Greetings All,

–abe

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HATRED IN OUR MIDST
a message from Ron Keine

Sometimes I am amazed by some of the things I have heard come out of the mouths of my brother and sister abolitionists.

It was a wonderful but stressful morning. I had given a short welcome speech to the general assembly at UCLA. The subject of the speech was how happy I was to see so many concerned people in attendance joining together to stop government killing. Later I poured my heart out telling my story of how I was wrongfully convicted and sent to Death Row. As many of my fellow exonorees can tell you, this is not easy–especially for a then fledgling speaker like me. After the speech, you are both physically and emotionally drained. The question-and-answer period was pure torture as the audience touched on some of the very subjects I did not want to talk about. Some of the aspects of my ordeal are still very sensitive to me. Still I complied.

As I walked outside to the patio for lunch, I saw many large tables full of people. One group beaconed to me the availability of an open seat.

The table chat was friendly until a man said that he had read a news article about me and wanted to know if I was indeed the past Chairman of my local Republican party. “Yes” I proudly replied. “Are you still a Republican?” he queried, to which I again said, “Indeed.”

The woman sitting next to me blurted out loudly that she hated Republicans. I politely thanked her for that information.

She again reiterated her statement but louder this time.

She went on to say that she couldn‚t believe that she was even sitting at the table with Republican scum. She looked at me with a face that blared of hate and anger. This woman was not only a lawyer but also the wife of a prominent doctor who had authored books speaking out against the death penalty.

I was floored. I said, ” Ma’am, I come from Michigan, and in Michigan it is the Republicans that keep the death penalty off the law books.”

She then said that she couldn‚t eat any more with a Republican at the table. In fact she might be getting sick if she stayed any longer. I said “No problem,” and I left the table. This is not the way an honored guest and exonoree should be treated.

As I stood by the building, finishing my lunch, I felt devastated. I had come all the way to California, with no pay, to help fight the death penalty. We are all here for a common cause–a cause I have dedicated my life to. I had received a standing ovation for my speech. Now I just wanted to go somewhere and hide.

I then spotted my fellow exonoree, Shujaa Graham, and went over to talk to him. I told him what had happened. Those of you who know Shujaa know that it didn’t take long for him to talk me into a lighter mood.

Another time I was in Chicago at a North Western Wrongful Conviction seminar. Sitting at the breakfast table I witnessed a lady bad mouthing Catholics as the Catholics at the table sat flabbergasted. This woman is a devout Christian but hates Catholics. I couldn’t help wonder, “What kind of religion is this that teaches her to hate other Christians?” She went on to say that Catholics worship plaster idols which finally got a verbal war going at the table.

These are all abolitionists. They are all there for a noble cause: a humanitarian effort to rid our land of its worst atrocity. Where does all this hate come from?

At that same meeting in Chicago, I and several of our exonorees gave a speech in a standing room only auditorium. The last speaker was Jesse Jackson Jr. I was totally horrified at what he said. He talked about many troubles in the world today and blamed them all on Republicans and white people. It was supposed to be a speech against capital punishment (which he did mention), but it was a campaign speech instead.

I followed him off stage. As I approached him, in anger, his security thugs stepped up to make sure I didn‚t violate him. As I looked around, it reminded me of what comedian Ron White said. “I didn’t know how many of these bouncers it would take to kick my ass but I could see how many they were going to use.”

Being careful not to transgress the line, I stood two feet in front of the Reverend and told him that I have never, in my life, heard such racism, bigotry and hate spewing from the mouth of a man of the cloth, especially a congressman with a master’s in Theology. “You were supposed to be here to help our cause. Instead, you set us back.”

He just looked at me. He was speechless. He turned and walked away with his entourage in tow.

While lobbying in New Mexico I was able to talk to several Republican house legislators whose votes were crucial. They refused to even listen to coalition people because they were “fuzzy headed liberals.” We won that vote, but the bill was shot down in the senate committee.

One woman recently published a letter proclaiming her distaste for rich people. Rich people give a lot of money to our anti-death-penalty coalitions.

I was at the fast and vigil at the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Among our own peace-loving, understanding and humanitarian anti-death-penalty activists there was all too much of this bigotry going around. When I gave a private speech to this group I dumped my planned oration to address this problem. I might have hurt a few feelings, but most agreed with me. Not wanting to let this simple letter become a tome, I’ll cut to the chase.

I have seen so many instances of this bigotry, racism, bias and hate among our own abolitionists that it makes me sick. Democrats hating Republicans, Republicans hating Democrats. People hating other people because of their religious or political preference, ethnic origin, race, and human status in life.

This kind of behavior does not belong in our midst. This may be the status quo to many groups of people in this world. This may be commonplace to the pro-death penalty vultures, but it should NOT be evident in our abolitionist movement. We are a unique people. We are all working to better this world and end the killing of our citizens. Why can’t we all just get along? Why can’t we accept that other people may have differing opinions without hating them for it? Remember that WE are supposed to be the good guys. We can expect this kind of treatment from our foes, but when it comes from within our own midst, it is truly shocking.

What we must remember is that whatever we do, however we act, reflects directly on our fellow abolitionists and the groups or coalitions we represent. We must stand out as an example of what is right. We cannot let a few bad apples tarnish our image and circumvent our credibility

— Ron Keine

Remembering Margaret Sanger
By Gloria Feldt

“Woman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man’s attitude may be, that problem is hers – and before it can be his, it is hers alone.”

