The state of Georgia murdered Troy Davis last night. People
all over the country and the world mobilized to stop this legal lynching. There
was no doubt that Troy Davis’ execution was the result of racist police forces
coercing and intimidating witnesses. Police and prosecutorial abuse was
widespread and recognized everywhere.
Based on an urgent appeal issued by the
ANSWER Coalition at 11am Eastern Time yesterday, people sent more than 13,000 letters in the first seven hours to the
Obama administration demanding that it initiate a federal civil rights
investigation into the Troy Davis case and seek a stay of his execution.
That was a straight forward and simple method for the
president to intervene and prevent a gruesome and irreversible miscarriage of
justice. He had the power to do it.
Obama refuses to act
At 6:30pm last night, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
released a statement to the media announcing that President Obama would not
intervene. And why not? Carney explained that “it would not be appropriate for
the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one,
which is a state prosecution,” according to the Boston Globe.
The president does not feel constrained from speaking out
about executions in Iran and other sovereign countries. In fact, the White
House regularly poses as the “human rights” champion of “specific cases” in other countries. Why must the White House remain mute when it comes to an obvious Jim Crow-type miscarriage
of justice within the boundaries of the United States?
The New York Times lead
editorial yesterday was entitled “A Grievous Wrong” and called the planned
execution of Troy Davis “a tragic miscarriage of justice.” The Pope, Bishop Desmond
Tutu and even former FBI Director William Sessions were among the 1 million
people who demanded that the execution not go forward.
But President Obama and the Holder Justice Department turned their
backs and consciously let Mr. Davis be murdered.
President Obama’s political strategy as he heads into the next
election cycle is to endlessly placate rather than confront the political base
of the Republican Party. He knows Troy Davis’ execution was a racist murder.
But he and his advisors didn’t want to spend one penny of political capital. In
essence, his strategy from the day he took office has been to embrace the
institutions, programs and policies that had been previously identified with
the hated Bush administration.
Moving steadily to the right
During the budget deficit debate in July, President
Obama surprised even the Republicans by going beyond their anti-people
proposals and calling for deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
When he finally came to a closed-room budget deal with
Republican House leader John Boehner in March, he privately gave the Tea
Party an extra bonus by depriving low-income women in Washington, D.C., of the
full range of health care services.
“’John, I’ll give you D.C. abortion’, Obama reportedly told
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) before reaching a deal, effectively
trading away the city’s right to fund abortions for low-income women,” the
Washington Post reported on April 16.
As we head into the next election cycle, many in the
progressive movement and in the unions are starting to fuel up the efforts to
re-elect the Democrats so “we won’t face a right-wing Republican government.”
They will continue to let the White House off the hook. Numerous liberal organizations played a central role in bringing the case of Troy Davis to national and international attention. Those efforts should be saluted. It is important to note, however,
that only a few groups, with ANSWER among them, demanded that the White
House take action to prevent the execution.
This political syndrome needs to end. Civil rights, union
rights, women’s rights are being crushed by an assault from the capitalist
political system.
These rights were not a gift from Democratic politicians. They were the result of fierce, militant struggles. The leaders of those
movements were self-sacrificing and determined. They didn’t function as an appendage to the Republican or Democratic Party leaderships.
Troy Davis and the tradition of struggle
Whining and hand wringing about the awful Tea Party and the
refusal of the Democrats to stand up to them is just a big dead end. What is needed is a new, powerful grassroots movement for justice.
Troy Davis was not only a victim; he was a leader. He
demonstrated courage in the face of his executioners. His spirit will be
formative in the creation of a new people’s movement that is coming into
existence. In fact, millions of people took action together in a massive but unsuccessful effort to prevent his legal lynching. This is the important legacy that Troy Davis has given us. The movement to save Troy Davis needs to grow in support of
all those who are the victims of racism and injustice.
A new generation of leaders will take the helm. Rather than
function as a tail to the Democratic Party, they will be guided by the famous
words of Frederick Douglass:
If there is no struggle there is
no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are
men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without
thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
waters.
This struggle may be a moral one,
or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must
be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it
never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or
blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a member organization of the ANSWER Coalition. The PSL stood together with the many individuals and organizations in the battle to save Troy Davis and will continue to fight against the death penalty and racism in all its forms. Join us in the struggle.
