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Body and Soul
on whether the death penalty truly has the power to “heal” the victims’ families:

It occurred to me in reading this article, how much the short attention span of the press does to
feed this beast. When perpetrators of ghastly crimes are tried, we almost always hear the victims’
families calls for vengeance. After an execution, family members are trotted out to announce they
are happy with the result. And if there is “closure” for anyone at that moment, it seems to be the
press — because that’s where the story ends. The only problem is that the victims’ families are
still left with the pain, and for all the talk of “caring about the victims,” once they’ve achieved
their purpose of helping the prosecutor get his conviction and sentence, and helping the press wrap
up a neat story of “justice,” nobody’s terribly interested in them anymore. It would mess up our story
if we knew that relief was ephemeral. As everyone, deep down, knows it must be. As Bud Welch says,
“God didn’t make normal human beings to feel good out of watching another human being take his last
breath.”

Seeing the
Forest on tort reform:

Our legal system used to be about judges and juries of citizens like us deciding cases on their
merits. But this hasn’t always been working out to the profitable advantage of the big moneyed
interests. So they’re working on changing the system so instead, judges and juries are limited
by new “reform” laws. What this boils down to is, if you’re a citizen on the jury, and you think
that the family of the 22- year-old who received brain damage because the company saved $0.25 per
unit on their product ought to get more “pain and suffering” compensation than $5,000 per year for
the 50 remaining years they’ll have to care for the brain-damaged victim – well that will be just
too bad for you on the jury because you won’t be allowed to award more! That’s what a
“cap” of $250,000 means! It means that the corporations have rigged the system so
the judge and jury are not allowed to do what you think the case merits, because it cuts into
corporate profits, and might keep the CEO from getting his $50 million that year. (Yes, of course
I mean HIS.)

The Watch
is annoyed by a typically stupid Bush speech:

Ah yes, the church. The solution to all the ills of the world. Which is why in all the years that
churches have been ministering to the poor, there has been no net decrease in the numbers of the poor
and hopeless. Whereas when you take poor people from countries that churches have been ministering to,
and put them into secular democratic societies, they do so much better.

I would like to submit that MLK’s vision of a world without injustice and inequality came from a deep
personal conviction that he’d seen just about enough of it. I’m sure that his faith was a great source
of strength for him, and it rings through beautifully in his words. But I can also see that our current
president, while ostensibly very faithful, is gleefully presiding over a widening gulf between the rich
and the poor. That he’s trying everything in his power to make it bigger.

And from an
earlier post she talks about a speech by Martin Luther King:

When reading something like this, it’s yet another reason to be furious that the public face of ‘religious’
people today are those like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and George W. Bush. People who’ve taken the
concept of generosity and turned it into a small, mean thing that only applies to people who are like
you. Who’ve taken the concept of love and said that it only applies to people in our country, and
sometimes to countries that agree with us.

They purport to be the conscience of our society. Yet they can’t bring themselves to feel the smallest
pang of empathy for poor, single mothers, minimum wage earners, Iraqi children, Palestinians, or Africans
who are sick in their millions. They can’t seem to care about people whose choices in life have been
reduced to wondering what new lows they can sink to in the struggle to stay alive for one more day. They
seem to say that if you accept their Christian nationalism and come up with a way to strike it rich, you
will then be worthy of their care.

Interesting Monstah
asks why she should care what Instapundit thinks about her going on a ANSWER organised peace march:

Can anyone give me one reason why I should care what he thinks about anything? Anyone? Hello??

I’d like to make something crystal clear: I feel no need to distance myself from, or define myself
against their most current boogieman of the day, which International ANSWER (the organizers of the
protests) has become. I think my site does that on its own, and I’m willing to be wrong on that.
Those of you who know me well know that I’ve experienced the depths of both Christian absolutism and
American rightwing totalitarianism and can spot it a mile away, coming from either left or right.
My experience has been so total that I feel I’ve got absolutely nothing to prove about it.

New to the left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we’ll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

Views from the Outside

A place to ramble, cavort and endlessly ridicule. By Michael Porter.

Unqualified Offerings

By Jim Henley, deep cover socialist mole infiltrating the libertarian movement.

(Jim’s cover has been blow by those oh so perceptive Freepers, who were counterdemonstrating the peace demo our Red Hero was on. They quickly deduced that comrade Jim, even though he cunningly carried a “PEACE NOW SOCIALISM NEVER” sign, was indeed a communist agitator. Otherwise why would he be against the upcoming War with Iraq?

Too bad comrade, but at least now you can use your awesome powers to lead the Socialist Worker’s Party of the Revolutionary World Vanguard (Marxist Lenist) to power in the upcoming revolution!)