[fla-left] Bloody execution photos draw gamut of responses (fwd)

[Carrol Cox]

The death penalty, like a good deal of the propaganda supporting
and appealing to spontaneous ideology, uses the princple that
where there is smoke there is fire. If  "society" (i.e., in this case,
the bourgeois state) shows itself as so excited by certaina activity
that it will spend millions and involve all the most august
institutions of society in the effor to kill one individual with
pomp and circumstance and lots of silly rhetoric (lie Max's),
THEN, the implict message is (leaping a bit) all evil comes
from individual actions and if we can only stop the evil actions
of these few people (not just the murderers but the real
and imaginary purse snatchers etc out there), then all will
be well and people can trust their government and their
employer.

To understand the role of the death penalty under modern
capitalism one must study the social history of the death
penalty in 18th c. England.

Carrol