on attacking those of us who aren’t cheerleading OWS movement or packing up our sleeping bags and drums. Stop accusing us of being conservative plants, TeaParty sympathizers, delusional Obamabots or too scared-lazy-to-act. Don’t play the George W. Bush trope of “You’re either with us or you’re against us”. Instead, see us for the intelligent, reasoned, equally human, and equally deserving citizens that you see yourselves as and make your case for gaining our support.

Personally, I just want some answers worthy of action. And again, OWS: at this point you are exponentially less than 1% of the US population. You need our support. But if you don’t value us enough to speak to us and engage us, then you are not us and will never be us. WE are the 99%. Not you, but US. So while you, the .0032% are claiming us, know that you don’t own us anymore that the 1% does.

So OWS, come talk to us. We, the 99%, are waiting.

This started on Twitter as a discussion¹ between @rootless_e and myself over this post. Then this one by Mike Lux went up a few minutes ago. Rootless observed that the first post was not complete in how the scenario plays out. The second post leaves room to wonder.

DesertBeacon wrote on this a few days ago in the context of financialization, and how it’s stifling the economy, simply because we’re shifting from a market economy to a financial economy.

Perhaps now the average American victim of the credit meltdown, whose tax dollars were used to guarantee the solvency of the American bankers, are tired of being scapegoats?  Members of the financial sector, whose avarice engendered the over-heated housing bubble, cry “Irresponsible Borrowers, Mortgage Twins, Community Reinvestment Act” in a manner analogous to the practice of putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and repeating “La, La, La, La I Can’t Hear You.”  {stage directions: “door slams, sound of car leaving driveway}

“Mother said you were shiftless.”  There’s nothing a disreputable person loves more than to remain unsupervised.   Likewise, there is nothing an ethically challenged group loves more than deregulation.   Why else would banks revise their charters to place themselves under the eyes of those government agencies most willing to look the other way?  [DB] [NRP] [TBS] And yet the banking corporations and their supporters continue to prescribe deregulation as the way to protect American taxpayers, account holders, and consumers.

Before Congressional investigators the Wall Street barons proclaimed their patriotism and devotion to American “ethics and values,” back in their corporate offices they reinforced the notion that any “market” was ethical as long as there were two willing partners to the transaction — even if one was being sold a pig in a poke — even if the investment bank was betting against its own deal. [Bloomberg] [NYT]   Brooksley Born, former head of the CFTC tried to warn us about the deregulation of credit default swaps before most people had even heard the term, she was rewarded for her prescience by being replaced, and later labeled a Cassandra. [WaPo] [PBS] {stage directions:  two adversaries sit in tense silence across the room…}

“How can you keep running up these bills?”  Corollary to ” You promised you’d stop…“  If we were thinking that the popularity of credit default swaps might have declined in the wake of the housing bubble collapse, consider their use as European economies struggle.  [Bloomberg] As for the infamous CDO’s — some settlements have been agreed upon, but Morgan Stanley was exonerated from charges of defrauding a government pension fund (Libertas Case) because the offerers, not Morgan Stanley, prepared the statements. [Reuters] {stage directions: A throws pile of paperwork at B}

“You expect everyone else to clean up your messes.”  One such mess is “financialism.”

“Over the last 25 years American capitalism has become financialism, which is primarily transactional, unrestrained greed. Financialism embraces the view that the only purpose of business is to create shareholder value, measured primarily by short-term results. The dominance of short-termism is evidenced by the magnitude of institutional stock “renting” for terms of 12 months or less, the volume of high-speed, high-frequency algorithmic short-term trading, the short average tenures of chief executive officers and the dominance of executive compensation tied solely to short-term results.”  [Forbes]

And, this is a truly large mess, something Adam Smith never contemplated. Financialism distorts capitalism and creates middle class income stagnation, income disparity, off shoring jobs, diminished manufacturing capability, and equity market volatility.   It is the financial equivalent of being “excused” for leaving dirty clothing, empty pizza boxes, half-empty pop cans, and dirty tableware scattered about because “I’m busy.”  It is to trade short term profitability for long term stability.   If it’s messy, so be it, the “taxpayers” will clean up after us.   {stage directions: clothing, pizza boxes, pop cans hurled against wall to make a pile on the floor}

Rootless contends that by shifting the toxic securities into a FDIC-insured entity, the FDIC can simply shed them (toss in the trash) without harming taxpayers.

