>>Castro indicated a lack of interest in the November US
>>presidential race, in which the leading contenders are expected
>>to be Vice President Al Gore and Texas governor George W. Bush.
>>"I really disagree with both candidates," Castro said. "I'm going
>>to be among the 50% of Americans who will go fishing on election
>>day."
So will progressive US citizens ignore the whole electoral process?
It is hard to deny there are some moderate differences between the two main candidates or to assert that it is completely wrong to prefer one against the other.
However If the bourgeois two party system is like the strategy of the ice-cream sellers who both set up their stall near the centre of the beach, then the clever strategy is to shift the beach, or shift the people as a whole.
Bush may not himself be harmed by campaigns against the death penalty by more than a few percent, but the publicity that campaigners get by heckling his rallies for months ahead, may help to change the shape of the beach - ie the crudity, the violence, of the bourgeois electoral system.
A change in the quality of US civil society would have implications for the civil society of the whole world.
What are the chances?
The internet is already helping, as can be seen in the excellent Death Penalty Information Center site http://www.essential.org/dpic
With such detailed information, including opinion polls in different states it should be quite possible to target a goal of x number of states freezing the death penalty within 5 years.
Gore has already tilted his hand a little on the issue, suggesting a change in the shape of the beach, and contributing to a cross-party consensus that it would be wise to set more conditions to the use of the death penalty.
Reformist if you believe in absolute abolition, progressive if it is the quality of civil society that you want to improve.
Meanwhile even short term goals are worth it:
Gary Graham was killed, but this week ...
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Russel Burkett just 75 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed in Virginia on June 21. The Court granted the stay in response to a petition challenging Burkett's mental competence and his trial lawyer's competence. Burkett's stay marks the fifth time in just over a year that the U.S. Supreme Court has halted an execution in Virginia
And the issue has caught the attention of international opinion. The US now has to earn its moral hegemony. Anti-communism is no longer enough.
Desmond Tutu Denounces Death Penalty
Sunday June 25, 2000
RENO, Nev. Two days after a Texas inmate's execution prompted a loud outcry over capital punishment, Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged the United States to abolish the death penalty.
Too many innocent people have been sent to death row, Tutu told reporters Saturday at a news conference before he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nevada at Reno.
``I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it,'' he said. ``I can't understand why a country that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.''
``When you see the evidence of so many mistakes, you realize more mistakes can be made,'' said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. ``Once an execution is done, you can't correct it.''
Chris Burford
London