As expected, video of Saddam's hanging is now available on the web (no links - if you want to watch that shit, find it yourself). And no doubt our local rabid righties are watching it now, kleenex in hand, revelling in every moment of watching another human being die.
This is nothing more than a pornography of murder, a snuff film, and it illustrates perfectly the morality of those who bay for blood and vengeance.
I saw a link before I saw your post (it's your 'blog, and you've made your call so I won't mention where), but am somewhat surprised that that NZ blog would be one to carry it.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered that footage of executions might galvanise opposition to the death penalty, rather than forment support?
I know that TV News in NZ for example, basically never show someone actually dying, even though at times it is mundane. A short doco series about war correspondents that One aired late on Sunday nights a few months back made the point that western news sanitised war, by not showing death - even in situations where 'all' that death involved was someone standing over someone else (a war correspondent) and firing a single shot into his head (taped from 100+ m away). Fisk and others were arguing that the absence of the realities of war and death were one of the reasons westerners weren't as concerned as they should be.
Sadly, there have always been sickos among us who enjoy this sort of thing and I think modern mass communication makes it inevitable that such footage will eventually appear.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm surprised at all it's that the images from Abu Ghraib that the US government doesn't want us to see has never made it onto the internet. Food for thought for conspiracy theorists everywhere, perhaps?
The local right has absorbed and internalised the values of the U.S. ruling elite that created this mess. Hannah Arendt was right when she spoke of the banality of evil - just look at Sir H.
ReplyDeleteI think having witnesses is very important. However, reading the accounts of the witnesses, and knowing they are backed by evidence, it enough for me. Even Saddam Hussein deserves dignity in death.
ReplyDeleteGraeme: I'm not sure that you would get your deisred effect. One of the rationales of the ancient gladitorial contests was to accustom the populace to the horrors of war ...
Sanctuary ... 'the local right'. Who are they? Can I recognise them? Can we get them to sew a right pointing arrow to their clothing?
kiwi_donkey - I believe I qualify as a member...
ReplyDelete'the local right' - well DPF is talking about how the murder should have been screened (it's always difficult to know how serious he is...)
ReplyDeleteMuch like the footage of carnage in Lebanon that the Left salivated over. Each to their own I suppose.
ReplyDeleteYou're mixing up several different worldviews here and viewing the result through your own.
ReplyDeleteThe result is something that makes you look seriously sick and degrades your own side of the political spectrum.
neil morrison: If you can show me a left wing site that "salivates" over footage of sadism and murder I'd be surprised. If you can't, I'll just file away your claim as an unsubstantiated lie. A peurile obsession with pornographic depictions of death is in my experience almost exclusively a right wing phenomena.
ReplyDeleteScrubone, in as much as i can interpret your post, you appear to be saying their is a legitimate world view that validates taking pyscho-sexual pleasure in the depiction of snuffing out life. What world view do you subscribe to?
the only NZ site I've come across linking to this stuff is Scoop - more the rabid left than the rabid right, but often hard to tell the difference i agree.
ReplyDeleteThe British Indepedent splashes a photo of Saddam dead on its front page. New Year jollies for its left wing readership?
Unpleasant all round.
I suppose that for the thugs now running Iraq, executing a sworn enemy without piling on the shame and humiliation would have hardly been worth the effort. Hence the inevitability of the video.
ReplyDeleteNow Saddam's humiliation continues posthumously and indefinitely as entertainment for moral pygmies. Maximum schadenfreude.
Have you considered that footage of executions might galvanise opposition to the death penalty, rather than forment support?
ReplyDeleteWell, Christopher Hitchens - who is a vehement opponent of the death penalty - agrees with you. You do have to wonder who keen most people would be on the thought of a human being being cooked, choked to death or poisoned if they were broadcast in prime time.
Oh, and am I the only person who finds it just a little ironic that the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, and the resultant executions, passed virtually unnoticed?
Craig: Oh, and am I the only person who finds it just a little ironic that the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, and the resultant executions, passed virtually unnoticed?
ReplyDeleteI noticed. But yes, it is the sort of thing which should have received more attention - being one of the foundations of international law and all.