What Is America?

What do you see when you look at these two photos?

Photo: Gary Firstenberg

Photo: Steve Harvey on Unsplash

This is from our pledge:

"Liberty and Justice for All"

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May your Fourth be a time 

of reflection, family and celebration.

Lady Justice Isn't Blind, She's Just Turned Her Head So We Can't See Her Tears

The concept of justice combined with fairness has been one of the foundation stones of Western civilization. In Greek mythology Dike (Die-kee) was the goddess of justice, moral order and fair judgment. Justice was believed to be a transcendent universal ideal.

It's unfortunate when ideals and reality are so distant from one another. In this country the legal system, as it was conceived, was intended to be fair and just. Trials were conducted to reveal what happened and determine what was true so that justice (accountability) could be served.

Artwork and statues depicting Lady Justice will show scales, a sword and usually--but not always--a blindfold, the intention being to convey the idea of justice being blind, a symbol of impartiality. In other words, all are equal under the law.

Today, there are few so naive as to believe this is so. Those with money can obtain better attorneys so that all too often the truth suffers while the better legal team wins. Justice, all too often, is a game. 

Another facet of today's legal shenanigans is the use of public opinion to pressure decisions. Truth again suffers as legal teams frame their stories to get favorable support for their side of an argument. We seldom get an accurate picture. Once again, the one who controls the narrative controls the people.

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My father sat on a jury once, and I myself served on a grand jury for a season once. My dad said that after both sides testified, it was impossible to know which one was lying, yet also impossible for both sides to be telling the truth. Their stories were contradictory.

In my personal grand jury experience, as the first side presented its case things were so cut and dried I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why are we here?" Initially, my vote would have unquestionably been, "Guilty!" But as the defense presented witness after witness, we the jury saw very clearly the the incident was far more complicated than initially presented. Over time it became clear that our first impressions were wholly at odds with the facts of the case. By the end of the second day there was a call for a decision. Unfortunately, everyone was aware if we did not make a decision at that time we'd all have to come back the next day. In retrospect, there was a subtle pressure to go along with the mood of the moment, which was compelling. The results of that vote were 23 "Not Guilty" and one abstain. I've occasionally wondered what might have happened had we slept on it.

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Why the Rule of Law is Important

This is a different take on the stories above. It has to do with unfettered crime. When cities fail to deal with crime so that there are consequences for bad behavior, everyone suffers.

If we fail to uphold the rule of law, we risk descending into chaos and anarchy. Without the rule of law, there is no way to ensure that people will obey the law or that those who break the law will be held accountable. This can lead to a breakdown in order and a rise in crime.

The rule of law is essential for a civilized society. It provides a framework for resolving disputes and ensuring that everyone is treated fairly. Without the rule of law, people would be free to do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences. This would create a society dominated by bullies, where people were constantly at risk of being harmed or taken advantage of.

The rule of law is also important for economic development. Businesses need to be able to operate in a predictable environment with clear rules and regulations. If the rule of law is not upheld, businesses will be less likely to invest and create jobs.*

In conclusion, the rule of law is essential for a civilized society and for economic development. If we fail to uphold the rule of law, we risk descending into chaos and anarchy.

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* See: Exodus from Crime-Ridden High Cost Cities Continues Crime Impacts Corporate Relocations Boeing Exits Chicago as City Wrestles with Crime, Exodus

Niall Ferguson on the Breakdown of the Rule of Law

Lady Justice: Blindfold, Scales
and Sword*

The other day I shared the values and principles that transformed Western Civilization from a network of regional peoples to a global force. These four forces that came together in Europe (and were exported to North America) were Democracy, Capitalism, the Rule of Law, and Civil Society. 

In my second reading it became apparent that the historian Niall Ferguson's aim here was to draw attention not only to what made Western Civilization strong but to the dangers facing us as these very qualities deteriorate. 

Here are some of my notes and quotes from a section in which historian Niall Ferguson discusses the breakdown of the Rule of Law, opening with this question:

"How effective is the rule of law in the West in general and specifically in the English speaking world today?"

The Rule of Law's Enemies

Ferguson sees four threats to the Rule of Law.

