Our Network groups are hitting their stride in the waning days of the legislative session. The SC Campaign to End AIDS’ hard work to secure funding has paid off. See story in today’s The State.
Karen Bates, an activist with SC Campaign to End AIDS, makes a plea to legislators at the State House during a rally early in the 2007 legislative session.
Marching down Main Street, Columbia SC.
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By this time tomorrow night, the state of South Carolina will have executed Calvin Shuler for the 1997 murder of James Brooks during an armed robbery. It will be the latest in a long string of revenge killings conducted in the name of justice. Sadly, most of these state-sponsored murders have been committed in the South. Rankings by state of the number of executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977 show that 10 out of the top 12 are in the South. Texas, the state that brought us the most blood-thirsty cowboy in US history, leads the pack.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the list looks like this:
TEXAS: 395
VIRGINIA: 98
OKLAHOMA: 84
MISSOURI: 66
FLORIDA: 64
NORTH CAROLINA: 43
GEORGIA: 39
SOUTH CAROLINA: 36
ALABAMA: 36
LOUISIANA: 27
ARKANSAS: 27
ARIZONA: 23
The numbers are even more frightening when measured against what’s happening in the rest of the world. Amnesty International reports:
* 129 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
* Last year, 91 percent of executions took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the United States.
Looks like our Cowboy in Chief may have more in common with his enemies than he might think.
Even in the face of tragedy so profound that the rest of the world has taken note, the deaths of nine firefighters in a Charleston blaze on Monday could not shake South Carolina media outlets from their phobia of the “union” word. God forbid they could stray from their Right-to Work scripts even when the story surely warranted a mention of the mobilization of International Association of Fire Fighters to support their brothers in South Carolina.
A search online for coverage of this major story reveals the clear bias against unions in this (red)neck of the woods. Newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Kansas, — even Manitoba and Australia, for cryin’ out loud — noted how the loss of these men has resonated in the brotherhood. Across the country, firefighters have been dispatched to Charleston to attend funerals and lend their support to their fallen comrades.
Anywhere else, such solidarity would be seen as a good thing, decent people standing by their own. Here? Not so much.
