In a message dated 7/17/2002 11:16:24 AM Central Daylight Time,
curt@lab404.com writes:


> Don't need a woman, I won't take me no wife

In case people didn't know, my recent post "An Elephant Fucks a Pig" was not
a gratuitious flaunting of bestial sex and the fword. It is the title of an
episode of South Park, a cable comedy show that uses dirty language. The
episode is about genetic engineering. I "apologize lusciously" (as the
cartoon caricature of Marlon Brando's Dr. Moreau–from the classic film "The
Island of Dr. Moreau" and its recent remake–in the South Park episode at
hand says) if I offended anyone.

I'm also sorry if anyone thought that I actually, literally, Max Herman, a
real person, fantasize and pray that Walker Lindh could be tortured horribly.


You can bet your ass, or all five, that I do not. I am happy as hell he
didn't get a medieval death sentence. I'm hoping that he can serve his time
safely, think things over, perhaps write a book, and get well if in fact the
rumors of his psychiatric condition are true. I look to the example of the
woman convicted of being a Weatherman in the later 1960's. She is in prison,
but organizes inmate education and wellness programs, advocates inmate
wellness with grat dedication and selflessness, has written about her
experience with terrorism and how it works, and is in my opinion a trenchant
argument against the death penalty.

I am nauseated at the sickening, brutalizing, barbaric conditions in prisons
and penal systems worldwide, which presumably includes that to which Walker
Lindh is headed. To me, the overcrowded prison, the electric chair, and the
torture chamber (be it old or new, the Iron Maiden or sleep deprivation) are
signal offenses against humanity, monuments to our savagery and ignorance,
ominous warnings of the depth of human lust for violence and how this lust
may play out in the current war on terror.

I do not accept the legitimacy or value of torture. I consider it to be
perhaps the cardinal sin itself. I have donated money to few political
causes but for several years Amnesty International was my charity of choice.
I'm saddened and alarmed that civil rights abuse today, albeit in a new
cyber/digital information age full-spectrum incarnation "is the currency," to
quote the Clash song "Hate and War (the only thing we are today)."

I did not wish to trivialize torture or the use of sexual violence against
dissenters and their families, as is quite clearly and precisely advocated in
the recently-released training handbooks once used by the USA-funded School
of the Americas to train foreign terror squads. I saw Kiss of the Spider
Woman. I read "The Rape of Nanking." I saw "Come and See" ("Idi i Smotri.")
I read Noam Chomsky. I know about East Timor, where the Indonesian army has
so deliberately used prostitutification as a means of ethnic cleansing and
social annihilation. This kind of shit is, as they say, "all over the
place." And shit stinks.

I once took a history class. The professor, Steven Gingrich at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison I believe, mentioned in one lecture that "of
course the US prison system allows rape among inmates to continue more or
less unhindered, in the interests of deterrence."

I would appreciate it if anyone who has taken offense or felt hurt or
targeted by my post about Walker Lindh to please tell me, on or off list as
you prefer. I have received feedback strongly condemning my Walker Lindh
post as inappropriate for a new media art list, destructive of open dialogue
and community feeling, masculinist, and sadistically exploitive of the
suffering of others for my own personal pleasure.

The post was none of those things to me. If it was to others, I am genuinely
remorseful. I accept that feelings are feelings and deserve respect. There
are two sides to every story, as Billy Bragg said, and if such a post
"doesn't belong" (Sesame Street) I accept the verdict. Maybe some things
should be taboo, certain topics. I've learned to accept such taboos since I
was five and will here again.

What did yeats say, "ceremony is the fount of innocence"?

Not trying to play martyr here either. I don't need or want any pity.

Scary posts like that one will stop regardless, in every event, alea jacta
est, I will not post like that again even if people ask me to. Let Porculus
do it.

Max Herman
genius2000.net