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Today's
Stories
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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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|
Weekend Edition
December 4 / 6, 2004
"It is Safer to Trust
the Consequences of a Right Principle, Than Reasonings in Support
of a Bad One."
Jefferson,
Madison, Bush and Religion
By
LENNI BRENNER
It's been weeks since the election,
but endless words still gush forth from our pundits, re the significance
of religion in Bush's triumph. Its "the wave of the future,"
is the bipartisan refrain, with Democrats confessing their sins
& promising to give saintliness one more try in these last
few days before the apocalypse.
Antigay marriage amendments
have taken Nader's place in Democratic cleanups for good ol'
Anybody getting his ass kicked. They brought out white Protestant
fundamentalists. Antigay feeling, combined with clerical greed
for US funding for church-run drug clinics, raised Bush's Black
vote from 8% in 2000, to 11%. His Hispanic vote went from 31%
to 43%.
All true. But a lesbian, was
elected sheriff of Dallas County, Texas & at least 41 other
gays & lesbians won their races. US elections are no better
than a fun-house mirror reflection of trends in our society.
Every indicant shows traditional American religion in decline.
Bush's support for Sharon,
lust for government funding of yeshivas, & gut-basic Old
Testament hatred of Sodomites, propelled 70% of Orthodox Jewry
into Bush's camp. But Orthodoxy is less than 10% of American
Jewry.
Sixty percent of all US Jews
are college grads. The result? A majority of born Jews reject
all Judaic sects, Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. Twenty-eight
percent declare themselves atheists.
Catholicism is our biggest
denomination. Spokane's Bishop was recently elected president
of their Conference. His diocese is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Its the 3rd to belly up after altered-boy settlements. More filings
are expected. Apostasy inexorably spreads.
Christian Century, a sociologically
excellent journal, reports that by early 2005, Protestants will
fall below 50% of Americans. Many drop out in college & don't
join churches when they get married. The Southern Baptist Convention
is still the largest Protestant sect. But they declined from
10% of Americans in 1993, to 7% in 2003. They've had 4 straight
years of declining baptisms. Many upper class WASPS, Episcopalians,
Presbyterians & Co., now move to atheism in college.
Tens of millions modify the
theology of their original church or jump from 1  Christian sect to another.
Major denomination are racked with conflict over female &
gay clergy.
Folks saying they have no religion
are 1 out of 7 Americans, 14%, up from 9% in 1990.
Bush had money to mobilized
our most sectarian elements, who know they are losing the culture
war. But there isn't a hint of a religious revival. To the contrary,
the crucial question about this singular election is why our
growing liberal religious & atheist sectors so weakly opposed
Bush's use of God & country religion to build support for
his wars & domestic pro-rich policies.
1 Corinthians 14:8 still tells
it like it is: "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself to the battle?" Most church/state
separatists abandoned their principles to support Kerry. Atheist
George Soros vouched for him in a NY Times ad. Lawyer Michael
Newdow got the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to cut "under
God" from the school Pledge of Allegiance. He told me that
he was for Kerry.
There is a wee problem there.
Within hours after his 2002 victory, the Senate voted 99-0 for
a Democrat-authored resolution "to seek to intervene in
the case to defend the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance."
Kerry told Boston TV that the ruling was "half-assed justice
... the most absurd thing ... That's not the establishment of
religion."
The Democratic Party hired
its 1st-ever director of religious outreach in 2004. Disciples
of Christ minister Brenda Peterson quit after 2 weeks. NYC's
Catholic League denounced her. She signed a "friend of the
court" brief, supporting Newdow.
She still endorsed Kerry but
wouldn't comment on her resignation. Presumably, she did it,
on her own or at Kerry's urging, to render Kerry less vulnerable
to attacks from the League (about as related to our times as
the Pope's Swiss Guards).
Such secularists fell into
"Chicken Littlehood," as Reform Judaism's Leonard Fein
put it in his confession. Frightened out of their wits by Bush,
they overlooked the unique aspect of America's separation of
church & state. Its in the Constitution.
Article VI: 3 "The Senators
and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the
several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers,
both of the United States and the several States, shall be bound
by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution; but no
religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any
office or public trust under the United States."
