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Today's
Stories
July
17, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
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
July 17 / 18, 2004
Apocalypse
Now
Why
the Book of Revelations is Must Reading
By
GARY LEUPP
Then I saw a new heaven
and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared
now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, and
the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful
as a bride all dressed for her husband.
Revelation 21:1-2
A Godsend
for the Warmongers
In my naively believing childhood, when
I eagerly devoured the whole Bible, acquiring in the process
a love of stories (if not of history), I read the Book of Revelation,
fascinated by its awe-inspiring imagery and promise of glorious
punishment and reward at the end of the human record. I later
learned that Martin Luther, puzzled and troubled by the work,
doubted whether it should ever have been included in the New
Testament. (Some might conclude from this that one can be a Christian
while not accepting this particular text.) He could "in
no way detect that the Holy Spirit had produced it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
He also doubted whether the Epistle of St. James should be considered
canonical, since it appears to challenge the doctrine of salvation
by faith so central to Pauline theology. In the end he included
both books in his German translation of the Bible. Had he omitted
James, there would have been little impact on the subsequent
Protestant movement, but had he jettisoned Revelation, the world
might be rather different now. The book is more central to the
beliefs of some churches than to others, but it has greatly affected
the way many view current events. Sixteenth century Protestant
preachers were sure that the Pope was the Antichrist, and descriptions
of the Wars of Religion draw upon its apocalyptic imagery. Even
today people draw upon it, as the War on Terrorism threatens
to become a War of Religion. Some think Revelation 18:8-10, in
which Babylon is doomed "within a single hour" and
"burnt right up" refers
to the 9-11 attack on New York.
Revelation is must reading
nowadays, especially for the nonbeliever. I have returned
to it, many years after abandoning the above-mentioned childhood
faith, not because I think it is inspired prophecy, there being
in my opinion no such thing, but because many other people (including
many I'd grant are "good" people) think that
it is. And because some of them think this piece of Holy Scripture
somehow justifies ongoing imperialist war, which they (with their
commander-in-chief) conceptualize religiously as a war
of Good versus Evil. And because that conviction causes believers
to support, on faith, Bush's efforts to remold the Middle
East in the way the neocons (who are overwhelmingly not fundamentalist
Christians, but who assiduously court them) want to do it. One
should read Revelation to see how it can be used, and to see
what sort of worldview the book encourages.
It is truly a godsend to those
in the administration who want to transform the Muslim world,
acquiring strategic control over Southwest Asia while enhancing
Israel's security situation, that a considerable portion of the
U.S. population consists of persons who take the book seriously.
The neocons and patrons manipulate the Christian devout who adulate
Ariel Sharon like a rock star, believe Israel (miraculously reconstituted
half a century ago, in fulfillment of Ezekiel 37:12-14) can do
no wrong, have little concern about Arabs' rights, and think
Islam is a teaching of the Devil. Rev. Jerry Falwell calls the
Prophet Muhammed a "terrorist." Rev. Franklin Graham
calls Islam "a wicked, evil religion" and says its
God is not the Christians' God. These reverends' followers are
very useful supporters of the war on the human mind that is the
"war on terrorism," the focus of which shifted so swiftly
from al-Qaeda to Iraq (alike in little save their Muslimness),
and could shift to Syria or Iran or Pakistan suddenly tomorrow.
When you mix the anti-Islam pronouncements with Bush policy decisions
and millenarian faith, you have an explosive combination.
Apocalypses
But fire will come down from
heaven and consume them. Then the devil, who misled them, will
be thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and
false prophet are, and their torture will not stop, day or night,
for ever and ever.
(20:10).
This ancient, mysterious Book
of Revelation is itself incendiary. It's one example of a popular
type of literature (apocalypse in Greek) which, using
richly symbolic language encouraging multiple interpretations,
reveals that which is hidden, including events in the future.
There are many other examples of such works written between 300
BCE and 200 CE; Jewish ones include the Book of Enoch and the
Apocalypse of Ezra, Christian ones include the Apocalypse of
Paul and the Apocalypse of Peter. (For translations, see Willis
Barnstone, ed., The
Other Bible.) The Apocalypse of Peter was very
popular in Rome as of the third century, but didn't make it into
the Bible; at a synod at Rome in 382, the present canon of 27
New Testament books was fixed. The Apocalypse of Peter, and numerous
gospels and letters, were denounced as "false" and
often burned.
