The recent controversy in Texas involving the Governor Rick Perry (R), an alleged cover up, two fired members of the inquiry, and a possibly innocent man put to death by the state, has been teetering on the edge of an explosive nation-wide news event. But as of now it has not gone over the edge. That is a shame but I predict it will soon. And when it does I would hope to find some strange bed-fellows in the story.
A bit of background is necessary. Cameron Todd Willingham was apparently a dick who did not treat his wife well and there is even a story of him hitting his wife in the belly while pregnant on purpose. His whole family died in a fire that he was convicted of setting. CNN reported, “Since that time, three investigations have concluded arson was not the likely cause of the 1991 fire, including one that arrived in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office 88 minutes before the scheduled execution.”
Governor Perry’s response to the growing amount of questions is to point to Willingham’s own lawyer who says he was a monster and was indeed guilty. He also fired some of the members of the inquiry that was under way. But Perry’s delay tactics will only last for so long. And when this finally breaks open and we learn more about what seems like a cover up, I would like to see the NAACP and the 9/12ers joining forces to not only get the governor out of office but put an end to the death penalty in America.
Willingham is not black. If there was such a thing as the opposite of an African-American I think he would be a good candidate. With his trucker mullet and his hick-like stare, Dave Chappelle Paul Mooney said it best, “he makes Wayne Brady look like Malcolm X”. But black people have a stake in his state-sanctioned death because more black people, statistically speaking, are being executed than whites. When this story gets huge it can be of great benefit for the black community like having the white guy drive when the police pull the car over. The issue will be taken more seriously by the media partly because he is white (unfortunately, that’s the way it is for now), but only by a little. This was not a boy scout that the news can hold up as a poster boy of injustice. He was caught drinking like a sailor only weeks after his family died in the fire. But as bad as he is, the evidence says he did not kill his family and when all is said and done the governor may look just as bad, if not worse. This will be the best chance that the anti-capital punishment groups have to make an emotional case. They will be expected to chime in but the NAACP is not. But they should.
The group that has an even less of a chance of voicing their anger is the 9/12 and tea-bagger groups headed and reported by Glenn Beck. But if they are really concerned that their freedoms are being striped away by comrade Barack HUSSEIN Obama, shouldn’t they be appalled when the government kills a citizen? Appalled is not a strong enough word. If they think that they are getting their taxes raised and that the government is taking over health care they take to the streets with Obama-as-Hitler posters and effigies. If this same group hears that the government is killing citizens I would expect nothing less than a full militia coup. One of the tea-bagger protesters said that there is nothing more important than liberty. Not even life. “Give me liberty or give me death” is the Patrick Henry’s famous motto but isn’t the ultimate freedom the freedom to live? Life and freedom are not separate things. Life is just on the continuum of freedoms. That does not diminish the worth of life but in fact makes freedoms even more so ‘a matter of life and death’.
So what should happen if a plot to let an innocent man be killed by the Texas government is proved to be true? Besides the governor’s resignation I hope something else would happen. First, the breaded men held up in the wilderness with enough guns to kill god will come down from their mountains and team up with the illiterate Fox News™ watching, Hot Pocket™ eating yokels and storm the Governor’s Mansion. On their way, as they pass some cities, they would pick up some of the concerned inner city workers with their Chevy Tahoes and campers. Some gang bangers who have friends on death row will provide some more fire power and then it’s on to every capitol of states that actively kill its citizens.
This will obviously not happen because the NAACP do not activate unless it is black people that are in the foreground and the tea-baggers and the 9/12ers will not activate because they do not like black people. Too bad though, I wonder what these strange bed-fellows would have to say to each other on the way to the capitols.