Sept. 14 is the birthday of Margaret Sanger, founder of the U.S. birth control movement. She was born Margaret Higgins in Corning, New York, in 1879, though ever vain, she would later alter the family Bible to appear three years younger. The sixth child of eleven living siblings, her earliest childhood memories were of crying beside her mother’s bed as after she almost died following a difficult childbirth.

Sanger’s mother, Anne Higgins, did die, worn out from those too frequent pregnancies and births, at age 50. These experiences formed the sensibilities that propelled Margaret Sanger to advocate for birth control. She dedicated her first book on the fundamental rights of women to control their fertility to her mother. The quotation above and those that follow reveal her clear worldview about women and a laser-like focus on the work she believed to be the most essential to women’s health, well-being, and rightful place in the world:

“She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it.”

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More military donors backing Democrats

Assessed positively this week by the war’s lead general, the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq appears to be causing a surge of another sort — and one that’s not positive for President Bush or the Republican Party. Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, members of the military have dramatically increased their political contributions to Democrats, marching sharply away from the party they’ve long supported.

In the 2002 election cycle, the last full cycle before the war began, Democrats received a mere 23 percent of military members’ contributions. So far this year, 40 percent of military money has gone to Democrats for Congress and president, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Anti-war presidential candidates Barack Obama and Ron Paul are the top recipients of military money.

* Read the full report: here.

Abortion Stakes Are Personal
By Allison Stevens

I’m a lucky woman. Today I hold in my arms my newborn son, born in good health – both his and mine. As the Washington bureau chief for a news site that covers issues important to women, I often cover the ideological warfare over reproductive rights.

A frightening moment at the beginning of my pregnancy gave me an almost visceral perspective on the most recent Supreme Court battle over abortion, one that has already inspired lawmakers in a number of states to enact or contemplate action to further limit a woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive life based on the best medical option for her particular circumstances.

My pregnancy officially began the way many end: with a late-night trip to the hospital. Last October, before I was able to confirm with my doctor the positive results of an at-home pregnancy test, I headed to the emergency room after I experienced some bleeding, a sign of possible miscarriage.

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Here’s footage of the Code Pink protesters being ejected yesterday from the Petraeus hearings. Today, I got this back-slapping message from Code Pink, a group I support.

The clip and the e-mail both make me cringe. Much as I admire the passion of these well-intentioned folks, I fear that their message is lost on those who most need to hear it. It also risks alienating allies who worry that these sort of antics only serve to marginalize anti-war activists by making us look — well — goofy.

Code Pink says it is all for “embarrassing ourselves” and being “rude for peace.” Fine. I’m all for civil disobedience; sometimes it’s the right card to play. But I don’t think this latest theater did anything to advance our position and, in fact, may likely have set us back.

We don’t often criticize our own, because as activists we are so glad to see people doing ANYTHING that we dare not question their tactics. But it’s been my experience that we spend too little time thinking strategically in our impatience to “do something.” It’s ironic, I think. Too little strategy, too much posturing — isn’t that exactly how we got into Iraq?

Becci Robbins

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From Code Pink:

Sept. 11, 2007

Dear becci,

Remember when Colin Powell stood in front of the UN in 2003 to make his case for war? Remember how he lied about weapons of mass destruction? Remember how the country was fooled into entering a disastrous war? Well, the Bush administration is pulling the same tricks again with the Petraeus report.

Yesterday afternoon when General Petraeus presented to Congress what amounted to lies, exaggeration and p.r. spin about the “successes” of the so-called U.S. “troop surge” in Iraq, we were expected to sit in the room and quietly listen. When polite political discourse in the halls of Congress countenances torture, murder, theft of resources, and ongoing occupation, we think that rudeness is the correct response. If it’s embarrassing for women to shout out, “War criminal” at war criminals in expensive suits and military uniforms, then we are all for embarrassing ourselves.

Our CODEPINK heroes Medea, Liz, Desiree, Leslie and Mona made a distinctly unladylike scene in the Petaeus hearing. They stood up for truth in the face of official lies. They stood up for the 2.2 million internally displaced Iraqis, the 2.5 million Iraqi refugees, and the 650,000 Iraqis and 3,700 U.S. soldiers — more Americans than those killed in the horrific attacks on US soil six years ago today — who have died in this miserable war and occupation.

Thankfully some members of Congress are waking up. Today, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) plainly said “I don’t buy it” to General Petraeus. Please help us get more of our Reps to stop buying Bush’s war by signing our pledge to “Whip Congress into Shape.” When you pledge to do a simple action every week to end the war, you will get a personalized pledge page to pass around to your friends, invite them to sign on, and watch your impact spread across the country! The CODEPINK member who inspires the most pledges by the end of each month will win an unforgettable trip to the CODEPINK house in DC!

This week, we’re asking everyone to call your Senators (202.224.3121) and say “Petraeus can only betray us. Don’t be duped again. Don’t buy Bush’s war.”

Proud to be rude for peace,
Dana, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jodie, Karin, Liz, Medea, Nancy, Pamela, Patricia, Rae, Samantha, and Vanessa