1. How far have our civil liberties been eroded by the National Security state? At the outbreak of WWI Britain enacted the Defense of the Realm Act. The post-9/11 protracted detention of terrorist suspects veiled a similar overreach. And then there's the issue of surveillance on citizens in the name of National Security.

2. The intrusion of European Law with its Civil Law character is a second threat. Specifically, the 1953 European Convention on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Ferguson calls it Napoleon's Revenge, a creeping Frenchification of the Common Law. 

3. The third threat is the growing complexity and sloppiness of Statute Law which has become a "mania for elaborate regulations." We need a legal "spring cleaning" of obsolete legislation and the addition of sunset dates for new laws. 

4. The mounting cost of the law. He's not referring to the $95 billion a year the U.S. spends on law making, law interpretation and law enforcement. Nor does he mean the spiraling cost of lobbyists seeking to protect themselves or hurt their competitors by skewing legislation in their favor.  Though companies and cities spend only 3.3 billion dollars on lobbying, the real cost is found in the consequences of their work. How much? According to the U.S. Small Business Association this amounts to 1.75 trillion dollars a year.  And this doesn't include the costs extracted via tort law. Bottom line: It costs way more money to set up a business in the U.S. than elsewhere in the world due to all the legal red tape and the cost of lawyers.

Ferguson points us to a book by Joseph Steiglitz and David Kennedy who cite three egregious failings of the rule of law in the U.S. today. 

First: New bankruptcy laws and predatory lending by banking firms have created a new class of partially indentured servants. There are people so in debt that they have to give as much as 25% of their earnings to the banks for the rest of their lives.

Second: Intellectual property law has become absurdly and excessively restrictive. 

Third: With regard to laws concerning toxic waste, litigation costs represent more than a quarter of the amount spent on cleanup. 

Bottom line is that the game is rigged. The unnecessary costs and inefficiency of our legal system are apparent to all, but what is being done about it? 

"Experts on economic competitiveness (interviewed by) Michael Porter of Harvard Business School (HBS) define the term to include the ability of the government to pass effective laws, the protection of physical and intellectual property rights and lack of corruption, the efficiency of the legal framework including modest costs and swift adjudication, the ease of setting up new businesses, and effective and predictable regulations. It is startling how poorly the United States fares when judged by these criteria." 

When 600+ HBS alumni were queried by Porter as to whether or not to off-shore their operations, only 16% said they would choose the U.S. as a place to set up their business. Here are the Top Five reasons the other 84% would NOT. 

1. The effectiveness of the political system (lack of)

2. The complexity of the tax code

3. Regulation (Red Tape)

4. The efficiency of the legal framework (extremely inefficient)

5. Flexibility in hiring and firing (lack of)

By nearly every measure, our reputation "is shockingly bad," says Ferguson.

According to the Heritage Foundation's "Freedom Index" the U.S. ranks 21st in the world in terms of freedom from corruption, way behind Hong Kong and Singapore.

Ferguson goes on to list a dozen more ways that the U.S. has fallen behind when it comes to the Rule of Law, not just in the business realm but in both the personal and political spheres.

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My Two Cents

In many ways I believe people fail to observe what is happening today because they have a mental image of what it used to be. For example, it has been nearly 100 years since the Pittsburgh skyline was an abundance of steel factories belching black smoke. There has been immense progress in this realm of business pollution. They no longer need a fire department to put out fires on the Cuyahoga River that flow through Cleveland.

In the same way, many of us have a false image of our superiority as a nation compared to other countries when it comes to justice and freedom. Some make a case that there's never been a level playing field in this country, and that's certainly been true for many. Today, however, the cracks are increasingly visible, and an honest observer has to ask how or when--if ever--these things will be fixed. 

The Radical solution is to bulldoze the entirety into the sea. Saul Alinsky, in his Rules for Radicals, states that Machiavelli wrote his opus as a guide for the Haves to preserve power and what they have. Alinsky claims his book is a guide for the Have Nots. The path he outlines makes me cringe, but so does the path we're on. 

Is there a third way? Ultimately I find comfort in the notion that "this world is not my home." And yet....

*Photo courtesy ChvhLR10, Creative Commons.

