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Today's
Stories
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
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
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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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Weekend
Edition
March 20 / 21, 2004
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
An
Unmoving Movie
By GARY LEUPP
I left the theater, having witnessed The Passion
of the Christ with my fourteen year old son, feeling disappointingly
unmoved. I enjoy historical dramas, especially those set in the
Roman Empire, and thought that due to that interest alone I'd
find The Passion rewarding. Spartacus, about the
heroic slave rebel who lived decades before Christ, is one of
my favorite films; the scene at the end where Kirk Douglas/Spartacus
hangs on the cross, punished for rebellion by Roman authority,
is especially memorable. (Actually Spartacus was, according to
Plutarch, killed in battle, not crucified. But 6000 of his followers
were crucified along the Appian Way, and I've often thought:
Why not, in some of our public spaces, display the image of the
rebel-slave crucified, the image of the anonymous hero whose
cruel passion resulted, not in a new religion, but merely in
an inspiring symbol of the human will to struggle against oppression?
Might that be an even more powerful image?) I like the
Christian-themed The Robe, and (despite Charlton Heston),
Ben Hur. I'm happy that computer technology has facilitated
a rebirth of the Hollywood spectacular, featuring casts of animated
thousands; this, I'm told, allowed production of Gladiator,
which I enjoyed despite the utter implausibility of the story
line.
That's often my problem with "historical"
films---their historical inaccuracies. I don't demand "socialist
realism" in art, but egregious errors and anachronisms sometimes
ruin a work for me. The Passion's script , entirely in
ancient languages, gives the impression of realism (probably
inclining many viewers to think, "This is how it really
happened") even though the Romans ought to be speaking Greek
rather than Latin. This is not the only instance in which superficial
realism conceals underlying lack of realism. But that
wasn't my main problem with The Passion.
My main problem with the film is that,
contrary to the statements of its publicists, it wasn't simply
a faithful depiction of the gospel narrative. This is, for me,
the key issue. Pre-release criticism came principally from groups
suggesting that the film would promote anti-Semitism. The Gibson
people replied that the film simply conveyed the New Testament
story. Some critics responded, in effect, that the story itself
is the problem. That is perfectly arguable, but
as I've argued before, it's one thing to protest a film
and another to protest a religion. One thing to reject a depiction
of the gospels, imputing "dangers" to it; another to
advocate, as a political objective, rejection of those gospels
in whole or part.
If you expect a Christian who believes
the gospels literally to agree that they are anti-Semitic, you
expect that person to either eschew his or her faith (perhaps
in favor of a Christianity so "de-mythologized" as
to seem something else entirely) so as to not be anti-Semitic;
or to continue in the faith aware (perhaps, having been convinced
by critics) that the gospels (hence, God who inspired their composition)
are indeed anti-Semitic. So this is a problem that needs to be
carefully handled. If the film merely depicts the arrest, interrogation,
beating, cross-bearing, and crucifixion as described in the composite
gospel tale, attributing the roles that it does to the Sanhedrin,
Caiaphas, Pilate, Judas, etc., then one ought to accept it to
the same extent as one accepts the existence of the Christian
faith. That's been my reasoning, anyway.
Theology of Sadism
I found, however, that the film does
not merely stick to the gospel script. Among other things,
it includes a flashback in which the young carpenter Jesus is
constructing a table, taller than those generally used at the
time and quite modern-looking. "It'll never catch on,"
Mother Mary remarks. Kind of tacky, I thought. This was a minor
departure from the canonical gospels, but a signal that Gibson's
not just conveying the biblical action and dialogue sans interpretation
and interpolation. He's actually interpreting big-time, and his
main contribution to the story is to insert a huge degree of
sadism into it. The temple guards, having arrested Jesus
in the Garden of Gethsemane, haul him off to Caiaphas, abusing
him all the way, suspending him from a bridge at one point. No
gospel basis for that incident, and no logical reason for it.
(Of course you could argue that cops in general are sadistic
brutes, but still, why would these guards hold up their mission
by such sick sport?) Before Caiaphas, Jesus is further mocked
and abused, while the high priests smirk with great delight.
The gospels differ in their description
of Jesus' treatment by the Temple guards and those around Caiaphas;
cumulatively, they indeed have him spit upon, blindfolded, insulted,
hit with fists, slapped in the face during the hours before he
is handed over to Pontius Pilate. (John, which because of its
repeated references to "the Jews" as agents of Jesus'death
is often regarded as that most apt to encourage anti-Semitism,
actually contains least reference to abuse at this stage; there
is just one slap by a temple guard who accuses Jesus of disrespectfully
addressing Caiaphas.) The reasons the gospels suggest that they
did these things is that Jesus has repeatedly denounced the religious
leadership, in very harsh terms; he'd caused a ruckus in the
Temple while Jerusalem was filled with Passover pilgrims; and
his ministry threatened to produce disorder that would complicate
relations between the Romans and local Jewish authorities. They
had reasons to want to get rid of him, and maybe even to take
gratuitous pleasure in his humiliation, since by his words he
had humiliated them. But the degree of pleasure seemed unrealistic,
even as historical fiction.
