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December 4, 2001
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Silver
Lining?
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
November 25, 2001
Ralph Nader
The Crisis
in Leadership
Sam Bahour
Israel's
Choice
November 24, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
He Who
Has
the Guns Rules
November 23, 2001
Phyllis
Pollack
Long
Live The Clash
Cockburn/St. Clair
The Press
and
the Patriot Act
November 22, 2001
Oscar
Gonzalez
A
Homeland Thanksgiving
November 21, 2001
CounterPunch Wire
Rep. Chambliss
Calls for Arrest of Every Muslim That Enters Georgia
Tom Turnipseed
Broadcasting
and Bombing
David Price
Academia Under
Attack
Molly
Secours
Modern
Day Witch Trials
Tariq Ali
Killing
Mr. Biswas
November 20, 2001
Sam Bahour
Plain
Truths About Palestine
Michael Ratner
Moving Toward
a
Police State
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 19, 2001
Edward
Said
Suicidal
Ignorance
November 18, 2001
John Farley
Shame on You,
Chelsea!
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December
4, 2001
A Plea for Byron Parker
By Dave Marsh
I am writing this with an outrageous request.
Next Tuesday, December 11, my friend
of 12 years, Byron Parker, will be executed by the state of Georgia.
I am engaged in a last minute search for allies to try to save
his life. What follows is an attempt to tell you why I believe
that life is worth saving.
This is not a case of "innocence."
Byron is guilty of the crime he committed, and the victim was
an 11 year old girl. There are many questions about how the cops
and the court system treated him--for instance, he was sentenced
to death on the basis of a rape that never occurred, which the
courts acknowledge, without releasing him from the death sentence.
But he did kill her and he deserved jail time for it.
I tell you that, in those terms, because
that is how Byron tells it. He is deeply ashamed of what he did
and for the past 16 years, while he has been imprisoned, he's
worked to understand why he did it. In the course of that, he's
earned a GED (no death row prisoner in Georgia has ever done
that; Byron had an 8th grade education), taken college level
psychology and writing courses, and undertaken a great deal of
introspective discussion with prison counselors, ministers, attorneys,
the few of his fellow inmates with an interest in such things,
and friends, including me.
Early on, Byron's writing talent was
noticed when he wrote a letter to Bettie Sellers, Georgia's poet
lauerate. (I have a copy of an essay Bettie's just written about
Byron, and I will be happy to share it, if you want to read it.)
Later, television writer and novelist Karen Hall discovered the
same thing, and it was through Karen that I met him. I believe
Byron is so talented that, if he had had half a chance as a kid
growing up, he could very easily be famous today as a writer.
But such chances are slim if you grew up poor, and like everyone
else on death row, Byron is poor.
It never occurred to me to ask Byron
why he pursued his education, why he poured heart and soul into
writing, but a couple weeks ago, he told one of his attorneys:
"I came in here and I saw everyone just wasting their time
away," he said. "I thought, 'Each of these guys killed
somebody. And now their lives are going to waste, too.' And I
decided, right then, that the life of the little girl I killed
was not going to be lost for nothing."
I don't know what greater evidence of
rehabilitation could be offered than these things. I *do* know
that there is virtually no chance that the Georgia pardons and
paroles board will offer Byron clemency. There will be a hearing
on Monday the 10th and I will testify at it, but the process
is a sham. Since the death penalty was reinstituted almost thirty
years ago, not one person has received clemency in Georgia. The
chairman of the clemency committee says there never will be--but
he hasn't the guts to say it in public.
Not only is the clemency procedure in
Georgia phony, it is corrupt. Two members, including the chairman,
are under investigation for kickbacks from prison contractors.
The person who will decide whether they are indicted, perhaps
imprisoned, for these crimes is the state attorney general--the
very person who the board would have to defy in order to issue
a clemency order, for Byron or anybody else. A third member of
the five member panel is being sued for sexual harassment--he
is represented by the attorney general's office.
Byron and I will never realize our dream
of hitting the streets and listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd records
together. (Capital prisoners in Georgia are not allowed to listen
to music except on a very limited number of radio stations; I
did play Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" over the phone
to Byron one night.) The most clemency will mean is life without
possibility of parole.
I would settle for that for my old friend,
not only because I know that all lives are worth sparing, that
two wrongs never make a right and that it is obscene to pretend
that one death can compensate in any way for another. Not to
mention that, I would be terrified if someone wanted to judge
the rest of my existence on the basis of the worst single act
I ever committed.
There is another reason to want Byron
to live. Byron's path has been the right way to deal with murder--to
achieve a real emotional and psychological and intellectual understanding
of what cannot be undone, to make atonement by living a life
of worth and value and inwardly dedicating that effort and that
life to his victim. Were he to be granted clemency, it would
serve as an example to future prisoners.
So I will testify to the clemency board
on Monday, hoping against hope that they will prove me wrong
about them.
It would help me--it would help Byron--immensely
if I had some support, if I could read off some names of people
of respect and renown who have heard Byron's story, at least
this much of it, and share my principles. If you could see your
way clear to trusting my judgment on this, I would not only be
eternally grateful, we might just save a life--if not Byron's,
maybe the next guy's, because one thing a crooked system must
fear is people like yourselves paying open attention to it.
Holler if ya hear me.
Dave Marsh coedits
Rock and Rap Confidential.
He can be reached at: marsh6@optonline.net
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