[Peace-discuss] [sftalk] Justice, Vengeance and the Legal System

[C. G. Estabrook]

I liked the suggestion that "Everyone who voted for the killer of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, age 16, should probably give the moral preening a rest."


On Jul 15, 2013, at 11:48 PM, "Brussel, Morton K" <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:

> As to your last sentence, a manslaughter conviction would appear appropriate were I on the jury. There was a killing of an unarmed, trailed (although advised otherwise), black kid, right? 
> 
> I admit to being somewhat startled by your defense of the verdict, or trivializing it. 
> 
> --mkb
> 
> P. S. For your information, it was a typo to leave in the word "this" [before "anyone"] in what I wrote—I'd originally  intended to say ("this [email] list". but failed to erase the word this.
> 
> 
> On Jul 15, 2013, at 11:12 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> I appreciate your intelligent reflection, Mort, under the circumstances.
>> 
>> But I think he's speaking of a communist society as an ideal.
>> 
>> As to his not being a "lefty,"
>> 
>> "Ignatiev (b. 1940) is the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia ... Under the name Noel Ignatin, he joined the Communist Party USA in January 1958, but in August left (along with Theodore W. Allen and Harry Haywood) to help form the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (POC). He was expelled from the POC in 1966. Later he became involved in the Students for a Democratic Society. When that organization fractured in the late 1960s, Ignatiev became part of the Third-worldist and Maoist New Communist Movement, forming the group Sojourner Truth Organization in 1970. Unlike other groups in the New Communist Movement, the STO and Ignatiev were also heavily influenced by the ideas of Trinidadian writer C.L.R. James. For 20 years, Ignatiev worked in a Chicago steel mill in the manufacturing of farming equipment and electrical components. A Marxist activist, he was involved in strikes by the mostly-African-American laborers of the steel mill. In 1984, he was laid off from the steel mill, approximately a year after an arrest on charges of attacking a strike-breaker's car with a paint bomb.
>> 
>> "Ignatiev set up Marxist discussion groups in the early 1980s. In 1985, Ignatiev was accepted to the Harvard Graduate School of Education without an undergraduate degree. After earning his master's degree, he joined the Harvard faculty as a lecturer and worked toward a doctorate in U.S. history. Ignatiev was a graduate student at Harvard University where he earned his Ph.D. in 1995. He taught courses there before moving to the Massachusetts College of Art, where he teaches as of 2012 ... His dissertation, published by Routledge as the book How the Irish Became White, was advised by prominent social historian of American race and ethnicity Stephan Thernstrom. Ignatiev is the co-founder and co-editor of the journal Race Traitor and the New Abolitionist Society."
>> 
>> And isn't he suggesting that it would be a mistake to "do away with the stipulation that to be convicted a person must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"?
>> 
>> --CGE
>> 
>> On Jul 15, 2013, at 10:49 PM, "Brussel, Morton K" <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> This guy is clearly not a "lefty". His bringing in the evil of a "communist society" is revealing. 
>>> 
>>> Another dumb "contribution", hardly worth this anyone's intelligent reflection.  
>>> 
>>> (E.g., is it "vengeance" to sentence anyone for manslaughter, or second degree murder? Is it inconsistent to be for acquitting Angela Davis while bemoaning the acquittal of Zimmerman?)
>>> 
>>> Etc.
>>> 
>>> --mkb
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 15, 2013, at 10:15 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>> 
>>>> A Jury of Trayvon Martin’s Peers
>>>> by NOEL IGNATIEV
>>>> 
>>>> I will not address the trial or its outcome. People will think what they please. I do have several things to say about the responses.
>>>> 
>>>> Many are organizing protest marches. What are they are protesting? The verdict? Had the verdict been otherwise, would they have organized support marches? Although they may differ in their demands, both protest and support marches reinforce the authority of the legal system. (I note in passing that many of those protesting defend the legal system when it works to their advantage, for example in the acquittal of Angela Davis or Huey Newton. Would they really want to do away with the stipulation that to be convicted a person must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?)
>>>> 
>>>> The most meaningful challenge to the authority of the legal system would be to hand Zimmerman over to a jury of Trayvon Martin’s peers. That is the way, I think, a communist society would deal with a case like this (if we could even imagine a case like this happening in a communist society).
>>>> 
>>>> I note that in one city (Boston) some lefties, mainly white, are planning to leaflet subway and bus terminals in Dudley and Roxbury, in the black district (where they do not live), informing the residents there of a planned march. This is wrong on two counts: first, the problem is not centered in the black district; if these lefties want to bring about a change in the conditions that led to the killing of Trayvon Martin, let them address the people in the white gated communities (real or metaphorical) where they grew up, which resemble Sanford, Florida more than they do the black district of Boston. Moreover, the black folk of Boston, like every place else, have shown on any number of occasions that if they wish to express their outrage at the verdict, they have ways of getting the word around, through the churches, the black radio stations and the barber shops and beauty shops, and do not need white lefties to help them.
>>>> 
>>>> Lastly, many of the protestors are demanding justice for Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin is beyond the reach of justice. What they really mean is revenge. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I am opposed to revenge, in principle, because it degrades the human spirit (although I am not opposed to exterminating rats, cockroaches and other vermin who threaten human health).
>>>> 
>>>> [Noel Ignatiev is the author of How the Irish Became White (Routledge, 1995), and co-editor, with John Garvey, of the anthology Race Traitor (Routledge, 1996). He can be reached at noelignatiev at gmail.com.] 
>>>>