Since all the abusers to this point have
been Judeans, I think to myself, "Yep, this really does
seem anti-Semitic," although there appears something
more here too. The priests turn Jesus over to Pilate, who, confronted
with their insistence and that of an assembled mob (whose intense
hostility to Jesus, and joy over his sufferings, isn't explained),
says he finds no fault with the man but will send him to King
Herod, ruler of Galilee, since Jesus was from that region. As
in the Book of Luke, the only place this episode appears, Herod
treats Jesus with derision when he fails to perform any miracles
for his entertainment; here there is more violence, and Gibson
depicts the king and his court as decadently effeminate. I wondered
what historical basis there might be for this association, other
than the whimsical depiction of Herod in the 1970s musical Jesus
Christ Superstar.
Herod makes no judgment on Jesus, but
returns him to Pilate, who still argues that he finds no fault
in Jesus but is persuaded by the mob that if he fails to order
crucifixion, Rome will find him soft on subversion and his own
career will be jeopardized. Pilate reluctantly turns Jesus over
to the Roman troops in the Praetorium courtyard. This is the
most violent part of the film, and its core. The legionnaires
gleefully flog Jesus, transforming his flesh into ribbons using
a variety of assembled tools, grinning ear to ear as his blood
splashes into their faces. Here too, is realism (very believable
effects of whips on flesh) warring against realism. Why, if we
think realistically, would these multi-ethnic Roman troops, with
no particular interest in the issues of Jesus' case, and no special
axe to grind against him, be so enthusiastic about punishing
the man--there in the courtyard and all the way to Golgotha?
Scripture itself (Mark 15:15 and John 19:1) makes terse reference
to a "scourging," providing few details. Perhaps Gibson
, having made the Jewish guards appear so vicious, felt he had
to make the Romans look even worse.
Of course, Roman society delighted in
gladiatorial spectacles and the feeding of miscellaneous unfortunates
to beasts in the coliseums; learned men who read moral philosophy
took their kids to the "games," and somehow slept well
at night with the contradictions strangely reconciled in their
heads. Gibson might argue that the sadism of the Roman soldiers
is a realistic reflection of the times, and that such soldiers,
given the opportunity to inflict torture, would do so with gusto
just for the enjoyment. Maybe. But Gibson's larger argument is
that he wants to show how humankind collectively and brutally
rejected God Incarnate, who nevertheless died for everyone's
sins, so that anyone believing in Him can have eternal life.
For anyone accepting the basic Christian account, Gibson's attribution
of vicious inclinations to all the sadists' depicted in the film
might well resonate. "We're all bad, and all guilty, we
killed God," is the message. "We humans killed God,
or at least part of Him (God being Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
'God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity'), at least apparently
or temporarily. But God the Father, having sent His Son to be
born of a virgin and undergo terrible torture, according to His
own mysterious plan requiring such torture as the vehicle for
human salvation, raised His Son from the dead after three days.
Since that miraculous event, God has allowed all those who believe
that the Son is their Savior to not disappear, or suffer forever
in hell, but after their deaths go to heaven and experience bliss
forever."
This is, in the opinion of many of us, a highly dubious view
of reality. The passion and resurrection narrative is, in its
basic outline, central to various ancient Middle Eastern "mystery
religions" (such as the Tammuz cult and Mithraism) older
than Christianity and believed by no one at all these days. The
enduring Christian belief that Jesus' sufferings somehow produce
human salvation seems illogical to the non-believer (as acknowledged
in Christian scripture itself; see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25), who
can and should challenge all illogical beliefs. But many good
decent people, including probably the majority of Americans,
believe it, and they deserve respect. My point here isn't to
directly challenge their worldview, but rather to suggest that
Gibson's embrace of it and interpretation of it cause him, as
filmmaker, to depict almost everybody in his film in the most
negative light. (There are, however, one must acknowledge to
be fair, some sympathetic Judeans and others along the Via Dolorosa.)
Certain forms of Christianity stress the abject state of sinful
humankind more than others; Gibson combines his fixation on human
sinfulness with the preoccupation with graphic cruelty characterizing
much of his cinematography. Perhaps the delight in such cruelty
which Gibson's film imputes to Caiaphas is in fact the filmmaker's
own pornographic problem.
Protesting a Film,
or a Faith?
Not to get down too much on Gibson. I
truly enjoyed Braveheart, although I had issues with it.
