Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
January 17 / 18, 2003
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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
January 17 / 18, 2004
Scalia and Opus Dei
Radicals
on the High Court
By MIKE WHITNEY
"After I joined they gave me a barbed
wire chain to wear on my leg for two hours a day and a whip to
hit my buttocks with."
Sharon Clasen, former member of Opus
Dei
"Blessed be pain. Loved be pain.
Glorified be pain"
Josemarie Escriva, Founder, Opus Dei
(Commentary on Ron Grossman's article
in the Chicago Tribune; Covert Catholics)
Whether or not an alleged member of Opus Dei,
like Justice Antonin Scalia, enjoys a touch of the lash on his
prodigious derriere from time to time, is certainly no business
of ours. However, the affiliation of a Justice on the highest
court in the land to an organization that, for all appearances,
is nothing more than a right-wing cult should arouse not only
suspicion, but an investigation.
Opus Dei is a clandestine Catholic organization
based in Chicago, Ill. In size, it is insignificant, a mere 85,000
members (only 3,000 members in the US) compared to the one billion
Catholics worldwide. But, its membership boasts of some of the
most powerful and wealthy people in the country. The group catapulted
to national attention when spymaster, Robert Hanson, was arrested
and convicted in what turned out to be the greatest act of treachery
in the history of the FBI. Hanson's arrest drew immediate and
unwelcome notoriety to the secretive group.
Opus Dei came under the microscope again
when it was featured rather unflatteringly in the popular mystery
novel, The Da Vinci Code. The novel did a great deal to support
the notion that the organization had a sinister underlying purpose.
If their purpose, however, is to acquire as much power as possible
within the Church, as many believe it is, then they have succeeded
quite nicely. For one thing the Pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls,
is an active member, which indicates that a devoted party loyalist
is as close as possible to the seat of authority in the Church.
The secrecy surrounding the group has
generated widespread curiosity. "Former members claim it
is a cult that pressures psychologically vulnerable college students
into joining." opines Ron Grossman of the Chicago Times.
Grossman goes on to add, "Critics
are put off because, as part of their devotional regimen, some
Opus Dei members inflict pain on themselves that seems to border
on masochism. Supporters respond that mortification of the flesh
is an ancient and honorable Christian practice that puts them
spiritually in touch with the great saints of the past."
One of the former members, Sharon Clasen
remembers, "After I joined they gave me a barbed-wire chain
to wear on my leg for two hours a day and a whip to hit my buttocks
with." (Again, reported in the Ron Grossman article)
We can only wonder what the Senate hearings
might have been like if they suspected that Scalia's attitudes
towards self-inflicted punishment might be dramatically out of
the mainstream? It certainly may have called his sense of judgment
into question.
Grossman recounts some of the details
related to Opus Dei's founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer,
who was a young priest in Spain during the 1930's. "Because
the Church was identified with the ruling class, many priests
were killed, a fate Escriva narrowly escaped by going into hiding.
When Gen. Francisco Franco won the war, Escriva allied his movement
with Franco's authoritarian regime, with several Opus Dei members
occupying key positions in his government," avers Grossman.
What Mr. Grossman conveniently leaves
out, is that he has just provided a detailed description of an
ultra-conservative group that has its roots in European fascism.
Their ideology must have been attractive
to the rightward-tilting Pope John Paul 2, who bestowed on the
group a "personal prelature", which is tantamount to
virtual autonomy. (Rather than being under the control of the
regional Bishop) This suggests that Opus Dei operates independent
of the traditional Church hierarchy and outside its conventional
jurisdictions. If it is a cult, it is a cult that "marches
to its own drummer".
And, there is much to imply that Opus
Dei is a religious cult. Its members are targeted for recruitment,
(preferably, impressionable college-age idealists) sworn to secrecy,
told they are the "elite guard of God", trained in
isolation, censored in their reading and, indoctrinated in the
group ideology.
O, and did I mention those blissful evenings
at home alone with the cat-o nine-tails?
It is precisely these bizarre rituals
of physical abuse that elicit the most negative curiosity to
Opus Dei. Apart from the self-inflicted whipping, (a practice
that was apparently perfected by the founder, Escriva, who would
lock himself in a small room until the blood was splattered on
all four walls. Its doubtful that today's devotees practice with
such unbridled zeal) members are expected to wear "cilices"
(a necklace similar in character to two strands of barbed wire)
around their upper thigh for two hours a day. The degree to which
this accoutrement produces is pain depends on how tight the penitent
fixes it to his leg. Somehow, this suffering is assumed to be
pleasing to the Almighty.
