Bill, I agree with you that we should not make heroes out of all within
the penal system.      Or even most.

However, that's not the point Isoddhos has repeatedly been argueing,
directly and indirectly, as is his way.      His arguement is that the
system is working.    Which is a rather bizarre contention for a list
named after Chomsky.

The mainstream problem in the US is not to make heroes out of prisoners,
but rather to make heroes out of the police, guards, judges, and
administrators of the concentration camps here, that imprison over
2,000,000 people.

Just like I won't make heroes of all prisoners, I will not deny that
society has to put up barriers to prevent abusive individuals from
hurting innocent people.     Something that the penal system currently
refuses to do,  I might add.

Rather, it is a system designed to hurt innocent people.       Both
those jailed, and those victimized by the crime.      Seems rather
curious, does it not?

But the system is designed to terrorize and torture, rather than to
protect the innocent.     And it's no accident at all that it is doing
this.      So the question becomes....... Why?

Michael Parenti (I believe it was) called it .... 'rabble control'.
Hasn't changed a wink since crucifixions and stonings were in.     You
have to keep the rabble under control.      But never eliminate the
production of rabble at the same time.     The rich depend on them.

So when supporters of the king, the emperor, or the 'great society' come
along, they like to insult and refer to those readied for the public
punishments, as  being 'murdering pond-scum', 'thug', etc.

The death penalty is not the issue by itself.     I know that many
prisoners would feel it a relief to get such a deal..... a quick and
painless end.      But that's not how the death penalty is administered.

Protection or torture?     What's the purpose of our American Gulag?
I think it rather easy to ascertain the answer.      If not, come check
out one of our local penal colonies.

Tony
---------------------------------------------
Bill wrote-
I think the point he's alluding to (Isso' rarely says anything
straight-out) is that one's opposition to the death penalty should not
depend on the worth of those who are being executed. It doesn't matter
that most or all of the people being executed are murdering pond-scum,
the death penalty degrades human life and thus degrades all of us. It
brings everyone down to the level of murdering pond-scum.

What he is getting at is that it is rather pointless to try to make
heroes out of those being murdered by the state. I'd be surprised if
some of them weren't innocent of the crimes they were executed for, very
surprised, but that isn't the point. If you are opposed to the death
penalty you are opposed to it being applied to the guilty as well as the
innocent.

If you support the death penalty on the other hand, you are no better
than the guilty scum who are executed. Worse in many ways, you are too
gutless to do it yourself but want to murder people by remote control.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas