Slaughter on streets a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, institutional racism

Last weekend 48 Chicagoans were shot. Six died.

In the first 5 hours of this Chicago weekend, 17 were shot. Three died

Carnage like that ravages Chicago and many big cities with large minority populations all 52 weekends yearly, with lesser, but still unacceptable gunshot casualties, each weekday.

This catastrophic urban violence is not due to the race or ethnicity of the shooters and their victims. It is the legacy of 500 years of American slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism.

Limited jobs, education, social services, basic amenities, no exit from the shooting gallery; all combined with unlimited guns, create the toxic cauldron making life deadly hazardous for those trapped.

This national disgrace was caused and is maintained by American government and culture. It is America’s shame. It is the shame of every citizen, every legislator, every president who ignores the travesty of life in 21st century America’s urban wastelands.

Its solution is not impossible. It requires the recognition of its American legacy and the will and resources to confront it.

Sadly, its solution remains, as the 1962 song of now octogenarian Bob Dylan laments ...’blowin’ in the wind.’

Give every Illinois lifer a C number

In 1978 Illinois changed its sentencing laws to convert from indeterminate sentences to those with a range rather than a set sentence. That’s fine, but the law added a terrible addendum. Those sentenced for first degree murder had to complete their sentences. No longer eligible for parole, they were certain to die in prison.

Those already serving long sentences were excluded from the new guidelines and were given a C number to distinguish them as being eligible for parole. Last year 80 year old C number Chester Weger was paroled after serving 60 years for a 1960 triple murder. This month 76 year old C number Ray Larsen was paroled after serving 49 years for a 1972 murder.

Releasing them will save precious tax dollars needed to prosecute and imprison young, still dangerous offenders. It will help reduce the tax burden on every Illinoisan.

But releasing the old and infirm after they’re no longer a threat is also the humane thing to do, regardless of the grotesqueness of their long ago crimes.

People need to stop responding to certain life sentences by saying “I hope you rot in prison till you die a horrible death.” The fact is those lifers will mostly die not even aware they are still alive. Keeping their decaying bodies in prison long after required for public safety is both a fiscally wasteful and morally reprehensible system of justice.

Biden continuing Trump’s delusional China vendetta

One of the more disgusting of Trump’s myriad of disgusting policies was whipping up a Cold War with China.

He launched a trade war which mostly hurt, rather than helped Americans, while not addressing problematic Chinese practices.

He embarked on provocative aerial and naval maneuvers 8,000 miles from the Homeland to intimidate Chinese from violating American rules for Chinese foreign policy in their neighborhood.

He abandoned 6 decades of careful U.S. ‘One China’ policy to embrace Taiwanese independence from China; a policy that could lead to war.

Reprehensibly, he demonized China as the ‘other’ responsible for ‘Kung Flu’ (China virus), to divert attention from his catastrophic failures with pandemic that started in China. No wonder that hate crimes against Chinese and other Asians spiked here, prompting legislation to address in the Biden administration.

But sadly, that is the only plank in Trump’s anti-China vendetta Biden has embraced. He’s all in for continuing provocative military maneuvers in China’s neighborhood and flirting with possible war by encouraging Taiwan independence. Tho China will likely overtake the U.S. as No.1 economy this decade, Biden used his State of the Union speech to ludicrously declare ‘America, not China, will win the 21st century.’

Biden knows better that neither China nor the U.S. is an existential treat to the other. We’re the two biggest economies and military powers by a wide margin, dependent upon each other for a prosperous and peaceful future.

It’s not enough that Biden has dropped Trump’s hateful xenophobia against Chinese ‘otherness.’ He needs to drop the delusional belief there is room for only one superpower and that one is ‘Made In America’.

Regarding China we don’t need ‘Trump lite.’ We need diplomacy, common sense, and a willingness to share and nourish with China our common but endangered planet.

Pledge brouhaha should spark debate of ‘God’ reference in Pledge

 Pledge brouhaha should spark debate of ‘God’ reference in Pledge

We have big problems on Mother Earth, the U.S., Illinois and DuPage. Yet, the lead story in the local suburban paper today was the uproar over Glenbard South Principal Sandra Coughlin omitting the words ‘United States of America’ and ‘Under God’ from the pledge at last weekend’s graduation.

Tho ignored at the time, a conservative group posted video of the criticized omission on line, prompting profuse apologies from Coughlin and District Superintendent David Larson. Coughlin call her admittedly inadvertent mistake “horrific”. Larson called it a “grave mistake.”

Most don’t realize Coughlin was merely reciting the Pledge as originally written in 1892 by socialist minister Francis Bellamy. He intended it as a generic pledge that could be used by all nations. He also added a military salute with the right hand over the heart and left extended upward palm down. The latter was jettisoned during WWII as too close to the Nazi salute.

A non-theist, I don’t delete the word ‘God’ when reciting the Pledge. I proudly add the word ‘no’ before it to register my objection of Congress adding the offensive word to the Pledge in 1954 in the midst of hysteria over ‘godless communism.’ God is good…except in the public forum.

We should no more say this is one nation under God than we should say this is one nation under Allah or Jehovah.

Thanks, Principal Coughlin, for your overhyped omission. Let it renew debate over removing God from the public square…and the Pledge in particular.