On Saddam Hussein's capture
the number of the Beast. But, again, who is the
Beast?
A friend sent me an email about the news of
Saddam Hussein having been
captured
> On 14 Dec 2003, at 12:00, lady lust wrote:
>
>For those who are going to check their emails before they hear the news
so I checked the news, saw the stills of the video on news sites...
it is very strange how the mind works. Or my mind, at any rate. The man probably deserves very little sympathy (although you never know to what extent we are manipulated by the media and the powers that be, and after all he was such a convenient enemy but it is probably true that he was a ruthless dictator, that he killed thousands and climbed on ladders of corpses to get where he was and stay there..)) but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the man, the indignity and the humiliation of being shown like that and having his mouth opened in that way and his head searched for lice while being filmed to be shown to the entire world, etc., the performance that made me think of tar and feathers and people burning at the stake. He might well deserve all that, he's supposed to have done far more horrible things to completely innocent people but seeing that makes me very uneasy. It is victor's justice, not civilised behaviour. Whatever he has done, to behave in such a way brings us down to the level of the beast
the circus, the way the media uses, digests and processes the information they give us, the way we passively take it all and buy it wholesale, even when we reject it
There is something in all this that depresses me, that confirms me in my belief that our civilised, cogent, rational selves are but a thin veneer that easily breaks before the beast within. Saddam may or may not have been a homebrew Hitler, but public humiliation (and show trials if that's what is going to happen) don't so much punish him as show the rest of us for something I'd rather we were not.
---
then one hears the testimony of people who lost relatives or were tortured by the henchmen of the man and you understand that there be so much anger there. But I still think retribution is not something that should be an attribute of civilisation...
> On 14 Dec 2003, at 12:00, lady lust wrote:
>
>For those who are going to check their emails before they hear the news
so I checked the news, saw the stills of the video on news sites...
it is very strange how the mind works. Or my mind, at any rate. The man probably deserves very little sympathy (although you never know to what extent we are manipulated by the media and the powers that be, and after all he was such a convenient enemy but it is probably true that he was a ruthless dictator, that he killed thousands and climbed on ladders of corpses to get where he was and stay there..)) but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the man, the indignity and the humiliation of being shown like that and having his mouth opened in that way and his head searched for lice while being filmed to be shown to the entire world, etc., the performance that made me think of tar and feathers and people burning at the stake. He might well deserve all that, he's supposed to have done far more horrible things to completely innocent people but seeing that makes me very uneasy. It is victor's justice, not civilised behaviour. Whatever he has done, to behave in such a way brings us down to the level of the beast
the circus, the way the media uses, digests and processes the information they give us, the way we passively take it all and buy it wholesale, even when we reject it
There is something in all this that depresses me, that confirms me in my belief that our civilised, cogent, rational selves are but a thin veneer that easily breaks before the beast within. Saddam may or may not have been a homebrew Hitler, but public humiliation (and show trials if that's what is going to happen) don't so much punish him as show the rest of us for something I'd rather we were not.
---
then one hears the testimony of people who lost relatives or were tortured by the henchmen of the man and you understand that there be so much anger there. But I still think retribution is not something that should be an attribute of civilisation...
Posted: Mon - December 15, 2003 at 08:13 PM
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Published On: Jul 08, 2005 02:13 PM
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Published On: Jul 08, 2005 02:13 PM