Nothing I have written in some time has aroused so much passionate and often informed comment than my last column on Judith Clark. I have, in addition, received a great deal of private e-mails from people who preferred not to post comments online. One prominent legal expert replied that his head agrees with me but his heart sympathizes with those who favor harsh punishment. This lawyer also, like David Horowitz, does not believe her repentance. Another former public official replied that he believes all those convicted of killing police officers — including someone like Clark who was guilty of felony murder — “should suffer the death penalty.” That is a response even more harsh than any of those who commented on my post made.
So the thoughts and comments of respondents and critics have caused me to re-examine the issue again. I began by re-reading Tom Robbins’ article, and then trying to frame the different arguments and separate them. Here are my latest thoughts.
First, Robbins’ article is, as David Horowitz suggests, part of the New York Times’ long effort to paint favorable portraits of ex-60s radicals, people of the same generation as many of their own writers and editors. Robbins is a freelance writer now at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, and a former reporter at The Village Voice. He writes that “he wanted nothing to do with her after the crime,” and had no sympathy for her, regarding her as someone on “the left’s outer reaches.” After talking with her, Robbins is convinced that her repentance is true, not a mere ploy to finally get out of prison.
There is some evidence for this, aside from his impressions. He tells the story of how when Judith Clark praised black revolutionaries, her father told her she should honor instead true democratic radicals like the Pullman Porter’s union chief, A. Philip Randolph. Robbins got that story from Judith herself, since her father was dead. That suggests in essence that she was saying in effect that her father was right, and she should have listened to his counsel decades ago.
Secondly, unlike the others of her now free comrades, she accepts responsibility for her actions, and that driving the get-away car does not exonerate her from being guilty of murder of the two police officers. The grandparents raised her abandoned daughter; she did not give her over to Ayers and Dohrn, as Kathy Boudin gave her child to be raised by her two Weather Underground comrades. She accepts that whatever her fate, she did it to herself — not the state, the authorities, or her fellow terrorists. Moreover, while Susan Rosenberg and the others called themselves “political prisoners,” a term implying innocence of any real crime — Clark accepts her guilt and does not use any such political terminology to describe her plight. To me, that says her perspective is quite different than the others in her old movement.
Finally, Robbins is more than unfair to Clark’s father, who should be the hero of the article, rather than somewhat of a villain. He describes him as someone who “became vehemently anti-communist, raging at former friends,” as if that is somehow a bad thing. He does not note that Clark still was on the Left, and was a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, not any kind of a conservative or right-winger. They were right to have no “patience for their daughter’s rabid politics,” and Robbins should have made that much clearer.
I wish that all of the participants in the cop killing were executed instead of giving them unequal sentences. I would be in favor of releasing Ms Clark from prison if she could bring the policemen back to life. Otherwise, she should remain in prison
Words are cheap and thousands of cons know how to speak of redemption when playing a reporter. We know her from her actions. When the families of those killed are freed from their life sentence without their loved ones, then we can consider freeing her from her life sentence.
You are so right. I remember after a cop was killed in Woburn, MA just before Christmas, the local news stations had the tapes of the killers parole hearing. The killer had been paroled from a life sentence after soft-soaping the parole board with a heart felt tale of how he was a different person.
Six months later he was a dead person, but only after killing a cop a couple of weeks away from retirement.
The entire (!) Massachusetts (!!) parole board resigned because of the public outrage.
I’d be willing to see MS Clark released in exchange for viable and verifiable information regarding unsolved cases. And please let her testify against Ayers and Dhorn.
Agree completely. Why do I think that if such a deal were struck, she would be pardoned? Ayers is probably working on another book for “some guy in the neighborhood”. Someone’s gotta pay for all those separate vacations beginning in 2013.
I’ll second that.
That’s William “Guilty as Hell and free as a bird, with academic tenure” Ayers. Tell. Me. The. American. Academy. Is. Not. Broken. Beyond repair.
Perhaps the problem is that if she attacks her formet colleages, she will be LESS likely to be pardoned, given thier firends in high places and the idiotic sympathy for thugs (c.f. Che Guvara).
What is the GRU?
