May 09, 2007
Goodness How Time Goes Flush
It seemed like a good idea to start this little blog, keeping track of all my articles in one handy index, but then something like life got a hold of me, and really it's enough work to get the things written and posted the first time, much less be my own librarian. So this is officially an abandoned project, in case you couldn't tell. Still, I kinda like the collection. A summer of free diving . . . Please enjoy.
Posted by gregmoses at 03:11 AM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2005
Rocha's Friends Respond to No-Bill of Cop who Killed him
Sarah and Roxanne knew Daniel Rocha in high school, so at the press conference called by Poder, LULAC, and the ACLU, they shared a sign protesting the grand jury's decision to issue no indictments against the police officer who killed him. Both Sarah and Roxanne say the same thing about the situation: "Daniel was a small guy."
"Daniel was pretty cool," says Roxanne. "I had a dance class with his girlfriend, so he was always at the door waiting for her. He always had a smile on his face. He was always making everyone laugh. He would tell a lot of jokes."
Rocha's Friends Respond to No-Bill of Cop who Killed him, Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 01:25 PM | Comments (983)
The Rocha Files: A Tragic Collection
Schroeder's claim that Rocha was doing something more than trying to get away from her boss seems incredible when compared to her boss' statement that he was hanging onto Rocha's foot. So there is no question that Daniel Rocha was playing with fire in his gangsta attitude, but there is also an expectation that cops are trained to deal with such cases in ways that do not escalate into on-the-spot executions. I think that's why they are called peace officers.
To kids, especially teenage males, we have to suggest better things, but then again, we have to be pretty careful that we not pretend to have offered Daniel a well-chosen world to work with. When I think of the comment that he had a slight learning disability, then I can see how he was following the wrong crowd, he just wasn't so quick as the one who first jumped the fence. A slight learning disability is all it would take for that moment of hesitation, then that moment of tragic motivation to follow his friend over the fence.
The Rocha Files: A Tragic Collection, Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 01:15 PM | Comments (1285)
Raw Talk Revival at Camp Casey Two
I don't know how America got to be so juvenile since then, but there was a time when a Southern boy with one glass eye could go to West Point, get a good job in the Army, retire as a Colonel, dedicate his retirement to teaching, vote as a Lincoln Republican, and die in East Texas with a mind open enough to see that Marx is simply one of the best reads going. I mean, even if your only interest is quality writing, why would you not have some affection for good ol' Karl right next to (because it's never in) the best of Reader's Digest. Too bad grandpa died before I finally re-read Marx more thoroughly. We might have had a quite wonderful chat about that. In terms of pure writing, I'd have asked grandpa if he’d ever read Adorno.
From the very beginning of the post 9/11 debacle, socialists have been quite reliable opponents of the Bush juggernaut. They predicted more or less where this was all heading, and they hit the streets early hollering about it. Some of my best sources of news these past years have come from lists organized by socialists. Moms of dead or endangered soldiers might find out they have more in common with socialists than they would otherwise think. So I hope the parties work something out. In terms of world history, America is sadly missing out on the great secret that socialism is a mainstream movement, adopted by base commanders everywhere as the best way for officer's kids to be raised. Not to mention land grant universities such as my alma mater, Texas A&M.
The Listening Tent and the Raw Talk Revival at Camp Casey Two, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 01:09 PM | Comments (1140)
New Voices Rising at Camp Casey Two
Later Saturday, out at Camp Casey Two, Dominique stood with her mother under a white canopy, facing neatly-placed rows of white crosses that glowed under the light of a full moon. With the light of day nearly faded into navy blue, Dominique and Renee stood together as down the tiny country road walked a tall trim soldier, trumpet in hand. The soldier stopped in front of them, raised the horn to his lips and played taps. There was hardly a whisper among the 300 or so witnesses who stood under the crystal clear dusk sky.
And then, for Renee, suddenly, it all came back. "I mean you act as if it's gone, but it's just not." When she was seven years old, explains Renee, her father died at camp, away from home. "It never goes away." Into the clear night air, in answer to the silence of the prairie, Renee started singing. And her voice rang through the night like a trumpet.
"Let there be peace on earth!" To the gathered crowd, Renee's singing sounded like the next perfect thing. To Cathy Courtney of Houston, Renee's first line was immediately recognizable as a 1955 hymn by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson. So Cathy joined in. "And let it begin with me." Together they sang the next line: "Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be."
