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6ad3a96
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It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
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death
intelligence
scholars
thinkers
execution
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Albert Camus |
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2a70ae1
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I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.)
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ba-athism
beria
cull
himmler
ba-athist-iraq
conspiracy
saddam-hussein
dictatorship
execution
film
syria
torture
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Christopher Hitchens |
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4269491
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The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral. All social questions achieve their finality around that blade. The scaffold is an image. It is not merely a framework, a machine, a lifeless mechanism of wood, iron, and rope. It is as though it were a being having its own dark purpose, as though the framework saw, the machine listened, and the mechanism understood; as though that arrangement of wood and iron and rope expressed a will. In the hideous picture which its presence evokes it seems to be most terribly a part of what it does. It is the executioner's accomplice; it consumes, devouring flesh and drinking blood. It is a kind of monster created by the judge and the craftsman; a spectre seeming to live an awful life born of the death it deals.
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scaffold
executioner
execution
france
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Victor Hugo |
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e690826
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"Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody. He was. He was going to shake hands with death. He wasn't particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn't have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn't going to be alive anymore ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn't used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he'd always kept it by him in the present. He couldn't visualize it. So he wasn't as unnerved by it as the average man would have been. ("3 Kills For 1")"
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fear
death
imagination
death-penalty
death-sentence
electric-chair
execution
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Cornell Woolrich |
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b715685
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"What careful planning, what painstaking attention to detail, goes into extinguishing a man's life! Far more than the hit-or-miss, haphazard circumstances of igniting it. ("New York Blues")"
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killing
murder
execution
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Cornell Woolrich |
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eb923db
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"Dzelat mi prilazi i kaze: "Spustite glavu na panj i rasirite ruke kad budete spremni, gospo." Poslusno spustam ruke na panj i nespretno kleknem na travu. Osecam njen miris pod kolenima. Osecam bol u ledima i cujem krik galebova i neciji plac. A onda odjednom, bas kad se spremim da spustim celo na hrapavu povrsinu panja i rasirim ruke da dam znak krvniku da moze da udari, odjednom me preplavljuje talas radosti i zudnje za zivotom, i kazem: "Ne." Prekasno je, dzelat je vec zamahnuo sekirom iznad glave, vez je spusta, ali ja kazem: "Ne" i ustajem, pridrzavajuci se za panj da se osovim na noge. Osetim strahovit udarac na potiljku, ali gotovo nikakav bol. Silina udarca obara me na zemlju i ja ponavljam "Ne", i odjednom me obuzima buntovnicki zanos. Ne pristajem na volju ludaka Henrija Tjudora, ne spustam krotko glavu na panj i nikada to necu uraditi. Boricu se za svoj zivot i vicem "Ne!", pokusavajuci da ustanem i "Ne", kad osetim novi udarac, "Ne" dok puzem po travi, a krv mi lipti iz rane na vratu i glavi i zaslepljuje me, ali ne gusi moju radost u borbi za zivot iako mi on izmice, i svedocenju, do poslednje g casa, o zlu koje Henri Tjudor nanosi meni i mojima. "Ne!", vicem. "Ne! Ne! Ne"
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death
margaret-pole
philippa-gregory
intriguing
haunting
henry-viii
last-words
execution
dying
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Philippa Gregory |