Esteemed Reader: October 2011

by Jason Stern, September 28, 2011

I try not to get caught up in the insanity of national and international politics, but a recent event caught my attention and wouldn’t let go. It was the execution of Troy Davis. If you’re not familiar, he was a black man convicted of murdering an off-duty white policeman in Georgia in 1989.

Davis pleaded not guilty at his trial and maintained his innocence until he died. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against him subsequently recanted their testimonies, saying they were pressured or threatened by police. Most of the jury members said that if they had known of the evidence that came out after the trial they would not have delivered a guilty verdict.

After four rescheduled executions over 20 years, Davis was killed by the State of Georgia on September 21.

In the final minutes, the US Supreme Court seemed to issue a stay, but then clarified that it was actually a “pause,” and four hours later Davis was hooked up to the killing machine, poison coursed into his veins, and he died.

I have tried to push away the feeling of desolation that this event evoked. I wanted to shrug it off, together with other recent facts and events—the millions that have been killed and maimed by the United States’ illegal wars in the Middle East; the absurd health care system that kills 50,000 people a year in the US; the plutocratic economic system that creates a greater wealth gap than most Third World countries and makes the lives of so many a varnished brand of slavery.

But the feeling of hurt remains. Not just that an innocent person was killed, but the cruel brutality of it. It is wrong, and it hurts.

It’s an example of the primitive public displays of brutality that flourished with the Bush cabal and its media cheerleaders. One thinks of the glorious bombing of Baghdad as the distant explosions flashed across our screens; or the hanging/decapitation of Saddam Hussein; the sewn-up faces of Saddam’s sons who had been blown apart by Special Forces, billboarding the cover of the New York Post. It’s straight out of the Dark Ages and shows that despite possessing more sophisticated killing and torturing technology, our real collective progress has been nil or backwards.