'Let it Begin with Me': New Voices Rising at Camp Casey Two, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 01:02 PM | Comments (1064)
A Daytrip without Cindy
Not having Cindy Sheehan in Crawford Friday turned out okay. Her absence didn't stop the media from crowding around a noon prayer vigil. And nobody I talked to was planning to cut short their stay on account of her absence. In fact, as usual, folks were sort of falling in love with the land and each other, wondering how many days more could they squeeze in.
Take the example of Katie Sterling of Fort Worth and her traveling companion Pam Humphrey of Burleson, Texas. In the sweltering afternoon heat across Cedar Rock Parkway from the Crawford Peace House, they were tending to a field of 40 cars parked in neat rows, talking with big smiles about last night's sleepover in the network of bar ditches that has become Camp Casey. "We planned to stay in Waco with relatives, but we couldn't leave, so we slept in a ditch and it was great!" And why couldn't they leave? Because they were having too much fun.
A Daytrip without Cindy, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:58 PM | Comments (1325)
Cindy, the Peace Train, and the Little Ditch that Could
Two months ago while exhausted from a Summer Soulstice peace festival, and while looking with dismay into a long hot summer of war, Louisiana attorney Buddy Spell, his spouse Annie, and their guest of honor Cindy Sheehan decided they needed to do something, but not something too high energy. So they browsed through the train schedule and designated an Amtrak Crescent as their Peace Train. Come September they'd board the train in New Orleans and put out word to folks along the way to hop on for a ride to the big peace march in Washington D.C. That would be enough to keep their peace hopes on track. Of course, that was then.
"We had about 60 people signed up before Cindy went to Crawford," says Buddy, "but that has tripled." With a pre-boarding rally in Covington, Louisiana the night before Cindy and friends depart, the little town of Covington may soon be feeling like next month's Crawford. And when the train hits Union Station, Buddy says 'old fart' activists will be greeted by the Campus Action Network, and wherever they go for the weekend, they will be marching 500 strong. And that's how you go in just a couple of months from a little ol' z-net zap to a global headliner by way of the little ditch that could.
Cindy, the Peace Train, and the Little Ditch that Could, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:50 PM | Comments (1046)
Mona in the Field of Crosses (at Camp Casey, Tx)
"Mona, is that your son?" I ask. She looks up, slightly startled, then, "Yes, that’s him." Standing up, she twirls the picture to show me the flip side, a photo of her three grandchildren. Two of them are from her son's family, one is from her daughter's, but she has made a group photo for her son to take with him, to give him hope, to encourage him to come back alive. Back to her work with the crosses, she says in a wavering voice, "I sure hope I don't have to put out one of these for him." And we both stand there crying. "Where are all the mothers," she asks, "that these crosses belong to?" A Korean reporter looks at us, and he is also frozen stiff by this grief. His pen hovers over his notebook, but what exactly is there to say?
"Ma'am, do you want me to help you put names on those crosses?" asks the gentle voice of a brand new volunteer who has just walked the line. Which helps to get us all moving again. Under the high sun, with cicadas and crickets buzzing from their invisible homes in the grass, Mona, with her hat brim pulled down, returns to her work among the field of crosses at Prairie Chapel Road.
Mona in the Field of Crosses, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:46 PM | Comments (1007)
Pilgrims of Protest: Aug. 11, 2005 (Part Three)
Penny strides into the front lawn of the Crawford Peace House talking about that time up in Racine five weeks before the alleged re-election when she stood along the street with firemen and everybody, and flipped the President the bird. "Thank you," is what Penny recalls the President saying to her. "God, what a weak man!"
Like Cindy Sheehan, Penny is motivated by the death of her son, but Penny's son was not killed in an overseas war. He lost his life to the politics of health care funding in Texas. "I'm only the Governor," is how Penny recalls Bush's response when she asked him to help restore a sudden cut in funding to the cancer research trial in Arlington, Texas that was doing good things for her son. "My son died because that treatment was delayed," says Penny. And that's one reason why she flipped the President the bird.
As for why she's standing here in Texas, 1163 miles from home, she says of herself and spouse Mike, who should be shuttled here any minute from the stadium parking lot: "We have no idea what we're doing. We’ve never done anything like this before. But it's time we became teenagers!"
