Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: river on September 21, 2011, 06:15:08 PM
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I hope for a reprieve. And I find it still unbelievable.
I have the washing up to do, and another day tomorrow. I feel a grim awareness that someone somewhere is ~~~~ I cant even imagine about what is happening for him.
For anyone who hasnt heard of this case, a black man, Troy Davis, is due to be executed tonight, convicted on evidence which 5 out of 7 have retracted since.
I do know this is not the subject of this board. But having seen what N.ism can do, and the compliance of others, somehow sensitises one to what happens in the world also.
All I can do is pray, if ayone else here would to so too, I'd appreciate it. I think its due in less than an hour unless there's a reprieve.
river.
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Hi River
not yet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/22/troy-davis-execution-delayed
His sister said: "We shouldn't have to live in a state that executes people when there's doubt."
I agree with that, with the last three words deleted. Murder of wrongdoers might be appropriate to me when there isn't enough food to go around. Then it might make logical sense. All other arguments are rubbish.
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I have shared in this vigil, and hang my head. My heart hurts.
I am one who does not believe in the death penalty, morally.
Thou Shalt Not Kill So if You Kill, So to Prove It's Wrong to Kill, We Will Kill You
The complete splitting of this, is a great part of what's wrong with America.
One letter writer spoke of when it became simple and clear for him--his 7 year old came home
from school one day struggling not to burst into tears. Friends had told him that the U.S.
was going to strap someone to a chair and run electricity through him until he died, and that it
was real. He choked, I can believe that a bad guy would do that, but I don't believe the USA
would do that. Not the good guys!
Hops
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Hops, thanks for sharing the vigil, the concern, the feelings.
I heard his final statement, it seems he was heroic too, and spiritual. I just got home and read the news online.
From the link you sent freshwater, theres a lot in that.....
DuBose gave an account of a 30-minute conversation he had with Davis on death row on Tuesday night. "Troy wanted me to let you know – keep the faith. The fight is bigger than him."
I feel sick. I wonder how it will go on. I know I have to focus back on my life, but I need to absorb this somehow.
r.
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::hanging head::
I can't believe they didn't stop that execution.
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http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/myths-facts/myths (http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/myths-facts/myths)
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It is hard to believe. I think its what I cant get my head around.
There was a bit on the report too where the Macphail family said "... he's had long enough to prove his innocence". It kind of depicts an unquestioning adherance to authority, as well, they just wanted retribution, and they werent too fussy about who.
Theres this phrase a 'virtual other', meaning the person is seeing who's in their mind rather than the person in front of them in reality. (I think its Daniel Seigal who said it)
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Here are some facts about the delightful Troy Davis and his case that you seldom hear;
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/09/21/there-is-no-travesty-of-justice-in-georgia-executive-troy-davis/ (http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/09/21/there-is-no-travesty-of-justice-in-georgia-executive-troy-davis/)
Think I'll save my sympathy for someone a little more deserving, like the family of the guy he murdered and the murder victim himself.
I have shared in this vigil, and hang my head. My heart hurts.
I am one who does not believe in the death penalty, morally.
If the issue is the death penalty itself then we should have threads dedicated to Lawrence Brewer, the unspeakable white supremacist who mercilessly dragged James Byrd to his death in TX. I don't see one.
It's tragic that these men chose the paths they did and created so much havoc and destruction for innocent bystanders with their wasted lives, but I'll save my tears for their victims and hope God has mercy on their immortal souls.
mud
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Hi Mud, I like seeing your name on the board.
That is all.
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Here are some facts about the delightful Troy Davis and his case that you seldom hear;
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/09/21/there-is-no-travesty-of-justice-in-georgia-executive-troy-davis/
Think I'll save my sympathy for someone a little more deserving, like the family of the guy he murdered and the murder victim himself.
Except that you assume what was written there is accurate. And what you dont do is imagine what it would be like if you had been executed for a shooting you didnt commit, or a child of yours perhaps.
as you know, many have been executed and found innocent later.
Where does that sit with your values?
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river,
I wonder if there was a person with political influence that powered the ultimate verdict? T'would be interesting to do a trace on that aspect.
Having P. I. written on military records used to carry great power.
tt
It would be intersting to know exaclty how it all happened. But I get the impression there was a lot to do with they wanted revenge, and he was the one.
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I miss you too, Mud.
And I totally agree with you. I am ashamed that I felt more connected to the Troy Davis execution than to the routine, frequent, no-big-deal-they-deserved-it executions that go on in this country all the time. I recognize that I felt that way because the Davis case was lifted into my awareness by the media.