Authorities differ on the dating
of Revelation, some favoring the late 60s (soon after Nero's
persecution of the Christians), more favoring ca. 95 (after the
dispersion of the Jews from Roman Palestine). It is of unknown
authorship; although traditionally attributed to Jesus' disciple
John, its language is so different from the Gospel of John and
that of the three letters attributed to John in the New Testament,
that most serious scholars doubt it was written by the apostle.
Authored by a Jewish Christian who had spent time on Patmos (a
tiny Aegean island used as a penal colony by the Romans), it
expresses great rage at the Roman Empire, referred to here as
"Babylon," the name of the empire that had conquered
the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and dispersed their populations
centuries earlier.
Biblical prophecy, a cousin
of Zoroastrian and Buddhist and other prophecy, and harbinger
of prophetic writing from Mani to Nostradamus to Jeanne Dixon,
rests on the assumption that the future is pre-determined, as
part of God's plan, and can be foretold by those whom God decides
shall do so. Some biblical prophecy was in fact composed after
the events the prophet is purported to have predicted; the Old
Testament Book of Daniel, which predicts the fall of Babylon
to the Persians, and Persia's fall to the Greeks, was written
around 167 BCE after all these things had already happened. Unless
it's demystified, prophecy is one of the spookiest and most powerful
elements in religion, and can be deftly deployed to play upon
fears and earnest expectations alike. James Warren Jones, architect
of the Jonestown Massacre, convinced his followers that he was
the Second Coming of Christ. Aum Shinrikyo guru Asahara Shoko
could persuade very sophisticated, intelligent Japanese people
to randomly gas others in the Tokyo subway by manipulating bits
and pieces of Christian, Buddhist and Hindu prophecy about the
end of the world. Far more sophisticated and well-funded religious
leaders can draw upon faith in a foregone future to get people
to abet that future's fulfillment---for example, by supporting
administration actions in the Middle East believing they portend
the Second Coming.
It's easy to understand Luther's
doubts about the Book of Revelation. It is filled with kabbalism,
symbolic use of numbers, such as the number seven (as in, the
seven hills of Rome, the seven Roman emperors from Augustus,
the seven churches of Asia to whom the work is addressed); and
that number striking fear into some hearts: 666. Revelation makes
no reference to the Trinity, but rather to "seven spirits
of God" and to Jesus as an emanation of God, subordinate
to him although present from the dawn of time. The book's theology
is hard to reconcile with the rest of the New Testament, which
was still taking shape; it stands apart. Jesus in Revelation
is not meek and mild but brutally vengeful upon his return---the
second earthly appearance predicted in Matthew 25, Luke 21, John
16 etc.
Summary
of John's Visions
Revelation is a long, confusing
sequence of visions, but can be summarized as follows. John of
Patmos first transmits divine wisdom to seven churches in Asia
Minor. These were not necessarily the most important Christian
communities of the time, just ones whose problems he was apparently
familiar with; and again, the number seven is special. Then John
conveys the content of a vision in which the door of Heaven opens
and he sees God (who "looked like a diamond and a ruby")
surrounded by twenty-four elders in white robes and four fantastic
animals giving praise. In the right hand of God is a scroll "sealed
with seven seals." A Lamb (that is, Jesus Christ) who appears
to have been sacrificed, with seven horns and seven eyes "which
are the seven Spirits God has sent out all over the world"
steps forward to accept the scroll while the twenty-four sing
a hymn. The Lamb breaks the seals, and as he does so, a rider
on a white horse appears to accept a victor's crown; another
rider, on a red horse, comes to receive a huge sword and "set
people killing one another;" another, on a black horse,
arrives with scales while the four animals shout about daily
wages, barley, oil and wine; another, on a deathly pale horse,
arrives representing Plague. These Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
are given authority over a quarter of the earth, "to kill
by the sword, by famine, by plague and wild beasts."
When the fifth seal is broken,
John sees underneath the heavenly altar the souls of all those
killed for witnessing to the word of God. They ask why God does
not immediately pass sentence and take vengeance on the inhabitants
of the earth for their deaths (6:10-11). They are given white
robes and told to wait a bit longer until the prophesized number
of Christians are killed. Then the sixth seal is broken, and
the sky disappears, and the people of the world flee to mountains
and caves, begging the rocks to fall on them to protect them
from the wrath of God. Four avenging angels appear to destroy
humankind, but are restrained by another who asks them to wait
until seals have been placed on the heads of 144,000 persons
"out of all the tribes of Israel" who are servants
of God. (The Jehovah's Witnesses especially emphasize this passage,
Revelation 7:4.) That's the twelve tribes of Israel times 12,000;
there's no mention here of the non-Jewish converts to Christianity.
