I read the news today, ohboy . . .
I read today that George Bush expressed regrets that Saddam's hanging couldn't have been carried out in a more "dignified" manner. It's difficult to get the mood just right for a hanging. I watched the cell phone footage, following a link from the Drudgereport–hey, I'm just clicking my mouse, Don't You Judge Me!
Oddly, the only person to bring any sense of dignity to the proceedings was Saddam, himself.
Yes, of course, one wants to watch only the most dignified and sanctimonious of executions. Perhaps they should have hired Mel Gibson to carry out their little spectacle.
*
We don't hang nearly as many people as we used to.
The last best hanging I saw was an imaginary one: Lars Von Trier hangs Bjork in his musical extravaganza, DANCER IN THE DARK.
It's my impression that hanging is by nature brutal and disgusting. Difficult to sanitize.
"Life is full of shit
when you think of it." (Monty Python)
Wait! I just remembered that Vietnam era street execution where the officer suddenly puts a pistol to the temple of a hand-cuffed prisoner and dispatches him with one shot. Sudden stunning actual video news camera action that took everyone by surprise. Long before the internet, Lo! Before Youtube Brains spraying out the other side of his head; kind of like what happened to JFK.
Swift justice hastily carried out. Almost a kind of dignity in that. War is not civil. Soldiers kill each other.
That's the deal.
The important thing from the standpoint of the individual is to be on the winning side! (If I'm understating the obvious, then maybe I haven't made myself obscure enough.)
I understand that George Bush has purposefully chosen not to watch the bootleg footage of the hanging. Okay, I concede him the higher moral ground on this. As the Yardbirds sang, "Mr. You're a better man than I."
*
Perhaps the problem with hanging is that it is so intimate. It's on a human scale. No "Shock and Awe" which I assume is supreme viewing for titanic despots. The blinding light of exploding megatons is like the fireworks of freedom to blitzkrieg commanders. Sure it is.
But hanging is sinister and dark and . . . well, personal.
Who is that hooded guy standing next to you?
Is he a Grizzly or a Bobcat?
*
Hanging. Who needs it?
The inescapable ceremonial and ritualistic actions that surround this event create too much weird social tension. It shouldn't be a tool within the province of the state. Leave it for the suicidal, for whom it is cheap and efficient.
Oddly, the only person to bring any sense of dignity to the proceedings was Saddam, himself.
Yes, of course, one wants to watch only the most dignified and sanctimonious of executions. Perhaps they should have hired Mel Gibson to carry out their little spectacle.
*
We don't hang nearly as many people as we used to.
The last best hanging I saw was an imaginary one: Lars Von Trier hangs Bjork in his musical extravaganza, DANCER IN THE DARK.
It's my impression that hanging is by nature brutal and disgusting. Difficult to sanitize.
"Life is full of shit
when you think of it." (Monty Python)
Wait! I just remembered that Vietnam era street execution where the officer suddenly puts a pistol to the temple of a hand-cuffed prisoner and dispatches him with one shot. Sudden stunning actual video news camera action that took everyone by surprise. Long before the internet, Lo! Before Youtube Brains spraying out the other side of his head; kind of like what happened to JFK.
Swift justice hastily carried out. Almost a kind of dignity in that. War is not civil. Soldiers kill each other.
That's the deal.
The important thing from the standpoint of the individual is to be on the winning side! (If I'm understating the obvious, then maybe I haven't made myself obscure enough.)
I understand that George Bush has purposefully chosen not to watch the bootleg footage of the hanging. Okay, I concede him the higher moral ground on this. As the Yardbirds sang, "Mr. You're a better man than I."
*
Perhaps the problem with hanging is that it is so intimate. It's on a human scale. No "Shock and Awe" which I assume is supreme viewing for titanic despots. The blinding light of exploding megatons is like the fireworks of freedom to blitzkrieg commanders. Sure it is.
But hanging is sinister and dark and . . . well, personal.
Who is that hooded guy standing next to you?
Is he a Grizzly or a Bobcat?
*
Hanging. Who needs it?
The inescapable ceremonial and ritualistic actions that surround this event create too much weird social tension. It shouldn't be a tool within the province of the state. Leave it for the suicidal, for whom it is cheap and efficient.
posted by borneman at 9:35 PM
1 Comments:
this is a great post, pal
you got me laughin here
laughin through the tears
the grotesque and the morbid
have suddenly become
well...tasteful
and i do believe that fearless
gutless leader (wait, did i say that)
is speaking the words put in his mouth
by the most duplicitous demon on the planet
one karl rove
and that in fact he not only watched it
he called the shot
he had the guy hanged
and i ask
with what was sadaam busying himself
while incarcerated
he was writing romance novels (pretty bad ones i presume but i want to read one..if you can get your hands on one) and poetry
and tending flowers
i might ask further
would anyone care to conjecture
what george bush would do in prison
if he had to find something to do with
all sorts of free time
and we might ask even further
what will this punishment
so clandestine
yet oddly so public now
what will it cost
there's a bit of news that was
surprisingly squashed
when sadaam was first nabbed
that the kurds had captured him
drugged him up a bit
and cashed in on the
26 million reward offered
by the americans
it was just that the "intelligence"
on the ground did not want to bring the kurds into the fray
blood for blood
the vatican is on record
opposed to the act
your observations are both
poignant and refreshing
despite the matter at hand
allah akhbar, baby
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