In my eyes, the warnings of grave peril passed long ago. In my eyes, America extinguished the final remaining spark in its soul at 11:08 pm on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. That's when the state of Georgia and the United States of America purposefully and knowingly executed an innocent man.
We are now officially a nation that knowingly puts innocent people to death at the same time we knowingly allow ghouls and War Criminals to walk free. And you wonder why the people have lost faith in their institutions of government?
We are a nation that actually rewards War Criminals with book deals and punishes the acquitted poor by charging them for the costs of the failed prosecutions (and, in some cases, persecutions). We are a nation which grants rights of personhood to corporations, while stripping rights of personhood from actual people. A nation where a contract with a billionaire is sacrosanct, but a contract with a union is nothing more than toilet paper.
The specifics of the case of Troy Davis are pretty well known. The prosecution decided upon their patsy and then fit the evidence to the crime. Inconvenient ballistics reports were suppressed. Witnesses coerced. Not a single piece of physical evidence--not one--linked Troy Davis to the crime. Of the 9 eye witnesses in the case, 7 have fully recanted their testimony. The 8th is a man who many believe to be the actual killer. The 9th could not physically have seen what he claims to have seen from the place everyone acknowledges he was. And what, then, is left of the prosecution's case? Reasonable doubt? Hell, there's no longer even a reasonable allegation? There is nothing. We have just executed a man based on nothing. Even members of the original jury have stated that they feel they were hoodwinked and even those who favor the death penalty generally have said that it's use in this case is a grave travesty and a miscarriage of justice.
The Supreme Court could not be bothered to do the right thing in this case. Troy Davis was poor, afterall. What does it matter if he lives or dies? If he is innocent or guilty? If justice is served or it is not? "Don't disturb my dinner for matters of the worthless poor," I can practically hear those 9 fat fucks saying derisively to their clerks. "Don't disturb me for anyone whose income is less than 7 figures." If there is one "positive" to come from all of this, it is that we can be absolutely certain--beyond a reasonable doubt, to borrow a phrase--that the souls of every last member of the Supreme Court are so blackened and covered in the blood of the injustice they have wrought that they will, themselves, be judged by higher powers one day...and found wanting.
What has become of America? What is left of her promise to her citizens? To the world?
Lady Justice has been abducted and replaced by the Queen of Hearts--blindfold replaced by a cash register--screaming "Off with their heads" for any one who cannot afford the millionaire entry fee.
America has become a nation of the rich, by the rich and most especially for the rich, and the land of liberty and justice only for those who can afford it.