>My first reaction to this was "who says no one reads poetry?" The giddiness
>that often overtakes me at moments of fear--I'm a regular stand-up comic at
>funerals. Which brings me to a piece of my great sorrow that those I have
>something to do with electing insist on slaughtering people in my name.
>
>There's a nightmare that dates to my childhood that gets revived every time
>someone is executed. Children are always being told that they've committed
>one or another offense, and they often feel that the accusation is unjust.
>Given their weak social position they know that there's rarely any
>possibility of exoneration. This causes rage, and children, creatures of
>impulse, are often filled with murderous rage, which is also a punishable
>offence. Images of punishment tend to be internalized, as they certainly
>were for me. I spent probably months all together of my childhood imagining
>my death in the electric chair for crimes of which I was innocent. It
>inhabited my dreams and it kept me up nights.
>
>If for no other reason than that it terrifies children, capital punishment
>should be done away with. The world is terrifying enough without it.
>
Another good argument against it, Mark
but then I speak from one of the many countries that no longer practice it.
Ol' george never worried about it, though, happily kllling off those who
committed crimes as children & those who were clearly mentally ill. On the
CBC last night, Christoper Hitchens first pointed out that the 'punishment'
accomploshed nothing, except perhaps to let McViegh go out feeling he had
won, somehow (as the poem he chose implies). And that certainly, it
probably failed miserably to bring that word given to the victims,
'closure.' He also pointed out that any chance of finding out more about
what happened was lost, as well as the opportunity to study the kind of
person who can do something like that & not feel any remorse.... Hey, a lot
was accomplished, eh?
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Take away my wisdom and my categories!
Phyllis Webb
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