CounterPunch's
Scorching New Book on a Decade of War
Order Now / Available in April
Today's
Stories
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A Journey to Rafah
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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.
|
Weekend
Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
Another Take on The Passion
Who
Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
By CRAIG WAGGONER
I'm not a Quaker but I have been hanging out with
the Quakers for the last two years. I am however a Social Worker
and I have been one for over twenty years. But I don't work for
the government. I work in a faith based organization. Ours is
not an agency of any one particular faith. Seven different denominations
sustain our agency so we don't evangelize. We help people. But
it's because I have almost daily contact with people of different
faiths yet of deep religious conviction that I can discuss not
only their reactions to the film "The Passion of Christ"
but also my own reaction to it. You should be forewarned though:
I am here to denounce it.
One more confession here and I will begin:
I only saw half of the film. It was just way too gory and repulsive
for me. It glorified in its violence and blood. The guilt it
attempts to inflict on its audience is unbearable and in the
end, unforgivable. I didn't kill Christ, although I realize I
have the capacity to do utterly unspeakable things. It's that
I don't do such things and want others not to do them that keeps
me human. Indeed, I also have the capacity to do things greater
than what Christ did if only I had the faith the size of a mustard
seed. And I am working on that. But this film gives me nothing
to believe in myself. It wants me to feel responsible for Christ's
suffering and even worse, it wants me to remember that it was
the Jews that bear the greater responsibility.
One of the points missed in all the criticism
I have read about the film is the constant association of the
Jews with the devil. They are portrayed as doing the handiwork
of the devil. In the beginning, there's Jesus praying and the
devil tempting him. Jesus resists, of course, and then the Jewish
guards come to arrest him. There's Jesus being tried before some
very powerful Jews. There's the devil. There's the powerful Jews
leading the crowd in the chant to kill Christ. There's the devil.
There's the very powerful Jews looking smug as Jesus is flogged.
There's the devil. You can't miss the relationship that is made.
To me, a non-Jew, that is the epitome of anti-Semiticism and
I think the Jewish community has every reason to be upset about
this film.
However, as my colleagues in the agency
have pointed out, it is true that the Bible states that it was
the powerful Jews who were threatened by Jesus and wanted him
out of the way. But isn't that merely a human thing to do? Wouldn't
anyone in a position of power, no matter their religion or culture
or race, be afraid of losing their power? A truly religious person
would recognize the fear and not let it make them do something
foolish or harmful. Obviously, the people in power in Jesus'
time were not inclined to introspection and restraint. (Although
in the film some of the Romans seem to be capable of reflection
and self-awareness, it doesn't seem to give them the courage
to do what is right.) The people who condemned Jesus were of
deep religious conviction but had no morals. Just like many of
us today - especially the current occupant of the White House.
But I digress. It is because the film misses the humanity behind
the story that it can be so two dimensional.
And speaking of race, if this was a film
that was trying to be realistic, as many of my colleagues have
argued, wouldn't Jesus be black?
And speaking of being realistic, what
is with that scene of Jesus making a kitchen table? What is Mel
Gibson trying to say? What if Jesus was making a toy boat, would
Gibson be saying the same thing? Let's see: table or toy boat.
Humm. A table means that he's forward looking, a seer. He has
ideas that will later be incorporated into every home in the
Western world. Not bad. But if it was a toy boat? Jesus may love
children but he also likes to play. He might even be a bit simple
himself. He certainly is no deep thinker. Not a leader at all.
Nope. A toy boat wouldn't have the same impact as the table he
makes in the film.
Then there's the violence of the film
which is why I had to get up and leave. It's utterly gorgeous
to look at. Computer enhanced. Great make-up. And the sound.
Rarely have I attended a film with such wonderful sound. Each
punch sounds like a bomb going off. It puts those kung-fu movies
to shame. Each slap and each kick, each stroke of the whip on
the skin sounds like it's happening somewhere closer than close,
somewhere after the inner ear. What is the point of this? And
all that beautiful red runny ketchup. Why? Is it because Mel
Gibson wants us to wake up and notice what is being done? Why
would he think we were asleep in the first place? Are we so insensitive
and unaware that it has to be pounded into us, that we have to
be flayed? Or is he trying to make us feel guilty for the way
Jesus suffered for our sins? Now, isn't that a Catholic kind
of thing to do?
I once went to a lecture by Robert Fisk
and during it, he showed a short film of Saddam's thugs torturing
a group of men. These were real men. Their suffering was real.
And there were no special effects. No computer wizardry. Just
people acting brutally towards other people. That film moved
me like nothing else I have ever seen. But I didn't feel guilty.
I felt angry that such things are allowed to happen. Gibson's
film gave me a bad headache, like being on an amusement park
ride for way too long. Where there is something to be said, nothing
needs to be done to emphasize it. It is only when a films theme
is weak and mostly false that you need to dress it up. Make it
pretty. For people to be taken in by it.
Right before Gibson's film was released,
another film was released about the life of Christ. I believe
it was called, "The Gospel According to St. John."
Only one person in my office saw it. Why was that? What is it
about Gibson's film about the same subject that has attracted
so many more people and made so much money? Is it merely the
"star power" or is it the hype or the controversy or
is there something that makes us feel good about the violence
in this film that was lacking in the other film?
To some at our agency, there is violence
that is good and acceptable and violence that isn't acknowledged
or if it is acknowledged at all then it is justified and therefore
not worth troubling oneself about. The killing of Afghanistan
and Iraqi citizens is hardly acknowledged at all but when it
is, these deaths are justified and therefore acceptable. The
poisoning of future generations with the depleted uranium weapons;
the killing of innocents with cluster bombs; the potential destruction
of entire nations with nuclear weapons, is sometimes discussed
but often with a sense of resignation and a shrug of the shoulders.
Some in our agency actually believe such horrors are necessary.
It is my belief that it is the erroneous and sometimes malicious
interpretations of the story of Jesus that have been given to
us by various religions that have made such things possible.
The Gibson film - in spite of Jesus' warning right at the beginning
that those who live by the sword die by the sword (and I am told
in the second half of the film he repeatedly states that we are
to love our enemy) - with all of its relentless violence, makes
it clear that there are forces of evil in the world and when
they are unleashed, this is what happens. Who among us cannot
help but become defensive and start thinking of ways to hurt
and destroy others before we too are made to suffer?
All I can say to them is: Who would Jesus
nuke?
There are so many good films about the
spiritual life that have gone unrecognized by the general public
that I want to use this last paragraph just to mention a few.
"Andre Rublev" by Tarkovsky has to be one of the best
films ever made about a person undergoing a spiritual crisis
and successfully resolving it. Any film by the great Japanese
director Ozu cuts directly to the heart. The French film maker
Robert Bresson knew intimately the workings of the spirit in
us. And finally, for a film that captures the essence of Jesus'
teachings, try "The Gospel According to St Matthew"
made by that heretic, lunatic, fascist Pasolini.
There are more depths in each one of
us than there are in the visible universe.
Craig Waggoner
can be reached at: Scraigwaggoner@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|