BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's prime minister and public appeared
horrified after watching provincial police chief "Joe Ferrari"
allegedly torture and kill a drug suspect by wrapping his head with
layers of plastic bags until he suffocated.

"I put the bag on his head only because I did not want him to see my
face," Police Col. Thitisan Utthanaphon, 39, told this shocked nation
which saw the suffocation and death in a nine-minute video on
nationwide TV news and online.

"But he tried to rip the bag off, so I had to tie him down and put
handcuffs on him, or else he would try to rip the bag.

"My intention was to get information, so we could find the drugs that
are hurting the people in Nakhon Sawan," Col. Thitisan said on August
26 in the police-supervised broadcast from in his town 150 miles (250
km) north of Bangkok.

"I admit what I have done is wrong, and I will accept whatever the
court rules. They can sentence me to life imprisonment. I had no
intention to kill him."

We pretend to have enemies, but mostly what we “have” are people whose lives simply don’t matter. And then we kill them, either directly — via airstrikes or other war games, turning them into collateral damage — or indirectly . . . by simply failing to notice that they exist.

The moral idiocy of this transcends cruelty and indifference. We’re also killing ourselves. The idea that humanity — that life itself — is “all one” isn’t just a nice thought, an outreach of kindness, but the cornerstone of survival.

Take, for example, the concept of “vaccine apartheid” — denying developing nations, where so far 85 percent of the Covid deaths have occurred, adequate access to the vaccine.

This article is posted from its original publication in Washington Monthly, Sept 4, 2021.

In August 10, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas proposed an inappropriate amendment to the $3.5 billion infrastructure bill currently being considered by Congress. The provision bans federal funds from going to K–12 schools that teach critical race theory. It passed 50–49.

Cotton and his Republican peers—as well as Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia—followed the direction of Tucker Carlson and his peers at Fox News and other right-wing media, who have been mounting a scare campaign to convince white America that radical educators nationwide are blaming their children and grandchildren for the sins of our nation’s past.

Wednesday, September 8, 7-9pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

We will be talking about GOTV [Get Out The Vote], Early Vote poll standing, and community map making. Also hoping to hear more on City of Columbus Issue 7 that will be on the November ballot.

We hope to have Franklin County Commissioner Erica Crowley at our October meeting.

Please e-mail <demcoalitioncentralohio@gmail.com> to request the meeting link.

Hosted by The Coalition of Democratic and Progressive Organizations of Central Ohio, Dublin Area Progressives, Franklin County Young Democrats, and Franklin County Democratic Party.