Mr. Johnson of Georgia Rises

NO INDICTMENT IN ERIC GARNER'S CHOKE HOLD CASE -- (House of Representatives - December 03, 2014)

[Page: H8360]  GPO's PDF
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   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Brat). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 30 minutes.

Rep. Hank Johnson from Georgia

   Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, ladies and gentlemen, with a heavy heart because today we had a secret grand jury finding in New York that resulted in no charges against the police officer who killed an unarmed man named Eric Garner, a man whom they accused of trying to sell some cigarettes. That man was approached by law enforcement on the streets of New York, and when approached, he said that he had not done anything wrong. He held his hands up in the hands up, don't shoot position, and they took him down while his hands were up and applied a choke hold, an illegal choke hold, and applied it until the man took his last breath.

   What did Eric Garner say 13 times before he died? What did he say 13 times before he died? He said, ``I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.'' And he said that over and over again until he could not breathe. He took his last breath just like Michael Brown, accused of stealing some cigarettes--or cigars, excuse me--Michael Brown, accused of stealing some cigars, Eric Garner, accused of selling some cigarettes. I don't know when possession and/or sale of tobacco merited a death penalty in this country, but both of them, both of those cases involved tobacco products. Both of them involved men--Black men--with their hands up in the ``don't shoot'' position. Both of them were killed. Both cases were handled in a secret grand jury process. We don't know the names of the grand jurors, we don't know what went on in that grand jury room, although we do have the transcript in the Michael Brown case, and it shows that a lot of injustice was done in that grand jury room which resulted in an unjust no bill against the police officer involved in that case.

   We don't know what happened in the New York case, but we got a result, a no bill against that police officer who was caught on tape just like in the Rodney King case, all caught on tape, Eric Garner caught on tape, the killing, but still no justice done. Cameras are not the sole answer, it appears. It runs deeper than a camera.

   These are dark days, ladies and gentlemen, that we are living in today. The first African American President is treated like no other President has ever been treated before. Is this a symptom of the Obama backlash that is occurring in this country? Is there any connection between what we see happening in the streets of Ferguson and on the streets of New York, with what is going on with the dehumanization of the leader of the free world?

   First they said he was not a resident, not a citizen of this country. Then they said he was a Communist, a socialist. They accused him of being weak and indecisive as a President and not really having the intellectual capacity to be the President. Now they are saying he was a Muslim. Now they are saying that he is an emperor, a king, disregarding the Constitution. Where are we in America when it comes to Black males and how we treat them and how they end up faring in life?

   Is it our fault? Yes, we do have responsibility. We can always do better. But don't put your foot on my neck and tell me that it is my fault that your foot is on my neck. People are tired of seeing what is happening over and over again. A young, 12-year-old Black male with a BB gun at a park on the streets and a police car rolls up, a police officer gets out and immediately shoots the young man and kills him. Will that go to another secret grand jury process and have the same result as what we saw with Michael Brown and Eric Garner? It is happening throughout the streets of the Nation.

   I tell you, I have been gratified by the protesters. I have seen protesters out there. It has been Black and White protesters out there demonstrating peacefully being met with a militarized response. And I say that to say this, that I am going to paraphrase something that you will probably be familiar with:
   They first came for the gypsy, and I wasn't a gypsy, and I didn't say anything. Then they came for the Jews, and I was not a Jew, and so I didn't say anything. Then they came for the women, and I wasn't a woman, and I didn't say anything. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to say anything.

   Is that where we are headed in this country, ladies and gentlemen? Because there are all kinds of people out peacefully protesting, and that is what I advocate for, peaceful protests. Violence is not the way. Violence just produces more pain and agony. Violence is not the way. Nonviolence is the way that we must confront this because really, when you move past the fact that Black males are at the bottom of the totem pole, and we are the ones who bear the brunt, these who come to aid us are in the line of fire also.
  

[Time: 19:45]

   What happens to one of us happens to all of us. If not you now, then what happens tomorrow when you come to my assistance? So we all are our brother's keeper.