Pilgrims of Protest, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:41 PM | Comments (2834)
Tomorrow's History Today: Camp Casey Up Close
Moving a little further down side A, or Morgan Road, I see hefty rolls of measuring tape being unpacked. I happen to know what this means, because last Friday morning I had been sipping coffee with a VFPer from Tacoma. He had helped to lay out an Arlington West display there, and he spoke of the exhaustive care they took to make sure the crosses were neatly placed so many feet apart to mimic the respectful military order of graves at the Arlington national cemetery near D.C. These huge rolls of tape are the first visual evidence of what will be done today, all day, as 1800 crosses get pounded into the ground around Camp Casey and tagged with the names of USA soldiers killed in Iraq. "We need to figure out a way to also honor the Iraqis killed in this war," said my Tacoma informant. "But how do we do that? Eighteen hundred crosses are difficult enough to deal with."
Tim Goodrich is spotting his perch for the day under the windbreak along Morgan Road. This morning he has changed into desert khakis so there will be no mistaking the fact that he is an Iraq Veteran Against the War. Later in the day with the sun scorching down on his neck, I see him studying the names on the crosses. As I think about the pictures I've seen of VietNam vets at the Memorial Wall in D.C., I certainly don't ask Tim Goodrich what's going through his bowed head.
Tomorrow's History Today, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:38 PM | Comments (902)
A Crawford Peace House Morning
As soon as the sky lightens up into the faintest shade of blue, I rummage the trunk for my toothbrush. Soon I'm back on the porch with my back to the front window, checking out a little animal carrier tucked underneath a chair. Out from the Peace House comes a man with a sign that he slides behind my back onto the window sill. "Expose the 9/11 Cover Up." I move down a chair so that the sign might be read by others.
Turns out the little animal carrier came in with the Louisiana delegation carrying a 9-week-old kitten named Smudge. Leaping into a sprawling Rosemary bush, Smudge looks up at me with eyes of great adventure. And someone is placing a huge cup of coffee under my nose. "Here, please hold this," says Cindy Sheehan before she scoops up Smudge kitty for a little face-to-face schmooze. And Sheehan introduces me to Smudge's mommy, Annie who in turn tells me that the kitten has been with the family for about a week. I try to imagine this whole world as a nine-week-old kitten would see it, as Smudge leaps and pounces in the freshness of the day.
A Crawford Peace House Morning, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:33 PM | Comments (1267)
How Building a Saudi City Made a Lefty of Dick Underhill
Back in the 60s you could say two things about Navy and Air Force veteran Dick Underhill: he liked to do the work that nobody else wanted to do, and he was a Goldwater Republican. Today as Underhill shuttles in and out of Crawford, Texas, running supplies and tending to lists of things to do in support of Cindy Sheehan, you could still say he likes to do the work that nobody else wants to do, but you couldn’t call him a Goldwater Republican anymore.
"You have heard about PTSD, haven't you?" asks Underhill in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon from his Austin home. "That's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Well, I have a name for something else that I call PASD. That's Post Awareness Stress Disorder. It's what happens to you when you've been raised all your life to believe the story that the slaveholders and merchant pirates who founded the USA were good people and that the government of the USA is the best in the world. When you find out that's not true at all, it does leave you under stress."
How Building a Saudi City Made a Lefy Out of Dick Underhill, Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:29 PM | Comments (1729)
August 09, 2005
Sheehan Draws Tears of Support
Later in the evening black suburbans started whizzing past. A stream of maybe 25, coming down the road, one after the other, about a minute apart, with government tags. Soon after that overhead came the presidential helicopter with a three helicopter escort, buzzing past the camp and over to the Western White House. But the impressive action was down in the ditch among the small band of resolute activists who have flung themselves together for this circle of courage and tears.
"It's very moving being out there," says Abbe. "I'm so glad I went." She's going to clear her schedule and go back soon. "I'm very emotional, very glad. If I could communicate to you what it's like to be there. If people could see it and experience it, well then number one..." But Abbe can't finish the sentence. "I can't finish the sentence, because I'm crying."
"Let me just say," says Abbe Waldman DeLozier through her tears, "that there would be millions out there.
