Elusive justice for the wrongfully convicted

Alan Crotzer's voice was barely audible last month as he spoke from the front row of a busy room at the Florida Capitol: "I accept."

Moments earlier, Rep. Jack Seiler had said to him, "I don't think we ever said 'We're sorry.' What we put you through and what you had to live through, on behalf of the state, we owe you an apology. And I hope at some point you can accept that apology."

Today, the Florida Senate made good on that sentiment by voting on a plan already approved by the House to pay Crotzer $1.25-million for the 24 years he spent in prison for a double rape he did not commit. DNA evidence exonerated him in 2006.

But the path to justice is much less sure for others who have been or will be wrongly imprisoned. For three years, lawmakers have tried to establish an automatic system for compensating the wrongly imprisoned so they might avoid the bureaucratic tangle Crotzer and others have had to navigate.

Once again, a solution is elusive. (story here)

Comments

Did Crotzer ever apologize to the victims of the other crimes he committed?

Do those crimes have anything to do with the DNA being wrong in the current case?

I do not see how a DNA test automatically makes you innocent. All the DNA test proved was it wasn't his DNA. So! How does that make him innocent?

8:41 If you don't understand that, no amount of keystrokes will help you figure it out. just accept that you are dumb.

8:41 It all starts out with a litlle concept called "innocent until proven guilty". When DNA tests "prove" the biological evidence is not from you, and there is no other evidence supporting the conviction, then you are "innocent" just like you were before you were ever charged. Of course, folks like you who believe "guilty until proven innocent, because even if he didn't do this crime he surely comitted other crimes" will nevfer wrap your undersized brain around any of this.

8:40 no they do not, but that did not answer the first post. Did he apologize to the victims of other crimes he committed?

Since Florida seems to be on this apology kick lately, I think anyone who has committed a crime should apologize to their victims.

OK Smartie pants. Explain this: OJ's DNA matched and is innocent. So how can that be?

OJ will be served justice later this summer. It's called Karma, as is the name of his cellmate that will be pounding his but_thole for the next 20 years.

9:33, just trying to see the correlation. Maybe you can explain: If he didn't apologice, what that means? If he did apologize what that means?

disgustingrasistpigs!

the "system" simply went out and arrested "any neegra" that fit the bill and the train left the station!

you wanna trust yuor life to people like that?

disgustingracistpigs!!!!

and of course, you will see them sunday in a nice, comfy, bible-believing church, praising jay-sus that they warnt born colored!!

You're right, 10:04. OJ got away with murder, ergo, this guy's guilty. I'm calling the Legislature before it's too late.

10:21

the poinrt is: he has sought apology from the State of Florida, rightfully so.

However, has he also asked forgiveness of his own transgressions?

Pandering to absentee crack head parents – 8-million!

Reparations for a man wrongly imprisoned – Nadda!

Insurance Industry payoff to avoid “promised” action – 12-million

Voting all these lying morons out of office – priceless!

thanks for the deeeeeeeep spiritual insights, 10.26!

we suggest you deal with YOUR own issues, instead of spending time on others'.

there's something about a speck in another's eye and a beam in one's own, isnt it?

11:23 so there it is. He gets an apology from the state, yet no one cares about the victims he hurt.

Typical...

10:26, I think he sought restitution and his freedom for being falsely convicted. The apology was offered and accepted. He should apologize for anyone he's wronged, and am calling for him to do so now that I've done everythign I SHOULD do.

WHAT VICTIMS??

he is innocent of THIS crime, which is the ONLY crime at issue!!

for which he was WRONGLY convicted and sentenced.

sorry he committed what is clearly the worst crime in your book -- BEING BLACK -- but fortunately, in the world beyond of your hatred, that is NOT A CRIME!!

END OF STORY!!!!

Pandering to absentee crack head parents – 8-million!

Reparations for a man wrongly imprisoned – Nadda!

Insurance Industry payoff to avoid “promised” action – 12-million

Voting all these lying morons out of office – priceless!

12:05

Crotzer committed crimes before the one in question. I will ask again, has he apologized to the victims of those crimes?

This has nothing to do with his race, though the fact that you're a retard liberal might suggest why you so quickly changed the topic instead of ANSWERING THE F_UCKING QUESTION.

