Sunday, November 04, 2007
The New Suicide
The 2008 Guinness Book of World Records lists the 1985 police murder of 11 members of MOVE as a “modern mass suicide.” During the second disastrous raid on the MOVE organization in seven years, a police helicopter dropped C4 explosives on the rooftop bunker shack of a rowhouse. The police bombing burned 61 homes to the ground and killed 11 of 13 people barricaded in the MOVE house, including 5 children. Philadelphia was internationally disgraced for years to come as the city who bombs their own, who “suicides” their own citizens.
So what is this “modern suicide”, then? Is it based on the idea that disobedience to the directives of those with the potential for lethal force at their disposal is the equivalent to taking one’s own life? It’s possible that the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records has eliminated murder as we know it! While that’s a major accomplishment, there a few glaring omissions from the modern mass suicide list. Let’s not forget the cult called Citizens of Baghdad who committed mass suicide during the Shock & Awe of 2003, or the Twin Towers cult of 2001 who suicided themselves in a bizarre ritual called “going to work.”
Murder? What’s murder?
- Frank Sherlock
So what is this “modern suicide”, then? Is it based on the idea that disobedience to the directives of those with the potential for lethal force at their disposal is the equivalent to taking one’s own life? It’s possible that the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records has eliminated murder as we know it! While that’s a major accomplishment, there a few glaring omissions from the modern mass suicide list. Let’s not forget the cult called Citizens of Baghdad who committed mass suicide during the Shock & Awe of 2003, or the Twin Towers cult of 2001 who suicided themselves in a bizarre ritual called “going to work.”
Murder? What’s murder?
- Frank Sherlock