In the 1930′s the GRU was and still is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union (now Russia). It was founded by Trotsky in 1917 or 1918 but by 1937 its director was liquidated by Stalin to the perceived benefit no doubt of the NKVD (KGB) its civil branch rival who had already infiltrated the GRU by that time. 1937 was also the date Whittaker Chambers (“Karl” to Hiss who falsely believed “Karl” was European-born) first planned to quit the Communist Underground and bolt from control of the GRU who received the intelligence he got from Hiss. You can read the rest in “Witness.”
The GRU was the Soviet military intelligence service. It reported to the Soviet General Staff, and recruited agents in many countries. The Soviet Union also operated intelligence work through the NKVD (the secret police) and through the Comintern, the organization of Communist parties around the world. These foreign Communists were subservient to Soviet foreign policy. Both the GRU and the Comintern apparati suffered severe losses during the Purge of 1936-1939.
Most of the important Soviet agents of the prewar and early WWII period of whom we read were GRU or Comintern agents. At the time the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) was less important in gaining intel from foreign targets, but concentrated its foreign intel operations on exiles (like murdering Trotsky and his son) and murdering agents abroad who were not dumb enough to return to the USSR when called back for purging (like Ignatz Reiss).
You’re argument that her sentence was too harsh compared to the others involved is specious. The reality is, their sentences were too lenient.
Precisely so. A wonder that the usually astute Mr. Radosh did not surmise the obvious.
Amen to the too lenient!
As a former heroin addict and as expert a liar as you’re ever likely to meet, I can tell you I look at Clark’s reformation with a weather eye. Clark has said what she is expected to say to get herself released, the bare minimum and nothing more. Lying doesn’t humiliate or put such people out; they consider it necessary to bring around the dumb rednecks that have incarcerated her; for Clark it’s just a means to an end.
It is notable that Clark has learned what to be repentant for from others and not from some spring within herself – that is because such a spring probably doesn’t exist and one can’t have a sociologist like Zwerman stand in front of the woman 24/7 reminding her of what right and wrong are.
There is no epiphany here, just a growing realization that she might be able to chump her way out of prison. So she’s been nice in prison – what else is she going to do – run a terrorist cell or a drug ring? She’s not a pro but a middle class wannabe – that’s how she got caught. Congratulating Clark for being decent in prison is like congratulating a dead rat for not biting me.
The problem for people who are not truly adept at lying is that in Clark’s case she has not realized how it sets alarms bells off for her to not demand to be able to tell all she knows about the crimes of her former comrades if they are indeed her former comrades; Clark is indeed toeing a line and it is the wrong line. Clark is being coy.
If the issue is whether Clark has repented for complicity in murder then the reasons behind justifying the robbery must be abandoned wholesale and this Clark has conspicuously not done though she has obviously taken in some, playing on their sense of mercy and compassion, the very qualities she refuses to unabashedly indulge in herself. She is thinking about her own closure and not the closure solving old crimes might bring.
One thing I have learned in life is that people who are self-centered and capable of cruelty never repent; this is because they have no realization of their own selfishness or cruelty as being those things and they will manipulate reality to benefit, not the greater good or society or a spirit of fair play, but themselves. Fair play is a concept literally alien to them.
I do not oppose Mr. Radosh’s views: there is nothing obvious here, a situation that requires judgement and instinct and they are fallible on both sides. I do not see Clark as someone who was radicalized or who is a product of her ideology but a perfect storm of someone with sociopathic or pyschopathic tendencies that preceded her involvement with a revolution; many children do not follow their parents views.
Clark perhaps needed to buck authority in someway or was simply unable to perceive why she shouldn’t be able to do whatever she wanted or why anyone would disagree with her. The idea that Clark was an otherwise normal person who would’ve had a normal life is not a persuasive one to me.
What can you say about someone who needs decades in prison just to be brought around to the place most everybody else is already? It took her 8 years just to get around to the dead. Keep in mind she has a Masters in Psychology now.
Thank you for expressing my views very well. I agree with you completely.
Jailhouse conversions should necessarily be looked at askance. If she is truly repentant for what she has done, she would not minimize what she’s done, she’d be blabbing about what others did, or what else she did that she wasn’t caught doing.
That others weren’t punished sufficiently is hardly a reason to let her out.
Excellently written, and firmly anchored in the foundation of your experience that, with the catalyst of humility, became wisdom.
clearly, Clark’s much stiffer sentence stemmed from the antics she displayed during her trial, and her rhetoric that she believed that the court was made up of “fascist dogs” and that “revolutionary violence is necessary, and it is a liberating force.” The stiff sentence was put on her by the judge because of that rhetoric.
