STATES WITH MONEY TO BURN
SOME STATES HAVE MONEY TO BURN: While some states suffer from large
deficits, others apparently have money to burn. Oklahoma seems to be such
a state. It has recently spent about $10 million in an attempt to gain the
right to execute already convicted Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator
Terry Nichols. This is a classic case of how a man can "legally"
(yet contrary to the very spirit of the United States Constitution), be
subjected to double or triple jeopardy. Multiple charges for the same
crime, and trial for the same crimes in multiple jurisdictions, are the
gimmicks used. If one jurisdiction fails to convict, another one takes
over. If no jurisdiction manages to convict on criminal charges, civil
charges are often used to convict those found "innocent" – usually for the monetary gain of the parties the alleged crimes aggrieved.
In this case, Nichols had already been successfully tried and convicted on
federal charges, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But the
state of Oklahoma (which seems to tend toward Old Testament justice),
still wanted him dead, either as a further act of official vengeance and
revenge, or to save the taxpayer the million or so dollars it might cost
to maintain him for life. But the federal sentence would surely have taken
precedence over that of the state. Since when does the fed defer to the
states in such matters these days? Presumably, if the state had got its
death penalty wish, it would have had to wait for Nichols to complete his
life sentence before putting him to death. Surely the federal government
wouldn't have allowed the state to execute him before he served his
federal sentence. That would have been like letting him completely off on
the federal conviction. On the other hand, the federal government might
just make an exception in this case, since it probably wants Nichols dead
too.
The state trial ended in Nichol's conviction on 161 counts of murder, but
the jury couldn't make up its mind about putting him to death – after
all, Nichols didn't really kill all those people, he had only indirectly
conspired with Timothy McVeigh, who apparently did. Besides that, he has worn out
four Bibles through "prayer and research" since being in
imprisoned, and is said to have seen the light of true Christianity.
Before that he had apparently been an Old Testament Christian – seeking
eye for an eye vengeance for the federal attack on the Branch Dividians,
and its resulting holocaust. There would have been no justice in executing
Nichols anyway – it would have been like simply setting him free to go
happily off to a higher reward. In any case, God works his wonders in
mysterious ways – maybe Nichols will have time to work as an insider
helping to reform the federal prison system which has literally become an
American Gulag.
BUSH'S RESPONSE TO 9/11
Pridger is pretty critical of the Bush administration's handling of the
9/11 crises and the resultant war on terrorism, not to mention our
completely wrong-headed war in Iraq. But the 9/11 Commission is accusing
the administration of a "chaotic 9/11 response" in the immediate
wake of the September 11th disaster. Chaos is difficult to avoid at such
times. Pridger wonders what the 9/11 Commission's response might have
been, had it only been conceived and impaneled in time to act.
Actually, Pridger is of the opinion that the administration's response to
9/11 was anything but chaotic. From all historical appearances, such an
attack had been expected (even hoped for), for a long time before 9/11 –
and the response, including the war with Iraq, planned well in advance
(but apparently not quite planned well enough). The administration was
probably ready for such an event, but had apparently had no idea just how
spectacularly successful, graphic, and deadly, the attack would be. That's
the way things tended to look from Pridger's perspective. They looked that
way before 9/11, on 9/11, and they have continued to look that way ever
since 9/11. Of course, that doesn't make it true. But Pridger wasn't the
first or only one to suspect that the formula for "Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace" had finally been successfully attained.
The 9/11 commission has firmly rejected Bush's claim of "firm"
links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. In the mean
time, Bush continues to insist that such links existed, or must have
existed – or at least there must have been some sort of contact between
them at some point. Well, maybe so, and the commission itself seems to
confirm it in spite of its rejection of the finer points of the argument.
The commission has found that Osama bin Laden did at one point ask Saddam
for help and Saddam failed to respond. That was a firm link wasn't it? On
the other hand, our own firm (CIA) links to Osama bin Laden are a matter
of historical record – in fact one can almost put an "APPA"
(American Product Produced Abroad), stamp on bin Laden. (We always
subsidize the foreign competition, whether in trade or war.) Come to think
of it, we had some pretty firm links with Saddam Hussein's regime too,
before Saddam was baited into invading Kuwait! After we're done with Iraq,
maybe we need to attack ourselves.