My Experience on a Grand Jury

When we see jury trials in movies, it is usually "a jury of one's peers" assembled in a courtroom for a specific purpose. There is usually a room full of spectators who have a vested interest in the outcome of events unfolding in the moment. Some have been subpoenaed, required to attend. Depending on the importance of the case, the. room is sparsely populated or crammed to the gills.

This is not the same as a grand jury. The trial jury, a public event, serves for the duration of a trial to determine guilt or innocence. A grand jury is a group of citizens sworn in to serve for a full six months, and with a different objective. The objective of a grand jury is to determine whether there is enough evidence to indict. That is, enough evidence to bring a person to trial. 

FindLaw.com puts it like this:

A grand jury helps determine whether charges should be brought against a suspect, while a trial jury renders a verdict at the criminal trial itself. Put differently, a grand jury hands down an indictment at the beginning of a case, while a trial jury decides guilt or innocence at the very end (not counting the appeal process). 

Grand jury proceedings are held in strict confidence to encourage witnesses to speak freely, as well as to protect the suspect if the grand jury decides not to bring charges.

In Minnesota, there are two types of cases that get brought before a grand jury, murder (1) and cases involving high profile citizens (2). Examples might be a mayor, district attorney or city councilman. The reason for this latter matter is that reputations are at stake. If the high profile person is involved in an incident and it is not his or her fault, this should be handled in privacy. Unlike trials in the movies or shows like Perry Mason, grand jury deliberations have no media, no audience. The grand jury chamber only has a judge, jury, court recorder, and the attorneys who bring their evidence and, one by one, their witnesses.

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In my six months service on the Grand Jury we only had one case to preside over. The case involved a public figure who unintentionally caused physical harm to another person.

There were 23 of us on the jury. It is not a 12 person jury. 

It was our responsibility to decide whether to indict or not indict the public figure. If we decided the person was guilty, the prosecuting attorney's next step would be to file charges and prepare the case to go to trial, a public event.

One of the responsibilities of the grand jury is to never share what happened or what we heard and saw in the grand jury chambers. The word "never" means forever. And though I took copious notes throughout, I will not divulge details here, other than the process by which we made our determination not to indict.

The attorney on behalf of the victim presented first. This attorney showed us the consequences of the event that occurred. We saw medical records and heard a presentation of details from the point of view of the victim. It didn't take long for us to conclude that the "high profile person" had done a bad thing and was guilty.

Then the defense had its turn. 

The event had occurred in a public place and there were many witnesses. The police had done a thorough job of acquiring names and contact information from everyone who was there, and we listened as each one told what they saw.

The original picture that had been formed in our minds was not accurate at all. There was much more to the story. After hearing 15 to 20 witnesses tell what they saw and heard, the jury had to make a decision. 

Someone had been assigned the responsibility of being the lead spokesperson of our group. When we were left to ourselves to deliberate, he gave us all a scrap of paper and asked us to write our verdicts on these pieces of paper. It seemed to him, and we concurred, that there is no point in a long drawn out discussion if we were already all in agreement.

I believe the decision had to be unanimous, and in that first go-round it turned out we had 22 "not guilty" and 1 on the fence. 

A discussion ensued and in retrospect I feel wrong about what happened next. We had to make a decision or come back the next day and has things out. One of the members of the jury was grumbling about it and didn't think we needed to come back the next day. In point of fact, no one wanted to lose another day of work. (We were being compensated $35 a day for our service, if I remember correctly.) The person with doubts, therefore, was under pressure to go along with the rest because to not go along would inconvenience 22 other people. 

Was justice served? One could argue that it's unfair that the person with wealth and power got off scot free and another human was permanently disabled. The perpetrator, however, was also a victim of circumstances. And he did not get off "scot free." He had to deal with the aftermath of what happened, regretting it the rest of his life. 

There's much more to the story but we were sworn to secrecy and I can't share things that might give any clues. 

* * * *

This grand jury experience came to mind when I saw the outrage with regard to the Breonna Taylor verdict in which officers were tried by grand jury to determine whom and how many to indict of what. 

We do not know all the evidence that was presented. What I do know is that all kinds of information gets passed around on Twitter and through the media that may or may not have a shred of truth. I was not there and I have no idea what all the facts are. What I do believe is that the jurors themselves realized that they had a solemn responsibility and did not take it lightly. 

