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CounterPunch readers respond to ‘Cruel and Unusual Excuse’

Dear Editor:

I live in Texas and read your article on CounterPunch. I have called and left a message on the Governor’s citizen’s opinion line asking Perry to find some humility, to stop playing God, admit that mistakes have been made and could be made again, and stop the death penalty. We don’t need to murder people in order to stop murder. We need to take care of our community – that is how we stop murder.

Thanks again

Clare Walsh
Spring, Texas

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Dear Editor,

I continue to enjoy your writings, especially about the goings on Texas, and, especially regarding the draconian mentality of the Texas Criminal System when it comes to executing people.

Sure, I don’t enjoy the fact this travesty of justice is being committed. And, it reminds me of how cold the state leaders are–both those who kill and those who are accessories by allowing it to happen over and over again.

The governor, himself, is the true murderer. How can he sleep and walk around without a conscious. However, I reckon, he was mentored really well by the former governor, Bush, who is still murdering people, but on a larger scale.

Thank you for your thought provoking and fine writing.

Jerel Shaw

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Dear Editor:

I remember a decade ago at a party in San Antonio we were shoked because it is so easely accepted that somebody can shoot somebody who comes to that person’s front door, I think the case was sombody coming to repossess a car which was not being paid for, may be that story was not
true, but my short stay in Texas left me an impression of driving around Dow chemicals plants and field where chained (dark) prisoners worked.

And worse of all of, people (governors) claiming to be christians but showing none of the demand of that religion, first of all : do not kill!

To me somebody who has the power to prevent a death and does not do it, is certainly a coward, but when he does it repeatidly I am starting to say he is a murderer!

Most murders are spur of the moment, commited by young people who are drugged, drunk, high on testosterone, do we have to ask that white people be also put to death for the same crime for people to start realizing it is their children who are being comndemed without any hope for forgiveness ever?

To bad your essay is not front page of the Houston Chronicle.

Regards,
Genevieve Bart
Finland

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Dear Editor:

Thanks for an informative piece as always. Some of us suspect that
the Europeans are preparing a dossier for an eventual criminal
indictment of certain officials in the US executive branch and perhaps
a corporate media titan or two. Perhaps the Robert Black response
will be an exhibit in an international trial someday.

Ellen

ANDREA BECERRIL, La Jornada

Austin, 8 de junio. El gobierno de Felipe Calderón solicitó formalmente al Congreso de Estados Unidos incrementar la ayuda para el combate al narcotráfico, reveló el presidente del Comité de Inteligencia de la Cámara de Representantes, Silvestre Reyes, para quien es factible implementar en México un proyecto similar al plan Colombia, aunque sin presencia militar.

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Bill Weinberg’s Blog June 10

The government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón has issued a formal request to the US Congress for a huge increase in military aid to combat narco-gangs. The request came in a recent US-Mexico Inter-Parliamentary Meeting held in Austin, TX, and was revealed to the Mexican daily La Jornada by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), leader of the House Intelligence Committee. La Jornada called the request a “Plan Colombia” for Mexico, although without an actual US military troop presence. (La Jornada, June 8)

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John Ross, CounterPunch, June 18

Like Plan Colombia, Mexico will be gifted with tons of military equipment, whiz-bang technology, and billion buck grants to battle the cartels, although U.S. troops will be held out of the package (for now) because of Mexico’s long-standing resistance to such deployment. The U.S. military has invaded Mexico eight times since both countries won their independence from Europe 200 years ago.

By Joey Gomez
Rio Grande Guardian

BROWNSVILLE, July 19 – The four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams participating in the group’s Borderlands Witness Drive say they have collected moving testimony on the impact of the nation’s failed immigration policy.

In Arizona, where the group started its drive, many of stories were about immigrants dying in the desert. In Texas, CPT has found widespread fear that a border wall will tear families on either side of the Rio Grande apart.

“It’s like cutting the heart to divide them,” said CPT member Haven Whiteside, of Tampa Bay, Florida. . . .

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By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Construction of a polarizing fence along the Texas-Mexico border is expected to begin by this fall, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff confirmed Wednesday, adding that border communities will be consulted “in terms of style” so the government doesn’t “create any eyesores.”

“I expect we’ll be doing some construction in Texas this fiscal year,” Chertoff said, referring to the government’s fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

The construction timeline appears to be the first acknowledgment by Homeland Security of a start time for the fence’s construction in Texas. Federal officials, however, have still not disclosed the fence’s location. . . .

Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr. sends word that the Reuters story below seems correct except that the crowd count was more like hundreds rather than the reported ‘dozens’–gm

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – The mayors of the Texan city of El Paso and the Mexican city of Juarez led a protest by dozens of people on Saturday against a planned border wall to stem illegal immigration into America.

The protesters held hands across the Paso del Norte Bridge, which spans the Rio Grande and connects the downtown cores of the two cities.

Resentment against the wall runs deep in the border areas of Texas. Landowners are concerned it may cut across their property, conservationists see it destroying crucial riverside habitat, and some activists see it inflaming ethnic tensions….