The Death Penalty Makes Other Problems Worse
See the easy-to-read 1-page flyer at this link: The Death Penalty Makes Other Problems Worse
Criminal Justice (Also see Death Penalty)
How can we challenge this dominant but destructive economic assumption?
Embedded very deeply in our American culture — and many other nations’ cultures too — is an assumption that is embedded so deeply that nobody recognizes it, let alone challenge it. The assumption is this: It is OK if what I do kills people, so long as I’m making money from what I do. At the surface level — the explicit level — if you were to ask people whether it is moral to kill other people, they would say “no.” But below the surface — at the implicit level — our society tolerates behaviors that knowingly kill people because […]
Death Penalty = Archaic, creepy ritualized killing to serve symbolic rather than practical purposes
Many people assume that the death penalty serves some useful purpose, such as protecting public safety. Actually, as other items I’ve posted on this blog explain, the death penalty does NOT deliver what it promises, and it causes other problems instead. See http://parallaxperspectives.org/testimony-for-legislation-to-abolish-washington-states-death-penalty Beyond the death penalty’s ineffectiveness, we should also recognize it for what it is: an archaic, creepy example of conducting ritualized killings that serve only symbolic rather than practical purposes. In some primitive societies, people were aware of “evil” and created ritualized exercises to periodically purge the “evil” from their societies. They did this in different ways. One […]
Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society
In slightly more than three pages, the article at this link provides wisdom, compassion, insights, and encouragement to fix our society’s problems. I believe you will find that reading this is a good use of your time. Here is the link: Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society
Arming “good guys” with guns is no remedy. Two examples show it is dangerous!
A mother with a concealed carry permit dropped her gun and accidentally killed her 2-year-old daughter. Read article at this link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/24/1759600/-Mother-with-concealed-carry-permit-drops-gun-and-accidentally-kills-2-year-old-daughter?detail=emaildkre A gun-trained Stoneman Douglas teacher is facing charges after leaving his gun in a public bathroom at a beach. Read article at this link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/12/1756464/-Gun-trained-Stoneman-Douglas-teacher-facing-charges-after-leaving-his-gun-in-a-public-bathroom?detail=emaildkre
Let’s change our policing methods to become NONVIOLENT
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/23/idiots-world-unite
Weird aspects of the screwed-up “war on drugs” — July 2015 article in The Atlantic
The “war on drugs” has been dysfunctional and counter-productive for many years. It was escalated when Nixon tried to attack the “hippie” and anti-war movements and also to create public animosity toward African Americans by causing the public to fear them as drug dealers. Other politicians also provoked a “tough-on-crime” mania in order to attack their demographic and political opponents and in order to ingratiate themselves with voters who were easy to exploit through fear, racism, ignorance, and simplistic solutions to complex problems. This article in the July 2015 issue of The Atlantic magazine is informative: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/chapo-mexico-drug-war/398927/
Nearly 400 fatal police shootings occurred in the U.S. from January 1 to late May in 2015.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-national We keep seeing statistics about the huge number of police shootings. This article came from several years ago. The slaughter will continue until the public insists on changing public policy in several ways.
Norway and Sweden have more humane criminal justice systems
The U.S. has a very harsh (and ineffective) criminal justice system, compared to other modern nations. Here is some information about Norway and Sweden that I saved from a few years ago: Norway’s prisons are much better than the U.S.’s. Instead of dehumanizing their inmates, they help prisoners retain their human dignity, so they will become better able to reenter society. http://www.alternet.org/drugs/michael-moore-norway-prison-tony-papa-sentence?akid=13995.2186.s12ezx&rd=1&src=newsletter1051042&t=10 In 2013 Sweden acted sensibly to reduce prison populations. They accomplished this for several reasons including reducing sentence length and emphasizing rehabilitation. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/12-0 I would like to see ordinary Americans (including taxpayers and conservatives) confront elected officials and […]
The real problem of violence is NOT mental illness. The real problems are ANGER and ACCESS TO GUNS.
When mass shootings occur, many politicians try to shift attention away from the gun and blame the shooter for mental illness. Yes, our society should provide more adequate funding and services for mental health. But the problem is not “mental illness” per se. The problem is ANGER. Our society needs to explore and implement a wide variety of ways to reduce anger throughout our society. Consider this article about ANGER: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/04/anger_causes_violence_treat_it_rather_than_mental_illness_to_stop_mass_murder.html Do not let gun supporters avoid responsibility for the too-easy access to guns. They want to blame mentally ill persons. Instead, we must reduce access to guns, so consider […]
Let’s correct the misunderstanding of the Second Amendment
The gun lobby and other conservatives have grossly misled the American people about what the Second Amendment really means. In order to reduce gun violence — and reduce the power of the gun lobby — decent people must change the public’s misconceptions about it. The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Some years ago Warren Burger, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (who happened to be conservative) understood the reality and wrote […]
U.S.’s violent foreign policy leads to gun violence WITHIN the U.S.
We keep seeing how ALL ISSUES are INTER-CONNECTED. Among the reasons why the U.S. has so much gun violence is that the U.S. government sets a bad example with our violent militaristic foreign policy. On July 9 2016, I wrote about how President Obama was in Poland meeting with heads of NATO nations and expanding NATO provocatively to Russia’s borders and expanding NATO’s militarism into other part of the Eastern Hemisphere and pushing NATO’s member nations to spend more on militarism. During his press conference there during that visit, Obama praised those military escalations and at the same time he […]
TV: “How to Reform Prisons and Sentencing”
Many people have observed that a good way to judge a society is by how it treats the people on the bottom. People in prison are among those at the bottom of our society. Many people want to grind them farther into the dirt and diminish their humanity. But what happens when they get out of prison? Society will reap what it has sown. Society’s contempt for them will flow back upon society at large. The moral and sensible solution is to break the cycle – to restore every person’s full humanity. If we want to live in a decent […]
“Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices”
Everybody knows that our criminal justice system is dysfunctional in many ways. Despite paying lip service to victims, the current system does practically nothing for them and focuses almost entirely on punishing offenders. Despite paying lip service to – QUOTE “corrections” UNQUOTE, the current system does NOT correct behavior, but merely punishes it. Jails and prisons diminish the inmates’ ability to live civilly, brutalize them, and turn them into hardened criminals. The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s April 2010 TV program explores “Restorative Justice” – a totally fresh alternative to our criminal justice system. We also explore applying similar “Restorative Practices” […]
TV: “Solving Homelessness Problems in New Ways: A Systems Approach”
Watch this insightful TV interview HERE. Read a very thorough summary of what we said Program Description — June 2013. The greater Olympia and Thurston County areas have recently been addressing the homelessness problems in more thoughtful and comprehensive ways. On the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s June 2013 TV program, three guests dispel the misunderstandings that have impaired public discussions. Our guests also lay out some of the positive new directions for helping homeless people more effectively. See contact information for these guests and several great non-profit organizations at the end of this article. We begin with a clearer understanding […]