Here are my questions:

1. Who are the depositors in this FDIC-insured institution? In other words, whose deposits are being insured?
2. Is there a moral hazard issue here inasmuch as BofA was able to shift those liabilities off their books without penalty, enabling them to declare a $6 billion profit for the third quarter?
3. How does any financial institution accrue risk of $75 trillion in imaginary money without some penalty?

For background on financialization, I recommend these posts and their contained links:
Oh, Brother Can You Spare A CDS? Financialism Erodes Free Market Capitalism

For The Love Of Money: Financialists vs. Capitalism

Hopefully some answers will emerge in the comments. Feel free to discuss. I’ll be there.

Also, this discussion of the term “notional” is a critical one to understand the underlying issues.

¹ Chirpstory of our discussion:

3:15PM: In 45 minutes, plus one, Troy Davis will have received a lethal injection of a drug meant for dogs. This will happen because the state of Georgia refuses to acknowledge there may have been a mistake.

I think back on my own experience. Would anything have changed if that man were gassed? If John Philip Hendrix had lived only as long as it took for his appeals to be exhausted?

Nothing will change. I write this:

The family will not know peace at 7:01 PM. Only the same grief they already carry.

I know this. That grief never ebbs. You’d think 40 years later it would be an afterthought, and yet, every single time I’m confronted with another one of these moments where we’re told there will be “closure” after the killer is dead, I know there is no closure.

What is closure, anyway? A forgetting? A bloodletting? A moment where, in a collective rush of bloodlust we become what we condemn? Is that closure?

3:52PM: I clean the dishwasher, feed the dog. I wonder how it can possibly be that I am doing these things while, in another part of the country that I belong to, that I pledge allegiance to, they are preparing a man who we do not know, and who may be innocent, to die.

How must it feel to prepare for one’s death at a specific time of day? At the specified moment, no heart attack striking or cancer sucking the life out of a person, but someone looking down from a bench and specifying the time and manner of their death? How do you prepare for that?

The world watches. Troy Davis has become a cause not only here in the United States, but around the world. Rome, Italy. Paris, France.

A last minute appeal to the US Supreme Court for a stay has been filed. We wait, willing word to come that will stop this from becoming real. I make coffee, deliberately, carefully. It’s something to do, something that sets a measure in the middle of the surreal, says yes, you’re here, you’re human.

I pray. If I could issue that stay myself I would but I can’t so I pray it into being.

It is 3:59pm. No word anywhere that I can see. Silent television, silent networks, silent night.

Less than sixty seconds. How does that happen?

4:00PM. My stomach is in knots, coffee cooling next to my fingers. If I type, I can write this differently, I can make a different outcome, I can know that at 4:01 Troy Davis will not be dead.

Nothing will close. Nothing will change. But a little bit of our collective souls escape.

4:02PM. It is likely done. My daughter comes in, with the beautiful get-well card she’s made for my mother, who is recovering from a fall.

Life goes on. She wants ice cream. I want Troy Davis to be alive. We both want. Neither of us will get what we want, I think, but we should be talking about ice cream and not about killing people. We should be talking about life, and light. Not death and murder.

4:06PM. Just received word the Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for Troy Davis. execution has been delayed pending a decision on the appeal by the Supreme Court. There may be hope for us.

4:16PM. Unclear as to what is happening. All we know is he is not dead. Yet. Email is going crazy but no one knows anything more than that. He is not dead. Yet.

4:24PM. Still no word, but this from Melissa Harris-Perry:

Please. Please let there be another way. Please let us be a better people. Please.

Yes. Please let us be a better people. Let us not kill someone on the word of witnesses who recanted and others with a self-interest in someone else being the guy who shot Mr. MacPhail. Please. Let us be a better people. A better country. One where we don’t celebrate our government injecting drugs intended to euthanize animals into another person.

Please.

4:41PM. Word is that there is a delay in the execution while the Supreme Court reviews the appeal petition. It could be minutes or hours. If the Supreme Court chooses not to issue a stay, then the execution will go forward.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Brewer was executed at 7:21pm in Texas. There was no question as to his guilt. He was a white supremacist who dragged a black man to his death, chained behind his pickup truck. It was an egregious crime. It doesn’t matter. Guilt isn’t the issue. Killing him will not change what he did. Killing him only compounds it.

The victim’s name was James Byrd, Jr. His family did not want him to be executed.