12:20,

Wether or not Crotzer committed crimes before the one in question IS NOT THE ISSUE... blockhead!

Have you apoligized for any wrong doing you have committed... make sure you do or you can't go in the pool... Idiot!

This has everything to do with his race, though the fact that you're a retard Republicon racist might suggest why you so quickly changed the topic instead of ANSWERING THE F_UCKING QUESTION.

[Gilbert Ford]

11:19
I really like that comment!

I believe the lynch pin for Crotzer came not only from the DNA test exonerating him, but the CONVICTED Assailtant, a one Mr. Corlenzo James 9/23/06, provided a written sworn statement to investigators emphatically stating that, "Crotzer was nowhere around when the assault took place"! Here you have DNA saying he did not do it, and the culprit which will never get out of jail, saying the same thing. I am for "Law an Order" please do not misinterpret what I am saying. But this is pretty powerful evidence to overlook. As for his past crimes, based on the StPeteTimes previous reports, nothing suggest violence. Again, I am not saying he (Crotzer) is squeaky clean, however, this is pretty compelling to me as an ordinary citizen and to the Court (who set him free as well)!

From my understanding, the crime was committed by 3AAers. So the cops pick up 2 of the AAers that are guilty and one AAer that is innocent. So during the trial the 2 guilty AAers didn't once say he is an innocent AAer and here is the name of the 3rdAAer who was with us during the crime. So everybody associated with the trial, including the jury, didn't realize that they had an innocent AAer until 20 years later when they do some test that indicates the DNA that they tested wasn't his and use some psychobabble logic that makes him innocent, then give him a million dollar lottery check. Justice is now served, Amen!

Dude...

"... until 20 years later when they do some test that indicates the DNA that they tested wasn't his and use some psychobabble logic that makes him innocent..."

conflicted much!

2:25 Thank you for the critique grasshopper, however,

I don't see any conflict. What DNA did they test? 20 year old mislabeled/contaminated/cow DNA. Why do you need DNA to be innocent or guilty (OJ case). Who was the 3rdAAer? I bet the 3rdAAer is now walking around free and a million dollars to the better. How do you know he didn't cut a deal with his partners in crime when it looked like he could be sprung from jail by some idiot lawyer?

the names aren't out on the web yet, but who the heck are the 5 senators that voted "no" on HB 7037? was anyone in the gallery?

Most conflicted people don't see their conflict. You racism is pretty clear though.

nevermind it's up now - king, webster, gaetz, carlton, bennett

2:40 Bennett, Carlton, Gaetz, King, Webster

Webster does not surprise me as he is generally opposed to relief bills in principle.

But the more interesting quesiton in the House is - Where was Dan Gelber?

Hopefully he was sick or had a family emergency, because he did not vote on the Crotzer bill.

I'm pissed when people steal beer from my store. Why don't they apologize to me?

2:44 - the gelber question is interesting especially since it did pass the house unanimously - it is within the rules for him to log his vote after the roll call and yet he hasn't done that

nice try 2:51 - but the 'state' taking your liberty for 24 years is no where near someone taking beer - both are beyond wrong, but one is clearly far worse

I don't know about that... what kind of beer was it?

3:11 - hah! ok, way to keep it light here

couldn't have been nasty lite

3:04 i agree that it was worse.

but does that change the quesiton of whether or not Crotzer ever apologized to the store owner for the stolen beer, or for the gun he used to commit armed robbery when he took it?

... or for being born black, I guess.

I didn't steal the beer but I will apologize for the Colt45 quart bottles. So are you now happy? Can you now change the subject!

what does his armed robbery conviction and apology to the victim have to do with his being born black?

it's a simple question which should net a simple answer.

did he or did he not apologize to the vitim of his armed robbery?