Anyway that film says "It's right to rebel," and even
to endure torture for the cause of liberation. (That's also the
message of Stanley Kubrik's Spartacus, ending with the
rebel there on his cross.) But by the end of The Passion,
having been looking at my watch for awhile, I just felt cold.
The Jesus significant to me, the man who delivered the Sermon
on the Mount and drove the money-changers out of the temple,
hadn't really been there. What was there was Mad Max brutality,
Mithraic sacrifice, Prometheus before the vultures, getting his
liver chomped on for all eternity. I was oddly reminded of Kill
Bill, and the way that weird satire on Japanese popular culture
inures the audience to blood-squirting early on, so that it ceases
to shock. Most of all I saw a depiction of humanity demeaning
to we humans collectively, a portrait rooted in an illogical
worldview that invites refutation, at the right time and place.
But should those holding that refutable
worldview, and other movie-goers, be confronted at the theater
door with leaflets denouncing the film as anti-Semitic, as some
recommend? I think the anti-Semitism charge obscures the broader
issue of the film's misanthropy, its general depiction
of human beings as cruelly sinful, which is difficult to disconnect
with the gospel narrative and Christian theology themselves.
So one either protests specific depictions in the film such as
I've listed above, arguing that they're objectionable because
they tendentiously expand upon or depart from the gospel account,
misrepresenting Jews and everybody else in the process; or one
protests the gospels and Christianity themselves, and proceeds
from a political campaign against defamation to a campaign against
religious ideas. I don't think The Passion of the Christ requires
either sort of reaction, or that undertaking either will reduce
the problem of anti-Semitism occasioning most concern about the
film.
A Gibson "Agenda"?
"The criticism of religion,"
as (that excellent Jew) Karl Marx put it, "is the premise
of all criticism," and critical reasoning is always a good
thing. But how and when should one criticize? I received a flyer
in front of the theater after purchasing my ticket, a
statement from the New York branch of the Revolutionary Communist
Party. "Everybody's talking about the passion of Jesus,"
it began, "But what about the sufferings and executions
and 'passion' of untold millions and tens of millions over the
past 20 centuries carried out in the name of Jesus?"
It accused Gibson of attempting "to blame all Jews all through
history for the execution of Jesus," but its focus wasn't
on anti-Semitism. Rather, the leaflet made the Bible ("what
can charitably be described as a hodge-podge of remarkably violent
legends, tall tales and tribal history, interspersed with a little
lyric poetry, a lot of revenge-filled fantastical rants and some
origin myths") itself the issue, along with "plunder
and slaughterin some cases directly caused by Christianity
[my italics]," and "Mel Gibson's agenda" including
his effort to make "people's emotions overwhelm their reason"
so that "they are prepared to kill and die in the name of
Jesus."
I respectfully disagree with my Maoist
friends on this one. Written before its authors had viewed the
film, the critique wasn't born out by the film, which might confirm
the anti-Semite in his or her anti-Semitism, but doesn't really
promote what I understand that term to mean. The film might confirm
the Christian in his or her faith (which might be wholly pacifistic,
or might be thoroughly compatible with or even inspire progressive
political action). It might attract or repel the random viewer
as might any other very violent film. But it doesn't cause the
viewer to want to plunder or kill in Jesus' name, or support
the Bush administration, or endorse Ashcroft's agenda, or back
the war on Iraq. It isn't the dangerous work some advertised,
and doesn't deserve all the controversy, which has in fact been
less about its content than what some imagined would be its content
and its uses. As for the critique of Christianity or religion
generally, if one wants to mount it on the steps of theaters
showing the Gibson film, why not also picket Christian worship
services, or productions of Bach's St. Mark's Passion?
Would this produce, in this period of history, an enlightenment
of open-minded religious people, or a backlash of the sincerely
religious, indignant that their core beliefs are being publicly
attacked as "hate-promoting"?
My son's reaction to the film? The independent-minded
teen, product in part of a Quaker-school education that's encouraged
him to truly think, and hasn't imposed any theism upon him; veteran
of antiwar marches and generally opposed to violence; a youth
throughout his childhood nonchalantly exposed to Shinto, Buddhism,
Christianity and Judaism, and who has attended half a dozen classmates'
bar and bat mitzvahs over the last year, opined before we rose
from our seats, and before I'd expressed a reaction: "I
actually thought it was pretty good." Just his viewpoint.
It was an R-rated flick, but I figure it did him small harm,
instilled no hatred, nor inculcated any penchant for plunder
or slaughter.
* * *
"Seek and ye shall find." Or
maybe not, and if you don't, you lose faith in what, it
turns out, just isn't out there. According to IrelandOn-Line,
Mel Gibson's starting to doubt the war effort. "It's all
to do with these weapons [of mass destruction] that we can't
seem to find," says Mel. "And why did we go over there?"
It's good that he's asking.
Gary Leupp
is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor
of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa, Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa, Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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