Now that I admit that, I should have clarified--I am no less heartsick about the death penalty when it is applied to what any person would describe as a "human monster". But I'm ashamed my activism is triggered by one case at times, rather than all of them. I've done a bit here and there, written a lot, signed petitions, etc.
I am sickened not just by the Davis execution, but by ALL state-sanctioned murder. That is what I believe capital punishment is.
The man who dragged Mr. Byrd to his death? No doubt about his guilt, none at all. But I would not kill him, or have the state kill him in my name. I know he's repellent. Still, I do not believe I or we (the state) have this right. Legally, we do...but morally, it's wrong.
Capital punishment itself is morally wrong, imo.
I don't even know with certainty whether Troy Davis is guilty or innocent. I believe wholeheartedly that people can rewrite narratives in their own minds to justify almost anything. Still, sounds like there was enough doubt to deserve pause. But even if he was guilty, I don't want him killed.
I can be kind of draconian about life imprisonment. I don't really mind if there's no TV, and no parole.
I just would rather the state NOT kill people in reaction to murder. Because it is the old "two wrongs don't make a right" thing, and the Golden Rule thing, and my vestigial confidence Christ (who was executed) would not approve...
No gloss on it, that I've heard in my entire life, has ever transmuted it to "justice". It's not. It's revenge.
I believe it twists the soul of our culture into an even darker place...
(And good people can disagree, and I know we do, my good brother.)
Hops
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http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Collapse-of-American-Criminal-Justice/William-J-Stuntz/e/9780674051751?&cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-FYUtulI7nw4-_-10:1 (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Collapse-of-American-Criminal-Justice/William-J-Stuntz/e/9780674051751?&cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-FYUtulI7nw4-_-10:1)
I would like to read this.
Hops
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I was thinking that what happened here, in my exchange with mudpuppy answers the question of what happened in Georgia. This was a sample of it.
1) So, someone's son is killed, the pain of that loss is virtually unbearable, a parent's worst nightmare.
2) A man is accused of the murder.
3) The people in pain feel better because they can now blame the 'murderer', it feels like at least theres a sort of solution.
4) Someone says 'but thats the wrong man, it wasnt him'
5) The bereaved parents experience this as do many in the legal system as an attack on them. Lime me saying Troy was probably innocent, is translated as Im unsympathetic to the MacPhails, helping a murderer whilst neglecting his victims. It comes to be about 'winning' in order to feel better, not a deep concern for truth.
7) The more the accused man pleads innocent, the more it turns into a competition to prove HIM guilty. Its an emotional exporting of pain that becomes an 'us against him'.
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Except that you assume what was written there is accurate.
I will skip making an unknowable assertion about what you assume and will instead point out that the large majority of what was written was taken directly from court records, not from the prosecution, the defense team, anti capital punishment advocates nor any other party with an ax to grind.
And what you dont do is imagine what it would be like if you had been executed for a shooting you didnt commit, or a child of yours perhaps.
Again, you somehow know what it is I do or don't do, but please explain to me what use it would be to imagine such a thing. Of course that would be awful, perhaps as bad as trying to arrest a dude for robbing some homeless guy and having him shoot me dead. But that goes nowhere to the specific question of Davis's guilt nor toward the larger one of whether the small chance of an execution of an innocent person should lead to the abolition of the death penalty. I'm not a death penalty zealot and wouldn't lose any sleep if it were abolished tomorrow nor will it bother me if it continues, but Mr. Davis seems a particularly weak example for opponents to be hanging their arguments on.
Since 1976 a little under 1,300 people have been executed in the US and perhaps some tiny handful of that number were actually innocent and even of them virtually every one I've heard of was a serious career criminal. Each day in the US something like 6,200 people die, most of them quite innocent of any crimes. If we're going to get in a moral huff about things, wouldn't it make more sense and save more innocent lives were we to spend our time arguing about abolishing automobiles, alcohol or tobacco?
as you know, many have been executed and found innocent later.
Where does that sit with your values?
Again, with what I know? I know a few have but I don't know that many have. A few have also served life in prison, locked away from their families and repeatedly raped and beaten by fellow inmates or sadistic guards and were found innocent later. Where does that sit with yours? We should abolish prison?
Vastly more innocent people have been murdered, raped and maimed by criminals set free than the total number of people executed, because our criminal justice system has such ridiculously stringent rules of evidence, partly in an attempt to avoid executing the innocent. If we're weighing in the balance the value of innocent lives lost shouldn't we as a society be considering abolishing those rules of evidence?
