Jena and Rove's dirty tricks

[flashl]

Are the Jena 6 victims of GOP ‘dirty tricks’?

Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish Judge J.P. Mauffray ordered 17-year-old Mychal Bell back to jail for another 18 months Oct. 12, stirring outrage across the nation since an appeals court threw out Bell’s conviction as an adult on battery charges and the district attorney declined to retry Bell as a juvenile.

The judge’s action triggered new calls for solidarity with Bell and his five co-defendants, known as the Jena Six. So far over 350,000 have signed an online petition for their freedom, at the colorofchange.org web site.

Supporters charge that Mauffray’s ruling is revenge for the outpouring for the six Black youths who took a stand against a racist hate crime, the hanging of three nooses from a so-called “white tree” on their high school lawn.

But others are asking if more is at work. This is an important election year in the Bayou State and the Republican right, reeling from the Bush administration’s abandonment of Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans, is stealthily exploiting the Jena Six case to divide and confuse voters.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, the Republican candidate for governor, has hailed the criminal justice system’s handling of the Jena Six case. “We certainly don’t need any outside agitators coming in here,” Jindal said when asked about the huge, peaceful demonstration in Jena Sept. 20.

Keeping the pot boiling by sending Bell back to jail could be a ploy straight out of Karl Rove’s playbook.

Alan Bean, director of Dallas-based Friends of Justice, has traveled to Jena 17 times working for justice for the Jena Six. He told the World he saw the Jena situation as “smart politics in Louisiana” aimed at mobilizing Republicans’ racist voting base. “There are plenty of white voters in central Louisiana who think the Jena Six are getting what they deserve and guys like Jindal know that is what they think,” Bean said.

Former Klansman David Duke carried a majority of white votes in LaSalle Parish on a program of racist incitement when he ran for governor in 1991. George W. Bush carried the parish by a 4-to-1 margin in 2000 and 2004.

Is Mychal Bell being sacrificed to turn Louisiana Red?

[lynnertic]

1. I want to write letters of support to these kids while they're in jail.

How can I?

Thanks

[flashl]

2. ..

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/

[lynnertic]

7. thanks but I wanted to write to the children who are in jail, not to the governor.

[flashl]

8. Maybe the Jena 6 Defense Committee could help direct you.

PO Box 2798,
Jena, LA 71342
[e-mail]

[nightrider767]

3. I'm Still Not getting it

Why is this case getting sooo much more attention than the thousands of displaced New Orleans residents still living in FEMA trailers below the poverty line?

America's dirty little secret. Forgotten by all. Another inconvenient truth.

[flashl]

5. Subject of Senator Webb's JEC hearings

Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?

Over the course of the period from the mid-1970s until today, the United States has embarked on one of the largest public policy experiments in our history, yet this experiment remains shockingly absent from public debate: the United States now imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country in the world.

In the name of “getting tough on crime,” there are now 2.1 million Americans in federal, state, and local prisons and jails -- more people than the populations of New Mexico, West Virginia, or several other states. Compared to our democratic, advanced market economy counterparts, the United States has more people in prison by several orders of magnitude.

All tolled, more than 7 million Americans are under some form of correction supervision, including probation and parole.

America’s incarceration rate raises several serious questions. These include: the correlation between mass imprisonment and crime rates, the impact of incarceration on minority communities and women, the economic costs of the prison system, criminal justice policy, and transitioning ex-offenders back into their communities and into productive employment. Equally important, the prison system today calls into question the effects on our society more broadly.

Largely, Blacks are related to or know one of those 7 millions. Jena 6 is a reminder.

[T Wolf]

4. Outside agitators. Obviously, things have not changed down south since

Lester and George and their clan rode the night.

[flashl]

6. George came to mind as I titled this post. n/t