A Schwarzenegger backlash in Austria

BERLIN: Sometime over the Christmas holidays, the authorities of Graz, a classically pretty Austrian town, took down the sign that for the past seven years has identified the local 15,000-seat sports arena as the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium, and as they did so, a rare combination of local hero worship, European indignation at the death penalty, and provincial Austrian politics came to a climax.
The stadium had been named after Schwarzenegger in 1997 as an act of a kind of fealty toward the poor farmer's son and international celebrity who, though born in a little village nearby, was educated in Graz and has always readily identified it as his native place.
But when Schwarzenegger, now governor of California, declined to commute the death sentence for Stanley Tookie Williams, the former Los Angeles gang leader who was executed in California, the reaction in Graz, where the death penalty is seen as a medieval atrocity, was swift and angry.
"I submitted a petition to the City Council to remove his name from the stadium, and to take away his status as an honorary citizen," Sigrid Binder, the leader of the Green Party said in an interview in Graz's stately City Hall, describing the first step in the chain of events that led to the renaming of the stadium. "The petition was accepted by a majority on the Council."

"We are against the death penalty not only in word, but really against the death penalty," Wolfgang Benedek, a professor of international law at Graz university, said. Benedek is also directorof the European Training Center for Human Rights, created five years ago in Graz to further its ambition to be a human rights center. It is asort of human rights academy designed to promote respect for the rule oflaw especially among the new democracies of Southeastern Europe.
It was also the particular circumstances of this case that led to this reaction, Benedek continued, meaning the special circumstances surrounding Williams case, of a man who had written children's books aimed at steering young people away from violence, had already spent two decades in jail , and who seemed, to many Europeans at least, to have reformed himself.
"Many people around the world pleaded with Mr. Schwarzenegger to show mercy in this case, and when he didn't, the city had somehow to react," Benedek said.

It's crazy, I used to look up to Schwarzenegger in a big way. I'm talking since before Pumping Iron. My older brother was a professional body builder so Arnold was a household item when I was coming up. I read some things on him I agreed with back in day he was talking about determination. When he crossed over to the silver screens I followed from Conan, to Terminator right to Kindergarten cop. Right now writing this, thinking damn I looked up to this man leaves a bad taste in my mouth. He had me fooled. I really thought Arnold was an enlightened one. Maybe he was and he got blinded or pussy whipped maybe both.
I sure enough question the guilt of Tookie Williams. It's to picture perfect, it smells of conspiracy. I know all to well to what lengths police will go to remove someone from the equation when they don't want them there anymore. Tookie had power on the streets, he had soldiers under him why would he stoop to a low level robbery. As a high soldier I was never involved in such petty activity. They took a man that had mad power and respect, a black man with power and respect and not only murdered him but made him look like a heartless, ruthless monster with no value what so ever on life. I believe the opposite.
If indeed Tookie did commit the crimes he was accused of I can still relate having come up in the manner I have. I know what hunger pains are, I know hopelessness and I know what it is to be so desperate that all logical thinking is non-existent. This is when individuals make stupid mistakes. I believe an individual that falls into this trap can be saved, can be redeemed. For someone like Schwarzenegger I am not so sure.
To murder in the heat of a moment, to kill without having the clarity to think of the repercussions in that second is one thing; but to be sober, of good well being taking weeks, months to think it through all the while hearing the cries of a divided people, then moving ahead and ordering the death of another human being to me is cynical. All the while I am thinking, here is a man that thousands if not millions of people look up to and he is ordering the death of another human being. I am the low life, the menace to society, the ex-convict that can't get a job because of my past yet I was fighting to save not a convicted killer, but the life of human being. A human being that was making a big difference in this fucked up world. What's wrong with this picture?
I praise Austria for what they did. I wish more action like this would be taken in the world. I would like to see action like this taken right here on our soil that is drenched in the blood of our young. I raise my fist to them and honor them in song.
As for the Governor, his now appearance is satisfying to me. I always felt God dishes out the best punishments in life that well fit the crime. A man that has proved to me to be nothing more than selfish and vane I am sure is suffering silently as his luster fades away. I have no respect for Schwarzenegger. The man I thought was a leader ended up being a cowering follower willing to do what ever it takes to be excepted, even over seeing the murder of an innocent man. He chose to follow in the foot steps of the many other politicians who used crime and punishment to boost their political careers.
Though Arnold's political career is still in standing, I think his days are drawing to an end. As Tony Montana said in Scarface, "He finished, he not gonna last". Once he's gone, I guarantee "he won't be back". In Struggle. "X"