First Amendment: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
A successful candidate affirms
support for these clauses & laws allowed under them. You
can't call yourself a secularist & vote for someone known
to be an opponent of Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation
between Church and State." Serious secularists must take
the issue directly to the people, exposing each & every politician
who would break it down.
Our bipartisan hacks get away
with religious demagoguery because 66% of Americans don't know
that "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all
men are created equal" is from Jefferson's Declaration of
Independence. Fifty-three percent don't know that the 1st 10
amendments to the constitution are called the Bill of Rights,
much less who authored it.
On the other hand, 26% have
college degrees, with millions more in school. However, even
most educated Americans have hazy ideas re the centrality of
church/state separation in the country's struggle for religious
liberty. Now, however, with Bush reelected, some liberals acknowledge
that, at the very least, they need substantial knowledge about
the issue. More important, educated right wing fundamentalist
youth can't reject out of hand anything coming from their patriotic
icons.
Jefferson & Madison On
Separation of Church and State contains excerpts from 101 documents
& 332 of their letters. It puts their writings on religion
& secularism under 1 cover to be used to expose the antagonism
between their anticlerical principles & the fanaticism of
the religious right. They are 2 of history's clearest writers.
Read them, & you will be hot to defend their separatism,
best done by challenging freedom's foes to read & heed them.
Bush tries to further involve religion in politics. Madison asked
whether "the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses
of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure
principle of religious freedom?" Our pleasant task is to
make the public ask Bush 'how come you ain't asking that?'
THE STRUGGLE
FOR DISESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION IN VIRGINIA & THE U.S.
America's successful democratic
secular revolution was the work of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
& James Madison (1751-1836). They met in 1776, after Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence, & worked together
until his death.
Their 1st joint task was disestablishing
Virginia's Episcopal church. Jefferson drafted a Statute for
Religious Freedom in 1777. Introduced into the Assembly in 1779,
it wasn't adopted, due to the opposition of Patrick Henry, master
orator & religious ranter. Madison reintroduced it in 1785.
It passed in 1786.
Madison's classic work in this
effort was his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious
Assessments. The controversy shifted since 1779. Supporters of
establishment moved from maintaining Episcopalianism to omnibus
support for all "teachers of the Christian religion."
Madison denounced the scheme:
"Who does not see that
the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion
of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any
particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?.
Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess
and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine
origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds
have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.
If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not
against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of
it be rendered."
He opposed the bill because
it "implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent
Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an
engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified
by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout
the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of
salvation."
Moreover, "the Bill is
not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say
that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself,
for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this
world.... It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this
Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the
patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject
it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies
to trust it to its own merits."
Jefferson was ambassador to
France, 1785-90. He played no role in designing the constitution.
It is Madison who is called its "father" for his role
at the c onstitutional convention. Jefferson critiqued it to
Madison: "First, the omission of a bill of rights providing
clearly & without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion."
Madison's was unconvinced.
"Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been
committed by overbearing majorities in every State." But
once he realized that opposition would sharply diminish if a
bill was added, he became its chief proponent. On June 8, 1789,
he presented it to the 1st House of Representatives.
"That in article 1st,
section 9, between clauses 3 and 4, be inserted these clauses,
to wit: The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account
of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion
be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience
be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.... The right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well
armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a
free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing
arms shall be compelled to render military service in person....
That in article 1st, section 10, between clauses 1 and 2, be
inserted this clause, to wit: No State shall violate the equal
rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial
by jury in criminal cases."
This ultimately became our
1st amendment's "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
But Madison lost the fight to extend separation to the states.
Some had established churches & wouldn't join the union if
forced to give them up. Massachusetts only disestablished Congregationalism
in 1833. Nevertheless he created the Constitution & Bill
of Rights of the 1st republic of modern times, the only national
government in the world without an official religion.
We moderns know that the new
US had a terrible contradiction. Democracy was intertwined with
slavery. That could only be resolved, decades later, by the civil
war. But, even with its racism, nothing better describes the
impact of the American revolution & its Constitution than
a 1789 note from Jefferson, in Paris: "Our proceedings have
been viewed as a model for them on every occasion; and though
in the heat of debate men are generally disposed to contradict
every authority urged by their opponents, ours has been treated
like that of the Bible, open to explanation but not to question."