James Byrd’s family has asked that Brewer’s life be spared.

“You can’t fight murder with murder,” Ross Byrd, 32, the victim’s son told Reuters on Tuesday. “Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can’t hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn’t what we want.”

The state doesn’t take anything in mind that isn’t what the state wants, Mr. Byrd. But I admire your effort to spare Mr. Brewer’s life.

5:24 PM. DemocracyNow! has a live feed at the prison. Many, many sirens suddenly rise up from nowhere. Reporters say this is not a good sign. I agree. The family of the victim says the Supreme Court has told them they will have a decision by 8:30PM. I’m curious as to why they would be told such a thing.

Victims aren’t the issue here. I know politicians want you to think they are but they’re not. We’re not. The issue is justice. The issue is what we’re willing to do as a collective people for revenge.

The cause is as simple as the bumper sticker I used to see as a kid: Why do we kill people who kill people to prove that it’s wrong to kill people? Well, little kid. We do it because we have a really twisted, perverse idea about morality and humanity. And because it means we can take aim at minorities as often as possible.

Well, why do we?

5:30PM Still no news. Reading the comments on my Crooks and Liars post about Davis and wondering why it is some of the commenters assume this is a partisan issue? It’s not partisan. It’s a moral issue. As for me, I’m completely comfortable with the idea of forgiveness as a liberating act. Revenge, not so much.

I’m actually afraid to read the open thread comments right now over there, not because of the differing opinions, but because I may not have the emotional well to handle them. But I look. Only two comments. I imagine most folks are either watching news or unaware. How can we be unaware? Shouldn’t this be a very big huge thing, this idea of killing someone to avenge the blood of the dead?

This is why they cheer at debates for executions, I suppose. They just don’t pay attention enough to actually consider what it means to do such a thing.

5:50PM. Whatever the outcome, the police presence is frightening. There is a peaceful crowd gathered in protest, praying for Justice Thomas to issue a stay. There are many police officers on the scene as a pre-emptive act of aggression toward a peaceful crowd. It’s incredible intimidation on the part of Georgia law enforcement. (Video)

6:15PM. DemocracyNow! reporter Amy Goodman is interviewing Amnesty International official, who calls this “grotesque, obscene.” That it is. They mention the whole rigamarole around it, the last meal, the physical exam to make sure the prisoner is healthy enough to be killed, the suicide watch so the prisoner won’t kill himself before the state kills him, the menu, topped off with the cocktail of lethal drugs, Ativan optional.

Grotesque? Obscene? Yes. All of that. How about inhuman?

6:30PM. They’re reporting that Troy Davis is still in the execution chamber, witnesses still present. Maybe strapped to the gurney, maybe not.

Are you imagining this? Being a man condemned to die, poked, prodded and pronounced fit to be executed, and at 7:01pm, you’re still alive, still strapped on a gurney waiting for that pinprick to affirm that this will be your last moment on earth.

Time passes. No one knows the outcome, least of all the man strapped to the gurney.

Obscene? Yes. Ghoulish and…I don’t know. Words fail me.

7:20PM. Supreme Court will not block Troy Davis’ execution. Just in. He lives 3 hours longer than we thought. But no longer.

The crowd outside is heartbroken and grieving. As am I. As should we all be.

I will change the headline when it has been done.

7:25PM. Amy Goodman reads the specifics of how Troy Davis will be executed. The Supreme Court decision was unanimous. The crowd is singing.

The spirit of the people out here is the only thing that is worth telling you. The only thing. The rest of it, the procedure, the incredible rituals surrounding the state-sanctioned killing of a man, that’s not worth telling you, unless it will convince you that this is not the act of a civilized society.

7:30PM. Troy Davis has left us a message. Here is part of it:

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

8:07pm Word is the execution will begin at 8:08PM — 11:08 EDT. Soon, Troy Davis will be dead.

They will not succeed in killing my resolve to speak against capital punishment and this incredibly barbaric, cruel, and yes, racist treatment.

To the family of Officer MacPhail, I offer my prayers for peace. You will not find it in this act, but you may find it when you find it in your heart to forgive whoever killed him, and let go. Closure will not be tonight, or tomorrow. But you may find peace.

To the rest of us, this verse from Jeremiah:

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.

Nor will there be, until we have done away with this horrible, awful charade some call justice.

Rest in peace, Troy Davis. The truth shall set you free.

