Did anyone ever listen to the reading of the Wasteland by T.S. Eliot?

Fanzt Fanons diagnosis of the violence of decolonization. “Decolonization never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s flood light upon them”.  (Fanon 1) I think that taking and attacking someone culture, religion or any personal belief or value that person has is a very violent matter. To take away or diminish the importance of such things is destructive to the soul of that individual. In brought me back to when the pilgrims came to America. Eventually the grew and populated and took over and destroyed a civilization. My history teach identified this pattern that can be seen all through out history as the "white man burden". These European countries seeing the need to colonize other parts of the world to supposedly help the tribe and people who are living in the area when the real reason is the greedy desire to attain there natural resources and control the sea trade market.

I was looking at The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoyevsky and trying to relate it to the same reading that was assigned during that week. The poem that Ivan tells his brother Alyosha about the return of Christ during the times of the Spanish Inquisition seem to resemble the parable like structures that we read in the Gospel of Matthew. Honestly I thought that the Inquisitor who kept criticizing Jesus action from him previous visit to earth would never stop speaking as Ivan told the poem that seemed to be more like a short story within itself, "'Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to blame for their not knowing it?-speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on unknown paths?" (Dostoyevsky 14)


In the next reading, The Gospel of Matthew I focused on more of the guideline Jesus gave on "violence" when he delivered his Sermon on the Mount. My favorite guideline that he gave was,   “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right check, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have they cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and ray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;.” Jesus method of teaching by use of the parable is nonviolent in nature itself because it really is only suggestive and has no force behind the teachings.
 

Reviewing the Precarious life of Judith Butler.....

Judith Butler made many good point in her book that we read. When I initially read this reading i think that I misunderstood the point that she was trying to make and was to quick to judge her. I just focus on her argument of the 9/11 Israeli/Palestinian conflict that she discusses at the beginning.“The articulation of this hegemony takes place in part through producing a consensus on what certain terms will mean, how they can be used, and what lines of solidarity and implicitly drawn through this use.  We reserve “acts of terror” for events such as the September 11 attack on the United States, distinguishing these acts of violence from those that might be justified through foreign policy decisions or public declarations of war”. (Butler 4) I think that Giuliani was being somewhat foolish in his explanation as to why he did not accept the money from the Saudi prince. We have to be careful and more open minded to other individual that come from different culture and a different country. We should strive to relate were and are the same and understand our difference so that we can unite together in a peaceful nonviolent fashion.

Video of Judith discussing in depth some of her ideas from Precarious Life.

 

Camu, Letters to a German friend

I guess Camu is willing to jump the train of nonviolence if need be to suit the situation. Camus tone in this essay has a sense of finality with his expression to Germany.“Today I am still close to you in spirit your enemy, to be sure, but still a little your friend because I am with holding nothing from yon here. Tomorrow all will be over. What your victory could not penetrate, your defeat will bring to an end”. (Camu 1) When Camu joined the French Resistance during a time when France was Nazi occupied he could see that the Germans could not be reasoned with a nonviolent attempt but rather they needed to use a brand of violence that would resist the occupancy of the Nazis in France at the time.
 

This first clip is from a movie titled
"An exceedingly dangerous woman" that document the life of Emma Goldman. Very interesting to watch and learn about her background and how she was as a person.

Here is a clip on an interview that Emma did when she was allowed back into the USA after deportation. I think her curtness is due to a dislike of the social media especially because they never displayed her or her cause in a good light.

My favorite quote from Emma Goldman's The Psychology of Political Violence:

"The most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause". (Goldman 2) To Emma violence was necessary during her time when there were injustice in the political system. If violence was going to be used to achieve a political cause that one believed in that could change people lives for the better than she condoned the use. I cant disagree with her there, if it truly is going to benefit lives and nonviolence in not working or would not work in the situation then a small scale of violence could be tried.

The Burmese people protest non-violently against the rise of fuel prices

This picture caught my eye because there are children in the front line of this non-violent protest. Should children be allowed to participate in protests whether violent or non-violent?

Picture of Ruth Snyder's Execution @ Sing Sing 1928

I found this picture of a woman, Ruth Snyder being executed. A journalist from  the Chicago Tribune snuck a camera in the chamber to take this photo.

Scene from the biographical film of Gandhi's life. Here he commissions the people to only use non violent protest against the Transvaal government. Historical context and explanation from The Power of Nonviolence; "In 1906, the Transvaal government require every Indian to be registered by fingerprint, like criminals, and to produce his certificate of registration upon demand of any police officer at any time. Failure to register meant deportation, and refusal to produce certificate would be punished by fine". (Gregg 17)

Violence and the Word by Robert Cover

I found Robert Covers Violence and the Word to be interesting but a little dry for me. It definitely had a unique perspective on what violence is, so I appreciated that. It was also a very straightforward read, to me I found it easier to read and interpret over Camu Reflections’ of the Guillotine.

In Violence of the Word, violence is not described as that street corner fight that you've witnesses after school neither the gun shooting massacres we read in the paper that occur at schools across the nation. He says this; "Interpretations in law also constitute justifications for violence which has already occurred or which is about to occur. When interpreters have finished their work, they frequently leave behind victims whose lives have been torn apart by these organized, social practices of violence"(Cover 1601). So Violence of legal acts are organized and social according to Cover.