That reminds me of Lori Berenson’s being sentenced in Peru for assisting the left wing revolutionary/terrorist group Tupac Amaru. During her trial she shouted out that Tupac Amaru group was not terrorist, but revolutionary.
Which showed that she was no dupe, thereby increasing the length of her sentence.
Lori Berenson takes the cake. She is a living, breathing cliche. Jewish MIT student from Manhattan whose parents were college professors. Even her physical appearance screams dour marxist radical — plain looks, frizzy hair, angry countenance. Theat video of her shouting in spanish at here sentencing was unforgettable. Never seen the inside of a hair salon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KknF_ceK-M
We on the right often struggel to understand how the left can have such a dogged devotion to an ideology that has repeadedly failed. The video gives an idea of the the intensity of political brainwashing, as it occurred in Peru.
Lori Berenson – idiot.
“She is a living, breathing cliche.”
And representative of Obamas core voting bloc…the Long Island / Hamptons political prisoners of conscience!
Ron, your original position is understandable. Every decent human wants to believe in redemption and forgiveness. In spite of what I said before, and reiterate now, my heart wants me to believe in her repentance and advocate for her release. Unfortunately, as I also said before, I have seen many many cases where a person who has committed vile crimes has appeared thoroughly repentant until the moment of release. When the mask comes off it is plain to see they are the very same animal as they were the day they were arrested. Again, I must say she should stay in until she can put back what she took away and tell all she knows.
As for the uneven punishment given out to those involved, justice would be better served by giving them all the sentence Clark received. Put them all back in. Cutting her sentence short would only increase the injustice done by letting the others out sooner than they should be.
As for those of you who advocate for the death penalty, consider this;
In principle, the death penalty is often justified. In practice is it often botched. Many, many innocent people has been executed. Government screws up everything it touches, why would this be any different? We should not put ourselves in the position Clark has put herself in, that is, being responsible for breaking something we cannot fix, taking something we cannot put back. The stakes are too high to ignore even the smallest chance of mistake, especially when ‘the government’ is the acting agent. Ha, that makes error a certainty.
“Government screws up everything it touches, why would this be any different?”
The difference now is that DNA offers irrefutable proof one way or the other. The increase in science and technology removes the old “witness / human” element.. with science as the best substitute for the weaknesses of the latter. And science shows little passion or emotion in it’s conclusions of innocence or guilt.
I would say the opposite. One of the sources of death penalty inequities is the idiotic Supreme Court decision that the death penalty could only be applied in “aggrevated” cases, as if commiting murder was not enough. Things would work better if the revese were done – all murders where there was clear evidence (confession or non-”state’s evidence” witnesses) – should have executions, except in extreme cases. (I am not speaking of felony murder cases such as this one.) And what’s this 25-30?
DNA is invaluble in the case of rape accusations (not to mention paternity suits), but all DNA evidence is still circumstantial. Jail for an accused child molester, where proof is often difficult, can be worse than death – should we stop locking them up? (I do think we have an aboslute responsibility to protect all prisioners.)
Could be worse. Here in Israel, we never apply the death penalty, thus people (especially women) who have committed horrific acts know they can be released in the next prisioner exchange.
Now you have it right. The outrage at your last article was understandable. Folks know that the nauseating NYT article is part of the usual con job through touching anecdotes to sucker everyone yet again on behalf of the poor misunderstood, good-intentioned terrorist darlings of the left. The left wants to paper over their true violent nature and intentions. Part of that tactic is to humanize these thugs as just your everyday aging veteran of the good old days when they were a little frisky and blew up some stuff and killed people–but, hey, we all did crazy stuff when we were younger. The implicit message is that communist violence is a normal and acceptable part of politics. This is an important message for the left to get out. To that we must say, “NO!” They are not motivated just by humanitarian concern for the elderly Susan Clark.
….then Clark will honestly answer the questions I suggest she be asked by the governor, next time an appeal to free her is lodged at his door.
While your current position, Ron, is precisely the one I took in my comment responding to your original essay, my suggestion was that she agree to work with Horowitz, not Cuomo.
