car culture

Cuba: Spanish rightist sentenced in dissident's death

Cuban television announced on Oct. 15 that a court in the eastern province of Granma had found Spanish national Angel Francisco Carromero Barrios guilty of causing an automobile accident that killed the well-known dissident Oswaldo Payá and another dissident, Harold Cepero, on July 22. Carromero, the leader of the New Generations youth movement of Spain's governing right-wing Popular Party (PP), had been visiting Payá and was driving the dissidents in a rented car when the accident occurred. Prosecutors charged that Carromero had been speeding, while the defense blamed the condition of the road and a lack of warning signs. The court sentenced Carromero to four years in prison instead of the seven years requested by the prosecution. Spain's consul in Cuba, Tomás Rodríguez, described the trial as "clean, open and procedurally impeccable."

WHY WE FIGHT

From the New York Times, Oct. 8:

4 Die in Crash at Notorious Turn on L.I. Road
All five were teenage friends from Queens, and four had been classmates at Richmond Hill High School. Some had started college and were planning for careers years away, and they were all out for a ride early Monday in a car that one of them — a 17-year-old with a learner's permit — had recently started driving.

Cuba: blogger detained as trial starts in dissident's death

Angel Francisco Carromero Barrio, the leader of the New Generations youth movement of Spain's right-wing Popular Party (PP), was tried on Oct. 5 in Bayamo in the eastern Cuban province of Granma on charges of causing a car accident in which Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero died. Carromero was driving with the two Cubans and Jens Aron Modig, chair of the youth wing of Sweden's center-right Christian Democratic Party, on July 22 when they entered an area where the road was being repaired and Carromero lost control of the rented car. Prosecutors said he was speeding and called for a seven-year prison sentence. It isn't clear when the five-judge panel will announce its verdict.

WHY WE FIGHT

From NY1, Sept. 23:

East Side Car Accident Kills Pedestrian, Injures Another
An elderly man died after police say he was struck and killed by a car while hailing a cab on Manhattan's East Side on Saturday night.

WHY WE FIGHT

From Gothamist, Sept. 11:

A 13-year-old cyclist is in critical condition after being struck by a van in Borough Park earlier this morning. According to police, the boy was biking east on 47th Street at around 5:42 a.m. when he collided with a Honda van traveling southbound on 12th Avenue through the intersection. The victim was rushed to Lutheran Medical center, and the driver remained at the scene. According to the NYPD spokesman, there is no criminality suspected.

The Republicans are the party of white supremacy: deal with it

Global domination and corporate power are obviously inextricably linked to white supremacy, and certainly the prior two rose along with the last. But the three no longer form the seamless unity they did even a generation ago. This is what those on the left who repeat like a mantra that there is "no difference" between Romney and Obama don't seem to get. We have pointed out before Mitt Romney's use of coded messages to play to the racist vote while still maintaining  a veil (however diaphanous) of plausible deniability. Among his supporters at the GOP convention in Tampa last month, the veil was sometimes not there at all. Note this enlightening litany from the Washington Post, Aug. 29:

Petro-oligarchs play presidential candidates —again

We don't doubt that Big Oil has its money on the Republicans and Mitt Romney when push comes to shove. But we noted back in 2008 that the reigning petro-oligarchs were deftly playing both sides in the presidential race. The nature of the game is that no matter who gets in, the petro-oligarchs win. But a part of the game is that Romney gets to bait Obama as a Green Stalin for suggesting that some remnants of federal oversight over the oil industry be retained—which only causes Obama to capitulate yet further. In terms of actual policy on oil and energy, the difference between the two parties has been narrowing almost from the moment Obama took office, until today it is vanishingly small. From AP, Aug. 23:

WHY WE FIGHT

From the Queens Times-Ledger, July 27:

Bronx family had just left Nigerian gathering at Richmond Hill hall before crash

Oby Okoro, the woman the NYPD identified as the driver in a gruesome accident Sunday morning in Jamaica that left five passengers dead, told police she lost control of her Mercedes-Benz because the brakes failed, according to a report.

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