I find it exceeding odd that so many people can read about some little girl raped and murdered by a paroled molester or some family slaughtered by a guy who has been arrested half a dozen times and is walking the streets because a cop didn't read him his rights in the correct order or looked in his trunk and found his girlfriend's disembodied head but did so without a properly executed warrant and the only response is a shake of the head and a cluck of the tongue and then it's on to the comics. And of course these IMO needless deaths add up to the thousands every year.
But let just the possibility of some doubt perhaps enter into some portion of the evidence regarding a convicted killer on death row and those same folks can't sleep at night and don sack cloth and ashes fretting over the soul of our nation. Why is that? I don't get it.
mud
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No gloss on it, that I've heard in my entire life, has ever transmuted it to "justice". It's not. It's revenge.
No. Revenge would be the private application by, say, the victim's family, of the death penalty. That is illegal. It would be just as illegal for the victim's family to convict him in a private trial and detain the murderer in their basement for the rest of his life.
What the state does is retribution or retributive justice when society is attacked by those who would harm their fellow citizens.
It is one of the few legitimate roles of the state to criminalize acts which harm others and to capture and punish those who do so.
Jesus did not give instruction to the state, in fact he told us to render unto Caesar what is his. We as individuals must forgive, not least because we are not as individuals charged with enforcing the laws.
If the state were bound by the same rules, not only would Messrs Brewer and Davis not be executed but it seems to me they'd be our next door neighbors. If execution is revenge then life in prison without parole is just as surely revenge as well, although some apparently view it as a less drastic one. I'm not sure I do.
mud
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the larger one of whether the small chance of an execution of an innocent person should lead to the abolition of the death penalty.
I hope it helps lead to it.
But for me, the issue is not that the chance of executing innocents is the reason it should be abolished.
It's that we shouldn't be executing the guilty either.
The issue is that we shouldn't be executing other human beings. IMO.
The state can call it retributive justice or deliberative procedures or all sorts of other terms and those all roll off my back and brain, because although those terms are real and used in real debate...they're just not my vocabulary for it.
i'm just past the legal/societal arguments for it. I interviewed Stanley Kunitz once, and he said, "Of all the instruments of power, the state is most monstrous." (Meaning, more than weapons, more than wars...but the state itself is monstrous in its codfication of things like killing.)
My vocabulary for it is not taken from the law. I didn't take in all of Christ but the Chrisit I knew was saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I don't know if I misunderstood his render things of Caesar (the state) unto Caesar...if that meant let Ceasar go on executing, it's not our business.
I don't know what he meant. I still love him but am not likely to agree with everything he said.
I just remember that my Jesus-and-me childhood got me quite clearly a sense (other side of the reality planet from a justice systems' rationale) that in the golden core of what he was, the part I was affected by and totally trusted...took me long to "Thou shalt not kill" and I thought that covered how we humans are supposed to treat each other.
Falling alssp, wth a heart of love for my Mudpuppy pal...thanks, Mud, for coming on to talk about it.
xo
Hops
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Hi Hops,
It is my understanding that biblically a distinction is made between premeditated killing and killing someone unwittingly. The Israelites were instructed to establish cities of refuge (six) so that one who killed unwittingly could flee to them and be protected until they 'stood before the congregation'. This is just an interesting tidbit (well to me it is), not by any stretch an exposition of all that could be said on the subject.
tt
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Like little children, we are:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
I think this one through my dumb head quite a lot.
IMO Evil doesn't exist; stupidity does. Ignorance is another word for stupidity.
I guess it's partly my ignorance that keeps me going.
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Of all the instruments of power, the state is most monstrous.
I've always wondered why some of the people who say this are also some of the people who insist on giving the state the most power, as though it is benevolent when exercising power we agree it should but malevolent when exercising power we don't like.
In any event glad to stop by, Hops.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
I think this one through my dumb head quite a lot.
Not sure you're getting the gist of that one, FW. It's not that they didn't know they were executing an innocent man, they did. Pilate found Him innocent of any actual crime but ordered him executed on the demands of the Sanhedrin who also knew Him to be innocent.
What they didn't know they were doing was executing the Son of God, the Messiah, not just some wandering carpenter from Nazareth who refused to defend Himself.
IMO Evil doesn't exist.
May I introduce you to my friends Adolph, Joseph, Mao, Che, most of the people who sent us to this board and a host of other people who seem not particularly stupid or ignorant to me, but quite intentionally and overwhelmingly malicious?
mud
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Ah Mud, how I think about the 'forgive them' idea is not the same. I reckon if people could be faced with the full truth of what they do, they wouldn't do it. And by that I mean that the psychos suddenly have empathy, and so on. I mean if they weren't mad/disordered/mentally deficient/choose your own word, they wouldn't do it. It's a simplistic idea not worth discussing. Just me thinking about things I absorbed. Thanks for that though.