Members are also required to sleep on
rough-hewn boards, dress simply and avoid physical adornments;
most of which is reasonably consistent with many of the monastic
traditions.
The old saw, "Beat the body and
train the mind" is a custom that is enthusiastically maintained
throughout the ranks of Opus Dei. Or, as Escriva put it, "If
you realize that your body is your enemy, and an enemy of God's
glory, why do you treat it so softly?"
Why, indeed?
The larger issue surrounding the group,
however, relates to its recruiting regimen. The aggressiveness
of their approach has led some to refer to them as "Catholic
Mormons". By situating their facilities around college campus's
Opus Dei has a steady stream of young, idealistic candidates
for potential enlisting. They target "attractive and impressionable"
students, offering friendship, without revealing any ulterior
motive. Then, when they suspect the time is right, (or when the
candidate is most vulnerable) they make their pitch for them
to engage in "God's Work", which is the meaning of
Opus Dei in Latin.
The long-range affects of these recruitments
has been varied. Members conform to a strict regimen while in
the group so, a strong degree of dependency is formed. Control
is exerted over everything from reading material (no Balzac or
Marx) to hairstyle. Needless to say, the corrosive affects of
coerced behavior can have some lasting affects.
Groups such as ONAN (Opus Dei Awareness
Network) have sprung up to address the need for "de-programming"
practitioners who require intervention to escape the group's
emotional and psychological attachments. Their methods are not
measurably different from those used to restore Moonies or Hare
Krishna's to the warm embrace of planet earth. Their web site
chronicles the disturbing stories of those who have broken the
Opus Dei addiction. (Also check; "How Opus Dei is Cult-Like"
by Sharon Clasen)
Our central question in this essay is
to determine whether or not a Justice on the Supreme Court should
be challenged on the basis of his alleged involvement in a religious
cult. It is our belief that, however benign the goals of the
organization may be, the public needs a full accounting the objectives
of secret societies to evaluate if nominee's views are compatible
with the workings of the justice system. Details of the group's
activities and motives were absent from the Scalia hearings.
Our reading of the Constitution suggests
that individuals should enjoy limitless freedom unless it threatens
or harms someone else. We apply that same standard to Antonin
Scalia regarding his life as a private citizen. The question
is whether Scalia's understanding of the Constitution could be
seriously maligned by his involvement in a religious cult. For
this we need to determine whether his ability to arrive at an
impartial rendering of the law is impaired by his commitment
to a radical orthodoxy. As clever as Scalia's rulings are, they
are entirely predictable, never veering from his narrow perspective.
This implies that rather than being the result of a reasoned
deliberation of the law, they are nothing more than the logical
extension of a particular dogma. This guarantees that his rulings
will be an upshot of his religious affectations instead of an
unbiased reading of the facts. We see this as an illustration
of his judgment being overshadowed by a competing ethic; an ethic
that disparages our fundamental understanding of the law.
Moreover, the consistency of Scalia's
rulings suggests that there is really no deliberation at all,
just a summarizing of his personal ideology so it coincides with
the details of a particular case. This alone, suggests that his
position on the bench should be challenged. In everything from
gay relations to defending the fundamental principle of democratic
society, the counting of votes in a presidential election, Scalia
has openly ignored the guidance of the law, choosing to stand
firm in his doctrinal positions. Again, this indicates that his
religious feelings precede the need for impartiality and evenhandedness.
The deleterious affects of cults on an
individual's ability to think clearly cannot be overstated and
should be part of the debate to determine whether Scalia is fit
to serve on the court. If Scalia is not a member of this Byzantine
group, let him say so publicly and dispel the rumors. Had he
been properly vetted prior to his appointment, the allegations
of his involvement in this clandestine organization would have
generated much greater interest. Nominees need to come clean
about the groups to which they belong, and the nature of those
groups. This applies doubly to organizations like Opus Dei that
are shrouded in secrecy. If a nominee refuses to be straightforward,
he simply should not be considered.
We count on the Supreme Court to rule
on basic issues of civil liberties and justice. If it's clear
that one's judgment is impaired by extremism, he should either
step down or be removed. We don't need radicals on the High Court.
Mike Whitney
can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|