I trust the Democratic Party and their propaganda machine about as much as I trust the Communists themselves. Merely telling the “authorities” in the Democratic Party would be like putting the information in a NYC black hole, where truth goes to disappear and die…(along with Obama’s entire life at Columbia, including how he got it with no honors of any type, no awards, no third runner up in a spelling bee or science fair).
NYC and their propaganda rag of record aren’t the paragons of truth and investigative evidence when it comes to leftist radicals. She would have to work with a true investigative broker of honesty….Stanley Kurtz or Horowitz before I would believe a single word that came out filtered through the current Democratic Party. They have no credibility on the subject.
“If I am right about Judith Clark truly being repentant, or more accurately if Tom Robbins is correct, then Clark will honestly answer the questions I suggest she be asked by the governor, next time an appeal to free her is lodged at his door.”
If I were in her shoes and freedom was beckoning, I would answer those questions.
[I]If they are asked.[/I]
Would the replies bear fruit and be truthful?
Do you recall the charade of Hillary Clinton asking (publicly) those same types of questions to her husband, Bill, concerning the pardon of Puerto Rican FALN terrorists when Bill was in his 11th hour of office, 2nd term?
She was “appalled” that it would happen!
But then the Clintons bought a house (and legal residency) in New York, and she announced her candidacy for senate. In a state with a high population of sympathetic potential constituents for these FALN folks.
She won the seat with with that support.
Games are certainly played with these “confessions” Ron.
Sorry, I have a jaundiced eye, even though I admire your compassion.
Maybe her sentence hasn’t been commuted for the very reason that she is indeed repentant and has become religious, both anathema to the hard left. As they say, “birds of a feather”.
That she allegedly admits her guilt while her comrades didn’t is interesting. In Cambodia, Pol Pot and his cadre have been tried and not suffered any real punishment for murdering one third of the population (an outcome that a**holes like Clark probably sympathized with). They were exonerated by craven politicians, many of whom also were ex-Khmer Rouge. The only former official to be punished is the infamous Commander Duch ,the commandant of the S-21 prison, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. He was converted to Christianity, confessed to his crimes and became the scapegoat for the regime.
That Ayers, Dohrn, Boudin and Rosenberg got over is a shame and we can only hope they’ll pay for their crimes in the next life. As for Clark, payback’s a bitch for her La Pasionara act in the courtroom. Back in your cell, girlfriend, exercise time is over.
Repentance? I believe you will find that people involved in murder as a crime of passion, as opposed to serial, have the lowest recidivist rate of any criminal. That is they almost never commit that crime again. Using your logic such a murderer should be sent to prison one day, repent and be freed the next.
1. The argument for Clark’s rehabilitation is the claim that she denounced her previous politics. She did not. In 2008, she was STILL appealing for vacating her sentence because she was a “political prisoner.” So the Times article is a deceptive, shameless tissue of lies — the latest strategy now that other legal efforts failed.
2. Clark’s in-prison activism that is similarly praised as proof of rehabilitation and grounds for release is merely an extension of the America-hating she previously deployed through the barrel of a gun. The tone and content of the AIDS/pell grants for prisoners/anti-imperialist/liberal-arts-degrees-for-rapists-and-murderers activities she engaged in have been ignored or misrepresented. Her writing and the college programs she and other radicals administered on the public dime are radically anti-white, anti-West, and anti-American. She also collaborated in writing with Kathy Boudin, so she didn’t break ties with her compatriots there, either, as claimed. It takes no more work than to read a few of her own essays to see that she sees herself and all other prisoners as victims of an oppressive, unjust AMERIKKKA. It boggle the imagination that has not been considered.
3. Clark’s writings betray the depth of her unwillingness to take responsibility for the crimes for which she was convicted, let alone to acknowledge those she is known to have participated in. Every essay and poem either minimize her criminal record or pass over it in silence. Clark frequently refers to herself merely as a political activist. This denial has been consistent through her latest appeal for release. In her letter to the governor, she postures as one social justice warrior speaking to another social justice warrior and plays lawyer with the facts. It’s the opposite of remorseful, and it is sickening.
4. Clark and other would likely have been prosecuted for more offenses had there been the expectation that they wouldn’t serve the time for the Brinks offense. They were given long sentences — extremely long sentences for the time — for a reason. That alone should foreclose the possibility of pardon.