Jefferson returned home in
1790 to become George Washington's Secretary of State. The major
foreign policy issue before the new nation was to be its relationship
to the new French regime. Jefferson's support for the revolution
in its heroic phase inevitably brought charges of atheism against
him & his followers (known 1st as Republicans, then as Democratic
Republicans, later as the Democratic Party), from the Federalists,
particularly strong in clerically dominated New England. And
indeed Jefferson's 1800 election as President was the high point
of patriotic anticlericalism.
His most famous Presidential
statement in his period is from an 1802 letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association.
"Believing with you that
religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God,
that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,
that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only,
and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that
act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature
should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building
a wall of separation between Church and State."
But the public didn't know
that the note originally contained an immediately following statement.
"Congress thus inhibited
from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorized only
to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even
those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by
the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church,
but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary
regulations and discipline of each respective sect."
He explained the clause in
an accompanying letter to his Attorney General:
"The Baptist address,
now enclosed, admits of a condemnation of the alliance between
Church and State, under the authority of the Constitution. It
furnishes an occasion, too, which I have long wished to find,
of saying why I do not proclaim fastings and thanksgivings, as
my predecessors did. The address, to be sure, does not point
at this, and its introduction is awkward. But I foresee no opportunity
of doing it more pertinently. I know it will give great offense
to the New England clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom
is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them. Will you
be so good as to examine the answer, and suggest any alterations
which might prevent an ill effect, or promote a good one, among
the people?"
Historians presume that his
AG persuaded him to delete the passage, thus avoiding an unnecessary
fight. But the author of America's Declaration of Independence
is its Thanksgiving Scrooge. He never issued any proclamations.
Altho many foes denounced him
as an atheist, he believed in a god. But he explained that "from
a very early part of my life," he was a skeptic regarding
"the difficulty of reconciling the ideas of Unity and Trinity."
He came to reject "the immaculate conception of Jesus, his
deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous
powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporal
presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement,
regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, & c. invented
by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever
uttered by him."
Jesus was a philosopher open
to criticism. "It is not to be understood that I am with
him in all His doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side
of spiritualism: he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards
forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to
redeem it &c. &c."
Jesus was a product of his
time & place.
"There are, I acknowledge,
passages not free from objection, which we may with probability
ascribe to Jesus himself; but claiming indulgence from the circumstances
under which he acted. His object was the reformation of some
articles in the religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That
Seer had presented, for the object of their worship, a being
of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.
Jesus, taking for his type the best qualities of the human head
and heart, wisdom, justice, goodness, and adding to them power,
ascribed all of these but in infinite perfection, to the supreme
being, and formed him really worthy of their adoration....
"The office of reformer
of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous. Jesus had
to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and
a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the
priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race.... They were
constantly laying snares too to entangle him in the web of the
law. He was justifiable therefore in avoiding these by evasions,
by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps
of the prophets, and in defending himself with these their own
weapons, as sufficient, ad homines, at least. That Jesus did
not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of god physically
speaking I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned
than myself in that lore. But that he might conscientiously believe
himself inspired from above, is very possible. The whole religion
of the Jews, inculcated on him from his infancy, was founded
in the belief of divine inspiration.... Elevated by the enthusiasm
of a warm and pure heart, conscious of the high strains of an
eloquence which had not been taught him, he might readily mistake
the coruscations of his own fine genius for inspirations of a
higher order. This belief carried therefore no more personal
imputation, than the belief of Socrates, that himself was under
the care and admonitions of a guardian daemon."
Jefferson's profound skepticism
led to arguably the most singular event ever to occur in the
White House. In February 1804, the President of the United States
took his razor to the 4 Gospels, cut out all supernatural passages,
& pasted up the rest, calling it The Philosophy of Jesus
of Nazareth.
It was lost after his death.
However, he did it again, in retirement, in 1819-20, calling
it The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. He felt that the
1804 work was hastily done while he was busy running the country.
His 2nd opus is a major scholarly effort. He selected verses
& parts of verses, from 4 Bibles, Greek, Latin, French &
the King James version, again removing all miracles & supernatural
intervention in human affairs. "The Jefferson Bible,"
as it is now called, is reprinted in its entirety, 53 pages,
in the present volume.
