Bored Oklahoma teens who shot a random jogger in the back are being tried as adults not juveniles because “it was an adult crime”; though killing while bored seems a juvenile crime by definition. So does immediately confessing a motive, “we were bored,” to the police, it would seem to me. But there’s more. Despite the confessions, it was not immediately clear who pulled the trigger as the three teens trailed their victim, Australian college baseball player Christopher Lane, in their car, then sped away to find a next target. But that didn’t stop Oklahoma police from charging just TWO of the boys with first degree murder, bail denied, with the third considered an accessory. I’ve provided the mug shots to give you a hint. For which 15 and 16 year-old do you think the state of Oklahoma is seeking the death penalty? (Spoiler: YES) And the older accessory –17 but white– gets bail and will be tried as a juvenile.
Pundits deride African American leaders for not decrying the Lane murder like they did that of Trayvon Martin, presumably because the victim was white. But I’ll ask where is the community outcry for young James Edwards and Chancy Luna, joy-killers they may be? Though I understand full well that other than the “doing it for fun” headlines, this event is unexceptional. Black children bear the brunt of law enforcement everyday, our prison system follows in the lynching tradition.
Bored Oklahoma teen murder suspects not bored or under-educated enough to be considered teens
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So there’s a little good news as the ambush of Syria gains momentum. It’s unlikely to be true, but let’s indulge ourselves for a mo. It’s being reported that Russia will jump to Syria’s defense by attacking the Saudis, and that Iran would retaliate against Israel. Both developments deserved and overdue, but who’s going to take the primary culprits, the Western colonial powers, to task? If anyone should bear the “consequences” of an illegal bombardment of Syria, the US surely has it coming. Would the US strike Syria if the Syrians could hit back? How our colors would run if, for once –it hasn’t happened since 1812– the warmaking reached our shores. Our patriot palor would blanche to ashen, I’m guessing into a full streak of yellow in no time. Must it take a Hannibal to march on the “Home Front” before Americans care enough to curb their dogs of war?
The carnage in Syria should “shock our conscience” really? It’s fraternity hazing compared to US collateral atrocities. And how simply grotesque for an American statesman to accuse anyone of “moral obscenity”. Is the USG so sure another Maning or Snowden isn’t going to unveil the real agents behind the “chemical attack” and the unidentified snipers firing on UN inspectors? And using Kosovo as a precedent for an air war to depose Bashar Assad, we’ve seen it before, and it was illegal then.
IF the bodies in Syrian videos purporting to document a chemical attack aren’t littering hospital floors like so many fictional Kuwaiti incubator babies, we are compelled to ask who unleashed the chemicals? Bashir Assad? The rebels? Our “rebels”? The odds favor us and even our western media agrees, refusing to remove the quotes everytime they refer to the “chemicals”. If covert western forces struck a Dow Chemical plant effecting a Bophal-like result to resemble a “chemical attack”, neither our soldiers nor the chemical agent supplier are going to confess. Dow still won’t apologize for the original Bophal.