I want to tell you a story. It isn’t about Troy Davis, but it is about Troy Davis. It is about murder, loss, vengeance, and victims. It is about how our justice system treats defendants of color and about how our justice system does not necessarily deliver justice. It is my plea to you as a family member of a murder victim not to become what you loathe.

On May 29, 1971, Charles Hayes got up, got dressed, brushed his teeth and kissed his wife goodbye. It was their 40th wedding anniversary that day, but he had a full day of work as a Southern Pacific railroad clerk in South Central LA to put in before they could celebrate that night.

At 5:45 that evening, my grandmother called, hysterical. My grandfather, Charles Hayes, had not returned from work at 5:00 as he had every Saturday for 40 years. Something was wrong. I was 12 years old at the time. I handed the phone off to my parents, who suggested calling the police. You had to understand this about Charles — he was as reliable as the sunrise and sunset. He was a creature of habit, of routine. The only reason he would possibly have not been home on their 40th wedding anniversary was because something had happened, though we fiercely hoped it hadn’t.

I was the only one of us to remember the license plate of his car. I remember it like it happened yesterday. The police were skeptical that a twerp kid would have a clue as to the license, but I still remember it. 204KAH. A brown Chevy Impala, the car he always wanted. Enough room for passengers, but lots of muscle, too.

On June 1, 1971, the car was found several blocks away from where he worked, and so was he, or at least his body. Shot twice through the neck on one side and then the other, life drained away in the spare tire well of the trunk of his car.

The world stopped for awhile. Nothing seemed especially right, but we spent a long time pretending it was anyway. We still moved through the days, pretended like it wasn’t really as awful as it was and tried to manage my grandmother, who quite nearly lost her mind over it. There were days where I hated that unknown person who had taken a gun and put it point-blank to my grandfather’s neck. The same man who had shown me how to hit a baseball and mow a lawn. The same man who could dance his way across a floor like he was still 20 and who had such a gentle laugh you had to lean in to hear it.

They did arrest a man. They arrested him while he was in the process of kidnaping a woman and shooting her boyfriend. Ultimately they pinned three murders on him. The judge in the case railed against the jury for sentencing him to life in prison instead of the death penalty in January, 1972. The LA Times article I found 20 years later said the judge called his case “one of the most brutal, one of the most vicious cases ever to come to [his] attention. If ever there was a reason to justify capital punishment, this is the one.”

Perhaps that judge was right, but the same jury who had convicted Hendrix of three premeditated, cold-blooded murders felt otherwise. There was something there, some reason which I will not ever know, that caused them to choose life over death.

Over time, we got on with life, graduated from high school, went to college, had careers, but I was always haunted by the question of why. Detectives assured my parents that John Philip Hendrix was, indeed, the man who pulled that trigger twice. Case closed. Closure. If you think closure means accepting something without evidence, then yes. I suppose it was closure. Except it wasn’t.

20 years later, I did my best to track down the police records on the case, only to discover they had been destroyed. I went to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and begged them to pull the court records. Internet friends reached out to their contacts there, too, but as it turns out, the files were destroyed — court, police and evidence records. All gone. Since there was no direct linkage on the record from Hendrix to Hayes, my grandfather’s case was closed but not solved. Closed for them, but not for me. Not by a long shot. How could it be closed on the word of police who weren’t even part of the investigation or trial?

Here is what remained: Nothing. No direct physical evidence. The little information I was able to get confirmed this much: No match between the gun and the wounds. No fingerprints. Nothing that said Hendrix pulled that trigger. Nothing. No relationship between his victims whatsoever, either physical or otherwise. Different locations, different cities, different ages, different ethnicities. Nothing in common. Zero.

Here’s what Hendrix had that led the police to believe he was the shooter: He was black, he was arrested while committing a violent crime, and he had petty crimes in his background. He was 35 at the time of these crimes, but had no adult record prior to picking up a gun in May, 1971 and offing 3 people (according to police). This is their argument, and they seemed to have at least enough evidence to prove to a jury that Hendrix did kill three people, just not that he killed three others who were lumped together as victims by the police despite having even one common tie.

I don’t believe them. I don’t have enough evidence to believe them. I don’t have enough evidence to believe that this man, who had not committed any crimes since he was a juvenile, who was employed, got up one morning and decided to start shooting people, execution-style, for wallets with a five-dollar bill in them, if that. I don’t have enough evidence to logically connect unconnected crimes to the one that changed me in ways I’m still learning to understand.