It begins with LUKE 2:1 "AND
it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from
Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." It
runs straight thru to 2:7 "And she brought forth her firstborn
son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a
manger; because there was no room for them in the inn."
Then it hops to 2:21 "And
when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the
child, his name was called JESUS." Jefferson cut the angel
telling shepherds how "is born this day in the city of David
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
A biography of a philosopher
is constructed, so well edited that it is best to read the King
James version along side it, to fully grasp how much biblical
Christianity he rejected. JOHN 19:41-42 closes The Jefferson
Bible: "Now in the place where he was crucified there was
a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never
man yet laid. There laid they Jesus." Then he leaps to MATTHEW
27:60: "And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre,
and departed."
When he died, they carved his
epitaph as per his instructions.
"Here was buried Thomas
Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independance
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father
of the University of Virginia."
Indeed much of his best writing
was devoted to religious freedom, culminating with his last letter,
written 10 days before his death, re the 50th anniversary of
his Declaration of Independence.
"May it be to the world,
what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later,
but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the
chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded
them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security
of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores
the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom
of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of
man.
The general spread of the light
of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth,
that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their
backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them
legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope
for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day
forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished
devotion to them."
Jefferson observed that "generally,
that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic
Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic they are
to atheism." But, devoted to freedom of religion, he sees
himself as standing in the same line as France's great atheists.
"Some have made the love
of God the foundation of morality." But no. "If we
did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that
it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist?
It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We
have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act
on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support
of them.... Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known
to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then,
must have had some other foundation than the love of God."
He initiated his nephew into
philosophy:
"Do not be frightened
from this inquiry by any fear of it's consequences. If it ends
in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to
virtue in the comfort & pleasantness you feel in it's exercise,
and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find
reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are
acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast
additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope
of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve
it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a
belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat that you must lay
aside all prejudice on both sides, & neither believe nor
reject anything because any other persons, or description of
persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the
only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for
the rightness but uprightness of the decision."
Indeed, while his writings
are full of denunciations of Christian sects surrounding him,
I haven't found even 1 attack on atheism. What he loathed was
"priest-craft." He explained himself in 1815:
"Of publishing a book
on religion, my dear Sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon
think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world
of religious sects. Of these there must be at least ten thousand,
every individual of every one of which believes all are wrong
but his own. To undertake to bring them all right, would be like
undertaking, single handed, to fell the forests of America....
I abuse the priests indeed, who have so much abused the pure
and holy doctrines of their master, and who have laid me under
no obligations of reticence as to the tricks of their trade.
The genuine system of Jesus, and the artificial structures they
have erected, to make them the instruments of wealth, power,
and preeminence to themselves, are as distinct things in my view
as light and darkness: and while I have classed them with soothsayers
and necromancers, I place him among the greatest of the reformers
of morals, and scourges of priest-craft that have ever existed.
They felt him as such, and never rested until they had silenced
him by death. But his heresies against Judaism prevailing in
the long run, the priests have tacked about, and rebuilt upon
them the temple which he destroyed, as splendid, as profitable,
and as imposing as that."
This last simply never happened.
The priests of the last Jewish temple didn't suddenly put on
turned-around collars & reemerge as Catholic priests. He
let himself get carried away with rage against priestcraft. However,
he was friendly to many clergy.
He detested Popery, declaring,
in 1823, that "were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send
in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert
us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat
it as a national aggression on our peace and faith." Yet,
as ambassador to France, he relaxed in a monastery whose monks
took vows of silence. He couldn't stop praising the monk who
helped rescue American sailors from enslavement by Muslim pirates
in Tripoli. And he was relieved to hear that the Papal Nuncio
he met in Paris, the symbol of everything he detested in Europe's
old order, had personally survived the Napoleonic era.
Jefferson must be seen in his
times, primitive in many ways. Washington lost his teeth in his
youth, cracking walnuts. Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel
with the Vice-president of the US. Jefferson had to argue against
French naturalist Count de Buffon's notion that American animals
were weaker than their European counterparts.
