By Rupert Maguire
On February 4, in what was almost a return to public executions, given the media extravaganza surrounding it, the State of Texas killed Karla Faye Tucker by lethal injection. Tucker went to her grave expressing her sorrow and repentance for the murders she committed in her wretched youth. She had been on death row for 15 years. There was no hope and no love in a childhood and youth filled with sexual abuse, drug and alcohol abuse. Her judicial murder underlines yet again the barbarous nature of society which uses 'justice' to satisfy the blood lusts of the fundamentalist Christian right. Tucker's death will only whet the appetites of this brutal lobby. Hundreds of others await death in US prisons - most of them poor, Black, 'white trailer trash' and other marginalised.
It is sheer sadism to incarcerate such people for decades then to wheel them out for death.
Even if it could be shown that those awaiting death had a fair trial, all the evidence shows that capital punishment is no deterrent. Such arguments, however, carry no weight with the rabid religious right, nor on the sanctimonious hypocrites they bump into political office on 'family values' platforms.
One of the worst of these politicians is Texas Governor George Bush Junior. It was Bush who gave Karla Faye Tucker the thumbs-down after promising that he would give appeals for clemency his 'prayerful consideration'. Before seeking celestial advice, Bush might have considered the injunction 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' He is a 22 carat hypocrite who would himself be behind bars if there were any justice in America.
George Bush Jr (nicknamed 'Shrub') is one of three sons of the former US President of the same name. Propelled to power on their father's coat-tails, this bunch's private business dealings have long been a drain on the public purse - to the tune of over US$1bn in the early 1990s. They have been described as 'well-to-do white boys who trade on family connections, welsh on loans, run with con-men and leave financial ruin in their wake as they line their own pockets'.
The Texas Governor began a lucrative business career in the mid-1970s and traded on family connections to bail-out his bankrupt Bush Oil Exploration company in 1983. After that he teamed up with another group of well-heeled Reaganites in another oil company, Spectrum 7. This itself went bankrupt in 1986, but whereas 'many oil companies went belly-up during that time...Spectrum had one asset the others lacked - the son of the vice-president'.
No matter how incompetent he was, Bush's star rose. Spectrum was rescued by Harken Energy, with Bush getting US$600,000 worth of Harken stock for his worthless Spectrum shares, together with a lucrative consultancy and other stock options. Harken itself was a dubious concern with close ties to the Nugan Hand Bank.
In 1990, despite a total lack of experience in overseas oil exploration and a restricted capital base, Harken beat Amoco for an exclusive contract to drill in Bahrein. It is an open secret that they got the contract because George Bush Jr was on the board. He didn't stick round for much longer though. In June 1990, Junior suddenly unloaded all of his Harken stock for over A$1m. Days later, Iraq invaded Kuwait and Harken stock plummeted by over 25%. This was 'insider trading' with a vengeance and just months later his father ordered Operation Desert Storm...
Sin, obviously, is something committed only by single mothers, white crackers and inner city kids.