Back in the ’90s, there was this cheesy movie called Best of The Best. It was about underground fight-to-the-death matches. Wayne Newton – if you remember him – was the ring announcer. His signature line was and you love it! Cue the roar of approbation from the crowd of rich degenerates who’d come to watch a man be killed and – perhaps – be splashed by some blood.
It is no longer underground – and the degenerates hold public office. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, announced the other day that the execution of Nidal Hasan, the army officer who killed 12 people at Ford Hood back in 2009, will be live-streamed. “He’s gonna get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be,” Hegseth told Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public – because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
But that’s not what people need to understand. What they need to understand is that Hegseth (and presumably, Trump) want people to gloat and smack their lips, just like the degenerates in the audience in Best of the Best. It is not enough execute Nidal. His execution must be seen, so as to rouse the blood lust of the population as well as to desensitize it.
To whet their appetite for more.
And more could be you – or me.
Hasan is a killer but Hegseth has said that mere criticism of Trump’s war is “treason” and “national betrayal.” Well, what is the usual punishment for treason? Yes, exactly. Hegseth has very plainly telegraphed that he believes critics of the war – presumably, any war – are no better than Hasan and just as deserving of the same end, live on TeeVee. He did not technically day this. But connect the dots. The live-streamed execution of Hasan is meant to connect them.
To convey understanding.
A long time ago, there was an Austrian postcard painter who proclaimed himself the “Supreme Justiciar” of the German people; he held life and death in the palm of his hand. Emphasis on his. As in him personally. He (not the courts) ordered his political enemies – including his friend, Ernst Rohm, the head of the storm troopers (SA) – rounded up and executed, which they were. Along with a number of others who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He – like Hegseth – claimed the executed people had all committed “treason.” In Rohm’s case, because he had privately criticized the Austrian postcard painter but really he was considered a potential threat to his power.
What do you suppose Trump and Hegseth think about people they see as threats to their power? Like the Austrian postcard painter, these two are capable of anything; both have already demonstrated this. Who will stop them? Who will cheer them?
A former member of the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps who is now a law professor at Texas Tech – Geoffrey Corn – blandly says the live-streaming of Hasan’s execution “raises significant moral questions, above and beyond the questions related to the death penalty generally.”
Indeed it does. 
What it is, of course, is the state baring its fangs – but it is also more than just that. It is the state egging on the worst in people.
It is very easy to get caught up in this, because Hasan is not sympathetic character. He murdered nine people. It is easy to want to see justice served. It is also easy to give in to the desire to see him suffer. To revel in his suffering. This crosses a kind of Rubicon, one side of which is justice – and on the other, savagery. The lust to see others suffer and die, not for justice but for pleasure. The pleasure that dissipates (temporarily) the anger; the raging impotence felt by many on account of their circumstances, over which they instinctively feel they have little if any control. It is not a random thing that most new cars look furious. It is not just happenstance that millions of adults invest enormous emotional energy in the outcome of professional athletic contests, which when you think about it are just one step removed from professional gladiatorial contests of the sort depicted in Best of the Best.
Or in the history books.
The ancient Romans went to the actual Coliseum, to revel in the deaths of animals and human beings. The Caesars put on these shows – which sometimes lasted for weeks – to satiate the Roman people’s need to exult in their spectatorhood. As bad as things might be for the average plebe, they were far worse for the men in the arena who were about to be torn to pieces by animals or by each other. The spectators left the arena spent in almost post-orgasmic way.
“Turning the execution of such a penalty into some type of public spectacle echoes of the past we seem to have put behind us,” says Corn. One that is about to be pur back in front of us – and many will welcome it.
Hegseth and Trump are resurrecting the barbarism of the ancient world. Its cruel crowds and even more cruel imperators. They want and need to hear the crowds cheer, to be complicit in their orgy of death and gore. To want more and worse.
Which they’ll get.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is: EPautos 721 Hummingbird Lane SE Copper Hill, VA 24079
