Future Conditional

FUTURE CONDITIONAL       Lynching. Lynching. It means an extrajudicial murder, usually carried out by a mob, usually to bring what that mob thinks of as “justice.” Usually, but not exclusively, the method of lynching is hanging. Usually, historically, there were other means used as well: beating, shooting, evisceration. Usually, traditionally, it was perpetrated by mobs of white Americans, white Southern Americans against Black Americans: including women and children, but men mostly; it didn’t seem to matter. In California, mobs lynched Chinese-Americans, white Americans were lynched, Mexicans, Jews, Italians, Native Americans too. The list goes on. As Bobby Kennedy said, “A mob asks no questions.”       As Abraham Lincoln said, “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.” And yet, mob law persists, perpetrated by racists or bigots or zealots in the name of religion or politics, fundamentalism or conservatism or fascism or xenophobia or just plain hatred, and enc