In article <75n69n$e7h$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
caowens@redsuspenders.com wrote:
> In article <75lgns$o8$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> jthunderbird@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> > What is to be done? Millenial Amnesty!
> >
> > Let us resolve as follows:
> >
> > Resolved, all prisoners, captives and restrained persons are
> > due liberty as of the first day of January of the year 2001 > > of the common era,
> >
> > and further Resolved,
> >
> > that on that date all debts of private parties be forgiven,
> > rescinded and expunged, so no individual will enter the new
> > millenium owing anything.
>
> Wonderful. You want to release every convicted criminal in the world the
> same day you bring the world economy to its knees. NOT a bright idea, would
> you say?
>
> Chris Owens
 

Sounds like a good idea to me. The idea of the universal amnesty
resolution is to stop repression for one shining instant, so the
exploitation of the powerless by the powerful will be interrupted.
 

The world economy is a runaway engine fueled by petroleum and coal,
addicted to these energy sources. It is an automaton beyond the
control of human society, responsive only to the artificial values
of money, which at this time brings it into conflict with our
interests as warm animals needing to keep breathing. Your evident
faith that market forces will automatically appear in time to turn
the economy toward an energy regime which will leave this planet
livable, is not something we should bet our lives on. There is no
sign that the economy is moving toward abandoning fossil fuel, after
twenty years of warning that the greenhouse effect could become
irreversible. On its knees is where the economy belongs, as the only
attitude in which it will pay attention to the scientific facts of
what we have to do to stay alive on this planet.
 

You heard about the obedient mule, the two by four was to get his attention.
Welcome to the real world.
 

What makes you think there would be any incremental hazard from the
release of all current convicts? What fraction of people who may wish
you ill are currently captives? You must agree that most are not. The
funny thing is, imprisonment has a negative correlation with control
of crime. The more people locked down, the more crime in society. It
doesn't work. We now have a greater proportion of our populace in
prison than any society ever had. Crime is rampant, breaking records
of its own. Is something wrong with this picture? Increasingly draconian
repression puts us in police states to live in constant fear, but all
that is achieved is proof of the assertion that the illness is in the
structure of society, not in the individual.
 

A day of freedom would do us all some good. It would liberate us all
to do some kind of deep thinking about what's wrong here.
 

Resolved,
Johnny Thunderbird
Millenial Amnesty Planning Board
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb275670 http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/millenialamnesty
http://www.dejanews.com/~millenialamnesty
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