John Philip Hendrix has evidently died a natural death in prison sometime between when I first looked into the details of this case back in the early 90s and now. He is erased from the California prison rolls as clearly as if he never existed. Were it not for those who remain with a memory, he would just be another dead prisoner. He might as well have not existed. This is good.

But he did. He did exist, he served his life out in Vacaville and died. No one put a gun to his head. No one suffocated him. No one made the decision that they had authority over when he should die. He just died. Naturally, in his time, and the people of this state were spared the burden of murdering someone they condemned for murder.

If I have these doubts, these deep doubts that I was told the truth, that the police told me everything, that the police even tried to find out who might have done this, that the police even tried to get physical evidence, then the very last thing on earth I would want is to know I lived in the state that strapped him to a table and suffocated him with lethal gas.

I would be the murderer I loathe. I would be the person who decided I had the right to rob another human of their life.

There is no “good murder”. There is only murder.

There is no “justified murder”. There is only murder.

And if the state of Georgia allows an agent of the state to pick up a vial of poison, put it in a syringe and inject it into Troy Davis on September 21st, the people of that state will become what we loathe. Murderers.

They will have murdered someone as sure as if they’d put a gun to his neck and shot him, through and through.

They will have robbed the family of that slain officer to ever learn the truth instead of the story they were told.

They will have the same blood on their hands as the person who did murder him.

We, the family members of beloveds lost because someone decided their lives were worthless, will be victims yet again.

Executing Troy Davis is not justice. It is murder.

The way back rests in clemency, in admitting mistakes. Will Georgia listen? To those readers who made it this far, thank you for listening. And sharing.

[Note: The Amnesty International petition for Troy Davis is here. Please sign it, and share it with as many as you can. It matters, not only to Troy Davis but to all of us, who should not cheer the death of a likely-innocent man.]

crossposted to Crooks and Liars

Here’s a fact set for your consideration. Two middle school boys. One a foot taller than the other. Both have difficult backgrounds. One is struggling with his sexuality and working it out publicly, which makes others around him uncomfortable. The one struggling with his sexuality has been bullied in his past for his appearance and sexual orientation. The other one is about a foot taller, and has been raised by a homophobic, abusive, alcoholic father.

It is possible, but seems to be unproven, that the taller one is also experimenting with involvement in white supremacy groups, but whether that is true or not seems to be at issue.

Here is what isn’t in dispute: Brandon McInerney took his father’s Saturday Night Special from wherever it was stashed in the house. He loaded it with hollow-point bullets. He put it in his backpack and went to school. The day before he put the gun in his backpack he said he was going to bring his gun to school. When he got to school, he went to the computer lab, pulled out the gun, and shot Larry King in the back of the head.

That is not in dispute. All sides agree.

You would think, with that fact set, a jury could come to a verdict. And yet, they didn’t. Today the judge declared a mistrial after the jury deliberated 15 hours because 7 jurors wanted to convict him on voluntary manslaughter and 5 wanted to convict him of 1st or 2nd degree murder.

What’s even weirder? Suddenly all the usual law-and-order conservatives have turned into merciful Pollyannas, including the Ventura County Star itself, whose reporting mirrored their editorial belief that McInerney should have been tried as a juvenile and not an adult, and the hate crime charge should not have been part of the trial.

I’m not sure what you call it if it’s not a hate crime, to be honest. Despite the defense team’s best efforts to paint it as a “gay panic” defense, it really came down to one kid taunting another with his sexual orientation. If he were not dead from bullets that exploded his head like a watermelon, perhaps we could debate the wisdom of allowing the types of interactions between the two that happened.

But he is dead. He is dead after a classmate shot him in front of all of the other classmates and the teacher. He is dead and he is gone and Brandon McInerney is very much alive and in jail and on trial.

McInerney breathes. King doesn’t. And still, there is this weird, strange, counterintuitive vibe here in Ventura County about how McInerney is as much a victim as King. I can only attribute it to the usual homophobic tendencies of many in this area.

The sly implication is that King had it coming. That the victim, the one cold in his grave, deserved what he got because, well, he was gay. Or looked gay. Or acted gay. I’m not sure any of us really know whether he was or wasn’t.

And in more reversals, the conservative kings and queens of personal responsibility are whispering and crying that McInerney was the victim of a school administrator and “lax attitudes.” As if stepping on Larry King would have prevented the whole thing. As if a kid who dared to be different, and perhaps in a way that offended or got in others’ space, deserved to have hollow point bullets put in his head.

