How does our government deal with the victims of their policy making? The same way the Nazis did: by demonizing and dehumanizing them. They can only be one of two things: trash waiting for pickup – or litter.
People tend to distance themselves from victims – maybe they’re afraid it’s catching. Even those who are charged with the responsibility of protecting them; take a distant and clinical view. Let’s face it; victims have a pathetic image – and they’re the result of a problem that authorities don’t want to address.
Maybe that’s why those vigilante victim movies are so popular: because they’re victims — like so many of us.
I remember Intellivison Burgertime creating a level of anxiety – the longer you survived; the more difficult the game and the more persistently you were chased — and when you lost; you had to start at the beginning and relive it all over again.
Arcade-style games were based on an emotional paradigm that emptied you of quarters as quickly and efficiently as possible.
A similar paradigm in our Criminal Justice System disposes of the victims and their families with the same speed and efficiency. The criminals themselves, however, have almost risen to a management position in that System – with “frequent felon” insider plea bargains sliding them out jail in the time it takes to inscribe a gravestone.
Victims are the grit in the mechanism of Justice. They are now called “complainants” – Why do we make so much trouble?
Just as the bereaved are sometimes put in the position of comforting those who are uncomfortable talking to them – victims can be put in the position of justifying their own “victimology” – even if they’re already deceased.
But then; they play such a small part in the Criminal Justice System – do they really need to?