There are good reasons why many people do not have confidence in the criminal justice system. There are also plenty of valid reasons for having little confidence in the media. It goes without saying that social media can be even less reliable.

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Perhaps an Oscar Wilde quote would can serve as a summing up at this point. "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." 

Duluth Protesters March from the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial to City Hall

Will it be different this time? I think this is the question many people have been asking this past week in response to the death of George Floyd who had been in the custody of the police at the time, in broad daylight and on social media. The Memorial Day incident proved to be a spark that ignited a firestorm that went internationally viral.

The unspoken question many have is this: when all the clamor subsides, will everything go back to normal, as if it were just another news story? I'd like to believe it will be different this time, and there seems to be evidence this is so.

Scott Shackford's article Even Police Unions Trash the Actions of the Cop Who Killed George Floyd begins by asking "Are we seeing a tipping point where police begin to grasp why the public is so outraged?" Police departments rallying around the misconduct of their own is so commonplace that it had become cliche to read it in novels and see it in Hollywood movies. The article in Reason begins with an example of the NYPD defending its own in a similar incident 6 years ago.

This time it really is different. Instead of rallying around their own, police departments from across the country are criticizing and condemning what happened in the George Floyd case.

THE RALLY IN DULUTH
The start point, which seemed relevant, for Saturday afternoon's killing of George Floyd protest was the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial at the corner of 2nd Avenue East and First Street. For those unfamiliar, this is the location where three black circus workers were lynched 100 years ago this summer.

An elderly woman working her way past me with her walker asked m how many people were there. "100?" she asked. I replied, "Between 500 and a thousand. Probably closer to a thousand." Sunday's Duluth News Tribune estimated the same... about a thousand, a strong show of support for the injustice that occurred at the beginning of last week in Minneapolis.

The Ojibwe drummers and singers near the memorial set the tone as people began arriving to assemble for the march. The crowd continued to fill the intersection, and though not exactly social distancing, they were all masked and conscientious. (There were a couple people handing out face masks for the very few who arrived not wearing one. Stacks of pizzas from Pizza Luce were piled on the sidewalk nearby.

Eventually a woman with a bullhorn drew attention to a pickup truck parked on the avenue just above First Street where Brayleigh Keliin and Joe Carter were standing, accompanied by a large quantity of bottled water for those who might be thirsty on the warm afternoon. A mixed crowd of black, white and Native peoples filled the intersection, in solidarity with the aims of the organizers, to essentially change the systems of injustice that have condoned racism.

Joe Carter, a young black man, welcomed the crowd and introduced Brayleigh. "Duluth, you have come together"" After a round of cheers she said, "I'm scared for my son and all blacks," citing "what living in America is like as a minority." This is why we must demand justice for George Floyd, she said.

Two key words: Justice and Change. "We will have a new tomorrow. We are tired, angry and united," he said. "Racism is a war on the people."

Joe Carter and Brayleigh Keliin were both articulate and passionate, and seemed to project a good-heartedness of spirit.

The bullhorn was passed to Kym Young from Superior, who identified herself as an elder. She spoke about the history of racism in America going back to the founding, and made her appeal to "tear down injustice" and systems of oppression. "We are traumatized and not OK."

A Native woman then spoke briefly about the Ojibwe concept of "Megwiich" which then yielded to the beginning of the march to the St. Louis County Courhouse and City Hall eight blocks away.

What's interesting about this for me personally is that when we moved to Duluth in 1986 and I learned about the lynchings here in 1920, I never understood why the actual event took place here, eight blocks away from the jain? The answer came years later when I learned that City Hall used to be one block below this corner as was the city jail. At that time a mob formed also, perhaps the biggest in our city's history, to carry out a terrible crime... taking the law in their own hands.

It was fitting to see a peaceful march yesterday, to the Courthouse and City Hall where an appeal for justice was made. As part of the gathering there the crowd was asked to kneel for nine minutes, the length of time the officer in Minneapolis knelt on the neck of George Floyd. Try kneeling for nine minutes like that and think about what goes through your head while a voice chokes out "I can't breathe."