[Allan]

April 5, 2008: Any person writing on here who thinks that what happened to Crotzer didn't have something to do with his skin color is living in cloud cuckoo-land -- and I'm a WHITE guy writing this. Racism is alive and well in this country, and its mislabeled "justice" system. The cops, the prosecutors, the judiciary, the media, are all PERMEATED AS PERMEATED AS CAN BE by white racism, and again, I'm a WHITE guy writing this. This country's capitalist system arose on the basis of the idea of white supremacy. It's been the main sanction for capitalism from the start of capitalism, and earlier for slavery. It's been the main thing keeping black, brown, yellow, red, white workers from uniting against our common class foes. It kept poor Southern white workers and poor Southern black slave laborers from uniting against the ruling class of Southern white slaveowners in the pre-Civil War period, and it kept poor Southern white workers and poor Southern black workers from uniting afterwards. It insured a handful of rich, fat cat, white Southern big shots could suck the South dry, aided and abetted by some rich white Northern big shots. Read John Egerton's book, "Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South." The South has been the poorest area of America for well over 400 years, and the primary reason was, slavery (enslavement of blacks laborers), and later, racial segregation. That, in turn, kept the ENTIRE UNITED STATES' labor's wages low, ALL of our wages low, white, black, brown, red, yellow, immigrant, native-born. Racism divides and conquers the working class on behalf of a handful of rich, white, capitalist exploiters who are white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and who use racism against black people, as well as religious hatred against Jewish people, Muslim people, Catholic people, atheist people, gay people, and against women's equality, to keep ALL labor enslaved and sucked dry by a rich, white, Protestant/Christian capitalist ruling class -- INCLUDING keeping white Protestant workers sucked dry by this white Protestant ruling capitalist class. WE ALL GET SUCKED DRY BY A HANDFUL, AND RACISM IS THE TOOL OF THIS HANDFUL. WAKE UP. The death penalty and prisons and monopoly of guns and fire power in the hands of the cops, the state, the prison guards, is WITH RACISM the TOOL by which the masses of us are kept enslaved to the modern slave drivers, the capitalist bosses and employers. The bosses' government bails out a big capitalist finance company, Bear Stearns, in an action that is called, rightly, "socialism for the rich," but the rest of us masses have to make do with "capitalist mass free market misery for the poor." That's capitalist exploitation of ALL LABOR, and it's kept in power by racism and the divide-and-conquer tool of the rich that racism against, especially, black labor, is and always has been in this racist country. And I'm a WHITE guy writing this.

Thanks for the "Daily Worker" brief, Allan. The white race is the superior race. It is the race mixing that is dragging my country down to third world status. I have a dream too Allan, that one day I can go to a grocery store without all mud around me. It use to be that way before the communist took over the country. So I guess you should be happy now. All this global economy nonsense should make you happy too. The super capitalists looting the country and moving our jobs to the new slaves is a result of your stinking thinking.

Remember the next time you are in a hospital and are saved by medicine and technology, you can thank a white guy! The next time you drive your car, you can thank a white guy! The next time you look at you big screen home theater, you can thank a white guy! If you can read this , you can thank a white guy!

[Allan]

April 6, 2008: Where is the name of the racist, fascist, Nazi creep who hates black people? Where? Why doesn't the person superintending this blog make the racist, fascist, Nazi creep put his name down as the superintendent of this blog makes me put my name down? Where is the name of the right-wing, death penalty-loving, red-baiting, right-wing, racist, fascist, Nazi, Hitler-loving creep? Where? Where is his name? Where? Hey, blog superintendent: why don't you make the right-wing racist, fascist, death penalty loving, totatalitarian, Nazi creep put his name down as you make me put my name down? This labor-hating, union-hating creep red-baits because he would be first to smash a labor-union-organizing drive in his factory or plant, first to send in his Ku Klux Klan labor-haters to commit violence against Southern workers here in Florida if we Southern Florida workers decided to organize a labor union in his factory or his plant, first to egg on cops to frame up a labor organizer here if a labor organizer sought to organize a labor union. But this right-wing creep will scream bloody murder about unions being crushed in Stalinist Cuba, Stalinist North Korea, Stalinist China. I'm consistent: I favor the right of workers to form unions and organize in Cuba, in China, in North Korea, but this right-wing fascist, racist, death penalty loving creep favors use of the death penalty here in Florida basically because he hates the guts of blacks. That's why he's so hell-bent on whitewashing the frame-up of Alan Crotzer and the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

This right-wing white idiot is so stupid that he doesn't know that modern genetics confirms beyond the shadow of a doubt he's got black blood in his veins and we all do. We all have black African ancestry, so like it or not, this racist, fascist, Nazi nitwit is basically black, as we all are. Tell that to your Ku Klux friends, fascist creep! You're black, and so am I, and so is the whitest white man on earth. Modern genetics shows that.