   Right now, we are operating under an economic philosophy in this country that only the strong survive. If you are weak, it is your fault, and I don't owe you anything. Don't ask me for nothing. You get yours. I got mine; you get yours. Don't worry about me. Don't ask me for nothing.

   That is the economic attitude that we have that we are trying to preserve and protect in this hallowed body here. It is called laissez-faire capitalism, and it is supported by the U.S. Supreme Court that has contorted itself in such ways so as to rule in ways that enable a corporation to become a person.

   When we have a corporation having a right to free speech and having unlimited funds and unlimited duration and we have a corporation that has a right to religious freedom, so that it can dictate to its employees their religious beliefs--it doesn't even make sense for a corporation to have a religious belief, but that is what our Supreme Court has found--and every other way that it can aid corporations to become richer.

   The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and I don't owe you a thing--you are on your own. That is what they want us to believe, but it is time for people--for us to come together. It is all about economics.

   They put Blacks against Whites, poor Whites and poor Blacks against each other, and then they are going to the bank in the Brink's truck, and we are sitting, pointing fingers at ourselves, when we are all in the same boat together, the 99 percent--or the 47 percent, as one of our Presidential candidates most famously talked about in the last election. I am proudly one of those 47 percent, and I represent the 47 percent that is really the 99 percent.

   So this extrajudicial killing of Black men has to end. If not, then what is going to happen to you tomorrow?
   With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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WAITING WITH FERGUSON

Waiting for the Ferguson grand jury to return with their much anticipated "no indictment" decision can be a bit distracting while planning my football watching schedule today, Sunday. As it is, my supply of chips and dip is depleted and my beverage allotment has been curtailed due to my fixed income budgetary concerns. Life is hard ain't it?  If I wasn't so lazy I could walk right out my front door and mosey down to the nearest grocery which is about 4 1/2 miles as the crow flies and pick me up some emergency potato chips with ridges and get me some of that cheddar and horseradish dip and perhaps a 6 pack without ever worrying about being shot while walking through neighborhoods where nobody knows me- no cop would slow up behind me to watch my slow deliberate striding- at 62 I'm not as spry as I was-

come to think of it I don't think I was ever a spry type- and unless my wife called 911 to report me missing- a gray-haired somewhat disheveled slouched strider who after 2 heart attacks took an early retirement, sold his favorite pick-up, and now spends all day with his best friend, Willie, a lab mutt, at home waiting for his wife to return from her day job with our one and only vehicle, no one would ever take a second glance as I shuffle by. An old white guy going for some dip. Maybe a salsa, too. The only times I can remember being afraid to venture out was in my childhood, oh maybe sometime around 5 or 6, and there were stories going around my neighborhood in Queens, NY about evil foreign-speaking janitors kidnapping children and offering poisoned candy- real Brothers Grimm stuff. Anyway I had an older cousin who I insisted accompany me home. The threat soon passed with my childhood. The only other time I felt threatened while walking was so many years later in another town. Columbus, Ohio of all places. I had attended college there for a couple of years and was returning one early Sunday morning to visit some friends on my way west one spring when emerging from the bus depot downtown I crossed what was a very quiet and very deserted street. I mean its about 6AM, its Sunday morning in Columbus -over 40 years ago, now, not a creature was stirring- not even the cop sitting against a lamppost on the other side of the street I was crossing. Until he started waving his forefinger in my direction. I hadn't a clue. He: "where are you going?" Me: "toward campus" He: "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Me: "No, was I going too fast?" He:" You're from New York?' Me:" Yes.." He then proceeded to read me the riot act and we started to walk together in the direction of the precinct jail as he was going to arrest me for jaywalking. He didn't like my attitude and my "New York" accent. "You New Yorkers think you can do anything. Well I'm going to teach you a lesson." And we walked  for a good 20 minutes or so it seemed and got right up to the jailhouse door before he decided that I had learned my lesson and let me go. For but a brief sighing second I thought better than to turn my back and walk away from him but in that same flash of time my lazy head is all the time thinking, "Nah..he wouldn't. I'm white". Privilege has its place. Even if you're from New York. And yet... for most of my life I've lived and worked in New York City. And I even managed to find some lasting friendships along the way and for that I am a very fortunate man. And these friendships are with a wide range of individuals from different walks and places and cultures and even neighborhoods and up until very recently (ok, within the last decade or so) I never even considered or never thought to ask or never thought period that one of my closest friends, a Black man, would have been subject to not one but several public search and frisk procedures so enamored by the NYPD- it could happen anytime -then?- while walking to the grocery, to work, to the store, waiting outside for his wife- anywhere, anytime and did and he never mentioned it for the longest time. The only time I was ever frisked and bodily searched was when I was doing research for another friend- a Unitarian pastor who was a distinguished scholar and writer and  having met through a mutual acquaintance he asked me to help him with a book on the American-Christian Palestine Committee which required periodic visits to the "Zionist Library and Archive" which was located at the time in 515 Park Ave. which housed several Israeli and Zionist groups and was literally guarded by Israeli security personnel who insisted on searching my dubious presence. Each time I went. I was merely inconvenienced by obnoxious Israelis who talked in accents of my wife-at the time- who was also Israeli - I was more embarrassed by their rudeness. My friend's "procedure" ,the undergoing , is humiliating enough in a power-implied gesture with a four-hundred year old brutality behind it and as my friend explained he was too upset and too angry to tell some of his friends. "We" wouldn't and couldn't understand all that that was to him. Its part of that Black-white divide in this country that is never really bridged- call it the cost of history. So while I'm out of chips I never take for granted that long walk to the grocery- and back again. But 4 1/2 miles each way I'll miss the game easily and won't be back til the last quarter of Sunday Night football, so whats the point?