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Statements on the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial

IN ANOTHER PART OF THE CITY there was evidently another gathering of protesters. I only heard about it later on social media and was concerned when still later there were people marching up to Central Entrance and heading toward the Mall. It would not have been a good action, as the point has been made, and I believe Chief Tusken has been remarkably responsive to the minority factions in our community. Things really are different in Duluth.

Rumors were circulating that cars and/or buses were coming from the Twin Cities with more protesters, outsiders that were a concern to city officials. For this reasons a curfew was announced for 10:00 p.m. and earlier for tonight.

The continued looting and burning across the country is heartbreaking. Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On?" comes to mind. 

Related Link
Carla Hamilton's Gezielt (Targeted) Creatively Makes Us Think and Gives Us Something To Talk About
A Few Thoughts on the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial

Things I Learned from My Visit with Darryl "King Rick" Farmer, Leader of the Black Panthers of Milwaukee

King Rick

I first learned about Darryl Farmer (a.k.a. King Rick) and the Black Panthers of Milwaukee through Paul Lemenager, a producer with Dogsnose Media, which I wrote about here. Their team had produced a show titled No Justice, No Peace: The Original Black Panthers of Milwaukee which was accepted into the Catalyst Content Festival. What struck me was his statement that No Justice, No Peace was one of the most interesting projects he'd worked on his entire life.

King Rick and his bodyguard Quodo came to Duluth last week to attend Catalyst, whereupon we made arrangements to meet. On Friday the three of us met at the hotel where they were staying. What follows are notes stimulated by our exchange. First off what really struck me was the feeling I had that in our core we were just three guys sharing life experiences. 

* * * *
The original Black Panther Party was founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966. It was a movement of high impact, though relatively short lived. When we say "Black Panthers" it forms an image in many peoples' minds, usually associated with violence.

This is not surprising when you look at the 150 years of violence perpetrated against Blacks since the end of the Civil War, not only in the Jim Crowe South. In researching for this meeting I learned that Huey Newton was raised in Ouachita Parish, Louisina where there had been 37 lynchings from 1877 to 1950. Hence, the motivation to take action against injustice.

Black Panthers of Milwuakee Facebook header.

Black Panther chapters formed in numerous cities in the late 60s. King Rick said, "I was born, bred and educated at the table of a Panther in Milwaukee."

One day, when he was in Head Start at age five, an Open Housing March took place in Milwaukee. As the march went past his school, he left class to go participate.

He described himself as an inquisitive youth, waking up to issues around age 10. He was also growing up physically, and played basketball in high school. "Our school won the state championship," he said. He later went on to play pro basketball overseas for a spell. His career was in education, teaching French while also coaching a successful high school basketball program.

King Rick

King Rick talked about political prisoners who were unjustly sent away--Geronimo Pratt, Dhoruba Bin Wahad (Richard Moore) and others. Then he briefly outlined the history of the Black Panthers in Milwaukee. After the Black Panthers disbanded in the early 1980s it went underground. "In 1990 Commander Mike McGee Sr. decided to bring back the Black Panther militia. I was his bodyguard."

The non-violent Milwaukee Panthers whom King Rick leads are community-minded activists. “If anyone is a detriment to the community we will hold you accountable.”

He stated that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in America, and the worst place to raise black children. "It’s a modern Tammany Hall." King Rick sees Mayor Tom Barrett as Boss Tweed. “We’re not a hate group. We’re just against these things.”

He described the manner in which the group exposes injustice. “Everything we do is strategic. We plan ahead of time, but don’t tell when we’ll show up.” Stealth is a part of the modus operandi. And even though they are opposed to violence they will use it if necessary to protect their families. "The complete village is our family."

There's another side of the Black Panthers that is equally important.

"We do a lot of community activities, neighborhood clean-ups and giveaways," he said. "For example, we do an annual Mother’s Day giveaway for 5 moms who lost kids to violence. We do a book bag giveaway. At Thanksgiving we give away 100 new coats, hats, gloves and turkeys. On December 28, Kwanzaa, we give gifts to 5 kids who lost parents through violence."

As you can see the community activities help people while also raising awareness regarding serious issues. There are at least 15 chapters of the Black Panthers across the country and it continues to expand, he said, because the work is not done.

