These political servants of the wealthy rulers argued that the grisly electrocution was not "cruel and unusual punishment," but rather, a good "deterrent" to crime. The pious editors of the Miami Herald suggested chemical poisoning as a more "humane" method, while another self- righteous bourgeois representative called for beheading people as the "least painful" methods for state-sanctioned murder.

These debates have nothing to do with deterring crime. The death penalty is simply used as a weapon of the capitalists to terrorize working people into submission and stifle resistance to their attacks. The recent episode is a harbinger of what the bourgeois class has in store for us. The big-business politicians and the media will continue to portray working people, inmates, and oppressed nationalities in particular as violent brutes, while acclimating us for more repression.

As Democratic president William Clinton makes preparations for war against the workers states in Russia, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, his administration is also deepening its assault on working people here. It's no coincidence that of the nearly 400 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, almost 50 percent were killed during Clinton's time in the White House.

Socialism or barbarism is the choice before humanity as capitalism accelerates its pace toward fascism and world war. Only a revolutionary political struggle by working people to overthrow this barbaric system and establish a workers and farmers government will open the doors for a humane society. That's the challenge for young fighters and working-class leaders in the battle for human solidarity.  
 
 
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