Click On Title To Link To "Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty" (MCADP) Website.
Commentary
Over the years I have worked with a number of different people and groups on the fight to abolish the insidious death penalty. And that is my main point in this commentary. This demand for death penalty abolition in order to deny the state the right to say who is to live and to die here in this capitalist “justice system” is something that communists, anarchists, socialists, progressives, liberals, religious people and, hell, even the occasional thoughtful conservative can unite around in the name of an “evolving standard of decency”. Only current members of the august United States Supreme Court, some (too many) state supreme courts and assorted right-wing loonies and their hangers-on appear to have missed the tide.
I will go further, though, and argue that this anti-death penalty position holds true not only for the capitalist justice system we live under but for non-capitalist states as well. We, whatever our positions of support (or non-support) for the few remaining non-capitalist states, are as much against the Chinese state executing its citizens as we are of the state of Texas. That understanding forms the basis for my inclusion of a link to the website of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP). I would also urge readers to read, if possible, “A Progress Report” from their summer 2009 “MCADP News” that gives a nice thumbnail sketch of the current state of the struggle against the death penalty in America.
Probably one of the first petitions that I put my signature to back in my youthful liberal days was one to keep Massachusetts death penalty free. No execution had taken place here since 1947 and the MCADP and I wanted to keep it that way against the periodic attempts by pro-death penalty forces to reintroduce this barbaric practice. This, at the time and since, has been doubly important to me personally as Massachusetts is the site of the infamous executions of the martyred anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (part of Ben Shahn’s famous mural print of the pair form the head to the MCADP newsletter).
Since then there have been a number of campaigns at the state level as this issue has reared its ugly head in the legislative process (most recently during the furor over a particularly heinous crime committed against an innocent child several years ago and during the unlamented gubernatorial administration of one 2008 Republican presidential contender, Mitt Romney, in his “hard against crime” minute). We have been able to hold the line here and not much has been heard from those dark forces recently. But, they are out there waiting for that next heinous crime to reach the headlines in order to stoke their fires.
To finish up, let me be clear. My central focus on the death penalty question has centered on the case of death row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal that the organization that I support, The Partisan Defense Committee (PDC, see link at right), has publicized for many years. Moreover, I share their perspective that the international labor movement take up the demand for Mumia's freedom (and that of others) and that the forces must be mobilized in the streets and workplaces in order to bring that freedom. A victory in that case (and, again, others) would put the state on notice that we will not put with the continuance of judicial murder. That is quite different from the perspective of MCADP, which has a central focus of “buttonholing” legislators, raising funds, and doing research and propaganda work on the question. In short, a parliamentary strategy. But that said, this is what the whole idea of the united front is about on this issue-everybody fights like hell to get rid of the evil in front of us and raises their individual perspectives as part of that commitment. When the “deal goes down” the PDC and MCADP are one on this issue. Fair enough, right?
Commentary
Over the years I have worked with a number of different people and groups on the fight to abolish the insidious death penalty. And that is my main point in this commentary. This demand for death penalty abolition in order to deny the state the right to say who is to live and to die here in this capitalist “justice system” is something that communists, anarchists, socialists, progressives, liberals, religious people and, hell, even the occasional thoughtful conservative can unite around in the name of an “evolving standard of decency”. Only current members of the august United States Supreme Court, some (too many) state supreme courts and assorted right-wing loonies and their hangers-on appear to have missed the tide.
I will go further, though, and argue that this anti-death penalty position holds true not only for the capitalist justice system we live under but for non-capitalist states as well. We, whatever our positions of support (or non-support) for the few remaining non-capitalist states, are as much against the Chinese state executing its citizens as we are of the state of Texas. That understanding forms the basis for my inclusion of a link to the website of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP). I would also urge readers to read, if possible, “A Progress Report” from their summer 2009 “MCADP News” that gives a nice thumbnail sketch of the current state of the struggle against the death penalty in America.
Probably one of the first petitions that I put my signature to back in my youthful liberal days was one to keep Massachusetts death penalty free. No execution had taken place here since 1947 and the MCADP and I wanted to keep it that way against the periodic attempts by pro-death penalty forces to reintroduce this barbaric practice. This, at the time and since, has been doubly important to me personally as Massachusetts is the site of the infamous executions of the martyred anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (part of Ben Shahn’s famous mural print of the pair form the head to the MCADP newsletter).
Since then there have been a number of campaigns at the state level as this issue has reared its ugly head in the legislative process (most recently during the furor over a particularly heinous crime committed against an innocent child several years ago and during the unlamented gubernatorial administration of one 2008 Republican presidential contender, Mitt Romney, in his “hard against crime” minute). We have been able to hold the line here and not much has been heard from those dark forces recently. But, they are out there waiting for that next heinous crime to reach the headlines in order to stoke their fires.
To finish up, let me be clear. My central focus on the death penalty question has centered on the case of death row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal that the organization that I support, The Partisan Defense Committee (PDC, see link at right), has publicized for many years. Moreover, I share their perspective that the international labor movement take up the demand for Mumia's freedom (and that of others) and that the forces must be mobilized in the streets and workplaces in order to bring that freedom. A victory in that case (and, again, others) would put the state on notice that we will not put with the continuance of judicial murder. That is quite different from the perspective of MCADP, which has a central focus of “buttonholing” legislators, raising funds, and doing research and propaganda work on the question. In short, a parliamentary strategy. But that said, this is what the whole idea of the united front is about on this issue-everybody fights like hell to get rid of the evil in front of us and raises their individual perspectives as part of that commitment. When the “deal goes down” the PDC and MCADP are one on this issue. Fair enough, right?
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