And as for globalization of capitalism, that's been in effect for well over 160 years. Marx didn't invent that, you stupid jerk. Capitalist profit invented it. Globalization means, capitalist expansion, and that's been going on since long, long, long ago. What's the matter? You too ignorant to read books, idiot? Read some economic history, except I guess you're too stupid to know anything about economic history. So I'll instruct you, although it will go in one ear and out the other, I guess. Capitalism's about 400 years old. And capitalist expansion's been around from the start of capitalism. It's called, trade, nitwit. And in case you didn't know, trade in commodities has been going on for thousands of years. Marx didn't invent it. Marx wasn't born before 1818, you ignorant nitwit. But trade and commerce between different countries has been going on for thousands of years, and capitalist trade for about 400 years, roughly since capitalism's start with the Dutch Revolution of 1583-1584. You really are a hopelessly stupid nitwit, but that's par for the course for a racist idiot.

Yeah: you have black blood in your veins, creep. We all do. I'm sure you'll hate learning that, but modern genetics confirms it beyond a doubt. It's called, genetic marking technology, and it shows every last loving one of us on planet earth, from the blackest black to the whitest white, and every shade in between, is black, and African.

Stick that in your pipe along with whatever other dope you're smoking, nitwit.

[Allan]

April 6, 2008: Oh, and it's not "race-mixing," as you racist, fascist, Ku Klux-loving, Hitler-loving, Nazi creep would have it, nitwit, that is dragging America down to third world status. It's the business cycle, which is inherent in capitalism, idiot. And Karl Marx didn't invent that. Neither did black people invent it, you stupid nitwit. The business cycle is inherent in the private profit-based capitalistic system, and in the United States of America, the private profit-based capitalistic system is owned by white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, old English-descended and old-Northern European-descended males who have more money than god. But you're too ignorant and too stupid to see that, jerk. You're being sucked dry, as all of us are, by white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, capitalistic males, and they're the ones also destroying their own capitalistic companies, lobbying the government to bail out big finance companies like Bear Stearns (that's socialism for the rich, idiot, and it's WASP big shots doing it), putting the entire country into debt. Who in the hell do you think indebted the biggest companies on earth? It was the owners of those big companies, idiot, and they're on Wall Street and they're white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant males, and they started doing that upwards of 30 to 40 years ago. They're the ones who made not a 10 trillion dollar debt, but more like a 40 trillion dollar debt, and they're responsible for making Florida, California, Michigan, the entire housing market, collapse, not to mention driving the entire country in the direction of a global world depression that's going to make the 1930s Depression look like a Sunday School picnic.

But I don't think you think, because you're so brainwashed by your Nazi and Ku Klux lying ignorant propaganda that you literally have had your brains made into oatmeal mush.

It ain't black people, or Jews, or immigrants, or Muslims, or Arabs, who are responsible for the destruction of our country, idiot.

Rather, it's a handful of rich, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, big capitalist bosses, big capitalist owners, who are not only sucking dry black people, immigrants, Arab-Americans, the middle class, Jews, but also whites like you and me, jerk.

Wake up and get your head out of your back hole and start learning a few things and stop being brainwashed by these hatemongering Ku Klux and Hitler-loving tools for the big WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) capitalist male exploiters.

Then maybe you'll learn something.

Thanks for the education, Allan. You seem to know a lot about Marx. Have you ever heard the name Che? I agree with you about capitalist expansion, but it's not just the expansion it's more like the "withering away of the state." International Courts, No Tariffs on Imports, Allowing millions of illegals in this country. Atheism is the state religion. All our jobs being exported for the greedy treasonous CEO's of these corporations and banks. All of this should make you happy. Of course these treasonous mega rich CEO's would agree with you that everybody is equal as they retire to their Swiss Chalet with a half a billion dollars of looted profits. And I know your Dem politicians will tell you how equal you are as they loot the cities and states. Cut personal deals with foreigners. Ask Billary about $109 million and I'm not talking about the book deals. I know they will tell you it's OK to mix. At one time Americans knew who they were and had respect for each other. Remember, it's to the advantage of the elite classes to have a mongrel population to rule over. Don't Worry Be Happy, Mon.