In his 1781 Notes on the State
of Virginia, he declared that "To our reproach it must be
said, that though for a century and a half we have had under
our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet
been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it
therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally
a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances,
are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and
mind."
It was only 10 years later
that he changed his mind, when he read Benjamin Banniker's Almanac.
He was overjoyed to write the freeborn mathematician that "No
body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit,
that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to
those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of
a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their
existence, both in Africa & America.... I have taken the
liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary
of the Academy of Sciences at Paris."
Jefferson was a legal reformer
who sometimes is grotesque to moderns. He went thru British Virginia's
penal code & proposed that homosexuality "should be
punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting through
the cartilage of her nose a hole of one-half inch in diameter
as least." Of course he never encountered an open gay. He
was reducing death penalty crimes.
Muslims were to be welcomed
here, but he had no direct contact with any, & repeated nonsense.
"Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims
to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was
longest."
Jefferson insisted that "To
talk of immaterial existences is to talk of n othings. To say
that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say,
they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul.
I cannot reason otherwise... matter alone can operate on matter."
God was material like you,
me & a garbage truck. But he also believed in an afterlife,
closing a letter to John Adams, "May we meet there again,
in Congress, with our antient Colleagues, and receive with them
the seal of approbation 'Well done, good and faithful servants.'"
Certainly he had no evidence backing up his notion of heaven.
But we know that he was traumatized by the post-childbirth death
of his wife at 33. Then 4 of their 6 children died before him.
The successful ideological creator of a new nation he surely
was. But there is a melancholy quality to his last writings,
as he awaited death. Hoping to meet his family & friends
again kept him going, never mind whether he would meet them in
their bloom or as they were in their death agonies.
He thought that Unitarianism
would become the dominant American religion.
So it goes. He was wrong about
many things. But it was he who took Virginia out of the middle
ages of kings & established churches. He helped to create
the 1st state in history to "comprehend within the mantle
of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and
Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination."
His presence inspired the French
revolution. But most Americans know nothing of the anticlerical
side of 4th of July Jefferson. Yet the author of the Declaration
of Independence putting his razor to the Bible remains 1 of the
most important acts in humanity's history. When educated young
religious Americans come to know that he did that, many will
likewise apply their critical reason, not merely to the Bible,
but to every authority. That will be the beginning of the end
of bipartisan "faith-based" demagoguery.
JEFFERSON'S
SUCCESSOR AS PRESIDENT & HEIR TO HIS POLITICS
It was inevitable that Madison
would succeed Jefferson when he retired as President in 1809.
The Virginians had worked together for 35 years. But they were
distinct personalities re religion. Madison was primarily concerned
with keeping it & government apart. He believed in a god,
but he never discussed theology as Jefferson did.
He had 2 occasions to veto
laws because they violated the 1st Amendment. One law reserved
land for a Baptist church in Mississippi when it was still a
federal territory. The other incorporated an Episcopal church
in the District of Columbia. Madison presented arguments specific
to their dated situations, demonstrating that both laws violated
separatism. However, his February 21, 1811 Message to the House
enunciated 1 principle clearly applying to Bush's faith-based
hustle, with church-run drug clinics, job training programs,
etc.
"Because the bill vests
in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the
support of the poor and the education of poor children of the
same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the
provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent
for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying
into effect a public and civil duty."
Madison made one retreat from
Jefferson's policies. During the War of 1812 with Britain, he
issued Thanksgiving proclamations.
"Whereas the Congress
of the United States... have signified a request that a day may
be recommended, to be observed by the people of the United States
with religious solemnity, as a day of Public Humiliation and
Prayer and whereas in times of public calamity, such as that
of the war, brought on the U. States by the injustice of a foreign
government, it is especially becoming, that the hearts of all
should be touched with the same, and the eyes of all be turned
to that Almighty Power, in whose hand are the welfare and the
destiny of nations: I do, therefore, issue this my Proclamation,
recommending to all who shall be piously disposed to unite their
teams and voices in addressing, at one and the same time their
vows and adorations to the great Parent and Sovereign of the
Universe, that they assemble on the second Thursday of September
next, in their respective religious congregations, to render
him thanks for the many blessings he has bestowed on the people
of the United States.... that he has blessed the United States
with a political constitution founded on the will and authority
of the whole people, and guaranteeing to each individual security,
not only of his person and his property, but of those sacred
rights of conscience, so essential to his present happiness,
and so dear to his future hopes.... and that, as he was graciously
pleased, heretofore, to smile on our struggles against the attempts
of the government of the empire of which these states then made
a part... so he would now be pleased, in like manner, to bestow
his blessing on our arms in resisting the hostile and persevering
efforts of the same power to degrade us on the ocean, the common
inheritance of all....
