Hope After All

The death vs life without parole verdict has just come in re Zacarias Moussaoui, and I am relieved.

Sometime in the last couple of months, I had one of those click experiences where the conclusional matrix by which I understand reality shifted. I don't know what bit of minutia put me past the brink. Our president is a liar and a warmonger. Soldiers and civilians, young and old, more innocent than not, die every day. Democracy in America is dead; the corporations have replaced human beings as the active political movers. Our economy is on the verge of utter collapse. And on, and on. And so lately I've been dulled, felt separated from emotion. The unbearable heaviness of it all has destroyed my sense of citizenship in a wonderful country. That country doesn't exist anymore.

But today a jury refused to find for death to punish a man, perhaps a crazy man, for lies. That is what the prosecution wanted: a death sentence for lying. I am just relieved that a jury did not agree to it.

And because of that, I think maybe there is hope for us after all.