[Allan]

April 6, 2008
Sunday

1. Nahh, the state's not withering away. Capitalism needs the state. You're talking about national boundaries. Capitalism pushes at national boundaries, but keeps national boundaries. That's why there's been 2 major world wars. Capitalism pushes at national boundaries, but capitalism arose with nationalism, and preserves nationalism, and notions that "my nation's better than your nation." Nationalism, imperialism, expansionism are all common to capitalism, although different kinds of imperialism and expansionism happened before capitalism. But nationalism, the notion of forming a nation-state, came with capitalism. The nation-state emerged with capitalism. That's what the American Revolution of 1775-1783 and then Civil War of 1861-1865 were about. That's what the French Revolution of 1789-1795 was about. That's what the Dutch Revolution of 1583-1584 was about. That's what the English Revolution and Civil War of 1640-1649 was about. All of them were in part nationalistic revolutions that involved forming or forging nation-states. I'm not saying that that was all that they were about, but that was a big part of what they were about. Even in the 20th Century, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917-1923, the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, the Vietnamese Communist Revolution, were all, in part, nationalistic revolutions against outside foreign imperialist, capitalist, expansionist dominationist forces. But the capitalistic nationalistic revolutions of the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries were against feudalistic imperialistic expansionistic dominationist forces of that era. What happened in the 20th Century was, the non-capitalistic so-called "Communist" revolutions combined nationalism which originally arose with capitalism in non-capitalistic or, at least, non-private capitalistic, ways.

The state is about police, prisons, armed men appointed to keep everybody in their place. It's common to capitalism, to so-called "Communism" (actually, Stalinism, properly speaking), to the pre-capitalist economic forms like feudalism, and earlier, slavery. It's there to keep one class on top of another class, or one clique on top of everybody else, as in Stalin's Russia.

But national boundaries arose as part of nationalistic upsurges in the past.

Capitalistic expansionism simply pushes at national boundaries.

When the boundaries "push back," there are wars.

International courts basically are pretty toothless. If they had any teeth, war criminals like Cheney and Bush, for instance, couldn't get away with killing what Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg study concluded were upwards of 700 thousand Iraqis (not what the media tells you, but what this very respected study concluded was the numerical fact) or, for that matter, Clinton and Gore and Albright couldn't have gotten away with the economic sanctions on Iraq, that killed upwards of one and one-half million Iraqis, 500 thousand of whom were children. International courts are toothless; they're paper tigers. If they weren't Clinton/Gore and Busy/Cheney would be rotting in prison and waiting to hang for the mass murders they did. Ditto for Lyndon Johnson, Robert MacNamara, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger for the 3 million Vietnamese they killed.

I know a lot of white Americans don't like thinking the government of their own country is a gang of mass murderers, but then, mass murder is mass murder, whether carried out by Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler -- or Cheney, Bush, Clinton, Gore, Johnson, MacNamara, Nixon, Ford. That's how I see it. I'm consistent.

There's tons of tariffs on imports to this country. That's nonsense. Actually, NAFTA doesn't harm this country; mainly, it harms Mexicans. It was originally designed to help big capitalist employing class bosses in this country and harm Mexicans, and that's what it does. Similarly, for instance, U.S. big business bosses benefit from relations with, for instance, South Korean and Thailand economies, and after the burst bubble of the South Korean and Thai economies, when the smaller capitalists of South Korea and Thailand tried to get the U.S. to help them out, the U.S. bosses of big business here said, drop dead, it's our world. That's in effect what happened.

The cause of the current economic crisis is the bosses right here inside the U.S., big, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male capitalist bosses of big American enterprises. Starting roughly in 1971, they through their government, Nixon and company, let the dollar float against other world currencies. That was only a reflection of the fact that while the U.S. at that time was still the major world economy, it was only topmost, not "boss." Then, starting in 1973, purchasing power of U.S. workers' wages began stagnating, and have stagnated ever since. A dollar's only worth what you can buy with it. That wasn't caused by black people, by Marxists, by communists, by Cuba, by Che Guevara, by immigrants, by the Japanese, by Mexicans. That was caused by inflationary pressures basic to American capitalism. Then, starting in 1975, the biggest Wall Street owners of the biggest firms in America (which at that time were also the biggest firms -- biggest banks, biggest corporations -- in the world) began a process of "leveraging" all their companies into debt. That's been what they've done ever since. What that reduces to is, leveraging the entire American economy, which means the chunk of real estate called, the USA, into debt. That's where this 40 trillion dollar debt started -- with the biggest American owners leveraging everything in our country into debt, which means, leveraging our country into debt. We -- you, I, whites, blacks, browns, Latinos, Hispanics, men, women, gays, straights, working class, poor, middle class -- don't even own the spit in our mouths. A handful of big owners own everything lock, stock, and barrel. But they leveraged into debt everything, and that's created this massive debt which under capitalism will never be paid off, never, never, never. They did it. Black people didn't. Immigrants didn't. They did.