"If the public homage
of a people can ever be worthy the favorable regard of the Holy
and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be that,
in which those who join in it are guided only by their free choice,
by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences;
and such a spectacle must be interesting to all Christian nations;
as proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of
man, freed from all coercive edicts, from that unhallowed connexion
with the powers of this world, which corrupts religion into an
instrument or an usurper policy of the state, and making no appeal
but to reason, to the heart and to the conscience, can spread
its benign influence every where, and can attract to the Divine
Altar those free will offerings of humble supplication, thanksgiving
and praise, which alone can be acceptable to Him whom no hypocrisy
can deceive, and no forced sacrifices propitiate.
"Upon these principles,
and with these views, the people of the United States are invited,
in conformity with the resolution aforesaid, to dedicate the
day above named to the religious solemnities therein recommended."
When Andrew Jackson became
President in 1829 he discontinued proclamations. But Lincoln
issued them during the Civil War. Thanksgiving started on the
road to what it is today, a 4-day holiday, complete with Bush's
proclamation.
"We are grateful to the
homeland security and intelligence personnel.... And we give
thanks for the Americans in our Armed Forces who are serving
around the world to secure our country and advance the cause
of freedom."
But in the real world, today's
Thanksgiving has no more relationship to religion than the NYC
Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, with its cartoon character balloons
for kids.
However, in 1946 a "Detatched
(sic) Memoranda" by Madison was discovered. He wrote it
after he left the White House in 1817. In 1856, Congress authorized
historian William Rives to prepare his papers for publication.
Rives worked at home. It ended up in Rives' personal papers.
It was recovered by a historian working on a biography of Rives.
There is no doubt of its authenticity. The Supremes cite it.
Madison dealt with congressional
decisions he disagreed with, & he reconsidered his wartime
action.
"Religious proclamations
by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots
from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed.
"Altho' recommendations
only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust
delegated to political rulers.
"The objections to them
are 1. that Govts ought not to interpose in relation to those
subject to their authority but in cases where they can do it
with effect. An advisory Govt is a contradiction in terms. 2.
The members of a Govt as such can in no sense, be regarded as
possessing an advisory trust from their Constituents in their
religious capacities.... They seem to imply and certainly nourish
the erronious idea of a national religion.... But reason and
the principles of the Xn religion require that all the individuals
composing a nation even of the same precise creed & wished
to unite in a universal act of religion at the same time, the
union ought to be effected thro' the intervention of their religious
not of their political representatives.... The last & not
the least objection is the liability of the practice to a subserviency
to political views; to the scandal of religion, as well as the
increase of party animosities. Candid or incautious politicians
will not always disown such views. In truth it is difficult to
frame such a religious Proclamation generally suggested by a
political State of things, without referring to them in terms
having some bearing on party questions....
"During the administration
of Mr Jefferson no religious proclamation was issued. It being
understood that his successor was disinclined to such interpositions
of the Executive and by some supposed moreover that they might
originate with more propriety with the Legislative Body, a resolution
was passed requesting him to issue a proclamation....
"It was thought not proper
to refuse a compliance altogether; but a form & language
were employed, which were meant to deaden as much as possible
any claim of political right to enjoin religious observances
by resting these expressly on the voluntary compliance of individuals,
and even by limiting the recommendation to such as wished simultaneous
as well as voluntary performance of a religious act on the occasion."
Clearly, Madison reconsidered
proclamations & found that they put separation at risk. The
author of the 1st Amendment is the 1st authority on it. Would
Lincoln have issued proclamations if he knew of the Memoranda?
We can only speculate. But, given that he never joined a church,
it is difficult to envision him reading it, ignoring its strictures
& issuing such documents.
