I woke up this morning deeply disturbed.
I've always been against the death penalty. I simply don't understand how you teach a society not to kill when your society kills people. I could go on and on about my views on this and our prison industrial system. What I want to talk about here, though, is my feeling that I've been too complacent.
I live in Massachusetts. We don't have the death penalty. It's always a shock when a federal case is tried here and the death penalty is involved. I could never live in Texas because that state so wantonly murders people. Innocent? Mentally debilitated? Doesn't matter. Texas is all too happy to kill you. Choosing to live in a state without the death penalty isn't enough, though. It sickens me that, in our name, people around the United States are being killed.
What can we do? I don't have all the answers or the ability to do everything that is needed. What about boycotting Georgia for a start?
I'm not sure how this would work. I suppose we'd need to compile some lists:
- products are made in Georgia - so we don't buy them
- services provided outside the state by Georgian companies - so we don't use them
- sports teams in Georgia - so we don't support them
- colleges in Georgia - so we don't enroll or send our kids to them
- hotels/conventions centers in Georgia - so we don't plan our conferences there
Did I miss anything?
And how do we spread the word?
Do we need to compile a list of alternatives so that people can readily purchase what they need from places which don't have state-sanctioned murder?
Can we start boycotting every state which has the death penalty?
How do we fight the death penalty at the federal level? We haven't been able to stop our feds from torturing people. How do we stop them from killing them?
I'm really sick of these things being done in our name. I'm sick that I was raised with propaganda about what America stands for and that I've been resigned, in all my years as an adult, that it was all a lie.
More and more I see the need for us all to #occupywallstreet and more. We need to #occupycongress. We need to turn this nation on its head and shake out the callous greed and contempt for humanity.