Are protests bitching? Not necessarily. Are protests with failed PR just preaching to the choir? Definitely yes. Try doing something properly or don't do it at all. Moore is proposing a boycott that is inherently going to be viewed as a top-down elitist affair, just wait till various celebrities hop on the bandwagon. What about learning something from the guys behind the astroturfed popularity of Tea Party to see how the liberals can create a grassroots movement that is regarded as legit as well? If that movement "decided" to boycott Georgia, there would be trouble. When Michael Moore does it, anyone not converted already won't buy it.

And I don't remember Cubans overthrew Castros because of economic hardship and Gazans depleted their arms stockpile.

I personally don't travel to places where death penalty is in use. It's a kind of boycott, though individual and hardly noticed - I think of it more as moral coherence. Lucky I am that I wasn't born in one of those barbaric corners of the world. To those who didn't have this luck, I believe that any form of protest is highly valid. The argument against boycotting Georgia's businesses could have been used (and probably was) against sit-ins in restaurants in the 60s. The fact is that they worked, for there was enough social adherence to that. The difficult here is to get this adherence to the cause of ending death penalty, when so many people in the US see it as just natural, and would rather debate the possible mistakes of single cases instead of the process of criminalizing race and poverty.

"The argument against boycotting Georgia's businesses could have been used (and probably was) against sit-ins in restaurants in the 60s."

That doesn't make sense. Restaurants in which sit-ins occurred were complicit with segregation practices; a sit-in protest directly targets an entity which is willingly participating in segregationist practices.

Businesses in Georgia are only "complicit" in the execution of Davis in that they are coerced by the Georgia state government to pay taxes. They're not even *close* to being equivalent.

"The decision to execute was done in the name of the people of Georgia. No one is "guilt free", entirely. Businesses support the current political regime in Georgia. It's not as if lawmakers and such exist completely independently of them."

They're coerced to pay taxes. They lobby for their own economic interests. Unless they're lobbying for the death penalty -- in which case, go ahead, boycott them, I'm not opposed to boycotting pro-death penalty businesses -- then they're not supporting it beyond what they're compelled by law to do.

Really, your analysis is brilliant. It's the left's fault it doesn't control the media and doesn't get any coverage. It's the right's media savvyness that got it full throated support from Fox News and talk radio, not the fact they were paid mouthpieces for them. Yeah, what we can "learn" from the Koch brothers is that it helps to have billions of dollars. Not exactly earth shattering revelation there. And the Tea Party has an approval rating lower than Congress , so if your complaint was about alienating people it's an odd movement to pick as a model.

Media coverage has nothing to do with "doing something properly" and everything to do with manipulation. Fox News admitted that they used coverage of earlier, larger protests to make Tea Party events seem much larger than they were.

"And I don't remember Cubans overthrew Castros because of economic hardship and Gazans depleted their arms stockpile."

The boycott has been a giant weight on the economy of Cuba, which is why they went through the "special period" in the early 1990s. Just because US terrorism hasn't overthrown the regime doesn't mean it hasn't hurt the economy, induced emigration, and undercut support for the regime, particularly hitting Cuba on tourism, foreign direct investment, and currency transfers. Not to mention Cuba can do nothing to renegotiate its external debt.

And yes, I enjoy uttering cynical remarks on this site instead of offering solutions. Since I don't know anyone here, except Atom, I don't know whether I could influence anyone important - so I believe that I couldn't. That makes discussions on this forum equivalent to debates over a beer in a pub - a social interaction whose aim is to relax and have fun. There might be huge potential among the forumites but I don't see any short-term gain since I'm not a genius that could inspire ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. Yet, I believe I'm not a complete idiot either (you may stop reading now) so I actually try to influence people who do get some coverage. If my former schoolmate moderates a discussion show on a minor TV, I recommend someone I agree with on a current issue. The person might or might not get invited but I sparked something in her. When my excentric economics proffesor writes weekly columns for business newspaper, I try to steer the seminars with him to direction I care about. If he cares about the topic, my ideas might be reflected in his writing; more often they are not.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is: go ahaed and protest. Just make sure someone who knows how to spread the word is on the board. Or someone who knows someone who knows how to spread the word. Otherwise you're labouring for nil gain. It's the medias, stupid.

Wait, you know Atom?

you poor, poor soul

Since I know names of members of his family, parents' email, his age, school and activities, I know him in the sense that he isn't someone really important. Luckily, I'm at the border of being a poor soul iín relation to him :)

And yes, it's about manipulation, glad you made that out. If I asserted some other type of media savviness on the part of Kochs, I misworded and apologize for that. Since you cite several successful revolutionaries as people who you admire, you probably know that manipulation is very important tool of political struggle. And of course Tea Party alienate people - that's why GOP representatives shit bricks when they are around and sign whatever demands they have. Fear is useful when you try to force someone else to succumb to you. I don't think it can be effectively used in the case of Georgia, though.

And you just reinforce my claim that Cuban blockade was a failure. The things you enumerate are collateral damage, means through which the US tried to force Cuba into submission, a submission which was the ultimate goal. In other words, America screwed Cuba pretty bad but it still didn't achieve what it wanted. Gotta give Fidel the props for that.

Just remember the manipulation has to be smooth. Not like the farce ManBearPig and his spambots recently produced.

Boycotts are not about guilty or complicity, they're about pressure. Governments and lawmakers are usually VERY sensitive about businesses' needs. They're also usually VERY sensitive about taxes revenues, which could dramatically drop in case of a successful boycott. Personally I find it difficult to result, since lots of states in the US (whose people supposedly need to engage in the boycott) also use death penalty. But I do feel the necessity to try.