5. The people agitating for Clark’s release are precisely the same cabal of radical communist lawyers, groups claiming that terrorists are political prisoners, etc. who sprung Rosenberg, Buck, and others. Some names have been shuffled — a few people are flying under the radar, slightly. How this represents the claimed distancing from her former allies utterly eludes me.
6. The argument that Clark’s sentence is excessive compared to others and was made so because of her courtroom antics has been, in fact, repeatedly rejected by other judges. That matters. “Commensurate” is also not an argument when fellow offenders were released under extraordinary circumstances.
7. Finally, why hasn’t anyone apologized for so casually smearing the victims as vengeful?
Tina Trent – If everything you said is true, then she should stay in prison, as David Horowitz suggested. But is it true, and if it is, why is not Radosh cognizant of it?
On #7 that is EXACTLY what I referred to in the original article. You are dead on.
I’ll say it again, Tina. Per # 7 you are EXACTLY dead on, and several of us said so in response to the original article. To conflate justice w/ vengeance is at best lazy…and I’ll stop there.
Tina,
You say Clark continued to claim a “political prisoner” status as late as 2008. In a letter she wrote to Governor Cuomo in 2011 she explicitly claims the following:
“In 1993, I wrote my first public letter disavowing my ‘political prisoner’ position and expressed regret, guilt, and remorse for what I had done.”
http://judithclark.org/letter/
Which of you is right?
In the meantime, for now, I for one agree with Ron Radosh’s position as he states it here.
Ronnie, I would still like to know what you think of the terrorist writing style of Dave Horowitz.
The way he writes, your position makes you a scumbag or a dope — and yet he is your friend.
Is it legitimate to write with such hysterical passion when it doesn’t even reflect his real life views.
What are you talking about?
Let’s do this;
Offer her a deal, We will abide by the wishes of the relative of the killed officers. She has 3 months to talk to them. After which, on the first Monday, we will poll them and ask them what to do. Majority wins. Tuesday morning, whatever they decide, the state does.
Egalitarian don’t you think?
“The grandparents raised her abandoned daughter; she did not give her over to Ayers and Dohrn, as Kathy Boudin gave her child to be raised by her two Weather Underground comrades.”
Not exactly correct. She left her baby with one of her terrorist friends and the grandparents sued to get custody.
“She accepts that whatever her fate, she did it to herself — not the state, the authorities, or her fellow terrorists”
Also, not correct. Just a few years ago she filed a writ of habeas corpus asking that her convictions be overturned, claiming she had been denied counsel in her trial (after she had demanded the right to represent herself against the advice of the presiding judge). She’s never really taken responsibility for her acts.
“Moreover, while Susan Rosenberg and the others called themselves “political prisoners,” a term implying innocence of any real crime — Clark accepts her guilt and does not use any such political terminology to describe her plight.”
Clark claims that she rejects the idea that she’s a political prisoner, but at the same time she allows her work to appear in a prisoner writing anthology entitled “Doing Time and Hauling Up the Morning: Writings & Art by Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the U.S.”. You can pick up a copy of it for 20 bucks from the AKPress which specializes in publishing or selling the works of murderous thugs like Mumia, Joanne Chesimard, and poor lil’ Judy Clark, not to mention America-hating commie ratbags like Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn. Not surprisingly, that fact doesn’t appear on her self-serving website (at least I couldn’t find it amongst the list of her published works). Hopefully, she’s not allowed to profit off it.
Sociopaths are incapable of contrition. That is why they are called sociopaths. It is very hard for some people to accept that such a finality exists. But not for the sociopath. He finds your needs quaint, an obvious opportunity to exploit. Humans are such strange creatures.
Politics have nothing to do with it. They are a means, a ride, a cover.
Ron, I had to learn to dive under tables as protection against bombs when I was four years old. Because of people like her. My dad begged my mom to not move near his military base, b/c they were being targeted. She had two small children, one high-needs, and she was, functionally, a single, poor mother, b/c of people like her.
America spent the late seventies and early eighties putting these people in jails. People who couldn’t see their way to voting, or persuasion of voting, b/c they were having filthy dreams about totalitarian societies. The finest nation in the world was being slowly burned up by power-mad, hateful bombers. These people targeted the honest, the innocent, the patriotic, the religious, the hard-working, the good.