The opening of the seventh
seal produces silence in heaven for half an hour. Thereupon seven
trumpets are given seven angels standing before God. One angel
throws fire from a golden censer to earth, and the earth shakes.
One by one the angels blow their trumpets, bringing punitive
devastation to the earth. These events do not seem to represent
happenings that chronologically succeed one another (and the
whole narrative is filled with logical puzzles); rather, the
trumpet events expand upon those events associated with the opening
of the seals. Between the sixth and seventh trumpet blasts, John
is told to go to the Temple in Jerusalem with a measuring rod,
and to measure the sanctuary and altar and people worshipping
there---but not the outer court, which has been given over to
pagans for forty-two months. God sends two sackcloth-clad witnesses
with special powers, such as the ability to turn water into blood,
to prophesy in Jerusalem. But the serpent, after those forty-two
months, makes war on them and kills them. Their corpses lie in
the Great City (not Jerusalem but evil Rome), as people rejoice
at the troublemakers' deaths. But they are revived after three
and a half days, while a great earthquake occurs, killing 7000.
John meanwhile sees a vision
of a pregnant woman, "adorned with the sun, standing on
the moon" who as she gives birth is confronted by a huge
red dragon (Satan) who tries to eat the child as it is born.
(Commentators differ on whether this woman is Israel giving birth
to the messiah, or the Virgin Mary doing so. Catholic commentary
favors the first interpretation.) But God takes the baby (destined
"to rule all the nations with an iron scepter") up
into heaven while the woman escapes to the desert for 1260 days.
War breaks out in Heaven between the dragon and the archangel
Michael and other angels; the dragon, defeated, is thrown down
to earth, where he unsuccessfully attacks the woman and "the
rest of her children, that is, all who obey God's commandments
and bear witness to Jesus."
The dragon delegates his power
to a seven-headed beast emerging from the sea (who appears to
be a political ruler, and is often associated with the Antichrist,
although that term does not occur in this text but only in 1
John 2:18, 4:2-3 and 2 John 1:7). Then another beast (a religious
ruler, a false prophet) emerges as slave to this beast from the
sea. He makes the world worship the first beast, and makes everyone
worship his statue. The number of the second beast is 666. (The
kabbalist association of numbers with the Roman letters "Nero
Caesar" produces this figure.)
Next John in his vision sees
the Lamb standing on Mt. Zion with the 144,000, all with the
Father's name on their foreheads. These are the ones who have
kept their virginity (sexual abstinence being a requisite for
membership in some Christian Gnostic sects before the emergence
of an orthodox form of Christianity) and have never lied. No
fault can be found with them. (Notice how there is no hint of
St. Paul's notion of "justification by faith" here.)
Flying overhead, angels call upon all to worship God, and announce
"Babylon has fallen!" They declare that they will torture
all who worship the statue of the beast. One of the four animals
gives the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with God's wrath;
these are emptied over the world, producing disease and turning
rivers and oceans to blood. Again, the disasters described overlap
and amplify the first two sequences of seven.
Now here is where it starts
to get especially "relevant." The sixth angel empties his bowl over the Euphrates
River (that is to say, in present day Iraq), drying up the
water so that the "kings of the East" are able to come
in. From the jaws of the dragon and two aforementioned beasts
appear three "foul spirits" looking like frogs; they
are in fact demon spirits able to work miracles. Their job is
to organize the kings of the world to war against the Almighty.
They call the kings together at Armageddon. (This refers to the
Megiddo mountains, near the modern Israeli town of Megiddo, about
15 miles from the Palestinian town of Jenin. In the seventh century
BCE King Josiah was defeated here by the Egyptian pharaoh. The
name became synonymous with military disaster.)
The seventh angel empties his
bowl into the air, producing the greatest earthquake the world
has ever known and destroying the Great City, all islands, and
all mountains. But this isn't yet the end, and the vision is
not over. One of the seven angels with a bowl shows John a "famous
prostitute," a woman riding a scarlet beast with seven heads
and ten horns (that is, the beast from the sea, the political
ruler); on her forehead is written "Babylon the Great, the
mother of all prostitutes and all the filthy practices of the
earth." (Most commentators think this means Rome.) She is
drunk with the blood of the Christian martyrs. The heads of the
beasts she rides, John learns, are "seven emperors,"
five of who have gone (the Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero?), while one lives now (Galba?)
and one is yet to come. This last will rule for only a short
time; the beast and him will go to their destruction. (Obviously
the writer thought the end of the world was very near.)