King Rick's bodyguard Quodo

Quodo, King Rick’s bodyguard, was also on hand. He’s served two tours of duty overseas, Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Quodo shared details about these experiences which included service in the  3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, support for helicopters.

Today the Panthers are active on social media, on YouTube and Facebook. They also have a website. “Social media is a blessing and a curse,” Farmer said.

King Rick still believes in democracy and the power of the people. “When people (in power) are afraid of change, we can vote them out of office.”

“When we challenge people we don’t let them know we’re coming. The element of surprise is important to us.”

I asked what they see as the biggest current issues. "Donald Trump and education are one and two. Oppressive beliefs is a close third."

The next thing King Rick said was something I'd heard three decades ago from a friend. “The laws and attitudes of America were never designed to protect the people it oppresses. The original police force was formed to catch slaves.” We have a heinous history, he noted, adding,  “It’s only going to change if we make it change.”

Currently the Black Panthers of Milwaukee holds weekly meetings. One recent issue they dealt with had to do with a man who killed the mother of a family of four. "We persuaded him to turn himself in."

For King Rick the work he is doing comes from a sense of calling that is rooted in his ancestry. Speaking truth to power is a non-violent political tactic that takes courage and resolve. The purpose of confrontation is illumination.

Next year the Democratic National Convention will be held in Milwaukee. In light of the times we live in, I suspect it won't be just another political event. The Black Panthers of Milwaukee will be there.

Related Links
No Justice, No Peace Trailer
About the Black Panther Party
Getting Ready for Catalyst

The Significance of Martin Luther King's Speech at Riverside Church

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Wikimedia Commons)

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 4, 1967 Dr. King gave a major speech at the Riverside Church in New York. One year later to the day the Baptist minister and civil rights leader was assassinated.

At what point did Martin Luther King know that he was a marked man? He saw what happened to JFK, to Bobby, to Medgar Evers, to Malcolm X. It must have weighed on him heavily that one day he would leave his wife and family for the cause that burdened his heart.

As with all his major speeches, it is delivered with power and authority. The new feature here is that he is critical of our government's involvement in Viet Nam, accusing our leaders--and with good cause--of being a great purveyor of violence.

* * * *
I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization that brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

Why was Dr. King now addressing the war? People were telling him that civil rights issues were different from the anti-war movement. He disagreed, and he spells out his reasons. First, it became apparent to him that the war was an enemy to the poor.

Riverside 1967. (Photo: Public domain)

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. 

Another reason he had come to make this speech was because he saw how blacks were arming themselves, many believing that violence was the only way to set things right. When he said it was not, they would point to Viet Nam and say how our government believed violence was the way to resolve issues.

This latter led Dr. King to become more vocal about the wrongness of the war.

Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.”

His career as a minister required him to preach peace to the nation and take up the cause of the needy.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

The next section of his speech details the history of Viet Nam after the end of World War II, and our part in the then-present devastation.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church.

He follows this section now with concern for our own troops and what we are doing to them.

I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.

How do you un-see once you've seen it so plainly?

He goes on to make a statement that is expounded upon more fully in more recent book The Cold War's Killing Fields by Paul Thomas Chamberlin, that the U.S. misinterpreted all national ambitions for self-rule through a Cold War lens. He stated, "In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution," and then elaborated on this.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.

Sadly, this next paragraph could have been written yesterday:

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

And finally:

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

* * * *

Why I Am Writing About This

Nearly every point in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech is something many of us had thought about at one time or another growing up in the Sixties, or so I thought. We hadn't articulated it so clearly, but were uncomfortable with what we were hearing, seeing in the news, reading in the papers. 

Simultaneously, Dr. King was being slammed as becoming a Communist now, taking the side of our enemies. As you can plainly see, this speech is in harmony with the Gospel, for we are all brothers and sisters in the human family, and have responsibilities to one another. It has been cited as the moment he was perceived as a real threat to out nation's Machiavellian war efforts, a voice that had to be silenced. 

Related Links
Background on the speech Beyond Vietnam 
The full speech, Beyond Vietnam
Coretta Scott King's Statement at the Conclusion of the Conspiracy Trial  regarding the assassination of her husband on e year later.

