These Are Ourselves Under Pressure

Auntie InExcelsisDeo: I called your house and a man answered.
Tata: You called my old number! That's Paulie's Dad. He moved in after I moved out.
Auntie I.: He said, "Just a minute. I'll go look." He came back a few minutes later, "No, she's not here."
Tata: That's hilarious! Wonder where he went! You called because you heard me summoning you?
Auntie I.: Did I? What's up? I can't remember why I called you.
Tata: Christmas Eve? Textiles? Got a new pet?
Auntie I.: ...No...
Tata: Plumbing repairs? My Dad's driving you crazy? Vehicular manslaughter?
Auntie I.: ...No...
Tata: Stubbed a toe?
Auntie I.: ...No...
Tata: I got nothing!
Auntie I.: I'll buzz you when I remember!
Tata: I'll be here until I'm paroled...

Last night, a man was executed in California and today the blogsphere erupted in a frenzy of bloody team-bashing. I can't join this game. I can't dance on the grave of another human being, no matter who he or she was, no matter what he or she did. And you'd think I'd be entitled to consider the issue as long as I wished and come to whatever opinion I might, morally and intellectually. Nope. Today, bloggers and pundits on both sides insisted not just that theirs was the only position a wise person could hold but that a person who didn't agree must be morally or intellectually defective.

Yeah. Well. Bite me.

The death penalty in the United States is ridiculous and racist, but that's because human beings are ridiculous and racist. We can't fix that between now and the next state-sponsored execution. We can't fix ourselves, and we can't fix society. Putting aside the unbearable horror that is executing the wrongly convicted, it is too great a responsibility - for me - to decide that another person should die. Many people argue that the Bible says such-and-such, or the Koran says so-and-so. I know what they say, and they provide certainty for a large part of the populus, but not for me. I'm glad these philosophies help people find moral centers in our difficult world.

Still, the one thing I take away from all my years of study is the very simple Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. This means I am small and covered with fur, and I cannot possibly know any absolute truth. I cannot know if there is a God, an afterlife, a profound justice, or a call for the blood of the guilty, and I accept my limitations here. My options, then, are limited in pursuit of public safety and bodily security. The option I choose is to incarcerate the guilty. If there is a God, and if God has plans for us, great. I hope God's plan is a cocktail party where I meet Mark Twain under the table, but if it's not, then justice is the Lord's - not mine - to administer.

Some people have dreams under anaesthesia. I do not. During surgery, it's as if the doctor's hit my OFF switch, and coming out of it is terrifying because it is not like being ON. It feels like wrestling up from under something heavy on my chest and preventing the drawing of breath. Each time I've come out of anaesthesia, I've felt like I'd been dead for a few hours. Some say after death, there's nothing. I've already been through nothing. When people argue about pits of fire and demon beasts, I don't hope for Heaven. I hope for nothing. I wish there were a way to tell if we're wasting our time, frothing at the mouth about punishments and crimes, but I can't. And in real life, I don't have to.

Not every issue requires that I form an opinion. I have the rest of my life to decide what I think, and I may even so change my mind. From Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize lecture:

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

...The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

By way of contrast, this is something I can form an opinion on. These deaths do matter. I don't wish to trivialize this vast, unmeasured suffering but it makes me sick that this was done in our name, in the name of the American people. It makes me just as guilty as the black ops fuckers who commissioned these murders. There is no justice for these victims in this world. For them, I hope there is an easy afterlife, if there is one, but I can't wish eternal damnation or the lake of fire or a red-hot fireplace poker up the butt for the murderers. For them, I wish for exposure and light. I hope their children find out what they did and see their parents with daylight understanding.

Mine are the politics of mercy. It is my wish that the arguments, the debaters, the victims and the murderers go in peace, wherever they're going in this life or what follows. It is my hope that we think clearly and coolly about the suffering we cause and move to mitigate it. If you believe in God, it's the least service you can offer. If you don't, your work on earth is certainly cut out for you.

Please sign the petition, because voting rights are a first step toward justice.

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