Double Flee A

I don't believe for a moment anyone derives any satisfaction from the distant prospect of Moussaoui experiencing everlasting torment, I think it's the flip side of the false sentimentality to leads people to say, after a child has tragically died, "Heaven has a new angel now" or, after someone has suffered through a long, agonizing illness, "(S)he's in a better place now." No, they're not; they've simply been released from their suffering, which ought to be enough. Such cliches intended to comfort which provide no real comfort or consolation because the truth is that the grievous loss of a young child is a tragedy without any redeeming aspects, and for those who prize life there is no better place than among the living, here and now, not in some reserved space on the dry-ice clouds. Pretending otherwise is putting cake frosting on a wounded heart. Heaven and Hell are the good cop/bad cop headquarters of a religious theology that people cleave to in order to believe that earthly injustices are rectified in the hereafter--that the dictator who dies peacefully in his sleep gets his karmic payback in the infernal depths. The truth is that I don't entertain any great visions of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Richard Perle, and the rest suffering medieval torment; it would be bad faith of me to place them in a Hell I don't believe in, and goes against the spirit of the Tao. I'd be quite happy to settle for the fantasy-come-true of the architects of the Iraq war being arrested, convicted, and warehoused in a secure prison; like Moussaoui.

posted by dale @ 9:03 PM