As if being gay were a reason to be dead.

James Gilliam directs the Seth Walsh Students’ Rights Project. Here’s what he has to say about the defense that ultimately succeeded enough to hang the jury.

A toxic and dangerous environment has festered for years in California schools, where any student perceived as having a different sexual orientation or gender orientation — or simply perceived as different — can be teased and abused, often with impunity.

But bullies don’t exist in a vacuum — they’re acting on messaging they learn from parents, from churches, even from educators themselves that LGBT people are somehow less than equal. It’s a message expected to be reinforced in the Chatsworth courtroom as McInerney’s attorneys assert that he was driven to temporary insanity following unbearable and humiliating sexual harassment on the part of King; that revulsion and violence are the natural responses to homosexual behavior.

And also that anyone who may not fit someone else’s idea of how a member of a certain gender should behave perhaps brings that hostility on him or herself.

About that messaging thing: Here is my open letter to “SaveOurKids.net”, a LaHaye production. That followed my discovery that petitions to put Proposition 8 on the ballot were in church lobbies everywhere. Messaging, indeed.

Words matter, but apparently guns matter more. And even more apparently, the prosecution in this case couldn’t manage to muster enough passion or facts to get a verdict of murder for someone who indisputably pulled the trigger and unloaded into Larry King’s head.

If we’re honest with each other, would there be any doubt of a verdict if it had been South Central LA? Or a hispanic defendant? Would there? No. They’d have been tried as an adult, tossed in jail and the key tossed.

But in this case, when it’s a couple of white kids and one has daddy’s gun, they can’t decide whether he actually meant to pull the trigger or not. Daddy may have been a mean sonofabitch with a temper and an attitude, but hey — Daddy wasn’t on trial here. Brandon was. And Brandon should have been held to account.

It defies logic.

My other posts on this case can be found here, here and here.

Crossposted to Crooks and Liars

Spend the time to watch the whole thing. Whatever you do, don’t turn to the pundits tell you what to think. Just let your instincts be your guide. To that end, I won’t opine, with one exception. This excerpt right here tells you whose side the man is on.

Now, what you’re going to hear, I suspect, is, well, if you — if the Senate is prepared to pass the cap, cut and balance bill, the Republican plan, then somehow we can solve this problem — that’s serious debt reduction. It turns out, actually, that the plan that Speaker Boehner and I were talking about was comparable in terms of deficit reduction. The difference was that we didn’t put all the burden on the people who are least able to protect themselves, who don’t have lobbyists in this town, who don’t have lawyers working on the tax code for them — working stiffs out there, ordinary folks who are struggling every day. And they know they’re getting a raw deal, and they’re mad at everybody about it. They’re mad at Democrats and they’re mad at Republicans, because they know somehow, no matter how hard they work, they don’t seem to be able to keep up. And what they’re looking for is somebody who’s willing to look out for them. That’s all they’re looking for.

And for us not to be keeping those folks in mind every single day when we’re up here, for us to be more worried about what some funder says, or some talk radio show host says, or what some columnist says, or what pledge we signed back when we were trying to run, or worrying about having a primary fight — for us to be thinking in those terms instead of thinking about those folks is inexcusable.

I mean, the American people are just desperate for folks who are willing to put aside politics just for a minute and try to get some stuff done.

If you feel that you must get a second opinion, I recommend this one.

Also, Republican Leader Norquist has now given his minions permission to allow the debt ceiling to be raised. In the words of our President, I would welcome that debate. Bring it.

The Fox fearmongers must feel pretty stupid after this performance by Common. After wringing hands and worrying themselves over the idea of a “thug” (a thug poet, really?) in the White House, he delivered a wonderful performance. So why the fear? Perhaps it was because he had something to say that they just didn’t want to hear. 