The beast's ten heads represent
ten kings who will rule "for only an hour," going to
war with the Lamb and meeting defeat at the hands of the faithful.
Then the prostitute will be stripped naked, the faithful will
eat her flesh and burn the remains in a fire (17:16). All the
merchants, traders and sea captains who profited from trading
with her will be punished, while victory songs resound in heaven.
Another great battle begins, between the beast and the kings
of the earth and a rider called the Word of God who rides on
a white horse. The beast from the sea and the false prophet are
thrown into a fiery lake of burning sulfur, while the dragon
("which is the devil and Satan") who had appeared at
the outset of the narrative is chained up for 1000 years. Those
Christians who died in persecutions are now resurrected, and
reign with Christ for those 1000 years. (There are different
opinions as to whether these Christians are limited to the aforementioned
144,000.)
One is tempted to stop the
summary here, since, one might expect, those who accept this
text as prophesy are just thinking about events up to this millennium
moment. But some Christian thinkers (notably St. Augustine of
Hippo, 354-430) came to interpret all the foregoing as pre-fourth
century, past events, symbolically portrayed, preceding
Emperor Constantine's Edict of Toleration (313) and soon thereafter,
the establishment of Christianity as the Empire's official and
only tolerated faith. Augustine thought he lived at the inception
of the 1000 years mentioned above. There are logical problems
here, since the "Great City" and "Babylon"
are Rome, and Rome didn't in fact meet with the predicted fire
and brimstone but rather become thoroughly and aggressively Christianized.
But if one says all the foregoing is a symbolic representation
of the past, what comes next (20:7 through 22:25) is of key importance.
Satan is for some reason released
from prison after 1000 years, and deceives the leaders of all
the nations, led by Gog and Magog, to attack Jerusalem, "the
camp of the saints." (Some conflate this with the Battle
of Armageddon only hinted at in 16:16.) But fire comes down from
heaven to consume them (20:9). God opens the book of life and
judges all the dead; those already in Hades, and anyone not listed
in the book, are thrown into a second death in a burning lake.
A new heaven and new earth appear, their precedents having passed
away; the new Jerusalem comes down from Heaven, and there is
universal joy. Curiously, there are still pagan nations, but
they "will live by the light" of the New Jerusalem
(22:24).
Revelation
and Bush's War
This is the basic presentation
in Revelation, presented, I hope, with fairness. (The true believer
often resents dispassionate presentation of material he or she
thinks obviously holy more than the mere contemptuous dismissal
of the same.) Many supplement it with material from Old Testament
prophesy (such as Ezekiel and Daniel) and other New Testament
material, such as the Antichrist concept and the notion of the
"Rapture" (based on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Obviously
in its vagueness, it can be applied to many times and places,
rather like the dire predictions of the (Buddhist) Lotus Sutra
have been employed to explain calamities in Asian societies over
centuries. Eugene Gallagher, Professor of Religious Studies at
Connecticut College, writes that "the
lush imagery and the complicated imagery of Revelation, has been
one of the things that has kept people reading it. Because it
can always be renewed. It can always be applied to a new situation."
Indeed, surfing the web, you
find the Pope, Russian President Putin, even President Bush,
all identified as the beast/Antichrist, on sites creatively combining
New Age trends, kabbalism, astrology, Nostradamus cultism and
Biblical literalism. Don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but
few religious texts inspire more babble.
So how can Revelation be politically
applied today? Well, let's say we forget the scholarly analysis
that interprets the whole thing as a statement of Christian hatred
for Rome, and of passionate belief in an imminent Second Coming
that will bring ruin to the Roman Empire and glory to the Christian
oppressed. Let us say it indeed refers to the future, while noting
that there are some people out there very disappointed that the
year 2000 went by with nary a trace of a Second Coming. They
long for that Coming, understandably, as we all pine for utopia,
and they want to apply Revelation to current events.
Let us say that Babylon really
means Babylon, the city along the Euphrates, in modern-day Iraq,
noting that it suffers terrible ruin at the hand of God. Let
us note that the sixth angel allows the "kings of the East"
to attack the dried-up Euphrates, and that thereafter apocalyptic
battles take place in Armageddon and Jerusalem, resulting in
Christ's return and the establishment of a new Jerusalem on earth.
Let's note that earthly rulers mentioned in general fight against
God and Jerusalem, including "ten kings" who some in
the past have identified as the leaders of the European Union.
