American Vengeance

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/american-vengeance/

Over the last few months, the U.S. has witnessed repeated calls for vengeance, for revenge, punishment, retribution … for blood. These calls express one of the most disturbing facets of the American “character,” the Old Testament call for an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth. Vengeance haunts 21st century America like a ghost of times long dead.

The call for vengeance is rooted in the nation’s very founding, in the way English settlers treated the native people and each other. Over the last four centuries, it has repeatedly been expressed as violence acted upon the most defenseless people, scapegoats of social tyranny. Vengeance is the Achilles heel of what it means to an American, negating the hope that inspires each generation and continues to draw immigrants.

The most gruesome recent examples of social vengeance were the state murders of Troy Anthony Davis in Georgia and Lawrence Russell Brewer in Texas. For many supporters of the death penalty, these killings illustrate the blindness of justice: death was inflicted fairly on an obviously wrongly-convicted black man and an unrepentant racist white man. For anyone who believes in a humane sense of justice, one that has a moral or ethical (as opposed to a vindictive or punitive) lesson at its heart, these acts illustrate how barbarity is accepted as a normal part of American life.

Both men were executed by lethal injection. This procedure exhibits the rationality of a mad science-fiction movie come to life as public policy. Two centuries ago, ancient Israelites experienced vengeance witnessing crucifixions on the Roman cross. It was explicit, brutal and painfully drawn-out, death often taking days. Over the last two centuries, America has progressed to a more refined use of social terror, the lethal injection. Vengeance is now clean, rational and nearly immediate. Both the cross and the injection share an equally compelling object lesson.

More at the link --