Full text, with thanks to Global Grind:

“I woke up with the sunshine. A sunshine I had never seen. There was light at the end of it. Reminded me to forever dream. I was dreaming I walked into the White House. With love on my sleeve. And love for each and every one of you. Reminding you to believe. These are the words of a believer achiever. Leader of the globe, feed the souls of those in need.  I bleed the blood of the struggle. Walking over troubled puddles. The hustle is in my chest. No hustle no progress. Extremities of life in this process. The birth of a son. The death of another. With love I caress both mothers. And told ‘em whose in control is the one that’s above is. I walk where money talks and love stutters. The body language of a nation. Going though changes. The young become dangerous. Spent into anger. Anger gets sent through the chamber. It’s tough when your own look like strangers. We are the sons of gangsters and stone rangers. If he could how would Ernie Barnes paint us? Look at the picture. It’s hard not to blame us. But time forgives in the shy where the young die often. Do they end up in a coffin because we haven’t taught them? Is it what we talkin’, we really ain’t walking. Dudes, hustlers, paid. How much did it cost them? I find myself on the same corner that we lost them. Real talkin’ in their ear like a walkman. My thoughts been around the corner to the world. So when I see them I see my baby girl. The Lord lives among us. The youngest hunger, recover. Means to get it by anyways necessary under pressure. Children feeling lesser with the spill upon the dresser. Killer, willer aggressors. Destiny’s children, survivors, soldiers.  In front of buildings their eyes look older. It’s hard to see blessings in a violent culture. Face against rappings. Sirens holsters – that ‘aint the way that Langston Hughes wrote us. So controllers on the shoulders of Moses. And Noah. We go from being precious to Oprah. Cultivated to overcome. Ever since we came over. Seize the day in the way that you can see the determined. The soul that keeps burning. Shorty’s know to keep learning. Lessons in my life are like stripes that we earning.  I took Grant’s advice that Christ is returning. Like a thief in the night. I write for beacons of light. For those of us in dark alleys and park valleys. Street hits spark valleys of the conscience. Conquerors of a contest . Even the unseen know that God watches. For one King’s dream he was able to Barack us. One King’s dream he was able to Barack us. One King’s dream he was able to Barack us.”

Only for him, it was Alabama to Florida to the comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (an instant classic), all following giving the order to carry out the Bin Laden raid.

If a picture is worth 1000 words or so, imagine what is not being said in this one, or what you do not see, which is the real-time video feed they are watching of the operation as it takes place. It’s hard to tell who gives away the tension first. Hillary Clinton with what appears to be shock and dread, or the President, whose intense stare makes you wonder if he wishes he was carrying it out right alongside them.

I would like to introduce you to the “other” Bradley Manning. Actually, his name is Kenneth Bradley Manning, and he has one helluva mugshot.

Kenneth Bradley Manning was arrested in April, 2010 when he left the scene of a stabbing. A high speed chase ensued which resulted in deputies chasing him down and arresting him after he crashed a stolen car. He didn’t look real good when they took his picture.

Now why do I care that you know about this guy, Kenneth Bradley Manning? Because there’s a bunch of blogs out there using this mugshot and calling it a picture of Private Bradley Manning who is being detained for allegedly turning over classified information to Wikileaks. Here are just a few that I found, and I’ve kept screenshots just in case they decide to pull down the photos without any explanation or retraction.

• Anorak News » Bradley Manning Is Stripped At Night And Made To Stand Naked By His Cell: Tortured For His Own Good
• David Icke.com » Bradley Manning now ‘catatonic’; Obama ENOUGH
• Tony Greenstein’s blog: The Torture of Bradley Manning
• ToBeFree: jeff’s freedom pages
• Hivster.com
• ThanksALotObama.com – Ralph Lopez, author
• Gizmosland.com – with Giant Size pictures, even

Please understand. This is not a post opining about Pvt. Bradley Manning’s treatment, his detention, or anyone else’s opinion of his treatment or detention. But if you’re going to get outraged and shake your fists over it, at least do it with facts instead of taking a mugshot of a dude who clearly is NOT Private Bradley Manning and trying to say it’s an “After” photo of him. Before anyone tries to slam me with the lame excuse that posting a photo of the “other Bradley Manning” in a post about Private Bradley Manning doesn’t mean they’re presenting it as a ‘before or after’ photo, I offer this evidence, which is how these photos appear on one of the posts listed above:

I understand that Manning’s detention is a flashpoint among the left. But that anger is now being exploited to pimp New Age bullshit conspiracy theories and other agendas, and this dishonest presentation of “Bradley Manning, Before and After” does nothing but harm their case. It is not any different than James O’Keefe editing a video to leave out key phrases in order to make an NPR executive look bad, or to take down ACORN. Bad enough when the right uses this tactic, but worse when the left uses and falls for it.

Love that the farmers are out in their tractors. Lots of pics and videos on my Chirpstory collection.