Possible Fallout From the Jena Six Incident?

And tonight it's time for another edition of "Liam's brain puts two and two together and comes up with an answer he HOPES turns out to be five".

As anyone who read last night's late night nervous musings on Naomi Wolf will realize, President Bush does now have some extraordinary powers for a President because of the Patriot Act and various other legislative reactions to 9/11. While the conclusion of her article may not necessarily hold true (see the P.S of this message for some additional thinking on that point), it is certainly true that Bush now has the power to ignore Posse Comitatus (the law which forbids using the Army or Air Force as a military or law-enforcement force on U.S. soil). Specifically, in early 2006 the "John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122)" contains section 1076 which provides for the President the power to use the armed forces within the United States on a number of conditions, including to suppress any insurrection or domestic violence as he should deem necessary. By the way, the bill was signed last year and goes into effect on October 1 (yes, next week). (If you want to read the act itself, here is a link.)

So, now we cut to today's news about the Jena, LA racial tension going on, and this nice little article, which seems to indicate that the mayor of Jena, after the African American demonstrators left and the white supremacist demonstrators had their shot, thanked the white supremacist group for their "moral support" and praised pro-white groups for organizing counterdemonstrations. (Note that this is according to that white supremacist group, but the mayor has not denied it).

Nothing sets up a good clash and full on riot like racial tension, and these absolutely stupid remarks by the Mayor of Jena (if true) will only serve to highten the tension.

So here's one way I fear it might play out:

1. Word of this spreads, leading to even more perception on the part of African Americans that Jena is even more racist a place than the new story thus far seems to indicate.
2. African Americans and their supporters return to Jena and a huge riot breaks out between them and white supremacist groups
3. President Bush (probably officially at the request of Governor Blanco) sends in the military to declare martial law and put down the uprising.
4. Regardless of how this is done, one side or the other becomes convinced that the Federal government has unfairly sided with "the other side", leading to larger uprisings, either by African American rights groups or by White Supremacist groups.
5. Full on martial law is declared along with curfews and the whole nine yards, all in the name of safety of course.

Will it happen that way? Who knows. But tonight, I'm thinking about how I'd feel if I were a black person in or around Jena, LA. The point at which this began to look racist was when nooses hung from a "white tree" where black students had been sitting was considered "a youthful prank". The point at which it began to spin out of control was when a group of white students and a group of black students confronted each other, and one of the white students pulled a shotgun out of his truck, which was wrestled from him by the black students, and a black student was charged with theft of the gun, but the white student who pulled the gun was not charged with anything. It turned absolutely racist when, after a number of clashes back and forth, one such clash in which six black students assaulted a white student (who had reportedly been taunting one of the black students for himself having been beaten up the week before) and charges were brought, including the ludicrous notion that because the black students were wearing shoes when they kicked the white student, they were committing "assault with a deadly weapon", when threats made by white students with an ACTUAL deadly weapon did not result in charges.

Now look, I'm not saying what the "Jena 6" did was right. It was not, and they should absolutely be punished. But what the white students did was not right either, and they should ALSO be punished. And as long as it appears as though there was a fairly equal (although escalating) back and forth between white and black students but an entirely UN-equal response punishment-wise, something is wrong.

And when things get that wrong, race riots have been known to spring up. And when race riots are poorly handled by officials, larger race riots have been known to spring up.

I would estimate that the chances are less than 5%, but I can easily see how this could spiral out of control and we could end up with national martial law declared. I hope I'm wrong.

Liam.

P.S. By the way, as to last night's post, I think I figured out the logical falacy that makes it possible that Naomi Wolf is both technically correct and yet not necessarily right in her conclusions about America: She takes a list of 10 steps which she makes a pretty convincing argument are always followed by open governments looking to close down freedoms, but it's like proving that every single person who ever died in a traffic accident started out their trip by getting into a car and turning it on. Sure, it's true, but it doesn't mean that every person who ever got into a car and turned it on then died in a car accident. The question to be asked is how often have those 10 steps been taken (or partially taken) and yet turned back before going beyond the point of no return? Sure, it's scary to think that perhaps we're closer than we were 10 years ago, she hasn't proven causality, merely sequentiality.