Sheehan Draws Tears of Support Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 12:28 AM | Comments (1210)
August 07, 2005
A Day in the Bar Ditch of American Democracy
"You have to see that road," says Young. "There is no traffic on that road at all, yet they made us walk in the bar ditch beside the road, which was full of weeds. Real hard ground." After a while the cops stopped them. "They were looking for an excuse to stop us," says Young. "They said we were walking in the road against orders."
"We protested loud and proud," recalls Young. "And we meant everything we said. That went on for about 30-45 minutes. We even told the police to get out their history books and read about Hitler so they could understand their role in history, standing here protecting a war criminal. We were being brutally honest from our point of view. And there was lots of press there at the time."
"Cindy got right in their face, too," says Young. "She said look, this is a public roadway. How can you prevent me from walking on a public roadway?"
"At that point I got right behind her," says Young. "If she was going to jail, I was going to jail. If they wanted confrontation, I was going to back her up. I had made my mind up about that." But there was no confrontation, no arrest.
A Day in the Bar Ditch of Democracy USA Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 06:26 PM | Comments (1995)
August 06, 2005
Dining with the Posse
"If you've ever been in a war situation," says the vet, "imagine what it must be like to find out while it's still going on. That they lied. While you were into it." He looks at me directly, shakes his head slowly, and digs at some food on his plate. He's talking about the Downing Street memo, and he references AfterDowningStreet.Org.
"And as for Karl Rove," says the vet, "in boot camp they used the word traitor. Loose lips sink ships. He's just spitting in everyone's face." Rove, the so-called brain of the Bush regime, has been widely identified as the most likely source for the public 'outing' of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
"Saturday I'm going," says the vet again, talking about Sheehan's plan to confront the President at Crawford. "I'm going to follow her down there." And you can tell by the slight grin on his face that he's proud to have the opportunity. This is the 20th Annual convention of Veterans for Peace, and tonight this big, wide tent is a swirl of activists in motion.
Dining with the Posse (of Peace) Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 10:25 AM | Comments (2360)
Bush Teaches Intelligent Design in Prison
So if science class is not the place for intelligent design, what would be the place to teach it? I think the obvious answer is philosophy. And in a perfect world, philosophy would be universally taught for reasons that the President shared with the Texas press corps.
Also in a perfect world, George W. Bush will be spending decades in prison for his part in launching at least one cold-blooded and illegal war. So in the perfect world that Bush is helping to shape, why couldn't he teach intelligent design in prison, too? It will make a fine seminar for war criminals.
Bush Teaches Intelligent Design in Prison Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 10:10 AM | Comments (1001)
July 30, 2005
How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July All Over the World
The message of the Latino Coalition is crisp and bright. But it ain't a cheap message, that's for sure. And Texas voters are having difficulty rising to level of maturity required to say: children first.
By afternoon Thursday, it's not clear that any of this Latino Coalition sunshine has penetrated into the carpeted hush of Senate chambers where up at the gallery level children come and go quickly with their vacationing parents. It's not a bad space to be walking around or sitting around as the July sun climbs up the ladder outside.
A dozen blocks away at City Hall I tug on the first door handle, my body looking forward to the whoosh of chilled air, but what's that noise? Turns out that door handle is unauthorized entrance and I've just set off an intruder alert. A guy is wagging his finger at me. I don't wait for him to finish his sentence. I step back out into the heat. Great. Shows you how well I know City Hall these days.
Okay so back out the door and around through the metal detector and x-ray, probably a video tape, too. Here I don't set off any alarms, so I go stand by the Chief of Police for a second while I search for a seat.
Councilmember Brewster McCracken is looking over the freshly drafted city budget and trying to come to grips with the fact that the city is headed toward a police state far as the eye can see. Of course, that's not the way he says it exactly. But he notices that the police portion of the city budget is up to 75 percent and climbing.
Give us a decade, and we'll all be working for the police union, while not doing jobs like librarian, park maintenance, after school programs, health care--you know, all that socialist nonsense that we began to finally outgrow round about 1980.
So I'm not unhappy to go out and join the socialists, anarchists, greens, poets, artists, and possibly even Democrats who have gathered along Cesar Chavez Street this afternoon to protest the killing of 18-year-old Daniel Rocha, who, according to the sign I was holding, was shot in the back at point blank range. He was unarmed at the time, although possibly guilty of having smoked a reefer two hours earlier, if you believe the revised toxicology report, which folks out here with signs aren't really wanting to to.