ATTACKING OURSELVES: Attack ourselves? We're already doing that – and the
attack is already well advanced. Aren't the USA Patriot Acts and the
Office of Homeland Security, with their many costly spin offs, really de
facto attacks on the rights, civil liberties, and pocket books, of the
people of the United States under the color of national security? War is
deception, you know, and false colors always make a fine ruse. Could a
small rag-tag bunch of Islamic fanatics and terrorists really do the
damage we see being done to our nation and the global community? No, we
are doing it to ourselves. The dozen or so 9/11 terrorists inflicted a
terrible wound and psychological blow to the nation, but it was nothing
compared to what we have since been doing to ourselves. We are repudiating
our national character and becoming a paranoid and authoritarian police
state. National paranoia has been invoked to defeat the enemy. Once again,
I quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us!"
When the American Revolution was in the offing, Patrick Henry galvanized
the nation-to-be with his famous speech which ended with, "... As for
me, give me liberty or give me death!" Today our war cry is
"Give us safety and security at any price!" And our armed forces
are out supposedly fighting for freedom and liberty under that banner. But
are we preserving freedom and liberty here and elsewhere? Are we getting
safety and security – or are we just being had?
These Islamic terrorists are really learning how to discomfit us Americans
and disrupt our comfort level. Americans abhor beheadings. It's one thing
to have our service men and women shot and blown up by the dozens fighting
for freedom and democracy in far-off Iraq and Afghanistan (that's bad
enough!), but it's quite another to see American civilian captives
beheaded simply for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The
beheading of captives hasn't been all that great a problem during most of
our passed military adventures. We had imagined that civilization had more
or less left that kind of grisly barbarism in the distant past. It's
against the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, and generally
frowned upon by contemporary sensitivities in almost every modern
civilized nation. But beheading is back with a literal vengeance! We
haven't seen so many since the French quit using the guillotine. (At least
I assume they've stopped using it. Ironically, that frightful instrument
had been developed as a more humane and civilized means of execution than
other traditional methods.)
President Bush stands accused of lying to the American people with regard
to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. So
far, almost a thousand American service people have died, and no telling
how many Iraqis, as a result – and two Americans have been beheaded.
President Clinton was accused of lying about his affair with a White House
intern and was impeached in the House and almost kicked out of office as
the result. He embarrassed the nation, and did considerable damage to the
prestige of the office of the presidency – and the whole affair cost the
nation plenty in terms of money. Neither president has yet been threatened
with any jail time. Bush is still riding high as Commander-in-chief, and
Clinton (wearing his House impeachment as a badge of honor), seems
destined to become a best selling author. Meanwhile, Martha Steward, who
told some petty lies to cover up what was finally adjudged not to be a
prosecutable crime in the first place, stands convicted on four serious
felony counts with a possible 20 year prison sentence threatening. And
nobody died or even lost any serious money as a result of Martha's
transgressions.
Dated: Back when less 1,000 soldiers had been killed in Iraq.
JUSTICE: The great and growing American Gulag now holds an astounding two
million plus prisoners. Prisons, and the "justice system" are
two of our few major growth industries. Still, out prisons are overcrowded
with people who have done petty things and been sentenced to draconian
terms behind bars. Serious criminals often have to be turned loose so pot
smokers and shop-lifters, convicted under "get tough on crime
mandatory minimum sentence" laws (often without possibility of
parole), can be held their full term. Often the term is twenty years or
even life for relatively minor, victimless, crimes. Such sentences clearly amount to
very cruel and unusual punishment – though they have become quite common
and thus usual.
Pridger reaped the benefits of this asinine justice policy a couple years
back. He was mugged and robbed at knife-point by a man and woman team down
in Texas. To add insult to injury, having escaped the mugging with his
whole hide in tact, and having summoned the police, Pridger was threatened
with arrest on a MWUI charge (mugged while under the influence of
alcohol). The only way out of it was to drop the complaint against the
muggers and let the cops go on their merry way. Pridger later recognized
the male mugger on the "Texas Ten Most Wanted" web site. The
culprit was wanted for a mere parole violation. Otherwise, he was just a
convicted murderer. In other words, he had been let out of prison to make
room for more pot smokers, shop-lifters, and Martha Stewarts.
Dated: Just before Martha Stewart started doing her time.
John Q. Pridger