Thurgood Marshall Story Is Powerful Reminder of Many Important Truths

This week I saw the film Marshall for the first time. The film, based on a true story, retells an early case legal case by Thurgood Marshall, the young attorney who would later become the first black man to serve on the Supreme Court. It's an impressive film, made all the more so by the acting of Chadwick Boseman, the star of Black Panther and an actor I definitely want to see again.

This summary by a reviewer on imdb.com expresses my take on the film as well.:
This enjoyable and inspiring movie is a worthy contribution to the courtroom movie genre. It memorializes the great Thurgood Marshall (who later won Brown v. Bd. of Education and sat on the Supreme Court). The film brings to life a forgotten rape case in Connecticut that Marshall tried early in his career when he was the solo staff lawyer at the NAACP. The story focuses on the plight of a black man accused of raping a white woman and it highlights issues of racism in the courtroom and on the streets. The movie recalls the classic films "To Kill a Mockingbird" (which also involved a black on white rape case) and "Anatomy of a Murder" (which also involved sexual issues and in which--like many real trials--we're never sure just what actually happened and who is telling the truth). The writing is sharp and witty and the acting and direction are great. Particularly strong is the emerging partnership and friendship of Marshall and the local lawyer, Sam Friedman, who had never tried a criminal case and thought he would just sit next to Marshall during the trial and do nothing. But the judge forces Friedman to conduct the trial with Marshall serving as his adviser--and he rises to the occasion.

Here's an excerpt from another imd.com review:
The actors in this intelligent film are all first rate and believable in their roles. Film is strong in mystery and suspense. The film is part of history but very entertaining from start to finish. It's an uplifting and positive film for everyone to enjoy. There are great believable interpersonal relationships. The film is high quality production including the music score. There is no detail that was spared. Plenty of great symbolism in the film for example the images in wall frame pictures in court room. I do expect actor and/or actress and other film awards in the future. Marshall 2017 is a must see film.

I only later realized that I had seen Boseman before on the screen. He played the role of Jackie Robinson in the film 42. I predict him to be the next Denzel Washington, a serious actor who will leave a legacy. He's well on his way.

One feature of the film, which takes place around 1940, is the reminder that blacks were not the only people discriminated against. Jews were not permitted into certain establishments, country clubs, etc. You may recall Jack Nicholson in the film Chinatown asking if the nursing home accepted Jews.

Near the end of the film, the prosecuting attorney tries to work a plea bargain with Sam, the attorney forced by circumstances to defend this black man charged with rape and attempted murder of a white woman. Friedman's response is one of many great lines in the film.

Loren Willis: "I thought Jews were supposed to be smart. You sound just like the Negro."
Sam Friedman: "That's the greatest compliment you could have given me."

In the closing arguments, as Sam trickled drops of ink into a glass of water, I thought of Perry Mason's manner of making vivid a point he wished to get across to the jury. And though we never saw the discussion that took place when the jury deliberated, I imagined the Henry Fonda film 12 Angry Men, and how what appears an open and shut case can become altogether other when honest dialogue occurs.

The DVD is available on Netflix. It comes with my highest recommendation.

Related Links
Marshall @ imdb.com
Emmett Till

Ox-Bow Incident Shines a Light On Mob Rule

“Why do you keep asking me all these questions? You don’t believe anything I tell you.” ~Anthony Quinn, the accused

Raymond Burr made a name for himself playing the attorney Perry Mason in the early Sixties television series. Courtroom dramatics are featured in many Hollywood films as well. An orderly, fair trial for the accused is one of the foundations of a civilized society and all the procedures for helping to insure justice are an essential part of it.

As any alert and educated person has observed, our current legal system has many flaws, but the French Revolution shows us how frightening our prospects can be when the pendulum swings the other way and we yield to mob justice.

The establishing of reliable factual evidence is one of the basic features of a fair trial. Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident vividly reveals what happens when due process is scuttled in favor a fast results. Published in 1940, it was but three short years before the film reached the silver screen.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Hollywood's 1943 Old West re-telling of Clark’s novel is one of many great films in which Henry Fonda fights for justice. In 12 Angry Men we find him cast as a single juror who insists that the easy way out, conviction of the accused, is not warranted until all the evidence is fully examined. In The Ox-Bow Incident, the mob assumes the role of judge and jury, reacting emotionally to a situation based on baseless hearsay. Both films reveal how easily injustice can happen.