Russia couldn’t really lock up its utopian power-mad violence-prone. They would ship them off to Siberia, to the northern Japanese islands, to Paris, to Europe. The violent utopianists usually sounded good- the one on the northern japanese island ended up a sociologist documenting the Ainu- and marrying the chief’s daughter. But- eventually- they came home, they took over the government, and they started killing people.
I don’t want them having a chance to do that, here. I’m still wondering if abortion is doing this as early as possible- no nits- no lice. I’ve read the Black Book of Communism. It doesn’t sound like normal people survived, at all. She wanted that. She worked towards that.
Treason and sedition are punishable by death, written in the Constitution. If we take intent- she was trying to overthrow America. She ought to be hung. Alive and in jail is the mercy seat, not the punishment seat.
I agree with you in principle, Mr. Radosh, but Ms. Clark would certainly be more convincing if she spent adequate time in candid conversations with Mr. Horowitz prior to meeting with and coming clean with Governor Cuomo. Taking things in this order could remove the appearance of a Clinton style, political favor on the part of Mr. Cuomo. Additionally, Mr. Horowitz would be in a much better position, regardless of Ms. Clark’s candor, or lack thereof, to open the eyes of those who do not recognize destructive, hard left influence on higher levels of government.
‘I agree with Horowitz that these radicals are part “of an ongoing community of political radicals” who try to conceal their agenda through playing the victim, and always pointing out how they only want “social justice,” the term through which they hide their actual goal of communist revolution.’
Hmmm…. But don’t these radicals believe that social justice will be achieved through communist revolution? Didn’t you? Why else did you become a commie?
“Does Clark condemn the kind of rationale Susan Rosenberg presents in the book she wrote justifying her politics? ”
Double hmmm…. So now Clark only must condemn not only illegal activity, but political belief?
The operative word in this story is “Terrorist”.
The murdered Police Officers were in Uniform, Clark and associates were soldiers without Uniform, performing acts of war.
Terrorists have no Rights. They should have been executed for their heinous Crimes!
“Robbins is more than unfair to Clark’s father, who should be the hero of the article, rather than somewhat of a villain.”
His actions, which seem justifiable, are actually described objectively. The father’s image is also softened by Clark’s comment, “My arrest kind of broke my father’s heart.”
Also, I want to edit the comment in my previous post about about Clark being asked to condemn political belief. I still believe that this is what RR is demanding, but I would change my choice of quotes from his post. I would substitute this:
“Clark, in other words, has to make clear that it is necessary for her to address the politics of her action….”
And I would contend that only her illegal action should be at issue, not her politics – or the politics of others.
PS – What RR really seems to want is a recanting, a public recanting of her political beliefs and a condemnation of the political beliefs of others. Sounds familiar.
At least two commenters here have made assertions that Judith Clark has acted much the same way as other domestic terrorists after have been caught. If it is true that she was pursuing the ‘political prisoner’ angle within the last ten years, then reports of remorse from 1993 would be suspect. It would be very interesting to see the author and Horowitz closely chart Clark’s journey over the last ten years. Verifying a true path to repentence (along with full cooperation on what she probably knows about other violent acts) would be the best arguement in favor of leniency, not specious comparisons to others who managed to con their way out.
I am glad to see no further swipes at the families of the victims.
I’m not sure that it’s our role to grant forgiveness to Judy Clark and muse about the rightness of setting this once looney, American hating bird free.
If she decided to spill her guts about crime facts; names, dates and events that she knows, maybe I would jump the Judy bandwagon.
A sidebar:
One reason why I still give Hanoi Jane the cold shoulder is that she thinks treason means never having to say you’re sorry. (saying you’re sorry people had hurt feelings doesn’t cut it, old babe).
Yet, if the families of the Judy dead want her to be freed, then I guess it’s copacetic with lil’ ole’ me.
At the same time, please, Ron Radosh, when you write these articles, don’t ignore the law as it pertains to culpability; between the one who pulls the trigger and the one who pulls away in the getaway car. Not a lot of difference in the eyes of the law. However, failing to make legal distinctions makes me think the writer of the article doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the law. Incidentally, the fact that different people get different sentences for essentially the same or worse crimes is pretty much irrelevant.
One more thought.
If (a separate topic) the broad concept of equal treatment under the law has any place in this discussion, I would add this.
If Barack Obama is going to be jail-free after he spends a term or two trying to kill this nation, then maybe Judy does deserve to go scot free even though she took a day trip on a killing spree decades ago.