How to Cool your Heels in Texas when it's Late July All over the World Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 08:28 PM | Comments (828)
Give Prisoners the Right to Vote
A Sunday Sermon with Modest Proposal
So the argument that prisoners shouldn't be allowed to vote, because they broke their 'social contract', is an argument that runs into all kinds of Civil Rights problems, if you take the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to be a central premise of civil rights logic.
But to be honest about it, the flaw of the 'social contract' justification was not what really prompted your humble editor to re-think voting rights for prisoners. More persuasive has been the trend over my adult lifetime for lawmakers across the USA to replace education with incarceration as the great hope of domestic tranquility.
The first time I heard Angela Davis make the argument, I was startled. She said (I forget exactly which time) that if you compare the political economy of the prison population today, with the slave population of 1860, then you get a pattern that expresses some deep, visceral structure of American power relations.
In fact, at no time in American history have we been able to produce a sharable system of freedom and justice for all. Seen in this light, the legislature's failure this summer to provide excellent education (let's face it, for poor kids and brown kids and black kids) is not simply to be chalked up to conflicting personalities between three old white men. The failure is deeply structural.
On a Petition to Give Prisoners the Right to Vote Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 08:22 PM | Comments (1324)
July 07, 2005
Texas Justices Seek Role in School Funding
At the end of the day, if one takes clues from the hearing, we might expect to see the tax cap lifted by the Court so that property-rich districts can go above $1.50 in their tax rates.
Then if a majority of justices agree with MALDEF claims that funding formulas for low income students, for limited English proficiency students, and for facilities represent "substantial defaults" by the legislature in meeting its constitutional obligations, the Court may send the legislature back to work on another round of school legislation.
As for the more general question of "systemwide adequacy" there were a couple of clues that readiness for college might serve as a reasonable baseline for a Court standard. Whereas more rigorous test systems would seem to show that the state is hard at work, the performance on those tests combined with poor graduation rates might encourage a majority of the Court to support a more sweeping indictment, especially if they adopt trial court findings that the legislature has not provided funding needed to provide the children of Texas with their each and every right to an adequate education.
Other than glaring inequities in facilities funding, justices seemed not to be very interested in other questions of equity. None of them referenced a brief filed on Friday by the ACLU, NAACP, and LULAC asking for a 'bright line' ruling on equity that would treat every school dollar as sharable. The State's repeated reference to 'equity up to the point of adequacy' met with no challenges. What's 'good enough' for Texas children will continue to depend on where they are born.
Texas Supreme Court Justices Seek Role in Education: Reviewing the Oral Arguments Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 07:16 PM | Comments (1589)
July 06, 2005
Progressive Groups ask for Bold Equity in Texas Ed
In a brief filed on Friday, three progressive groups joined voices asking the Texas Supreme Court to stay in the fight for fair funding in Texas education and adopt a higher standard of equity than the one now used by the court. Because the principle of "limited equity" has been so unsuccessful in reforming school funding over the past sixteen years, the groups plead for a new "bright line rule" that will require "full recapture and equalization of every dollar of revenue collected in the system."
The brief filed by the ACLU, NAACP, and LULAC on the eve of Wednesday's historic hearing on school funding says the principle that "requires equity in school funding, but only in some degree, and only up to point" does not work.
"Only full-funding equity—a bright-line rule—will help the Legislature fulfill its constitutional obligation to create an enduringly efficient system," argued the groups in a brief signed by Houston attorneys Sylvia Ann Mayer and Sergio Garza (WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP) and Florida attorney John Greenman (FLORIDA COASTAL SCHOOL OF LAW).
ACLU, NAACP, and LULAC Ask Texas Supremes for 'Bright Line' Equity Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 07:22 PM | Comments (1647)
July 03, 2005
Dylan's America
For Dylan himself, the Civil War was also a battle between two kinds of time: "In the South, people lived their lives with sun-up, high noon, sunset, spring, summer. In the North people lived by the clock. The factory stroke, whistles and bells." It must have been a Southerner who coined the term 'New York minute' to describe the Northern kind of time -- yes the kind of time that forges capital into imperialism, post-colonialism, and oh-so-helpless-hand-wringing-witness to Jim Crow or Abu Ghraib, whichever.
