[Marxism] Re: Tookie Williams, prisoner of conscience, was executed for pleading not guilty and appealing his conviction (correction and comment)

[Debordagoria <phantasmagorias@xxxxxxxxx>]

The whole bloody circus revolved around the
undefinable notion of "redemption," and whether the
wise Governor judged Tookie to have achieved it. Thus
Williams' stated (and implied!) opinions and feelings
comprised key evidence.  And thus were Tookie's hopes
to remain alive damaged (officially!) by his mention
in the dedication of one of his books of such unsavory
figures as Mumia, Malcolm, Peltier, and George
Jackson. For the Governor, radicalism equals
non-redemption equals deserves to die. First Amendment
indeed.
Michael D.

--- Fred Feldman <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Making the fact that someone says they are not
> guilty, while the jury
> thought otherwise, into the central argument for
> executing them --
> Schwarzenegger clearly centers his decision on the
> absence of a
> confession of guilt -- is a clear violation, to put
> it very delicately
> indeed, of the first amendment guaranteeing freedom
> from penalties on
> speech, and the fourteenth amendment extending this
> provision to the
> states and guaranteeing equal protection of the
> laws.
>
>
> Schwarzenegger's argument clearly shifts the basis
> for execution to the
> crime to Williams' denial that he committed it -- an
> opinion he is
> entitled to hold without penalty regardless of what
> the jury, the
> victim's family, white public opinion, or
> Schwarzenegger himself hold.
>
> At the point where this shift takes place, Williams
> was being punished
> not for what he had been convicted of, but for his
> opinions and
> convictions, and for his refusal to surrender them.
>
> In the case of the five Puerto Rican nationalists
> who attacked Congress
> in 1948 at the height of brutal persecution of the
> independence
> movement, a significant change took place in the
> position of Amnesty
> International in the 1970s, after these heroic
> fighters for their
> country had served decades in prison.  Before then,
> Amnesty had declined
> to support them since they had obviously committed a
> violent act,
> illegal under the established laws, and had not been
> imprisoned for
> their opinions or simply exercising democratic
> rights in the
> constitutional sense.
>
> But in the 1970s, facing growing popular demands in
> Puerto Rico and
> around the world for their release, the US
> government shifted its
> position. It now declared it would release them if
> they would not only
> promise not to commit similar acts in the future
> (they all agreed) but
> morally repudiate their action,  reject armed
> struggle unconditionally,
> and withdraw from the Puerto Rican independence
> struggle.  They all
> refused to do this.
>
> At this point, Amnesty recognized, THEY WERE BEING
> IMPRISONED FOR THEIR
> OPINIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS.  And Amnesty threw its
> support behind freeing
> them.
>
> >From the standpoint of revolutionary socialists and
> opponents of
> colonial rule over Puerto Rico, and that is most
> people in the world,
> Amnesty's original abstention is open to criticism.
> But the political
> and legal propriety of their basis for changing
> their view was perfectly
> clear, at least to me.
>
> Schwarzenegger's statement makes it clear that he
> was executing Williams
> for his failure to accept Schwarzenegger's judgement
> about his guilt and
> to ratify this with an abject confession.  From that
> statement until his
> death, Williams was not just someone being executed
> immorally and
> criminally, as are all who are executed in this
> country, deprived of
> life but a  PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE, someone being
> executed for refusing
> to endorse the views of those who held his life in
> their hands.
>
> Williams refused to bow to the power of the state.
> He became not just a
> victim, but a martyr.  And a reminder of what the
> Black population
> above all, but all of us exploited, oppressed, and
> dissident face at the
> hand of this ruling class.
> Fred Feldman


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