The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
Context: The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the founders of the 1924 Soviet Revolution, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial of 1920 through 1927 — there are many trials such as these in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place, and it took place only to cover up the real meaning: the accused was to be put to death. These are trials in which the judge, the counsel, the jury, and the witnesses are the criminals, not the accused. For any believer in capital punishment, the fear of an honest mistake on the part of all concerned is cited as the main argument against the final terrible decision to carry out the death sentence. There is the frightful possibility in all such trials as these that the judgment has already been pronounced and the trial is just a mask for murder.
“At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.”
Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)
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Al Gore 127
45th Vice President of the United States 1948Related quotes
“If I didn't have a sense of humor, how could I stand this trial now?”
To Leon Goldensohn (27 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)
“All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death;”
De Profundis (1897)
"Larry King Live", CNN (Feb. 21, 2003), reported in " Jacko Not Guilty: Past Predictions https://web.archive.org/web/20061115152018/http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/court_cases/jacko_not_guilty_past_predictions_22555.asp", TVNewser.com (June 14, 2006).
To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), pp. 289-90
“We ask God to save our poor people from trials and harms.”
Amir al-Mu'minin's message of condolence to the victims of an earthquake in Paktika and Khost https://ocs.gov.af/en/news_details/1122, 22 June 2022