justice

With your indulgence, I'm using my blog-space today with some thoughts that aren't NC-specific, but ones that I hope will be shared with all citizens. Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King's death. I remember the grief, shock and fear I felt that day when I first heard the news. Funny; forty years have past and that grief is still as strong today as it was then, but in the meantime, it has been tempered with words and actions.

Still, I long for A Voice that will unite people once again for justice, equality and human dignity. Perhaps, we are the ones we've been waiting for.

Here's hoping everyone enjoyed time with family, friends, loved ones, your hobbies, the homeless, the less fortunate and those in need of grace, mercy and hope.

To me, it feels as though we enter a meditative season of collective reflection and celebration on the day after Thanksgiving. Christians, Jews, Muslims all over the world do their best to aid less fortunate neighbors in their communities in this season. We are so alike in that way.

Throughout this season I hear this verse in my head ... over and over and over again ... like a meditation;

So now the rich parents of the kids wrongly accused in the Nifong case (see how the emphasis has shifted) now want $300 from every citizen of the City of Durham. Nifong has a symbolic 24 hours behind bars -- more time that Scooter Libby will ever do for a crime for which Alberto Gonzales should be charged but won't because Democratic Congressmen are not as vindictive as the parents of rich white jocks.

A disturbing perspective from Ronald Fraser at the Asheville Citizen-Times:

"Rulers in Libya, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan made Parade Magazine’s 2005 world’s worst dictators list. And the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, located in Oakland, Calif., has issued a report titled, US Rates of Incarceration: A Global Perspective, showing the incarceration rates for these five dictatorships – the number of persons in prison for every 100,000 population – ranging from a low of 57 in Pakistan to a high of 207 in Libya.

By comparison, prison policies made in Raleigh locked up 360 state citizens for every 100,000 population in 2005. In other words, North Carolina imprisons its people at a rate one and a half times faster than Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya and six times faster than Pakistan under Gen. Pervez Musharraf."

Gold Star Families for Peace Activist Cindy Sheehan to speak in Greensboro on April 21st.

She will be appearing at a rally at Governmental Center in Greensboro, NC The rally will begin at 12 noon.

Cindy Sheehan is an internationally known mom and peace & social justice advocate whose son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in action in Sadr City, Baghdad, on April 4, 2004. As an act of protest against the war, in August 2005 Cindy took a stand outside of George Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, asking what noble cause her son died for. She is also a central leader in the movement to impeach President George W. Bush.
http://ncwcw.blogspot.com for more info