The Ox-Bow Incident is a black and white Old West drama that takes all of 75 minutes to thread the needle. There are almost no side stories. The plot moves straight forward from the opening scene to its tragic conclusion.

In addition to Fonda we also see a young Henry Morgan, later of Dragnet and M.A.S.H. fame, as well as Anthony Quinn in one of his earliest roles.

When I read the book many years ago it made an impression on me. I discovered it after having read The Track of the Cat, another story by Clark that takes place in the Old West. An early line in the movie hints at one of the recurring themes in both these stories. “Why do you suppose he’d be living in this neck of the woods if he didn’t have something to hide?” Fonda declares. The Old West was society's fringe.

As a kid I liked westerns with gunslingers and shootouts. Hopalong Cassidy was a good diversion. This film is quite distant from your O.K. Corral type of film. No High Noon, no 3:16 To Yuma. No Peckinpaugh bloodletting. It’s a simple story about the consequences of misinformation and mob rule.

You can be sure this kind of tragedy has played out all over and not just in the Wild West. It happened right here in Duluth in the 1920s. A mob of 1,000 took the law into its own hands, broke into the jail and hanged three black men on one dark night that has now been memorialized as a reminder that we ourselves are not immune to horrific injustice. There was no evidence beyond hearsay and, like this film, there was no happy ending.

One reviewer on imdb.com stated, "The Ox-Bow Incident is a fantastic film. I don't think it's well-remembered now, but I'm thrilled to see it on DVD and hope that it will be rediscovered.” I agree.

Bad Ideas: The Eugenics Movement In America

Let’s say it again. Bad ideas have bad consequences.

Tuesday on National Public Radio I listened to a story about one of the victims of a forced sterilization program in North Carolina. At age 14, when she was giving birth to her first child she was sterilized without her knowledge. At age 19, married and trying to have children, she discovered that a procedure was performed without her permission or even being told about it. Today a panel is recommending she be compensated for her loss.

The shocking part of the story is that this event occurred in 1966, not 1936 or 46. According to Wikipedia, the North Carolina Eugenics Commission was not abolished until 1977. What!?
In early 2010 I was astonished to learn that eugenics advocates managed to get 30 states to put laws on the books making the practice of forced sterilization legal. By 1933, the Human Betterment Foundation had documented over 16,000 such sterilizations. By the time they were finished it's been estimated that as many as 66,000 were victims of these procedures. What were they thinking?

The Winston-Salem Journal’s five-part series blows the lid off this incredible chapter that took place right under our distracted little noses. It went on while Americans were watching Leave It To Beaver. It went on while Americans were dying for freedom in Southeast Asia, and while Americans filled amusement parks from Disneyland to Six Flags. And we never knew.

The story raises many questions. Why did North Carolina continue the practice after most other states had abandoned it? Which raises the next question. How did it come to pass that at least 30 states had laws permitting the practice of forced sterilization.

And then, the spooky question… What are some of the things our government is doing today that we do not even know about, that they do not want us to know about, but which we will learn about in the future when our own kids are grown?

I do not know the numbers, but would guess that the quantity of pills being distributed to children to help with behavioral modification in school may be questioned at some point. It might even shock us the degree to which people in mental institutions are being forced to ingest pharmaceuticals against their will, “for their own good.”

Who are the people making these decisions?

The North Carolina story that has been making news this month, however, has more to do with the problem of how to right the wrongs. A panel has recommended that the state pay one of the victims $50,000. Is that supposed to be the equivalent of justice? That feels like a strange amount to me, a token gesture that says, “Gee, we, uhm, were wrong. Sorry.” No amount of cash is going to make this one right.

The scariest thing to me is that there are still people who believe forced sterilization is good and necessary, and the problem is that those who govern us just don’t have the will to do “what needs to be done.”

I was actually pleased to hear this story being talked about so publicly. It's an ugly chapter in our history, but a good reminder of what can happen when idealism runs amok.