Race Matters

Justice Sotomayor Dissents

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 12–682
BILL SCHUETTE, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MICHI- GAN, PETITIONER v. COALITION TO DEFEND AF- FIRMATIVE ACTION, INTEGRATION AND IMMI- GRANT RIGHTS AND FIGHT FOR EQUALITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (BAMN), ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[April 22, 2014]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting.

"My colleagues are of the view that we should leave race out of the picture entirely and let the voters sort it out. We have seen this reason- ing before.  (“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”). It is a sentiment out of touch with reality, one not required by our Constitution, and one that has properly been rejected as “not sufficient” to resolve cases of this nature. While “[t]he enduring hope is that race should not matter[,] the reality is that too often it does.”  “[R]acial discrimination . . . [is] not ancient history.”

Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process.  (describing racial discrimination in voting as “an insidious and perva- sive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution”). And although we have made great strides, “voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that.” 

Race also matters because of persistent racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities. (cataloging the many ways in which “the effects of centuries of law- sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools,” in areas like employment, poverty, access to health care, housing, consumer transac- tions, and education); recognizing that the “lingering effects” of discrimination, “reflective of a system of racial caste only recently ended, are evident in our workplaces, markets, and neighborhoods”.

And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching

others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.”

In my colleagues’ view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfor- tunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter."

 This is the conclusion of her dissent. For the full text of the decision and of Judge Sotomayer's important dissent go here: 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf

"The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities. The political-process doctrine polices the channels of change to ensure that the majority, when it wins, does so without rigging the rules of the game to ensure its success. Today, the Court discards that doctrine without good reason.

In doing so, it permits the decision of a majority of the voters in Michigan to strip Michigan’s elected university boards of their authority to make decisions with respect to constitutionally permissible race-sensitive admissions policies, while preserving the boards’ plenary authority to make all other educational decisions. “In a most direct sense, this implicates the judiciary’s special role in safe- guarding the interests of those groups that are relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to com- mand extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.” The Court abdicates that role, permitting the majority to use its numerical advantage to change the rules mid-contest and forever stack the deck against racial minorities in Michigan. 

The result is that Michigan’s public colleges and universities are less equipped to do their part in ensuring that students of all races are “better prepare[d] . . . for an increasingly diverse workforce and society . . .”

Today’s decision eviscerates an important strand of our equal protection jurisprudence. For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.

I respectfully dissent."


