The northlondonhippy

Archive for January 4th, 2007

Greet­ings and Happy New Year to all of my beloved hip­py­fans! May this year be bet­ter than the last one!

Yes, 2006 sucked the big one, but now it’s rel­e­gated to his­tory, which is exactly where that shitty year belongs.

You don’t need me to tell you how crappy 2006 was; every other form of media has done the entire ‘year in review’ thing to death. I won’t go there.

For me, 2006 had a cou­ple of minor high­lights, but over­all it wasn’t any­thing spe­cial. Mostly, it was just another year.

It was another year full of death, destruc­tion and despair. The weather turned angry, the death toll in Iraq con­tin­ued to climb and our per­sonal lib­er­ties con­tinue to be method­i­cally stripped away. I’m sure none of that will hap­pen in 2007!

2006 ended with three famous peo­ple kick­ing the bucket. Celebrity deaths tend to come in threes any­way, which is a real night­mare for the PR peo­ple that coor­di­nate these things, but some­how they manage.

Ger­ald R. Ford, for­mer pres­i­dent and VP, not elected to either office, granter of a par­don for Richard M. Nixon (who despite his own protes­ta­tions to the con­trary, was a crook), popped his clogs at the age of 93. The papers keep call­ing him “the acci­dent pres­i­dent”, but let’s face it, he’s a foot­note to a foot­note and he’ll get his big state funeral and that will be that. His wife, Betty is more sig­nif­i­cant, with her Betty Ford Cen­tre and good work high­light­ing the prob­lems of sub­stance abuse. I thought she was dead too, but I saw her on TV the other day. Sorry, Betty.

The next death was the god­fa­ther of soul, Mr. James Brown. Brown was about as influ­en­tial as you can be in music. If you have ever heard a hip-hop or rap record made in the last 20 years, then chances are you, you’ve heard sam­ples from James Brown’s music in the back­ing tracks. Try Googling “Funky Drum­mer”, the most sam­pled drum beat in the his­tory of sam­pling comes from this track.

I was work­ing the night before Brown died and I caught a news wire that said he had been admit­ted to hos­pi­tal with pneu­mo­nia, but was expected to be released in time to per­form the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day. That was enough for me not to think he was going to die. By the time I got home, it was break­ing news that he was dead. Ooooops, I guess I shouldn’t believe every­thing I read.

Except of course on the northlon­don­hippy website!

James Brown was a one of kind, wild man and damn he liked to party! He was a true orig­i­nal and will be missed very much.

The third celebrity death is the one I find the most trou­bling and I’m not really sure why. Some­thing was decid­edly unset­tling about the exe­cu­tion of for­mer Iraqi pres­i­dent Sad­dam Hus­sein and I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel this way.

I’m not going to debate whether or not he deserved to be exe­cuted. He was an evil dic­ta­tor, respon­si­ble for the deaths of thou­sands of peo­ple on Iraqi soil. He was a crim­i­nal and a thug.

I’m more inter­ested in how it was done, in such a piti­ful and pathetic man­ner. I’m more inter­ested in the speed in which the death sen­tence was car­ried out, as if it needed to be done as soon as possible.

Now that we’ve all seen both videos, the offi­cial exe­cu­tion film shot by the Iraqi gov­ern­ment and the camera-phone video, shot by a wit­ness, we know exactly just how half-assed the entire thing was and how it lacked in dignity.

You can argue that Sad­dam didn’t show any mercy or dig­nity to any of his vic­tims. I’d agree with that. But we’re sup­posed to be bet­ter than that. We’re sup­posed to rise above the behav­iour of our enemies.

We’re sup­posed to do a lot of things.

Sad­dam Hus­sein was an evil man, a dic­ta­tor, and a morally rep­re­hen­si­ble piece of shit that got his just rewards. Sad­dam Hus­sein was also a human being, a father, a son, a for­mer pres­i­dent and leader of a sov­er­eign coun­try, who at a min­i­mum deserved to be treated some minor level of respect and dignity.

A soci­ety can be judged how it treats it ene­mies and in this exe­cu­tion, we weren’t any bet­ter than the man we put to death. He may have deserved to die, but he didn’t deserve to be taunted and ridiculed in the last moments of his life. No one does.

Let’s look at it another way: If you feel that a pres­i­dent deserves to be put to death for being respon­si­ble for the ille­gal, unsanc­tioned killings of thou­sands of peo­ple on Iraqi soil, then Sad­dam shouldn’t be the only one swing­ing by the neck, should he?

I’m not jok­ing. Isn’t it time George W. (for war­mon­ger) Bush should be sent to The Hague and be put on trial for crimes against human­ity? He won’t face the death penalty there, which is far more mercy than he showed his sworn enemy, who tried to kill his daddy.

No, I don’t want to bring Sad­dam back; the world is bet­ter off with­out him. But then, that would be true if he remained in prison until his nat­ural death as well. Killing Sad­dam was blood lust and victor’s priv­i­lege. It righted no wrongs.

Two wrongs only make another wrong.

Will 2007 be any bet­ter? As a con­stantly dis­ap­pointed opti­mist, I can hope.