Call for a Coalition, 2/4/98

Suzanne's Take: A Social Commentary

A CALL FOR A COALITION
February 4, 1998

Karla Faye Tucker

Here's what I circulated in email and put in Internet postings, with info on how to fax and email Governor Bush:

SAVE KARLA FAYE TUCKER: Are we this bag of bones or are we what occupies it? And if a different occupant moves in, who are we disposing of when we kill a body? With Karla Faye Tucker, we have an opportunity to leap in consciousness and take seriously that there is a soul that we are -- that our bodies are but carriers for it. We could go from being a humanity that kills its saviors to finally embracing the soulful nature of ourselves that they hearken. Must Karla Faye die before we fall to our knees? Must she be another sacrifice for our redemption?

I am surprised at what I found in cyberspace. Although there was a lot of talk about Karla Faye Tucker, there was a notable absence of comment or conversation about her surrender to the inner direction that is the object of religious pursuit world-wide. Karla seemed to be a realized being, no less so than our saints are, and there is a profound conversation to be had about capital punishment based on that. It goes deeper than what she characterized as a conversion to Christianity. Where conversion to a religious faith might be ignored based on a separation of church and state (strange but true), when we are speaking of someone coming into a new state of being, what then? Even Karla's lawyers didn't get into that. Her two champions from the religious right came closest to it: Pat Robertson affirmed that by any name her demonstration would have persuaded him, and Jerry Falwell couldn't attribute his support to anything he could define or explain. As liberals like myself find ourselves aligned with two stalwarts of the right, I like to think of this as progress toward humanity meeting as a One Life. And the startling absence of a voice from my colleagues impels me to look for a coalition of those speaking my language, so that we can show up in public debates that capture the attention of the world.

In surfing the web, I found a thoughtful piece by Texan, David Theis, entitled Maybe Tucker's Death Will Prompt our Shame. It was printed 1/16/98 in the Houston Chronicle.

I pass along here the intelligent opinion of my colleague Simon Peter Fuller, author of Rising Our Of Chaos, which he emailed from England the day before Karla was executed.

"At least the whole world is watching, and her sacrifice is not in vain if the reprieve fails (remember she may even have chosen this path to awaken our comatose race)."

Clinton

It is not a tenet of any system of justice anywhere in the world that an innocent person cannot proclaim innocence. Clinton won't say unqualifiedly that he is innocent. There is nothing to prevent that. Every detail of his innocent activity is available for him to be speaking about at all times. The fact that he tells us this is a legal matter means that how much can be proved against him is the issue. He has the gall to remain silent and tell us we know "the rules," when everything that is occurring is because the breaker of the rules is him. As he diverts attention by attacking the press or the special counsel, the reason for this problem is his stonewalling. This cowardice is not what's needed now. Whatever he has accomplished, he can't go forth from this place with head held high.