State Of The Union Speech 2011

In a few hours all of us political junkies will be tuned in to our favorite news channel or C-SPAN to watch President Obama's second State of the Union address.

This one not only comes at the midpoint of his first term, it comes during a time when his poll numbers have rebounded after a bruising fight to enact health care reform legislation and a disastrous midterm election in which the Democrats lost control of the House

So it will be interesting to see what the president has to say about more than a few issues and his thoughts as to how this legislative year should play out..

Sue 'Em

In the wake of the Tucson massacre, it's time to hit upon a new strategy in terms of curbing right wing hate speech and violence aimed at transgender people

Sue 'em.

When the battle was happening over the Byrd-Shepard Hate Crimes Bill in 2009, Bigot Harry Jackson and his merry group of drum majors for injustice in the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition, their masters in the Traditional Values Coalition and other right-wing fundie groups came up with the lie that the bill would 'muzzle our pulpits'.   

But what they were really worried about was the potential of an adverse (for them) legal result and the impact it would have on their money grubbing greed is good for them 'ministries'

And they have good reason to fear a successful lawsuit based on what happened in these two legal cases.     

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In the wake of a 1981 Mobile,.AL trial n which an African-American defendant was charged with the murder of a white policeman and ended with a hung jury, several Klan members decided they would kill a Black man in retaliation.   

On Saturday March 21, 1981 they discovered nineteen year old Michael Donald walking home alone, forced him into a car and subsequently lynched him.   

That act led to a series of cases that not only led to the conviction of the perpetrators in 1983, but a 1987 civil suit filed by his mother Beulah Donald and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Morris Dees that resulted in a $7 million judgment that destroyed the Tuscaloosa, AL based United Klans of America

This was the Klan group responsible for many of the well known atrocities of the 60's Civil Rights era.  Their terroristic resume included beating down the Freedom Riders in the Birmingham bus terminal in 1961, bombing Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 and  murdering civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo in 1965.

The sue 'em strategy also shut down the White Aryan Resistance group as well.

It was bankrupted as the result of a civil lawsuit centered on its involvement in the 1988 violent murder of Ethiopian college student Mulugeta Seraw by racist skinheads in Portland, OR.    

Morris Dees and the SPLC filed a civil suit against Metzger, arguing that WAR influenced Seraw's killers by encouraging their group East Side White Pride to commit violence.

WAR national vice president Dave Mazzella testified during the trial how the Metzgers instructed WAR members to commit violence against minorities, which resulted in Tom and John Metzger being found civilly liable under the doctrine of vicarious liability.    In other words, a person can be held liable for a tort committed by a subordinate or other person taking instructions.

The jury also returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time—$12.5 million—against Metzger and WAR. The Metzgers' house was seized, and most of WAR's profits go to paying off the judgment.

So with these two cases as major examples, what I’m proposing is that the next time a transgender hate crime occurs, we employ this strategy to sue the senior pastor of the nearest megachurch to the scene of the crime that has a history of spewing transphobia/homophobia..     

I would also include suing any right wing media outlet or talk show host that spews hatred on the airwaves on a regular basis as well.

If the suit is successful, depending on the damage award, it will either bankrupt that church or media outlet, force it to disband or pay a sizable amount of its earnings to satisfying the judgment against it.   It will also send the message that open TBLG hatred or hate speech period will cost you and have a chilling effect on other megachurches and right wing organizations involved in similar hate speech.

Individuals and churches have every right under the Constitution to say and preach whatever message they want, even if it is distasteful to us.   But when those messages cross the line and incite someone to murder another human being, they not only need to be called on it, but if the hate sermon or speech results in injury or death to another person, be severely punished for it as well.  

And if they have to pay a severe financial penalty to the victim’s family for their hate speech, then so much the better.

International Trans Activist Laksmi Discriminated Against

Note to haters.  If you're going to discriminate against a transperson, it would be wise not to pick one who is an internationally known trans activist and who will call you out on your BS.

Check out this video from Mumbai, India.

A Tale Of Two Arizona 9 Year Olds

By now everyone has heard the story about 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, who died along with five other people in the attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

President Obama mentions the born on 9-11 girl in his Tucson speech during the memorial service.  Pleas for national civility followed in her name and an overflow crowd complete with the 9-11 flag waving in the breeze attended her funeral that got national television coverage..

But for 9 year old Brisenia Flores of Arivaca, AZ, there wasn't any overflow crowd at her funeral.  There was no national news coverage of her funeral, continuing cable coverage or national outrage over her murder.

On May 30, 2009  Brisenia's home 11 miles north of the border was invaded by a group led by Shawna Forde of racist anti-immigration Minutemen.

The right wing extremist Minutemen had been on a mission to jack up drug dealers to fund their 'patriotic' activities of unsolicited vigilante patrols of the Mexican border.    Forde also has ties to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform which was declared a hate group in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  She appeared as their spokeperson in a 2006 PBS show about immigration issues and had formed her own Minuteman group called the Minuteman American Defense.

Forde and friends had been given inaccurate information that the Flores home had drugs and cash inside it. In the early morning hours of May 30 Forde and her accomplices forced their way into the house claiming they were law enforcement personnel looking for fugitives.   They killed Brisenia's father Raul and shot her mother Gina Gonzalez three times, who survived the shooting by playing dead.

In Terry Green Sterling's story posted to The Daily Beast, according to prosecutors, when Brisenia asked the gunman "Why did you shoot my mom?" the man put a gun to her head and fired the two bullets that killed her.    The Flores family's other daughter fortunately was staying with her grandmother at the time.

The trial of Forde, Jason Bush and Albert Gaxiola is taking place in Tucson and ironically was postponed in the wake of the Tuscon shootings.   Forde and friends are facing the death penalty if convicted and one of the witnesses will be Gina Gonzalez..
     

Arivaca, AZ also happens to be in Pima County as well.  Sheriff Clarence Dupnik earned the ire of the right wing when he said in the wake of the Giffords shooting::   

The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Sheriff Dupnik was not shy about expressing himself in the wake of the Flores tragedy either.   He called the murder of Brisenia at the time 'one of the most despicable acts I'd heard of.'

I have the same questions as the Crooks and Liars blog story does.   Why hasn't the rest of America heard about it?   Is it because it happened to a Latino family?  Is it because it rips the so called patriotic 'were not racist' neighborhood watch mask off the Minutemen vigilantes running around in the desert playing with automatic weapons and hatin' on Latinos?

Or is it because once again it points out the connection between right wing political rhetoric,.talk show hate speech and the violence it leads to that cost a 9 year old Latina girl and her family their lives?

It also sadly points out the Grand Canyon sized chasm in terms of the level of attention that's garnered by two Arizona nine year olds and the value placed on their lives.