"After a while," says Dylan, "you become aware of nothing but a culture of feeling, of black days, of schism, evil for evil, the common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course." And the archetype for this sort of story is found in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. "Back there, America was put on the cross, died, and was resurrected. There was nothing synthetic about it. The god-awful truth of that would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write."
Resurrection without synthesis. Crucifixion upon the cross of the Fourth of July. This is the underlying song of the great American folksinger. Why he must die in his shoes.
Dylan's America PeaceFile
Posted by gregmoses at 02:37 PM | Comments (2757)
June 30, 2005
Racism at Cape Cod
What if black folks at Cape Cod are making use of "black usage" in order to raise issues that run much deeper than "white usage" allows? In that case, we would encourage columnist Gonsalves to not lead the retreat into "white usage." Rather we would encourage attention to the cover story at Black Commentator this week and, "Reject the Language of White Supremacy."
But the problem of succumbing to "white usage" is that it demands nothing more from white America than that they merrily pursue their beloved laws of "supply and demand." And what that comes down to may be best remembered by all Americans as we review what Frederick Douglass said when he was asked to give his thoughts on the Fourth of July.
Racism at Cape Cod Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 09:25 AM | Comments (1235)
June 29, 2005
Gold Standard for Education: Review of Portales & Portales
It is not too late for stakeholders in the debate over public schools to state clearly how their various strategies for school budgets express coherent philosophies of education. And with that challenge in mind, it is not too late for all discussants to respect the considered opinions of two experienced Texas educators and scholars who argue that in the archaeology of education, we need to organize our policy around the single most important idea: that education finds its proper foundation in the transaction, the relationship, the encounter between students and teachers in the classroom. The cost of NOT recovering this idea is quite high.
"Since many young people are not being taught how to use the energies of their minds to solve problems, many learn to face life indifferently, or, worse, some even develop a desire to destroy what is around them," write Portales and Portales. "Often they turn to living by seeing what they can get away with instead of learning from their errors, improving both themselves and society by employing their energies for the public good."
In passages such as these, Portales and Portales remind us that when we organize our ideas for public education we in fact lay the framework for the social health of the people. The Portales gold standard -- by emphasizing the nourishment of one crucial human relationship -- begins to suggest how an exhausted political economy of human relationships can be refreshed. Is it idealistic to speak this way? If we think first about the kinds of relationships we want to see between students and teachers, why would we not want a robust idealism to flourish?
A Gold Standard for Texas Education: Portales on Education Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 10:26 AM | Comments (874)
June 21, 2005
Room Left for Conscience?
Durbin's remarks suggest that the best defense of human rights for American soldiers and citizens begins with the examples that Americans set. When it comes to respect for international conventions that uphold human rights, the American flag should stand on the side of these rights, not against them.
If we want a world where our rights are respected then we have to lead by example. What better message to send on Flag Day? Yet right-wing commentators who have little time to think for themselves piled onto Sen. Durbin's comments with a recklessness that will only further endanger the general level of human rights for soldiers and civilians throughout the world.
The 'Looney Left' and the Human Rights of Soldiers Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 05:25 PM | Comments (1217)
Dove Springs Speaks Out on Youth Killing
Speaking for the first time directly to the mother of 18-year-old Daniel Rocha at the beginning of a five-hour community forum Thursday night, Austin police officials said that her son was shot in the back and killed because an officer feared that a taser missing from her vest might be used by the victim to injure another police officer.
"Are you saying that a taser is a lethal weapon?" asked Daniel's friend Rafael as some of the 300 people in attendance jeered in anger and disbelief. "You have billy clubs, pepper spray, and mace? Why a gun? Why a gun!"
As it turned out, Rocha was not armed, say officials. And when the missing taser was located, it was in pieces.
Dove Springs Speaks about Rocha: Who Will Listen? Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 05:21 PM | Comments (1378)
June 16, 2005
Helpful Logic at Work in Supreme Court Intervention in Texas Death Row
In the recent dispute between Supreme Court justices over the question of race discrimination in jury selection, we find two warring camps of legal theory. By issuing its order to give one death row prisoner a new trial in Texas, the court majority seems to be forging a legal theory that can advance the long, good fight for racial justice. On the other side are some truly dangerous leanings.
While it is instructive to follow this pioneering skirmish in the logic of death row justice let's not forget that in 21st Century USA, the construction and maintenance of death row facilities is a barbaric foundation for the construction of anything that resembles truth or justice.
