radicalblogger

I am opposed to the death penalty. That makes me appear obnoxious to many, since the death penalty is often handed out to people who have committed serious crimes. I was opposed to the hanging of Dhananjay Chatterjee, not because I believed he was innocent, but because he was guilty, but death penalty is not a deterrent but an articulation of the eye-for-an-eye “principle”. In fact the one category of people who are hanged though innocent are the fighters on the class struggle front. When Kista Gour and Bhumaiah were hanged, or when, back in the 40s the Kayyur martyrs died, left wing activists knew that the crime involved was really a simple one – refusing to allow the ruling class to rule without putting up a resistance. Such people nether appeal for mercy, nor does one expect the state to show any mercy to them. Hanging them and calling someone like them for discussion and then killing that person (remember a man named Azad?) are all the same. It is a more complicated case with

Remembering Hiroshima, fight nuclear weapons, power and capitalism Even if all the words about Hiroshima have been uttered, even if all the adjectives have been applied, it is not enough. For we have not yet removed the conditions that mak e Hiroshima and Nagasaki possible, even likely. It is right to remember Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on the 9th. But it is also necessary to remember the brutality of the imperialist war of which this was the culmination. When we remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we should also remember the Shoa, the death camps of Auschwitz and the rest. Even if we take the minimalist definition and split hairs between “Concentration Camps” and “Extermination Camps”, we get the following figures for the Nazis. Camp                                        Estimated deaths Auschwitz–Birkenau                    1,100,000 Bełżec                                          600,000 Chełmno                                      320,000 Majdanek