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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's the Answer, What's the
Question?
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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
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for More Stories.
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March
2, 2004
Mel Gibson's Minstelsy
Show
Selective
Passion, Unknowing Indifference
By BRANDY BAKER
The Passion of the Christ is offensive. Though
set 2,000 years ago in Palestine, the film is peopled with Anglo
actors. We all look back now and cringe at the spectacle of Sir
Laurence Oliver's blackface portrayal of Othello in 1965; today,
the public would rightfully be appalled by such a caricatured
interpretation of the Moor of Venice. I hope it will be sooner
than a generation from now before Americans feel the same outrage
when Brown and Black-skinned Middle Easterners are depicted on
screen by anyone other than, well, Brown and Black-skinned Middle
Easterners. As William Rivers Pitt put it: "Jesus looked
a lot more like an Iraqi, like an Afghani, like a Palestinian,
like an Arab, than any of the paintings which grace the walls
of American churches from sea to shining sea."
But despite this disappointing, yet unsurprising
distortion, those who see this movie (whether or not they agree
with Gibson's portrayal of Jesus and whether or not they believe
in any god at all) will be moved by the story of a man who was
humiliated, relentlessly beaten, tortured, and finally put to
death for political motives. The spectacle of the injustice will
anger and the sight of Yeshiva's mother helplessly looking on
will be heart wrenching.
There are many modern day scenarios that
parallel to Gibson's Jesus's last twelve hours of life; we would
have no problem casting the roles for our own present day Passion.
The trouble would be narrowing down the nominations to a select
many:
Pontius Pilate: Typical Democrat. Wets
his finger, sticks it in the air to measure the political winds
of fickle public opinion only to throw the most vulnerable to
the wolves.
Today's Pilate could have been: John
Kerry signing on to Bush's War in Iraq; John Kerry signing on
to Bush's Tax cuts; Al Gore pushing through welfare "reform";
Al Gore making NAFTA happen; Al Gore making his 1992 statement
that abortion was, "the taking of an innocent life";
Al Gore doing everything he has done his entire political career.
Pilate could have also been: Bill Clinton
"reforming" welfare and ramming through NAFTA; Bill
Clinton questioning the constitutionality of the "Anti-Terrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act" immediately before signing
it; Bill Clinton admitting for the first time (AFTER he left
office) that the public was unaware of the suffering of the Palestinian
people; Bill Clinton doing everything that he has done his entire
career.
But my nomination for the role of Pontius
Pilate would have to be: Bill Clinton for his showing that he
has what it takes to watch a defenseless man die. Like Pilate
(who washed his hands and looked on as Jesus marched to his death),
in 1992, then-Governor Bill Clinton, while on the campaign trail,
flew to Arkansas to oversee the death of Ricky Ray Rector, a
mentally retarded man. On the last night of his life, Rector
wanted to save his dessert for later.
Hedonistic, Scornful Romans who Mocked
Jesus: Bill O'Reilly; Sean Hannity, any talking head on cable
TV; Tom Brokaw for calling for immigration control from the anchor
desk after September 11. But the one most fitting for this role
would be Colin Quinn, the host of that pathetic, sorry excuse
for a comedy/talk show: Comedy Central's Tough Crowd. Mr. Quinn
has mocked concerns raised about the rights of detainees at Guatanamo
Bay and concerns raised about the legitimacy of their imprisonment.
Simon/Peter: The Queen of Denial, Carol
Moseley Braun for dancing with dictator, Sani Abacha
The role of Judas will be shared by both
Christopher Hitchens and David Horowitz: enough said.
Satan: Bush, Ariel Sharon.
Jesus: The Iraqi people; the Afghani
women that the mainstream feminist movement sought to "liberate"
by bombing; all who live under illegal occupations; all women
who are sick of all of the sexism of all of the men listed above;
those detained at Guatanamo Bay; those declared "enemy combatants";
poor people; working people; pregnant Palestinian women who die
in labor at checkpoints; people on death row; children; people
of color; LGBT communities; sweatshop workers, all oppressed
people.
Mary: The mothers of those oppressed
people, and those who do what they can to inform the public about
those who are voiceless, but they aren't heard because they are
drowned out by this country's Hedonistic, Scornful Romans; Judases;
and Pontius Pilates who want to make a stink over a film about
a man who was killed 2,000 years ago. Who the hell cares about
those being tortured and killed today?
Christians have every right to see Jesus
as the Son of God and they have every right to cry as they walk
out of the theatre after seeing what their Messiah endured. The
Passion of the Christ is a difficult film for us non-believers
to watch because we know that very few directors will give names,
faces, or time on the screen to those who are suffering and dying
for political reasons now. Maybe if Christians saw what color
their Messiah really was, it would bring society closer to seeing
the faces of some of those who endure cruelty in the present
day. Thomas Mountain said it in his February 27 CounterPunch
article: "How could white people hate people of color
if they were taught Jesus would pass for black if he were to
rejoin us today?"
Brandy Baker
can be reached at: bbaker@ubalt.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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