i'd like to believe in the notion that "the aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress" (1) but it seems harder and harder as time goes by and our modern world turns darker and darker corners, to find any hope for progress, and only barely a dream for any true victory, for victory is defined by the man still standing after the fight, the nation still intact after the war, regardless of the scars, regardless of the casualties, the numbers, the statistics. it all comes down to the semantics of those in power, the words of those who will (or can) tell us of the goings on about our world, the media telling us what's what and who's who and what we should think about it and god damn the lot of us who ever care to speak against any of the more popular notions or to speak against any of the popular traditions, against the idea of a good war, the idea that religion can actually bring peace, the idea that executing a man already proven powerless will change a thing.
of course, then one has to wonder, if there is no change to come of it, why rail against it anymore than cheer for it? why bother getting up any ire on either side of the issue if this singular event does not hold the purported monument than those at the extremes of either side might think or hope? why dare suggest that the execution of a "bad" man is a bad thing (nevermind that my notion of why he may be bad is not necessarily the same notion as to why the bloodthirsty masses call for his death, nevermind the fact that most of those masses probably don't even know for what criminal act he was actually convicted)? see, the thing of it is "the trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels," like in my (that is mine, not that of mencken (whose quote i am interrupting) oft noted essay in defense of hitler and other politicians. "For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all" (2). you cannot expect to fight the dictator in your own midst when you've already handed him all the power he needs to keep you down forever while you sat by and watch him bully some other dictator in some other land, because he's a bad man who kills folks who fight against him--not that our own government has ever fought against groups internal to this nation who don't appreciate or support the federal government's control over them, unless of course you count, for example, our own civil war, or on a lesser scale, say, the branch davidians or even vicki weaver (3).
oh no, did i mention the branch davidians and turn away what few people bothered to read this? surely, there can be no comparison between our own government, by way of the ATF and FBI, shooting and gassing and burning 76 people who didn't want to live how the government wanted them to live and saddam hussein (or rather, the iraqi government under saddam hussein, as we wouldn't want to make it personal and fuel the hatred of said person) gassing a town full of folks who would have rather he not rule over them as part of his nation and many of which were armed peshmerga, kurdish revolutionaries, who ahd previously actively fought against iraqi government forces and had even attempted to assassinate hussein himself. 148 people by the way. that was the guilty that got the death penalty and got the execution, "148 people in dujail, a mostly shiite town north of baghdad, after a 1982 attempt to assassinate him" (4). in a culture and a geography where bloodshed is a historical constant, his government lashed out and killed its detractors. one has to wonder if it is not to be expected that such lashings might present themselves differently in the middle east than they would here, with gassing and torture and death rather than imprisonment and only unsanctioned torture (not counting the sanctioned torture at guantanamo bay or in iraq) and only "humane" death. though there may be a degree of scale to the difference of it all, is that necessarily enough to pretend that one is so much better, morally or ethically, than the other? i suppose our modern society does put a certain value on genocide that separates it from everyday homicide, but is a healthy distinction to make if we truly believe that peaceful coexistence among the numerous cultures of the world can ever be possible? should we not subscribe to an actual "culture of life" (5) based on the notion that the betterment of the world for all peoples is a greater goal than some de facto notion that a certain way of life--democracy--is the be all end all of cultural evolution?
of course, to subscribe to that, we would have to also accept the idea that our species is not the be all end all of natural evolution, or, gods forbid, the idea that a great, perfect creator didn't put us here and put everything else--be it animal, vegetable or mineral--here for our bidding and our amusement. we would have to put aside a great many of the religious ideals that separate us in the first place, that cause our wars, the dictate our public policies, that make us believe some lives have greater value that others--now would probably be as good a time as any to mention that i happen to support abortion and euthanasia and think feeding the starving masses of the world only increases the number of starving masses rather than solve anything or save anyone, so find any hypocrisy you like in the notion of my arguing the value of life in general at this time--that sunnis or shiites or kurds or baptist or protestants or catholics or hindus or even atheists have some greater value over the rest because they have found the answers and, well, how can any other answers be right if yours seem oh so right? i ask you, though, what if there are no answers, as such? what if we are here and that is all, no gods, no masters, no rules but those are cultural evolution has ascribed to us--the basic tenets of the golden rule and don't take a thing which is not yours (be it life or property) omnipresent in the cultures of the world, the rest nothing but details.
