Robert
McCartney's sisters and his fiancé are obviously
deeply caring human beings that are determined to
bring his killers to justice. Could anyone find
fault with that? I'm absolutely certain that if
someone harmed one of my children, I would never
rest until the perpetrator paid for his crime. I
would hope that, given my belief in nonviolence,
I could avoid seeking revenge. But who knows what
anyone will do when their heart is broken by the
loss of someone they love.
So,
while I understand why the McCartney family might
accept George W. Bush's invitation to visit the
White House on St. Patrick's Day, 2005, it made
me sad to see these good people enter the house
where torture, assassinations, murder, preemptive
wars, and other atrocities are plotted every single
day. Watching the media swarm around the McCarthy
family made me think of all of the children who
have died horrible deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan
since Mr. Bush took office. Listening to Mr. Bush's
righteous pontificating, I also remembered Carla
Fay Tucker, just one of the many inmates Mr. Bush
sent to the execution chamber when he was governor
of Texas. Carla was young and hopped on drugs when
she plunged a pickax into a man's head. The media
portrayed her as an unrepentant, irredeemable, evil
monster, and the state of Texas sentenced her to
die.
But
while she waited in a cage for the racist and corrupt
state to kill her, Carla was transformed into a
remarkably intelligent, compassionate, beautiful
human being.
So
changed that, appearing on news programs, she exuded
kindness and love. Appeals to spare Carla's life
poured in to the governor's office from around the
world. The Pope asked George W. Bush to spare Carla,
the prison Chaplin married this condemned woman,
and for a brief moment it appeared that Mr. Bush
might listen to reason. Carla Fay Tucker knew she
would never be released from prison. Still, she
wanted to make a contribution to the world, to make
amends for her crime, and to help other young kids
who might be riding the fast track to prison.
Acting
in the name of the state, in the name of God, and
as God, Mr. Bush denied all appeals for clemency
for Carla Fay Tucker. The state took Carla into
a brightly lit room, lashed her to a gurney, stuck
a needle in her arm and watched her suffocate. Asked
whether he found state-sponsored murders disturbing,
Mr. Bush replied that he slept quite well on the
death dates. After all, African Americans, Mexicans,
and poor whites sentenced to death had been "tried
by their peers," and therefore justice prevailed.
I
have no idea if Robert McCartney's sisters know
about the fate of Carla Fay Tucker, and I'm sure
that they visited the White House in good faith.
I just hope that they and their supporters realize
that Mr. Bush and friends are Fascists who, if they
could figure out how to do it, would arrest every
man, woman, and child who struggled so hard, for
so long, and with so much courage to drive the British
out of Ireland. After rounding up thousands of Irish
citizens, Bush and company would send every former
and present member of the IRA, every former and
current member of Sinn Fein, and every other current
or former member of any group or organization dedicated
to reuniting Ireland, on a one-way cruise to the
Gulag. Like prisoners at other islands of torment
run by Mr. Bush and company, those who dared to
resist British imperialism would be kept in isolation
cells, tortured, and driven mad in the name of defeating
terrorism and in order to spread peace and freedom
and democracy throughout the world.
The
American people made the McCartney family welcome,
and showed them compassion and genuine hospitality
when they visited here. Unfortunately, when the
media smells blood, it swarms about the wounded
person or persons, jamming cameras into their faces,
posing them for photographs, jostling and pushing,
shouting sound-bite questions that show just how
misinformed or uninformed journalists often are
these days. Watching the media exploit the McCarney
sisters, I could not help but wonder why there was
no great outcry when loyalists murdered Rosemary
Nelson. Why hasn't the American media condemned
the British for lying about the murder of 14 innocent
people in Derry on Bloody Sunday? Why don't we read
about the Finucane family's valiant struggle to
force the British government to admit its collusion
in the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane? Why hasn't
the media sent reporters to the N. Ireland to investigate,
and to write indignant articles about the many attacks
on Nationalist and Republicans since the signing
of the Good Friday agreement? Why, year after year,
decade after decade has the American media chosen
to portray the struggle for peace and justice in
N. Ireland as a simple-minded fairy tale?
My
heart goes out to the McCartney family, but I hope
they do not believe that a cabal of right-wing fanatics
in Washington, D.C. know anything, or care one wit,
about real justice. The killers in the White House
are on a worldwide homicidal roll. People who resist
this ideological blitzkrieg will be intimidated,
accused of being terrorists, jailed, black listed,
disappeared, and murdered. The McCartney family
have every right to demand justice, but they will
never find it in a mansion stained with the blood
of innocent people in Iraq, Columbia Guatemala,
El Salvador, Columbia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and N.
Ireland.