"Again We Reverse": US Supremes Find Race Discrimination Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 12:02 PM | Comments (844)
Jackson Jury Disappoints American Mobocracy
So for me Flag Day this year was all about the Michael Jackson jury. As one headline mentioned some official apology that was to come from DC regarding our bloodthirsty heritage of lyncherdom, I found in the Michael Jackson jury the profound sanity of the anti-mob.
Flag Day and the Michael Jackson Verdict Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 11:59 AM | Comments (260)
June 07, 2005
Another Kind of D-Day in the Making?
"Pushing back the violence" is a phrase that Stoltzfus has adopted over the past few years to describe peacemaking. The phrase comes from his gut, he explains. Pushing back the violence creates a new space or "sacred space" where transformation can occur. He envisions a day when a Peace Army will be trained and ready to go into high violence areas to stand up for peace" around the world.
Pushing Back the Violence: Peacemaker Teams Get in the Way Peacefile
Posted by gregmoses at 09:52 AM | Comments (829)
June 05, 2005
A Shudder of Memory
"Rather than change the fact basis that was used by Judge Dietz to declare the school funding situation unconstitutional, the legislature has now frozen the evidence in place. None of the yellow ribbons around the crime scene have been broken.
"In strategic terms, the care taken to preserve the evidence may result from simple egomania, or it may reveal a motive. Maybe the top three honchos of Texas politics (the gov, the speaker, and the comptroller) have reason to anticipate an ingenious new model of judicial logic?
"Texas legal theory is getting quite a reputation these days thanks to Prez Bush, his shotgun counsel Alberto Gonzales, and his prized nominee to the federal bench, Priscilla Owen. It is torturous theory (pardon the pun). And we have the right to worry that it will define the legal history of our time—the kind of history that will be taught inadequately, inefficiently, and remorselessly in Texas schools.
"As I wait for the Texas Supreme Court to hand me down ""the kind of justice Texans demand" pardon me while I shudder."
The Gov's Promise: 'the kind of justice that Texans demand' Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 03:12 PM | Comments (928)
June 03, 2005
Dissing the AG
"Now that Republicans are spanking small time voters, clamping down on access, keeping vote-vendors protected, and refusing to provide verifiable ballots, we think the trend line is pretty clear in Texas. Soon they will add a scrubbed up voter list to the tool kit of voter management.
"If you want a transparent, accessible, and accountable voting system probably you're not going to get it out of the Attorney General's office. On the other hand, if you want to fight school reform and spank on small time voters, he's your man."
Voter Fraud: They Found Some? Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 09:21 PM | Comments (1124)
Editorial: Racism is Not a Two-Way Street
"At this time (because who knows what we will learn tomorrow?) the Texas Civil Rights Review asserts that when all interesting examples have been fruitfully explored for their nuance and contradiction, one problem will remain at the end of the day. We will return to a world of white power or white supremacy. This is the usual meaning of racism here."
Measuring Racism, Texas Civil Rights Review
Posted by gregmoses at 09:14 PM | Comments (1730)
A Place for Abstracts
At this website, I'll try to keep up with abstracts for articles written at Peacefile and Texas Civil Rights Review. This will be the place where readers can comment frankly and anonymously as they please.
Posted by gregmoses at 09:10 PM | Comments (932)
May 12, 2005
Neo Con Nation
Something about Schwarzenegger's persistence in his defense of border vigilantes suggests to me that a strategy is in the works. What could it be? How about neo-con nation? A full-force anti-terror militarization of the labor market, beginning with everybody's favorite scapegoat the Mexican undocumented worker. Just one more reason to dust off the golden rule.
A Too Convenient Crisis? Neo-Con Logic at the Border
Posted by gregmoses at 03:29 AM | Comments (900)
May 03, 2005
A Tale of Two Vigilantes
There are two kinds of vigilante, Old HollyWood and New HollyWood. In the Old HollyWood version, the vigilante rides with the Klan and victoriously saves civilization for white rule. Such was Birth of a Nation. In New HollyWood, an underdog individual takes on the big guys who control all the guns and money. Such was Terminator. But when Schwarzenegger allies himself with vigilantes of the Minuteman kind, which HollyWood is he scripting?
Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises Birth of a Nation
Posted by gregmoses at 04:24 PM | Comments (846)