"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking" (6). hippy, pinko, leftist claptrap, right? love your fellow man and sing "kumbaya" and don't eat meat and give a hoot, don't pollute and everything will be well. the bullshit notions of a liberal atheist who can't even hold down a regular job... or i just did the common political thing and tricked you. i admit, i play the game sometimes also, and i recognize the tricks all too often--not that tony snow or any of the voices of the powers that be bother with games much anymore, at least not in any cute, coy sense, instead outright lying ("who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past" (7) and all that) or avoiding the issue, or presenting the picture only bit by bit, coaching the audience "in ever so slight increments, pulled in deeper and deeper without knowing where it's going or seeing the total picture" (8). see, "monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. more dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions" (9). and, sometimes you have to be a monster, a functionary to the master's cause or a monster in your own right, to get anything done or said. sometimes, you have to play the game. and, sometimes you have to quote saddam hussein speaking against hatred to make a damn point.
but, what is that damn point?
should we all just hug each other and accept each other's faults, come what may? or is that so obviously simplistic that you couldn't even suggest that i, or any of those horrible Liberals (capital L), would recommend it? just what is the fucking point here? a mass murderer (by chain of command) has been put to death, and i can sit here and hint at defending him, at condemning those who would cheer on his death, who would look forward to watching the video footage once it's released, but do i have some great solution to it all? will this essay end with the magic words that will fix everything, put an end to religious disputes, to oil wars, to torture, to death? of course not.
but then, again, i don't want victory. i want progress. i don't want to be right, necessarily, even when i'm arguing you are wrong. i want there to be common ground, even if its is agreement to disagree. but, you see, that doesn't mean we avoid the issue and leave it up to the powers that be. that doesn't mean we shrug off this execution or any other because it's just one more life--or that we cheer it on for that matter. "big government needs ever growing power to enforce more and more laws, to intervene in more and more foreign nations' affairs, to levy more and more taxes--and to handle public discontent with these laws, interventions and taxes" (10), and it us up to the citizens to stand up to the growing of that power. "this country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it" (11). just like the iraqis had the right to overthrow saddam... hell, just like those kurds had the right to try to assassinate him to keep him from telling them how to live, we have the right to do what we can to keep our government from turning its mostly accepted (though obviously still disputed) role as the world's policeman into the world's bully or the world's dictator. when our president redefines torture so we can start using it against the enemy, when we find ourselves cheering execution and clamoring to watch it on youtube, maybe we shouldn't pretend we are so highly evolved beyond men who behead infidels on video or gas villages full of revolutionaries. when the tactics of the enemy become all too familiar as reflections of our own--or vice versa--how humane are we? and, who will overthrow us and cheer on our death? and, would they be so wrong to do so?
we humans tend toward arrogance, believing that whatever it is that we have decided is true must actually be true and anyone who sees different must be on something. it doesn't matter if we are religious. these days, agnosticism and atheism fall into that same style of boat, as it were, but what else can we expect with more than 6 billion lives, each unique and individual but all the damn same, go on about one another in a limited space but dispute and confrontation? though humane and human are separated by but a letter, it would seem that history tells us that our tendencies are anything but. and, we americans may be on top of the heap, but that does not mean we can do what we want to those below us, nor that we can ignore them either. "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (12) and bloodshed anywhere might as well be right on our front porch as the blood is on all of our hands, and that, i would think, is not something worth celebrating.
(1) joseph joubert
(2) h l mencken
(3) that's a ruby ridge reference for those of you who aren't up on your conspiracy theorist terminology, players or victims
(4) though the details are public knowledge, i suppose, the wording comes from http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/29/hussein.obit/index.html
(5) taking george w bush's terms but using them for something purer, i would hope
(6) saddam hussein, in a letter written 5 november 2006, the day of his conviction
(7) george orwell, 1984
(8) rick ross, speaking about the branch davidians
(9) primo levi
(10) carol moore, the massacre of the branch davidians: a study of government violations of rights, excessive force and cover up
(11) abraham lincoln
(12) martin luther king jr, letter from birmingham jail, 16 april 1963