(That's gotten harder with the expansion of the EU.) Gog and
Magog have been identified in the past with the Soviet Union,
but that doesn't work well nowadays. As for the beast (Antichrist),
there have been and are many candidates, and something as random
as a U.S. political scandal could throw up more..
Well, it doesn't take too much
a stretch of the fevered imagination to see in this narrative
a divine plan for a righteous attack on Iraq, followed by continued
disorder in Iraq involving kings from the east (east from Iraq
you have Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan), triggering war in Israel,
pitting the good souls of Jerusalem (aided for a time by two
divinely-sent witnesses) against the whole world arrayed against
them, including "pagans" (Palestinians?) who occupy
the outer court of the Temple in Jerusalem for 42 months, but
after fire comes down from heaven to consume armies whose soldiers
are as numerous as grains of sand, the chosen will remain, to
rule with Jesus forever, headquartered in Jerusalem. It's an
affecting, and at the end, even beautiful vision for some believing
Christians, whose view of the contemporary Middle East might
be deeply influenced by this text.
But there must be, according
to the prophecy, a war of unprecedented horror in the Middle
East before Jesus returns and renders judgment, and finally solves
all the problems of the world.
So the current war, undertaken
by godly men, might be GOOD. Forget the moral qualms of the bleeding
heart nonbelievers. If righteous cruelty is prophesied, can we
not condone it in the here and now? Have thousands of Afghans
and Iraqis died? Well, divine fire rains from the sky in Revelation.
God wills this. Torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere? Why,
angels torture in Revelation 18:7. Why should this be
a problem?
Securing
the Realm
Let us say you embrace this
general Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds scenario. Do Bush's reasons
for attacking Iraq make any difference? No. The nonexistent weapons
of mass destruction aside, the unsubstantiated al-Qaeda links,
all pale against the argument that God's chosen president expressed
to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: "God told me
to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed
me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined
to solve the problem in the Middle East." The problem of
the credibly of his Iraq claims recedes in importance when you
read, in Christianity Today, Bush's heartfelt statement
of political philosophy: "when you're trying to lead the
world in a war that I view as really between the forces of good
and the forces of evil, you got [sic] to speak clearly. There
can't be any doubt." Bush is working God's will, following
his Plan, swaggering towards Armageddon. It's undoubtedly as
simple as Good and Evil.
One wants to think, of course,
that logical analysis and methodical exposure of the accelerated
moves towards unchallenged global control the Bush administration
has undertaken since 9-11 might slowly but surely disabuse the
most benighted of their support for continued U.S. military aggression.
Skepticism increases in the wake of disasters in Iraq, journalistic
exposés, and official investigations, but much of this
flies over the heads of those most vulnerable to a kind of neo-fascist,
deliberately non-rational appeal.
Revelation, like most scriptures,
it is what Marx said of religion in general: an expression of,
and protest against, suffering. As such it holds great appeal,
and is of interest even to the non-believer. It contains powerful
images; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for example, is
an often-encountered literary trope. It has a beauty analogous
to a Wagnerian opera, but just as (and I say this as a fan) such
art held a particularly dangerous content in Germany in the 1930s,
so at present this text's message dovetails so smoothly with
the war plans of this administration that it may be dangerous.
Of course Revelation is read
differently by different people. The Rastafarians believe that
the Second Coming it describes refers to Emperor Haile Selassie,
and for them, "Babylon" means any oppressive society.
Bob Marley could draw upon Revelation to write about liberation.
Folksongs and Negro spirituals pining for a "New Jerusalem"
don't urge military aggression to create it. Like so much scripture,
Revelation lends itself to interpretation. Hong Houxiu, head
of the Taiping Rebellion in China in the mid-nineteenth century,
believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to
establish the Taiping or Kingdom of Heaven. His fanatic
followers, ruling from 1853 in Nanjing until their defeat in
1860, drew upon the Book of Revelation. In the 1890s the Paiute
Indian Wavoka, also influenced by the Book of Revelation and
claiming to be Christ, taught
the Ghost Dance to his followers so that they could dance
up into the air while a new earth was being established. (Many
of his dancers perished at Wounded Knee.)
Revelation does not instruct
its believing reader to favor this or that policy option. I assume
there are believers who are thoroughly against the war on Iraq.
