Views in brief

The murder of Curtis Osborne

ON JUNE 4, the state of Georgia made the appalling decision to execute Curtis Osborne. Eleventh-hour appeals for a stay were denied, and Mr. Osborne was forced to endure a 35-minute search for a vein during his lethal injection.

The issues with Osborne's case are many. His defense lawyer, Johnny Mostiler, was an open racist and was quoted, speaking of Osborne, as saying, "That little nigger deserves to die."

According to Slate magazine, Mostiler did not present the results of a court-ordered psychological evaluation revealing that his client was border-line retarded, suffering from depression and paranoia, and the victim of childhood abuse. Mostiler did not call witnesses, nor did he bother to interview the state's witnesses before they took the stand. Mostiler also received an offer of a plea bargain, but, as he told a colleague, he "would never tell Mr. Osborne about it, because he deserved to die."

Despite hearing this evidence during the appeals process, Osborne was repeatedly denied clemency.

Osborne's murder is a gross miscarriage of justice and is all the more disgusting for the fact that the issues raised are common features of the criminal system. Racism and the railroading of the poor are the most common features of American "justice." Incompetent defense is lethal.

Osborne's murder and trial should be seen by death-penalty abolitionists as further evidence of a broken system. We must continue to fight for an end to the racist death penalty.
Mer Stevens, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, San Francisco

Mistaking tactics for principles

LOUIS PROYECT ("Revolutionary responsibilities"), in his crank criticism of the excerpt from Joe Allen's new book on the Vietnam War ("From quagmire to defeat"), writes that "the main obligation of a revolutionary organization during the Vietnam War was to build mass demonstrations. Period."

He seems to have not noticed that the main thrust of Allen's piece was to defend the importance of mass demonstrations.

Proyect denounces "youthful radicals," the International Socialist Organization (ISO), and anyone else who supports any other tactic. In fact, Mr. Proyect seems to be saying that support for any tactic other than "mass demonstrations" (and not just during that war) is by definition "adventurist"--a reflection, on the ISO's part, of an "infantile" and "lingering adaptation to ultra-leftism."

This shibboleth, held steadfastly by the Socialist Workers' Party and many of its ex-members, of which Mr. Proyect is one, elevates a single tactic to the level of principle; the Black Bloc, for a different tactic, does the same. This highly conservative silliness hardly deserves a response.

Tactics must be flexible and adapted to conditions (the state of the movement, the balance of forces), according to what will advance the struggle. Are we really saying that strikes, mutinies, sit-ins, blockades, and mass civil disobedience are all adventurist and ultra-left? Tell that to the soldiers whose disobedience turned the U.S. Army into a broken fighting machine. Tell that to the millions of students who went on strike after the invasion of Cambodia in 1970.
Paul D'Amato, Chicago

Kennedy's health care hypocrisy

THANK YOU so much for pointing out the hypocrisy of Sen. Kennedy receiving the best care that no ordinary resident of Massachusetts resident could have while he triumphs the state's "universal" health care, a mandate to pay into privatized health under threat of a monetary fine ("Why can't we all get KennedyCare?").

Somehow, the injustice of "KennedyCare" was above the heads of Boston media, which proceeded to update us as to how well Kennedy was doing, how quickly he recovered after being cared for by some of the best, and most expensive, medical professionals on the East coast while receiving innovative surgery for his tumor.

I can't tell you how many times I wanted to puke, knowing that my friend pays out of pocket for oral chemotherapy treatment for her 7-year-old son with a brain tumor, and works two jobs to be able to do so.

Thank you for affirming the anger that exists out there at the awful medical care we receive, and for pointing out that the means to provide adequate, even new and "experimental," treatment exists. The kowtowing to private health care by the likes of Sen. Kennedy is our barrier.
Akunna, from the Internet

Gay marriage and "conformity"

BOTH GRAHAM Shaw ("Good reason to be wary of marriage") and Jeff Bale ("Defending the right to marry--or not") make the same mistake in responding to Sherry Wolf ("Guess who opposes gay marriage?" and "Which side are you on?"), and their mistake further illustrates her point.

Shaw accuses Wolf of "invalidating the voices" of gays and lesbians with "concerns" about "assimilation" through marriage. Actually, she only argues that these concerns should not be raised as an argument against legalizing gay marriage.

Bale says Wolf suggests that people choose not to get married for "snooty" reasons. But her letter is scrupulous in its avoidance of any such implication, instead reserving this particular s-bomb for those guilty of stereotyping and condescension towards "straight culture."

Normally, I'm sure, she wouldn't care about that. But right now, sections of the left (as she documents in her first letter) marshal these sorts of views and attitudes to discourage organizing for legalization.

That Graham and Jeff would misread Sherry's letters and equate her arguments with cultural conformism points to a hesitancy to confront soft and hard identity politics-influenced opponents of gay marriage. But it is important to do so now, because as Sherry points out, liberal gay rights groups need a push from the left (instead of left cover) to resist election-year pressures not to mobilize for the beckoning victory of equal marriage in California.
Avery Wear, San Diego

An anti-choice law that violates women

IT IS utterly outrageous that any country, state, continent, group, individual or whatever, would allow a law that re-victimizes a rape or incest survivor, or that anyone would allow a law to pass that mandates anyone to force insertion of anything inside a woman's body ("Anti-abortionists prescribe new restriction")!

This is plain and simple common decency. This is a human rights violation at its worst! Anti-abortionists are so quick to pass judgment on the lives and decisions of others. I am horrified to be living in this country.
Renee, from the Internet