Note to my reader(s?):

Go and read the Court's inane decision and pay careful attention to "Chief" Roberts response to Judge Sotomayor's eloquent dissent. He has - in his own pathetic way- proven everything she has written.

WHY JEFF BEZOS IS A SCHMUCK

4/19/2014



"...some find it to be accurate,..."

The International Jew [Kindle Edition]

Henry Ford (Author)

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Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2012

The International Jew is a book written by Henry Ford, who authored books and articles which make claims about Jews. Readers will be able to make their own judgements of this work, as some find it to be accurate while most have historically found Henry Ford's writings to be filled with innacuracies and bigotry. This book is presented here for educational purposes and for those who are interested in reading a book written by important American businessman Henry Ford. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition and was provided by the publisher.

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Swelling The War-Whoop (again)

We thought it appropriate -actually more like a public service- to re-post this at this time while the usual war-mongers are busy saddling the Light Cavalry.

While Reading (again) Dwight Macdonald

Originally posted on June 1, 2012

I thought it correlative to lift Mr. Coleridge from his eternal solitude as had Dwight Macdonald 45 years hence in Esquire (Jan.) what with recent talk of Vietnam commemoratives and having just past the 10 (or 11th?) Memorial Day since our

War On Terror began I had begun to feel a bit feverish with an incessant anxiety (must be the presidential campaign) that reminded me of an exasperated John Houseman playing an intelligence exec in that movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the novel with more days, anyway, Houseman, I think( I really should check this somewhere- google movie lines? google movie character lines?) is asked if he misses the "old days" (I'm thinking WWII) and he answers not really but he does miss the clarity and it is the way he annunciates cla-ri-ty that I most remember (like I was sitting in his first year law..) Which, somehow brings me to Coleridge as cited in old Dwight's essay which is the name of the poem-"Fears In Solitude". I am just a kid in Jan., 1967, a HS sophomore trying to hit a curve ball on the outside corner and girls faces were just starting to form a forward path (I know I heard that before) and the war -undeclared - was starting to intrude upon my green and silent dell.

In January Neil Sheehan was reporting in the NYTimes that the DoD was expecting the costs of the war to level off by mid-year barring some unforeseen development (the Tet Offensive was exactly a year away- any 15 yr olds you know today know this?).During the same week the Times was also reporting that post-war (WWII that is) babies were coming of age and for some reason that meant a good year for confetti manufacturers and cookbook publishers. A UPI story that first week in January told of how Gov. John Connally, Jr of Texas did not want President Kennedy to come to Texas in November, 1963 (and neither did I). Also in January the good gray paper published an article stating "practically the entire securities industry appears to be up in arms against a proposed government regulation that would require securities salesmen to recommend to customers only stocks that are suitable to the customer's financial situation."(Why oh why did I buy Facebook? at 39!!) On the first Sunday that January 

The Johnson "welcoming" a guest

the Johnsons, according to an AP story, heard a sermon from a Protestant minister expressing great sympathy with Cardinal Spellman's call for victory in Vietnam. And Hanson Baldwin(!) reported in the NYTimes, of course, that plastic baby bottles, complete with nipples and teflon had been accepted for combat use in the war in Vietnam. A few days later we learn that the Marines had moved into the Mekong River Delta(with baby bottles with nipples?). Among other news that month South Vietnam was planning to hold local elections that spring. And in Esquire, Dwight Macdonald introduced the relevant parts of the poem this way,

"England had used its power unjustly, had become insensitive to the sufferings of alien peoples on whom they had forcibly imposed their self-righteous ideas. Just as we are doing in Vietnam." 

Just as we continue to do 45 years hence.

from "Fears In Solitude" by Samuel Coleridge:

We have offended, Oh! My countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven! 

The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs
And, deadlier far, our vices...
...Meanwhile, at home,
All individual dignity and power
Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,
Associations and Societies,
A vain speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,
One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,
We have drunk up, demure as at a grace
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth.

Thankless too for peace
(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!
...and forth
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven)
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound.

And Macdonald ends his essay with words from this poem -"When will we know the meaning of our words? When will we be forced to feel the desolation and the agony of our fierce doings?"