And they did it under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

This country's always had tariff arrangements on imported goods that were to the advantage of the big capitalist owners of this country, and to the disadvantage of other big capitalist owners in other capitalist countries. Like it or not, that is what capitalism does: different capitalist countries get into rivalries over economics, over profit, with each other, and they put tariffs on other countrie's goods imported into their countries in order to make advantages for themselves. And the USA has done it just as every other major capitalist country -- England, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, all the major capitalist countries -- have done it.

The relation between the U.S. and Mexico is a classic relationship of a big capitalistic imperialistic power, the USA, to a much weaker neo-colonial country, Mexico, and the advantage is all on the side of the USA. The crap put out by white racist jerks like Lou Dobbs and the white supremacist hatemongering militias is crap, not facts.

As far as workers from other countries go, your own ancestors and my own ancestors were, most likely, what you call, "illegals," but you probably just don't know that. Most ancestors of most white-skinned people were sometime in the past illegals. The correct term is, non-documented or undocumented workers.

And most of the workers from other countries are legal. That's true of most of the Latino and Hispanic immigrants. Additionally, most of the nondocumented workers work, pay taxes, and in working, produce profits for the bosses of this country just like native-born workers. They do work lots of white people won't even touch in this country, really tough, hard, backbreaking work that a lot of white lazy-assed workers won't go near, like picking fruit sunup to sundown in blistering heat, for instance. That's true of Haitian workers here in Florida, Latino workers here in Florida and in other parts of the South and in California. I think instead of attacking them, labor ought to organize them into the labor movement and organize against the government's efforts to deport them.

The reason jobs are scarce in this country is, the capitalist business cycle, not immigrants. Your ancestors were immigrants and so were mine, and you know that, or you should. The capitalist business cycle dictates when labor's cheap and when labor's dear. When labor's dear, bosses are forced to pay better wages and hire more workers. When labor's cheap, bosses lay off workers and slash wages. It's as basic as that. It's the capitalist business cycle.

If the work week were shortened to, say, 30 hours, and the minimum wage raised to, say, 75 bucks per hour for everybody, there'd be plenty of excess work for everybody and everybody, immigrant and native-born alike, would have a decent quality of life, because everybody would have work that didn't occupy us every minute of every hour of every day, and we'd be earning enough to live like human beings. But the capitalist bosses won't implement a shorter work week at no loss in pay and a 75 dollar per hour minimum wage that would actually permit all of us to live like human beings, because their system's based on profit. If workers took over this country, we could implement it, but we would have to make a non-profit-based type of economic system in which human need trumped private profit first.

Atheism is not the state religion. The First Amendment came about because two Virginia politicians, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, worked for something called the Virginia Religious Freedom Statutes which were passed in 1785, and the First Amendment Establishment Clause is based on those 1785 Virginia Religious Freedom Statutes. The Establishment Clause says, congress will make no law respecting any establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The original intention of it, as Jefferson himself wrote to a group of Danbury, Connecticut Baptist clergy in 1802, was to establish a wall of separation between church and state (and that was Jefferson's choice of words, not mine). Both Jefferson and Madison specifically said, the original intention of the Establishment Clause was to make both belief in religion and nonbelief (atheism) equal before the law, and make neutrality in the area of religion official government policy, and that has been official since the time of Jefferson. That was Jefferson and Madison's idea -- strict government neutrality in the area of religion, of belief and nonbelief (atheism). And after the Civil War ended in 1865, one of the 3 Civil War amendments, the 14th, established equality before the law for all as national policy, applying the Bill of Rights impartially to all the states. That meant, equality before the law for believers and nonbelievers (atheists) alike, as well as equality before the law for black and white alike.