This is delayed, but nonetheless:
@Octavius

"If you want to beat yourself up with guilt about something that is not even remotely your fault, go ahead. Frankly it looks a tad silly. As far as shreds of doubt goes, the US legal system disagrees and I dare say it's looked at this case in impressive deph. Out of interest, if there was no death penalty would you be just as upset by the idea that the man would go through the rest of his life in a living hell without hope of freedom?"

I'm not going to beat myself up over this; I'm saying that we need to end the death penalty so that we can avoid these situations entirely. The death penalty brings a dangerous finality to these cases. We will never be able to free him or shorten his sentence if we do find out he was innocent.

We cannot risk executing innocent individuals. We need either a perfect justice system, which is impossible, or no death penalty.

In answer to your question, yes, I would still be upset about this. There is too much doubt in this case to maintain his guilt. However, I would accept a verdict of life in prison because we could undo that, we could let him free if we confirmed innocence (which is the wrong standard to work off anyways, but that's another story). We wouldn't be murdering someone who has never been satisfactorily proven guilty.

I'm completely okay with protesting by boycotting Georgia for executing this one man. How about we boycott the People's Republic of China as well? They executed 470 people last year. I'm sure if we looked into it we could find at least one person who didn't deserve it.

Do we boycott KIA? They have a plant in Georgia, but South Korea has capital punishment on the books but hasn't executed anyone in over ten years. how about Ford? They still make cars in Georgia, but Michigan has a moratoium on the death Penalty.

Are we going to just stop drinking Coke, or is it okay if the local bottling company is in a locale that doesn't have capital punishment?

The Global economy stuff is hard. I mean if we're going to screw the poor in a vain attempt to annoy the rich, where do we start?

Hey Wait! Ford closed their Hapeville plant in 2006. They're back on the list of okay products. That's a relief since the state government of Michigan was the first English Speaking government of abolish the death penalty. They've actually only had one execution ever and that was a Federal one.

Nah, darn they have plants in Nanjing and Taiwan though. both of those governemnts execute people :-( Sucks for Michigan.

"The Global economy stuff is hard. I mean if we're going to screw the poor in a vain attempt to annoy the rich, where do we start?"

CA+1. That made me laugh. And speaking of China's mass executions and its very summary criminal judicial processes, isn't the PRC Putin's favorite country in the whole wide world since the fall of the Soyuz?

"It's amazing that you people don't trust the government with flouridizing water supplies but you have such a cavalier attitude about mistakes made in the justice system. "

As a member of 'you people' who don't trust the government with my water*, I would point out that I (and many other Mistrusters) don't trust them to execute people, either. And quite a few 'Right Wing Christians' oppose capital punishment on moral grounds as well.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/
http://lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson324.html

* The local government water authorities keep telling us our tap water is safe even though I'm sitting over a plume of perchlorate contamination, the byproduct of a long-abandoned WWII rocket fuel factory

North Korea is right up there too. Sixty executions last year in a country with only 23.5 million people. By contrast Georgia executed 4 people this year and has a population of nearly 10 million. But yeah, we're a hell hole.

Tolstoy +1 for the links. It's easy to forget that a lot of those people (like Bob Barr) who were protesting the Davis execution were conservatives. I wouldn't shed a tear if Georgia abolished the death penalty. I don't see it as an effective deterrant for capital crimes. A look at Atlanta's violent crime statistics should be enough to make that point.

China executes people for white collar crime and corruption. When's the last time this country ever executed someone for that kind of offense? Never. So long as the death penalty is used as a tool to kill off the working class and minorities I will oppose it.

And yeah Georgia is a hellhole, for a lot more reasons than just capital punishment. Although if that's what leads people to boycott them, so be it.

"And yeah Georgia is a hellhole, for a lot more reasons than just capital punishment."

Have you ever *been* to Georgia, and seen it with your own eyes? Or are you relying on the evil Right-Wing Corporate Media and its shorthand caricatures for your perceptions?

"China executes people for white collar crime and corruption."

Eh? I thought China was still totally Communist? If that were the case, how could white collar crime and corruption still be possible?

"When's the last time this country ever executed someone for that kind of offense? Never. So long as the death penalty is used as a tool to kill off the working class and minorities I will oppose it."

So you're not opposed to capital punishment, you just want 'class enemies' executed instead of Proles. Got it. My belief that communists do not value human life for its own sake is reassured.

Ah, so it's okay to kill the right people? Hypocrit.

I love it when he get's his knickers in a twist and shows what's truly hiding behind his ideology. That was about Putin's comment and not Tolstoy's.

"Ah, so it's okay to kill the right people? Hypocrit."

It's a matter of proportionality. The rich fuck up the world a hell of a lot more than the poor do, and they get away with it. It's not hypocrisy, it's self-defense.

"Eh? I thought China was still totally Communist? If that were the case, how could white collar crime and corruption still be possible?"

Why would corruption not be possible? And you complain about caricatures.

Yes I've been to Georgia. Horrible drivers. Atlanta is a mess. The people are arrogant. There is nothing worth seeing there except Savannah.

Now it's a matter of proportionality, is it? It's okay to kill rich people but not poor people. You're still showing yourself to be the bloodthirsty one here. Rome built an entire empire on the notion of that kind of 'self-defense'. Yes, it is hypocrisy to say that China killing 470 people (for more crimes than just white collar ones) is just and Georgia executing this man after 22 years of deliberation is grounds for anything. You are a hypocrit.

Since when did libertarians or conservatives give a damn about human life? You only care about the rich. The rest of us can starve. Indeed libertarians think working under slave-like conditions or else starving is an example of the "freedom" capitalism brings. It's time to take care of our own and stop listening to you people.

I have no further use to speak with you, you've shown just exactly what kind of person you are. Good night.