In any case, there is no doubt
that Madison's anticlericalism increased with experience. He
asked
"Is the appointment of
Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution,
and with the pure principle of religious freedom?
"In strictness the answer
on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the
U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national
religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious
worship for the national representatives, to be performed by
Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these
are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve
the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision
for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the
representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted
by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.
"The establishment of
the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights,
as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains
elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members
whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that
of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case
with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had
members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic
clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his
religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small,
is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity
the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers
or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor....
"Better also to disarm
in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for the army
and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters
of religion. The object of this establishment is seducing; the
motive to it is laudable. But is it not safer to adhere to a
right principle, and trust to its consequences, than confide
in the reasoning however specious in favor of a wrong one. Look
thro' the armies & navies of the world, and say whether in
the appointment of their ministers of religion, the spiritual
interest of the flocks or the temporal interest of the Shepherds,
be most in view.... we are always to keep in mind that it is
safer to trust the consequences of a right principle, than reasonings
in support of a bad one."
There is an obvious conclusion
to be drawn from reading Jefferson & Madison: There is nothing
of them in today's Democratic & Republican parties. They
claim to uphold Madison's Bill of Rights. But does anyone think
they will live to see Bush, or future Republican or Democratic
Presidents, saying what he said of government chaplains, much
less proposing to abolish them?
Let's look at it the other
way. Does anyone think that if either devotee of church/state
separation were President, he would arm Israel, an Orthodox state
that refuses to recognize marriages performed by Israeli Conservative
or Reformed rabbis, & completely discriminates against gentiles
in housing & employment? Would he, simultaneously, train
the Saudi National Guard, goon squads of a regime that discriminates
against Shia Muslims, & denies religious freedom to all non-Muslims?
In July, Kerry spoke to the
African Methodist Episcopal convention. "I know there are
some who say that the First Amendment means faith-based organizations
can't help government," he said. "I think they are
wrong. I want to offer support for your efforts, including financial
support, in a way that supports our Constitution and civil-rights
laws and values the role of faith in inspiring countless acts
of justice and mercy across our land."
A fact sheet distributed afterward
called for a "Presidential Advisory Group on Expanding Faith-Based
Initiatives," including lawyers, social-service providers
& religious leaders.
Which leaders? Farrakhan? L.
Ron Hubbard? There's the rub. We have endless sects here. If
a Kerry-style panel included leaders of any such, that would
establish them & exclude the rest, as well as the unchurched
& atheists.
No mincing words, no evasions,
no hypocrisy: Bush & the "Judeo-Christian" right
are trying to destroy Jefferson's domestic "wall of separation
between Church and State," wholesale, while the Democrats
will destroy it retail, but just as assuredly destroy it.
There is a moral to this story:
You can fight fire with fire. But you can't fight religious demagoguery
with pious pandering. The way to beat the religious right, once
& for all & forever, is by demonstrating to the public,
including many youth who support Bush, that the authors of the
Declaration of Independence & the Bill of Rights would oppose
him.
That can only be done by presenting
their writings to that public. Feed "The establishment of
the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights,
as well as of Constitutional principles" to them & they
will devour Bush alive, down to his bones.
So, not only does their editor
want you to buy Jefferson & Madison On Separation of Church
and State, for $16.95 plus $1.84 postage to any place in the
US, I want you to - God forbid!! - read it.
Trust me. Better, trust them.
They are excellent reading. Then you will to buy more copies
for friend & foe alike. Indeed, in your freshly awakened
zeal, you will rush out & form a united front of "infidels"
& progressive religious, to set up literature tables, not
only on campuses, but at our major crossroads, Times Square in
New York, Powell & Market in SF, etc.
Think big. If the Bible is
everywhere, 'Jefferson's Bible' should be everywhere. And, while
you demand that "under God" be taken out of our schools'
Pledge of Allegiance, because it violates the 1st Amendment,
you should insist that Madison's Memoranda should be required
reading in every high school & college, precisely because
it is by the author of that Amendment, & is the best authority
on the full implications of his masterwork for the ages.
Lenni Brenner is the editor of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis and a contributor
to The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He is presently editing Jefferson
& Madison on Separation of Church and State: Writings on
Religion and Secularism. It will be published by Barricade
Books in late October. He can be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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