As far as export of job, capitalism does what is profitable for capitalism. That's what a private profit-based economic system means. There's lots that can be done to insure there are decent jobs for all. As I suggested earlier, shorten the work week at no loss in pay, make a 75 collar per hour minimum wage, and immediately lots of work would open up for everyone at good wages. But capitalism won't do that, because it's an anti-capitalist measure. To get that, it's necessary to expropriate all the big corporations, industries, businesses, and make a socialist economy, administered democratically by elected councils of workers. But if you hate socialism and Marx and communism so much, you would not go for that. That, however, is the only way you're going to get rid of what you call these treasonous capitalist business CEOs farming out work to other countries. Actually, you're never going to get rid of work being farmed out everywhere; the issue is not getting rid of farming out of work. The issue is insuring there's enough decent work at decent wages for everybody, and you're not going to get enough decent work at decent wages for everybody short of getting rid of the private profit-based capitalist system and replacing it with real socialism.

Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, never had real socialism for the simple reason their efforts started out in broke, impoverished countries that were broke and impoverished from the start. The Russians knew it at the start, too -- that is, the original Russian Marxists of 1917 knew it. They didn't think they could survive and make a socialist society in national isolation. They needed economic help and couldn't get it unless workers' takeovers of power extended to other richer countries. That almost happened in 1919 in Germany, but it was defeated. The defeats in Europe of workers' efforts to take over from the capitalist bosses basically sealed the doom of the Russian socialist revolution of 1917 and insured Stalin would come to power and crush the gains of the Revolution. Stalin crushed most of the gains, but he did not entirely wipe out the state ownership of the economy, and right up to 1991-1992, which is when the state ownership of the economy finally went out, the Russian state ownership still guaranteed full employment to everybody, free health care to everybody, pensions to old people, free education for everybody, jobs for everybody, housing for everybody. Nobody was rich, but nobody was completely broke, either. And after Stalin died in 1953, the regime let up on some of the worst repressions and screws, and liberalized a bit; it was still a police state, but it wasn't as bad as it had been in the 1930s under Stalin. But the key thing is, the state ownership of the economy, whatever else was bad about the regime, at least insured everybody had jobs, had a place to live and a roof over their heads, had health care, had education, had a pension and some kind of retirement. But no more. With bringing back of private capitalism in 1991-1992, the old people are out looking for food in garbage cans in Moscow now and in other Russian cities. The same is true in the Eastern European countries that used to have state ownership of the economies and got rid of it in the 1980s and 1990s.

The issue for a real socialist is not having repression in politics and a police state. I don't want that. But I sure as hell want jobs for everybody at decent wages for everybody and time enough off from each job so people have a decent quality of life. I want free health care for everybody, free education for everybody, decent pensions and retirement for everybody who wants it, and you're not going to get that with capitalism, with the private profit system, because that's finished. We're not heading into a recession; we're heading into something much worse, something more like the 1930s Great Depression, only probably even worse than that, and that's because the capitalist business cycle insures the economy is falling apart. That's why all these jobs are farmed out and nobody has enough work at decent wages anymore. Capitalism is not working. It's as basic as that.

I don't think either the Democrats or Republicans are for the working masses. I think labor -- the working people -- need our own party, a workers' party, that fights for a government of the working class people, a government of all working and poor and lower income people, black, brown, white, yellow, red, native-born, immmigrant, "straight," "gay," "in-between," religious, non-religious, men, women. I want a government of the exploited masses, in which everybody has a job, everybody has decent wages, nobody starves, everybody has a house to live in, and we can get that, because we have the science, the industry, the technology, the objective ability to get that and build that and make that happen. But we can't get that as long as the entire economy is in the hands of a tiny ruling class of fabulously rich owners. That's what real Marxists, real communists, real socialists really want. We don't want police states, and we hate police state repression. I don't like it in Cuba or China or here, for that matter. But I sure as hell don't like private profit, because it's not working anymore. That's why America's going down the tubes -- and, for that matter, why the planet's going down the tubes.

[Allan]

April 7, 2008: Oh, yeah, on this nonissue of "mongrelization" that ignorant racists always raise.

