An ark of sympathy in the new dark age of retribution
(dedicated to all haters, griefers and those full of furious vengence)
I am against capital punishment, against violent punishment without trial, against the wild west mentality of the vigilante, against taking the law into your own hands like the vigilante from the movie Death Wish, or untold other Hollywood tales of going beyond the law to serve up justice. And lets not think too much about the global death wish mentality of many global militant organizations. Stop!
I could not shoot an animal for sport. Yet, under some circumstances, if armed, i might pull the trigger. Place your fictitious 'what would you do' scenario here [.....]. But, this shoot-to-kill would be a terrifying experience for me and i would regret having to resort to violence, in retrospect. I admit, i may not be able to control myself in some situations, but, situations which i hope i will not have to endure. The opposite feeling to joining the armed forces to fight a war where shooting and bombing to kill are often the drives, both physical and psychological, of the troops.
To relish and roll in the stench of death, in the idea of killing another human being, for any crime, never mind such crimes that involve no personal physical harm, seem like a gross misconception and example of supreme ignorance, to me. But these values will eternally change depending upon who decides what is right, where they are, when they are, and under what circumstances. Are you in Gaza, or Glasgow, Syria or London, the arguments will rage on and usually the loudest, angriest and rudest voices will rise in a stale society fascinated by such violence, money bling, gossip gobbage, and an eye-for-an-eye mob rule. Gangster gangster all the way.
This revenge strategy feels like a return to the dark ages to me, i can imagine angry mobs visiting suspected criminals in a varying array of scenarios, delivering they're idea of justice with deadly force. No suspended judgement, a clear conscience to kill another human being, or physically injure them, torture, humiliation, public floggings and perhaps a return to public hanging, all this seems good game in the minds of some people. Who knows how many? who cares when its happy hour and the weather is hotter than since records began?
Friends...i am not trying to persuade you that your vicious revenge and willingness to kill, as punishment for various crimes, is wrong. I wish to point out, first of all that violence breeds violence, anybody can see that the classic mafia type of system of revenge just leads to more misery, loss, death and sadness. While governments and corporations wage war on the vulnerable and the poor, we, the people, squabble and in-fight, a microcosm of the problem, greed and physical might against intelligence and rational thought, sympathy, compassion, humanitas, for crying out loud! Secondly, violence is psychically self-defeating, the game of life, the will to life, the meaning in a very general sense is to expand the psyche, to love, explore, perform by example.
How easy and predictable the calls for killing and death to the scumbags, compared with arguments for some kind of life sparing alternative, a trial perhaps, or maybe a willingness to listen to them, sympathetically, to begin communication for rehabilitation? Difficult i know, but achieved by billions of people every day, the masses of the people on planet earth are not killing one another. A small minority of soldiers, terrorists, murderers and their backers, do the killing.
In my limited experience, the majority of thinking humans on earth oppose war, and violence, especially if they have ever been in the thick of it themselves, not just spectating from the safety of the screen world and newspeak culture of sleep induced complicity and hypnotic induced apathy. A desensitization to the suffering and general well being of anybody not them, not their own family and relatively tiny, insignificant social circle. Peace comes of communication, killing stops all possible communication, its the ultimate one way directed manifestation of ignorance, total certainty and inhumane action. I am against killing, against death, against violent mob revenge.
I hope to many of my friends that this seems like restating the obvious, but i have seen an uprising of angry outrage and violent threats toward other people, groups, and nationalities on social networks that blew me away. Unless these people are a surreal league of fuckers just playing around with the language of violent revenge and bloody murder, in a ludicrous synchronized outpouring, i am totally repulsed by this kind of negative vibes and medieval mob mentality.
Yes, we are all getting bombarded with terrible stories and images and cases of violent crimes, abuses against the vulnerable, economic abuses and local crimes, all mixed up in the painstream media, without much balanced guidance and helpful hints and methods for distinguishing the difference between opinions and humanitarian principles. Do you really wish to reenact these violent episodes in your own neighborhoods, villages and cities?
x
Steve fly Pratt
