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Today's
Stories
January 10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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January
10 / 11, 2004
Baptizing Hitler's
Ghost
Mormonism's
Amazing Grace
By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
The practice is a bit of a nuisance if you don't
happen to want it to happen to you.
Until 1995 it was a secret to all but
the cognoscenti. The practice referred to is the practice engaged
in by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints of
engaging in what can euphemistically be described as posthumous
baptism.
The Mormons believe, as most religions
do, that their beliefs are the only ones worth having and the
only ones that guarantee the true believer a decent seat in heaven.
Eager to share the good fortune that they are confident accompanies
the devout Mormon, they decided to share their beliefs with lots
of people, many of whom had in all likelihood never even heard
of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and all
of whom were no longer living.
In 1995 it was disclosed that the church
had been posthumously baptizing all sorts of people. In addition
to Adolph Hitler, who, it is almost certain, hadn't the faintest
idea of what Mormonism was all about, the church posthumously
baptized more than 380,000 holocaust victims, many of whom in
fact had died at the hands of the man in whose company they were
being given the opportunity to spend eternity.
For good reason, there has been no report
of any of Hitler's family being upset at his treatment. Given
the life Hitler led, both he and members of his family probably
welcomed any steps by any religion to do anything to give him
a better place to spend eternity than his life's work wouldotherwise
have entitled him to. Less sanguine, however, were the Jews.
According to Aaron Breitbart, senior researcher at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, 'these people were born Jews, they lived as
Jews and many of them died because they were Jews. They would
not have chosen to be baptized Mormons in life, and there is
no reason they would want to be baptized by proxy in death."
Among other prominent posthumous converts are Anne Frank, David
Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel and the Jewish
philosopher, Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism. One of the people
who would probably be most surprised to learn he had become a
Mormon would be Sigmund Freud. He would almost certainly want
to analyze his proxy to see what kind of a man had assumed, even
temporarily, his identity.
Following the 1995 disclosure, Mormons
and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors based
in New York, arrived at an agreement whereby the Mormons agreed
to unbaptize, as it were, those it had involuntarily baptized.
It said it would end the practice it calls "vicarious baptism"
and, in addition, would remove the names of those it had already
baptized. baptized.
Although there might be some question
about the effect of unbaptizing people already in the hereafter,
it turns out that is not much of a problem. According to Mormon
theology, former humans have "free agency" and the
baptisms provide only an option and not an obligation on them
to join the church in the afterlife. That is fairly reassuring
since it seems to assume that there is an afterlife irrespective
of what religion you may have died with. Once in heaven and baptized
in Salt Lake, you can look over the digsin which the Mormons
live and compare it, for example, with where the Baptists (if
that was your religion at death) are hanging out and decide if
you want to exercise the option and join the Mormons or, whether
you prefer to simply stay put.
The 1995 accords notwithstanding, there
is a bit of bad news and it now turns out to affect not only
Jews. In addition to continuing to give Jews the opportunity
for post mortem celestial site selection in contravention of
the 1995 agreement, the Mormons have been extending the same
opportunity to Russian Orthodox Christians as well.
On December 13, 2003, the Associated
Press reported that the Mormons have been paying 10 cents a page
to the Russian Society of Historians and Archivists in Moscow
to microfilm church membership lists from the 18th century and
posthumously baptizing the members. Although the church claims
that the enrollment of these dead souls is only for genealogical
research, it clearly is intended to bestow benefits on its subjects
as well. Commenting on the practice, Dale Bills, a spokesman
for the church said: "Proxy baptism is a caring expression
of faith that provides deceased persons the opportunity to accept
or reject what we believe to be a blessing offered in their behalf."
Ernest Michel who negotiated the 1995
agreement said that for the seven years since its execution,
relations between Jews and Mormons have been cordial. However
he observed that the cordiality was because Jews thought the
Mormons had been upholding their half of the bargain. They have
not because, as Todd Christofferson, a Mormon involved in the
negotiations, explained: "We never had in mind that we would
on a continual basis, go in and ferret out the Jewish names.
That would represent anintolerable burden."
The issue will presumably not be resolved
until the church believes the benefit it is bestowing on the
dead is outweighed by the the burden it is imposing on the dead
and their descendants. Perhaps a divine intervention of some
sort will eventually give it the guidance it seems to sorely
need.
Christopher Brauchli is a Boulder, Colorado lawyer. His column appears
weekly in the Daily
Camera. He can be reached at: brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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