I'll say it again, although I don't know if it will "take."

But all modern biology, all modern genetics, all legitimate genetics, demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that race is a myth, and that the only thing that determined differences in skin color over the past couple of hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution is, population migrations from one geographical area where there was more sunlight into geographical areas where there was less sunlight. That's all.

This racist notion of skin color as meaning more than that does not apply in modern genetics, modern biology, modern science. Modern science views race and racism as bunk, hokum, nonsense, and as being without the slightest element of validity.

Race is a political belief, a kind of political superstition. It originated, by the way, here in North America. Other countries had slavery, but their kinds of slavery were not sanctioned by the political superstition of race. The only kind of slavery that was sanctioned by the superstition of race was, North American slavery and, to some extent, the slavery of the Caribbean. Nowhere else did slavery arise sanctioned by this superstition of skin color as meaning more than it actually really does. Only here in North America did it arise.

And it was the North Americans who sold this ignorant and idiotic superstition to the rest of the world. The Germans bought it from us, and Hitler applied it by mass murder. But in North America, it took this idiotic form of white supremacy. And modern genetics tells us we are all African. Modern genetics tells us we all have African -- black -- ancestry. Modern genetics confirms that beyond the shadow of a doubt, by genetic marking technology. Modern genetics tells us that race is a political superstition, a political belief, but not at all based in hard science. Hard science shows race to be nothing but a made-up, childish myth, a made-up, childish superstition, like believing there is a ghost in the closet or a boogey man under the bed.

That is what race and racism are about. And that is what this notion of mongrelization is about. It's a made-up myth, a made-up invention, childish nonsense.

The myth of mongrelization assumes there is something that cannot mix among the humans of the earth.

But that is nonsense, by modern genetics, modern biology. Every human on the face of the earth, from the whitest white to the blackest black and every human with every skin color in between, is literally the same species of human, literally, by modern genetics. That means, there is no separate race and that the notion of race is a myth. That in turn means, this notion of "mongrelization" is a myth.

The word, "mongrel," is used about animals that really are of the same species. It's a made-up, invented word that builds in a political superstition or value judgement about what is desirable and undesirable. And there is no scientific basis for it whatsoever, none, zilch, zero, nada, zip. And sometimes when animals of the same species interbreed, you get one result, and sometimes you get another result, but what modern genetics tells us is, environment means much more than had been thought. And modern genetics tells us that because there is another science called, epigenetics, and epigenetics tells us every single gene and every single cell of our bodies have markers attached that act as intermediaries with the environment around us, and that what matters the most is what kind of environment we create or have for ourselves and our children and our children's children, not our genes. Every single last loving one of us on planet earth, from the whitest white to the blackest black to the blondest blonde to the darkest curliest haired person are of the identically same species, and that species, homo sapiens, is one species and one race. Race is a myth, therefore. It is made up. It is an invented superstition. It is a fantasy.

Skin color is no determinant in science of anything having to do with intelligence, with personality, with psychology, with intellectual capability, because every last loving one of us has African -- that is, black -- blood, including the most viciously white racist Ku Klux Klanner and Nazi. And modern genetic marking technology confirms that beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The only thing skin color originally was about was, people from one area who migrated to an area where the sunlight was different, and as a result, over time, skin color changed to accommodate that change in environment.

That was all.

Otherwise, this notion of mongrelization and of alleged undesirability of different colored humans interbreeding is a made-up, childish, infantile superstition of ignorant people who know nothing, literally, about humankind.

[Allan]

April 7, 2008: On the North American myths of race and "mongrelization," by the way, the best books to read are:

"The Mismeasure of Man," by the late Stephen Jay Gould, preferably the last edition Gould came out with (in, I believe, the 1990s); and

"Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature," by Richard C. Lewontin, Leon Kamin, and Steve Rose.

[Allan]

April 7, 2008: Also, on this North American racist myth of race and "mongrelization," the best science video to see is the 2003 science video of the distinguished scientist and geneticist, Spencer Wells, entitled:

"The Journey of Man."

This video explains genetic marking technology, and it also demonstrates how genetic marking technology works, and, in the course of this, showed how genetic marking technology destroys the myth of race and the myth of racism and shows it has literally no basis in genetics, in science, in legitimate biology.