It doesn’t seem that Cover is just talking about sentences of capital punishment as we focused on in Camus essay. He says "A judge articulates her understanding of a text, and as a result, somebody loses his freedom, his property, his children, even his life" (Cover 1601). This is usually true, when someone goes to jail most likely they will lose any worldly possessions you once has, social services will probably take their children if they had any and the way they once lived their life will be gone and changed forever even after they leave jail. Also depending on the crime they committed most jobs of public service run CORI/SORI checks so the job market pool that most people have to draw from just shrunk dramatically. If we look at the violence of legal acts the way Cover describes you can see how it is violent and destructive to someone’s life.

Is society disappointed when a Judge doesn’t rule in a violent act for a criminal? Think of the Casey Anthony’s case.  I chose this case for example because it remains to be talked about on the news today in the new year of 2012. It seems with the countless protesters that people are very disappointed that the Judges legal interpretation did not lead to "more violent sentencing". Even if she did escape the wrath of legal violence will she not endure the violence of the American media system? People’s family have moved after large cases as such as this one to an area where they were not known.

I agree with most of the things that Covers discusses in his essay. In a class that I took in a prior semester I had to analyze a lot of hate crime cases that took place within that last twenty years. It was interesting to see how these cases turned out. You have to wonder if the law supplies any justice at all to some individual in those cases. When you stand before a judge you want to hope and think that this is going to be a human to human interaction. The truth is that the judge is going to interpret the case with reference to legal texts. So its not a very humanized interaction. I would hope that the law would punish according to those who are truly innocent and those that are guilty and need to serve time.

Camu's Reflections of the Guillotine Review

After reading Reflections of the Guillotine by Camu it got me thinking about my own stance on capital punishment and the death penalty in the US. Camu definitely expresses throughout his essay that he does not agree with it in many ways. It is odd to think about the Guillotine as the method that was once used for the death penalty. It was interesting to travel back in time to see how the death penalty functioned in society and how it was conducted. It does make me wonder if capital punishment was less humane in Camu time, or is it less humane now. It does seem that a blade falling and cutting your head off is a pretty quick no nonsense approach but the picture view of this method does display itself as being very violent way of death (see Death by Guillotine video on Jenny's blog). I think that the Electric chair that the United States used for some time to put people to death for their crimes was probable closest form of execution that was as gruesome as a Guillotine. We now use lethal injection as our method of putting someone to death.

Now Camu believed that if a society were to have executions of criminals that they needed to be made more public so that society could fully take responsibility of their actions and could see and witness the end result of putting a man to death. I think he made a good point; people should have access to view an execution that is going to be carried out. Maybe we would change our minds about having the death sentence with lethal injections. When it is kept quiet and private it seems that society is trying to hide something. Why do people try to hide things? Usually because they did something that was wrong and they don't want the other person to know about it. Many people argue that to have capital punishment is a cheaper than life in prison without chance of parole. So I looked up the numbers; they estimate that a life without parole case costs approximately $1 million dollars and that a death penalty case cost somewhere between $1.2 million to $3.2 million dollars more than a life without parole case. I mean why do we really want to put people to death, is it really a financial reason or do people believes it reigns more psychological violence on someone’s mind that is going to be executed as Camu suggests. To me it would be more psychological torture to be imprisoned and confined to a small space for life. Death would seem like an escape from that type of prison, maybe it’s just a personal preference.

In modern day society most people currently have a clearer conscious on the death penalty because they think lethal injections are more painless. If we reason with what Camu says then we truly cannot be sure that death is completely painless with lethal injections. Modern day science has still not given us the knowledge of what someone is currently thinking in terms of pain while they are being executed and we cannot project our self to the "other side"; if you believe that a person who dies leaves this world and travel to a spirit world and asks them how they felt. What Modern Science does tell us is that human bodies react differently to medications that are processed in the body so there really is no way to tell how someone would react to a lethal injection. In the past people have made mistakes and were not given enough medication and they had to repeat the process over. This also does not seem like an efficient way to perform an execution. I find it interesting that one of the drugs that is in the lethal dose is a paralytic drug. They say this is to dignify the death of the criminal that is being executed. You have to wonder if it really just masking the gruesomeness of that method for the viewer who have to witness the death because without the paralytic the body would have some involuntary muscle movements.

Okay, my last input into the discussion is a follow-up to a previous lecture from my Bioethics professor. We discussed how in America we believe in putting a criminal to death if they meet the legal requirements in their state. What about those individuals who are not criminals but want to end their life with the means of lethal medication because they have been diagnosed and are living with a terminal disease. All 50 states in America currently have euthanasia as illegal ( Washington, Montana and Oregon have Physician Assisted Suicide which is when a physician prescribed medication that would give you the means of achieving death on your own.) It seems backwards that our legal system would allow a legal death for criminals as a way of punishment for their crimes but will not allow terminally ill patients the same legal right as a way of peace for their suffering.

*Fun Fact: Did you know that only 35 states use only lethal injections. Other states may still use the electric chair, gas chamber, hanging or a firing squad to put a criminal to death if lethal injection is found unconstitutional or by choice of the convicted criminal. Don’t believe it? Check it out @ http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution