Terrorist Mastermind Convicted

Red State Republicans announce 30 days of mourning for their Fallen Hero.

(OK, not quite. Not yet.)

Here’s a snip of the story from the NYT…

June 21, 2005
Mississippi Jury Convicts Ex-Klansman in 1964 Killings
By SHADI RAHIMI
Edgar Ray Killen, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, was found guilty today of felony manslaughter in the killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi four decades ago. The verdict, delivered on the 41st anniversary of the deaths, was less severe than the murder conviction that the state prosecutors had sought.

Mr. Killen, 80, who had been free on bond, was immediately taken into custody. He
faces up to 20 years in prison. A date for sentencing was not set.

Relatives of the victims said at a televised news conference that the trial was an important step but that the lesser conviction demonstrated the need for justice for the victims of crimes committed during the civil rights era.

"The fact that some of these jurors have lived all these years, and could not bring themselves to recognize that these were murders, indicates that there are still some people among you who choose to look aside, who choose to not see the truth," said Rita Bender, the widow of one of the victims, Michael Schwerner.
…

So what if Bin Laden was somehow, miraculously, nailed, and brought before the bar, and was only found guilty of felony manslaughter because he never actually flew any planes into any buildings?

And what if he had walked around, free and unmolested, in plain view, until he was finally convicted on September 11, 2042?

How would you feel about that?

Because we need to be very clear about this: This was a war crime, and Killen is a war criminal.

As sure as Hideki Tojo, as sure as Adolph Eichmann...Killen is war criminal who committed his State Sponsored atrocities by directing terrorists, and is as guilty of murder as Osama Bin Laden. And whether or not he pulled the trigger, or just acted as an Assistant Minister of Southern Justice and coordinated the murders…what happened during the Reign of Terror in the Apartheid South was a war, and he was an enemy combatant.

And what is it we are saying about enemy combatants these days?

Saying in our foreign and domestic policy.

Saying about our predicate for making war.

Saying every time Bush slips in the polls, and rolls out the War on Terror Speech.

That if you aren't with us, you are with the terrorists. That if you provide the ideological, or economic or theological framework for terrorists...then you are every bit as guilty as those that pack the trunks of cars with explosives and detonate them in the middle of crowds.

So what was George Wallace but Mullah Omar with a Bible instead of a Koran?

And what is Killen but a mid-level Al Qaeda functionary with an Mississippi accent?

And what, pray tell, are our own, modern-day corn-fed Wahabi Southern Christians but the prime example of what happens when you don't rip out the whole terrorist ideological and religious apparatus root and branch -- and then salt the ground -- when you have the chance, but let it fester and grow and survive and rebuild for a generation or two?

Let it hang on and conduct the Civil War 2.0?

The flaws and warts of the Modern Democrats are many. We go all wobbly and weak-at-the-knees too many times when we should be righteously pounding the shit out of the GOP with a snow shovel. Some of us have been, in the past, too quick to governmentize too many problems, and too slow to understand that innovation creates wealth, and that wealth creates revenues that can be used to fund the social programs that we really do need.

It’s about balance.

Roger. Got it. Message received.

So some days it can be hard to be a Liberal or Progressive. But not, by God, today.

Today shows, when you cut through all of the rhetoric, the elemental difference between the GOP and the Democratic Party and why, for all of its faults, it is so fucking easy for me to say proudly that I am a Democrat.

Why, for a person of conscience, there’s really no contest. It's not even close.

Because unlike the Republicans, my party does not court and cultivate and lay out the fucking welcome mat for monsters.

My Party hasn't sold its immortal soul to hate-mongering theocrats like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, who, in every word and deed, aggressively seek to annihilate the very principles for which my Party supposedly stands.

In my Party, the worst and basest impulses of the American heart do not find a happy home and a well-laid table.

In my Party, a sickening number of senior members did not need to duck for cowardly anonymity and cover when it comes to something as simple as condemning lynching.

In my Party, we look on the Reign of Terror that the Klan conducted while wearing a judge’s robe and a cop’s uniform as despicable. As one of the darkest and most shameful chapters in American history. We do not look on it with fucking nostalgia. As some halycon, Lyncher’s Happy Days, where Jesse “the Fonz” Helms is idolized as a cool-kid role model.

You “Moderates Republicans” want to talk? You want to discuss Social Security and Medicare? National debt and tax reform?

Fine. But first kick the gargoyles that run your Party the hell out of your Party.

Because unlike the GOP, my Party does not negotiate with terrorists...or with those that aid and comfort and admire them.