Pardon the disturbance.

• Position: The Upside-Down World - Column

I want to share a few questions, a few flies buzzing in my head.

Is justice just? In this upside-down world, is she still on her feet?

The cobbler of Iraq, the man who threw his shoes at Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison, which was then reduced to one. But shouldn't he be given an award instead?

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Who is the terrorist, the thrower or his target? Isn't the guilty party the serial killer who invented the Iraq War out of lies, assassinated a people, legalized torture, and ordered it used?

And what of the populations of Atenco, Mexico, or the indigenous of Chile or Guatemala, or the landless peasants of Brazil, all accused of terrorism for defending their right to the land are they all guilty? If the land--is sacred--though the law does not recognize it as such--are not those who defend it sacred, too?

Why does the world reward those who pillage it?

Why is justice blind in one eye? Wal-Mart, the most powerful company, prohibits its workers from unionizing. So does McDonald's. Why do these companies flout international law, consistently and with impunity? Is it because in the world today, labor is worth less than garbage, and workers' rights are worth even less?

Who are the just and who the unjust? If international justice really exists, why are the powerful never judged and sent away? Why are the authors of the most horrendous carnage never arrested? Is it because they hold the keys to the prisons?

Why are the five countries with veto power on the U.N. Security Council untouchable? Are they protected by some divine right? Is it right that world peace is entrusted to the five largest arms-producing nations? No insult intended for drug traffickers, but isn't this also a case of "organized crime"?

And yet those who call for the death penalty everywhere never call for the punishment of the lords of the world. Not at all. They rage against those who kill with knives but not those who murder with missiles.

But if these crusaders for justice are so eager to kill, why don't they demand the death penalty for social injustice? Is a world just when it spends $3 million a minute on the military while fifteen children die of hunger or curable disease in the same time? Who exactly is the so-called international community arming itself to the teeth against? Against poverty, or the poor?

Why do the zealots of capital punishment not demand it be used against the values of consumer society, which threaten public safety every day...