But believers energized by anticipation of a glorious new world
on the horizon, and by the belief that they are participating
in prophesized events, may become particularly apt to place blind
faith in an aggressive Good vs. Evil foreign policy. They should
be informed that beneath the simplistic religious justification
for the "war on terrorism" (including the war in Iraq,
which the Bush administration sees as the central battlefield
of the "war on terrorism," but which many scholars
and officials regard as an entirely separate phenomenon) there
is a layer of carefully researched and presented strategy papers
authored by the prophetic neocons. These neoconservatives have
led the administration in producing regime change in Afghanistan,
invading and occupying Iraq, deferring in unprecedented fashion
to Israeli policy while demanding changes in the Palestinian
Authority and severing ties with Yassir Arafat.
They have imposed sanctions
on Syria, indicated approval of an Israeli air strike on Syria,
and have been preparing a case to justify military action against
Damascus. They have stepped-up efforts to influence the unstable
political situation in Iran, with Radio Farda, and have depicted
the Iranian nuclear program currently under UN inspection as
a serious threat, hinting that they would support an Israeli
strike à la Osiraq 1981. They've put the onus for
Arab backwardness on Arab culture, pronouncing the democratization
of the Middle East a U.S. policy priority. Meanwhile they've
established U.S. military bases throughout Muslim Central Asia
and set up new ones throughout the Persian Gulf region to compensate
for the withdrawal of forces from Saudi Arabia. Plainly they
have big plans for the region. You get some inkling of those
plans are in the 1996 strategy paper "A
Clean Break: A New Project for Securing the Realm" ,
authored by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and other
neocons that have shaped and articulated current U.S. Middle
East policy. It was written for the Israeli government, but the
authors see the interests of Israel and the U.S. as nearly identical
and have in their capacity as American officials pursued the
goals indicated in this document. The authors of the position
papers of the unabashedly imperialist Project
for a New American Century also indicate neocon goals for
the region. These gentlemen and women by and large do not believe
in the Book of Revelation, but I'll bet they believe in its utility.
This is the problem. Leo Strauss's
thought divides humanity into three types: the wise, the gentlemen,
and the vulgar. The wise use deception (noble lies) to attain
their ends, using gentlemen (who are not wise but who are powerful)
to control the masses. Religion is a vital tool in controlling
the masses ("as lambs to the slaughter"), and the non-believing
wise can also use it to manipulate "gentlemen." Revelation,
at the hands of the wise, gentle or vulgar, is among the world's
most easily manipulated of books; the wise can do it best.
Hal Lindsey, best-selling author of The Late Great Planet
Earth (1970) identified the beast of Revelation (the Antichrist)
with the Soviet Union. But later, with the European Union. Now,
perhaps, global Islam. His most recent book, The Everlasting
Hatred: The Roots of Jihad, traces Arab-Israeli enmity back
to the days of Abraham, depicts Islam itself as the problem,
and concludes with a chapter on "Armageddon: The Climax
of Hate." Many are being influenced by this book, and its
association of the Muslim fighter with the Serpent, the Beast,
the False Prophet, etc. Those persuaded by its message might
be more inclined to support more troops in Iraq, or the expansion
of the war into Syria, or restoration of a draft, because prophesy
supports it. Very dangerous indeed.
* *
*
Friedrich Engels (one of the
most rational and encyclopedic minds of the nineteenth century,
who had a keen interest in the history of religion) wrote in
one
of his last substantial works that the Book of Revelation
was both the "most obscure book in the Bible" and "the
most comprehensible and the clearest." Drawing upon recent
German scholarship, he emphasized that the work should be clearly
comprehended as an expression of rage against Rome (that republic
led by a senate that had morphed over time into an empire oppressing
people from Britain to Mesopotamia, meeting with particularly
fierce resistance in the lands of the Middle East) and its persecution
of Christians, who were overwhelmingly drawn from the humblest
classes throughout the empire. As such, it commands respect as
an expression of resistance to oppression. But in the hands of
evangelical commentators, who (thoroughly at peace with contemporary
imperialism) line up chronological charts about the near-term
future, with authoritative pomposity linking
prophecy with current Middle Eastern events (much as the
astrologer casts horoscopes with pseudoscientific precision,
using snake-oil salesmanship to seduce the gullible), it becomes
something quite different: a validation for ongoing war.
Luther in no way detected the
Holy Spirit in it. But Bush, committed to an Armageddon-like
war between the forces of good and those of evil, no doubt sees
forces of good throughout this scripture, which may speak to
him directly. We should all study this particular weapon, if
only to better understand the minds of the president and his
dead-ender followers.
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 is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle
of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial
Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
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