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

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Oct 10 15:01:14 PDT 1999


Max:
>Leaping for an Olympic record is more like it. There's
>probably more than one implicit message, and you misstate
>the ones you raise. I don't think a message is that *all* evil
>comes from the actions of a *few*, but that high individual
>responsibility inheres in *some* actions. Otherwise we might
>let Pinochet live out his days in peace, under the premise that
>he was just a product of his circumstances. As for the
>illusion that an execution means that "all will be well", or
>that "people can trust their government," few people are
>that stupid in my view. The more common view of an
>execution is of a stray victory or consolation in an endless
>war. At least they got one of those bastards (that commit
>heinous crimes).

There is no doubt a feeling of compensatory consolation involved, which is expressed in the statement made by the mother of two children quoted in the article: "To my surprise I felt nothing but relief that this scum is now long gone!" Isn't this exactly the feeling that the ruling class want you to have? You are supposed to feel a momentary relief at the destruction of minor criminals (a kind of poetic justice that is not otherwise available under capitalism, which justly and unjustly exploits you), and your desire to feel such relief gives more power to the state, which is not only full of major evils but safeguards the evil system of private ownership of the means of production with all its attendant evils, major and minor, one of which is the production of more criminals than otherwise possible.

Through the war on crimes, we've lost and had curtailed many civil liberties already. Why? Because enough people have felt that we must give more power to the state in order to punish criminals. Thus, a desire to punish or destroy minor criminals ends up punishing the entire masses of people. Remember that Biblical metaphor? Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage.

Yoshie



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