Caring for the stranger

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By Alan Bean

Deuteronomy 10: 12-19

“So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.  Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.

Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Why must we love strangers?  Because we are all strange in one way or another.  With the exception of Native Americans, there are no homegrown Americans; we all came here from somewhere else. (more…)

The fine art of testilying

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By Charles Kiker

The ninth of the ten commandments: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)

In his “Grits for Breakfast” blog, Scott Henson has a recent post (March 16) on “testilying” raised to new heights of infamy: “Police prevarication in Austin overlooked with wink and a nod.” It regards an incident from a couple of years ago in which an Austin police officer manufactured out of whole cloth a probable cause affidavit for unlawful trespassing. The officer described in detail the area in which the defendant was charged with trespassing. It was described as a heavily wooded area with numerous signs against trespassing. In fact, the area described was a multi-unit rental area devoid of “no trespassing” signs with only one tree in view. The defense attorney took pictures of the area and the prosecutor, at the pre-trial conference, decided that it was in the best interests of justice to dismiss the case. Hurrah for the prosecutor. (more…)

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

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This article requires no introduction or explanation, so I’ll shut up and let you read.  Comments welcome.  AGB

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

Phil Zuckerman. Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College in Claremont, CA.  Dan Cady, assistant professor of history at California State University, Fresno.

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Tea-Party-and-Religion.aspx) reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message. (more…)

Perry fiddles while Texas burns

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By Alan Bean

“This is an engineered crisis—a thing that was done on purpose by people who do not mean well for our community, our city, our state or nation.” Jim Schutze

Texas is facing an estimated $27 billion deficit.  Governor Rick Perry and his fellow ideologues gutted the state’s property taxes two years ago, then sat back and waited for the inevitable.  At the time, according to this terrific article by Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer, Texas Comptroller, Diane Keaton Strayhorn, predicted that this radical decrease in tax money would create a deficit of $23 billion by 2011 unless new sources of revenue could be found. 

Ms. Strayhorn didn’t factor in the worst financial crisis since the great depression, but the accuracy of her numbers suggest that any thinking Texan could have seen the current imbroglio coming.  (Thanks to Gerald Britt at Change the Wind for bringing Mr. Schutze’s article to my attention). (more…)

The drug war is a long way from over

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When the Wall Street Journal endorses the growing shift from mass incarceration to rehabilitation and diversion programs, something is in the wind.  But let’s not pop the champagne corks too quickly.  Politicians are beginning to understand that long prison terms for drug offenses have failed to deter drug abuse or the illegal drug trade.  Furthermore, prisons, even if run on the cheap, are unspeakably expensive.  All of this is good.

Mass incarceration is primarily a function of the war on drugs, a slash and burn campaign that–its own propaganda notwithstanding–was never about getting drugs and drug dealers off the streets.  The drug war is about social control.  When a nation turns its back on its poorest citizens (as American did in late 197os) bad things are bound to happen.  Desperate people take desperate measures.  Those with little access to legitimate work will turn to illegitimate work–like selling drugs.  Middle class addicts can fund their habits, but poor addicts sling drugs and commit property crime to keep the supply flowing.  Entire neighborhoods become economically dependent on the trade in illegal drugs even as they are afflicted by unbearably high crime rates.  (more…)

They built it, but nobody came: private prisons face bleak future

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Prison outside Jena, Louisiana

For decades now, private prisons have been thrown up across America, often at the expense of the taxpayer, on the assumption that the policy of mass incarceration would eventually supply the needed bodies. 

As I relate in Taking out the Trash in Tulia, Texas, the prison west of Tulia was built on this basis.  One scam offered to Swisher County residents was so flimsy it disintegrated before construction could begin.  The second wave of con artists used junk bonds to finance a building that sat empty for years before being picked by the state for half of its original construction cost. 

The prison outside Jena, Louisiana was built on the same basis, this time with the larcenous cooperation of then-Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards.  The same Houston outfit was responsible for the speculative private prisons built in Tulia, Jena and a dozen other little towns.

If we built it, folks reasoned, they will come.  And come they did.  For a time.

The Tulia prison was eventually filled to capacity.  The Jena prison filled up tool, but was closed on two separate occasions in response to racially-tinged allegations of inmate abuse (it now serves as a massive ICE lock-up). 

But as the rate of incarceration has slowed in response to low crime rates and the financial crisis currently afflicting state and federal governments, more and more communities are paying the bills for superfluous prisons.  (more…)

Quinn signs Illinois death penalty ban

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Pat Quinn did it!  The death penalty is dead in Illinois!  (If you would like to congratulate the Illinois governor, Amnesty International has a nifty little form to fill out.)

Illinois becomes the fourth state to abolish the death penalty–the others are New York, New Jersey and New Mexico.

This was a tough call for a governor who has been aggressively lobbied by folks on both sides of the death penalty debate.  The tipping point appears to have been the 20 innocent defendants convicted in the state of Illinois.  “To have a consistent, perfect death penalty system … that’s impossible in our state,” Quinn explained. “I think it’s the right and just thing to abolish the death penalty and punish those who commit heinous crimes — evil people — with life in prison without parole and no chance of release.” (more…)

NPR and the American Mainstream

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National Public Radio CEO, Vivian Schiller, has resigned after two high-profile NPR executives were caught on tape saying that the Republican Party had been “hijacked” by the Tea Party and that the Tea Party was essentially a white-only organization dominated by gun-toting zealots on the racist fringes of American society.

Ms. Schiller had been criticized last October for what many considered her ungracious and impolitic response to the Juan Williams fiasco.

Most of the controversial remarks caught on video were nade by Ronald Schiller (no relation to Ms. Schiller).  Mr.  Schiller had been invited to a fancy luncheon by two Republican provocateurs posing as deep-pocket Muslim activists representing a mythical Muslim group that was supposedly planning to give NPR a $5 million gift.

The timing of this latest fiasco couldn’t be worse.  Leading Republicans have been arguing that NPR was far too left-of-center to receive federal support.  According to this argument, it’s okay for FOX News to slant its reporting to the right because it is a private agency.  The liberal bias of NPR is a more serious matter, critics contend, because the organization is feeding at the federal teat. (more…)

Supreme Court hands Hank Skinner a big victory

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By Alan Bean

Monday’s ruling by the Supreme Court has removed legal roadblocks standing between Texas death row defendant Hank Skinner and the testing of DNA evidence he says will exonerate him.  Prosecutors had argued that since Skinner was covered in the blood of the murder victim, no further testing was necessary.  Skinner’s defenders have asked why, if further DNA is unlikely to produce evidence helpful to Skinner, the state is so adamantly opposed to testing.

At NPR, Nina Totenberg provides her usual just-the-facts-ma’am analysis.  Dave Mann’s comments at the Texas Observer site reveal the deeper significance of this ruling: (more…)

Rick Perry’s Atheist Pope

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Eighteen months ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Williamson County DA John Bradley to head up the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  It was like turning over the Vatican to Richard Dawkins.  Bradley, like most Texas prosecutors, thinks forensic scientists have one role: helping the state convict bad guys; Perry’s atheist pope likes forensic testimony crafted to the needs of the prosecution.

Governor Perry put Bradley in charge of the TFSC to keep the Cameron Todd Willingham debacle out of the headlines during his primary fight with Kay Bailey Hutchinson.  Perry also tried to stack the commission with people who share Bradley’s worldview, but things haven’t worked out to the governor’s liking.  As Rick Casey demonstrates in this informative column in the Houston Chronicle, Bradley is unlikely to receive Senate confirmation. (more…)