Thoughts on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tookie Williams

The people who elect movie stars for office are dreamers. The ones in California thought they were getting a stand up Governator, a he-man, but instead, they got a girlie-man. Beguiled by his muscular build they didn’t notice the ruby slippers.

He was expected to do the right thing, right now. And he acted the part. Accusations of woman-groping, steroid-popping and Nazi sympathizing were denied and they believed him. There was even talk about changing the constitution so that he could run for president sometime soon. And, why not? Thaaaaank yooooou George Bush!!!

Arnold was given the chance… of a lifetime.

Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams was terminated by the Terminator. He didn’t stand a chance. Tookie was a brutal thug who acted out the violence on the ‘big screen’; the stuff portrayed and marketed by Arnold and his ilk. He took it to extremes and ended up on death row. There, he spent twenty-four years transforming himself into the kind of person who would be nominated for the Nobel peace Prize on four occasions.

Arnold had to kill him. Tookie did not apologize and could not be redeemed, was the reason he gave. Anyone can see that the execution had little to do with apology, redemption, revenge, forgiveness or even rehabilitation. It was about politics. Arnold simply traded Tookie’s life to enhance his chances for re-election. The polls made him do it.

Arnold maintains Austrian citizenship, a country that banned the death penalty. He made his fame pumping iron in apartheid South Africa. He governs a State whose police are famous for planting evidence on blacks. He knows that one out of ten death sentences are overturned by DNA testing. He knows that blacks are disproportionally given the death sentence. He said he was the victim of false testimony but he gives no merit to Tookie’s denial. Does anything from the Kennedy’s ever rub off on that guy? How does he go home and tell his children that he had the chance to save a man’s life today (another father) and chose not to.

Apology and redemption indeed. Whenever the question of reparation comes up white America goes crazy. The past is the past they say, let's move on. There has never been an apology for the mass murder of Blacks and there has never been redemption for Whites. He missed his chance to set a good example. How can it be that Tookie and Arnold worship the same God? And finally, Arnold knows life behind bars is not exactly a second chance…it’s a fate worse than death.

All things are related. We are interconnected and interdependent in ways that are missed the first time around. Second chances are what life is all about. The second coming, a second spring, the second time around, are the stuff of life. To quote a rich friend “First gets the glory, second gets the goods.” Second chances mean a lot. Tookie deserved a second chance. It made no sense to kill him...but for another term.

In a few months, Arnold will be asking for a second chance. He will not win. Tookie will. To be continued