About evil: if being intentionally malicious equals evil, then evil people exist. Evil people? Evil deeds? And does it matter? I have some problem with the idea of 'evil' and I'm not sure what it is. Haven't quite thought it through. I think it's something to do with examples. I think of 'evil' as 100% full on and every horror that I know of shows a pathetic warped distorted human under there somewhere, as opposed to a human who is, well, sort of dedicated to evil. Who got up in the morning thinking "I'm going to do lots of evil today."? Not sure our brains work like that. There's always some other 'reason', it's never just straight evil-doing for the hell of it. Although it sure looks like it with some people. It really does.
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And what you dont do is imagine what it would be like if you had been executed for a shooting you didnt commit, or a child of yours perhaps.
mudpuppy said
please explain to me what use it would be to imagine such a thing.
........ then you would be more concerned, and understand why others are concerned.
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And what you dont do is imagine what it would be like if you had been executed for a shooting you didnt commit, or a child of yours perhaps.
please explain to me what use it would be to imagine such a thing.
........ then you would be more concerned, and understand why others are concerned.
OK, I imagined it.
Unfortunately I'm still not more concerned and I already understood why others are concerned, so like I said it wasn't of much use.
Sorry, guess I'm just a heartless b*****d. :oops:
mud
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SH4IpmJl6M&feature=related
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Naaah, I know you're not heartless, Mud.
Far from it.
Truly, verily. I testify about my brother Mud -- this is a GOOD man,
who's often on the opposite side of political issues from where I find myself.
This all has humbled me and alerted me to my jerking knees and fondness for
echo chambers...
And guess what, despite this, they (whoever "they" are) still made Kunitz
our Poet Laureate...(confession: He was an early inspiration and momentary mentor, to me).
Kunitz believes the poet's role is to "demonstrate the power of the solitary conscience," as he told Washington Post staff writer Elizabeth Kastor. "It's a terrible power to entrust to people who are not spiritually great, that's all there is to it," Kunitz said of government officials. "You see it in the callousness, self-aggrandizement, insensitivity to the plight of the poor. In the general level of ethical conduct, the state has become an abomination."
Ahhh well.
I wish I understood more than I do, that's a fact.
peace and peas,
Hops
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Glad you said that Hops, so I don't have to contradict Mud on his self-appraisal. Oh, er :?....well, it's good for me to practice staying out of other people's conversations. So now all I have to do is sit on the hands that want to type explanations, or theories, because that don't help nobody, plus, I don't know peas from pudding. Thanks Hops.
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Truly, verily. I testify about my brother Mud -- this is a GOOD man
Yes, he is 8).
tt
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but he can get cranky when politics is waved under his nose...
:evil: (((((((((Mudpup)))))))) :mrgreen:
but who is really is, is :arrow:
Just heard a lovely a capella group on the tube, Liberian men, who got eliminated from the SingOff competition and I'm thinking nooooooo, they weren't slick, but they brought their stories (war and refugee) into their voices and they made that sweet African soulful deep sound that just creates community wherever you hear is...
Walking out, they lit into Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and it was bones and heart music...
Gospel's where I got a lot of my religion, such as it is.
love,
Hops
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but he can get cranky when politics is waved under his nose...
:evil: (((((((((Mudpup)))))))) :mrgreen:
but who is really is, is :arrow:
Just heard a lovely a capella group on the tube, Liberian men, who got eliminated from the SingOff competition and I'm thinking nooooooo, they weren't slick, but they brought their stories (war and refugee) into their voices and they made that sweet African soulful deep sound that just creates community wherever you hear is...
Walking out, they lit into Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and it was bones and heart music...
Gospel's where I got a lot of my religion, such as it is.
love,
Hops
Hops, can you send a link, I'd like some of that!! : {
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~
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCOgpPavSEo&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCOgpPavSEo&feature=related)
xo
Hops
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Yo!
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but he can get cranky when politics is waved under his nose...
I get a little less jovial, but I wouldn't go so far as to say cranky.
I save cranky for crazy arse Ns attacking my family and other innocents.
mud
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:P
go GET 'em, Mud!
If every N had a Mud who spotted him or her before they really got going...it would be a sweeter planet...
((((Mudster)))
Hops
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I do like it when Mud uses his special word. Even in a sentence like that.