You see, I believe Obama is the real criminal that the nation should be considering, not just voting out of the White House, but being brought to justice and stuck in the big house.
Disgusting to so many Americans, Obama’s intentional acts bent on destroying this nation are a fact of life that deserve being discussed till America comes to its senses. Judy, on the other hand, whose almost celebrity status makes me nuts, belongs on the back burner, not wasting space here.
I do wonder, though, whether the dear jail girl is truly sorry about taking part in wasting lives. And I’m not referring to her own.
Unlike you, Rachel, I have actually enjoyed “wasting space” here on this issue. And given the amount you just used up, you actually do seem to also. (Nor has my agenda been either to offer forgiveness or set Clark free.) But I do think you perform a service. Your comments on Obama indicate why so many here seem to lapse into a tone of cold and fanatic contempt about Clark. You convince yourself you are cornered by a devouring tiger, and this justifies a level of disdain, a rhetoric filled with “let her rot” bravado, and frankly just a tinge of hysteria. My own view is America is bigger than both you and Barak Obama. So I am willing to wonder about Judy Clark, the sincerity of her changes of views, and the nuances of the different sentences given to various participants in her acts of terrorism, etc. The overwhelming tone of many responss here is a dripping contempt and a faking of absolute moral certainty that none of the reasoning supplied comes close to justifying. It is a disease of blog commentary everywhere as near as I can tell. The central principle of which seems to be “never show the fear that’s in your eyes.”
Well John, thanks for not riding above the scudding clouds like a full moon on high and looking down on us fearful mortals or mischaracterizing views that oppose yours as simply slavering and happy vengeance.
A witch, a witch! Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn her!
Sure pal, sure.
Joe, you write in a nicely measured tone; logical. Unfortunately, your observations about me and Obama are misguided. I have a basis for any hysteria I feel; for feeling a need to shout from the highest rooftops, “we have a mole in the white house who’s out to destroy us”. If Israel is vaporized, will I still be guilty for a dripping contempt for Judy and Obama? Or did I really say I wasn’t sure which way the wind blows as to my feelings for the lady?
Joe, I wrote back because you have a way about you, almost as if you were next to me, you’d reach out and say, “Rachel, calm down.” With a debt reaching 16 trillion, Joe and a President intent on neutering our military who happens to be more communist than progressive. And with the media wearing pom poms for him every day, I guess I am a little nuts.
Thursday, last, after working out, I went to the emergency room suffering a heart attack. I guess that doesn’t help me find the calm you’re nice writing reflects. I’m upset Joe. I’m scared.
If you want to know me better, my facebook page is, “Bill Force” (I’m 66 years old, north shore high school, 1964). The facebook page is replete with a lot of notes to relax and get better. Yes, Rachel is a pen name I’ve used for the last eight or so years.
Joe, I hope in your heart you find more than contempt for people like me who feel this nation is getting away from them. Who never wanted it to be fundamentally transformed. Who thought Black Panther voter intimidation was against the law. When people are near tears, I could argue it’s cruel to lump them together as having a disease of blog commentary. Joe, how naive are you?
You come off at first measured and thoughtful and end up hateful and mean spirited. Who is the real you?
Ron, Your approach to this matter is utterly sensible. And it’s altogether right to regard the Brinks’ gang and exploits as of the moment. Same with the Hiss-Chambers case. I used to belong to something called The Society for the Advancement of Time, which was dedicated to getting through the 1960s in our lifetime. Once the loose ends are tied up (e.g., the status of Judy Clark), maybe we can. However, I fear that it will take outliving Lefties of our time in order to get the last word. Oops. A mistake there: there will most likely be progeny of our age cohort who will carry on the nonsense for another generation.
The problem with Ron’s rethinking is that if she were able to say truthfully that she did not know who was responsible for either the San Francisco police station bombing (I believe she was on the east coast) or the BLA murder of police officers (the BLA was an all-black formation split off from the Panthers and there is no reason why she would know who the triggermen were) then the hard-liners here would say this proves her insincerity. The point is, yes she is guilty, she has paid for her crime with 30 years in prison, she has repented, and nothing is served by continuing her imprisonment other than satisfying vindictive urges. As for those who want to execute other people whose only crime is exercising their right of free speech (as opposed to commission of terrorist crimes), I’d ask what part of “Bill of Rights” do they not understand.