Read This: Beck Plus God Does Not Equal X | Politics | Religion Dispatches

I'm very late in commenting on the competing rallies held in Washington on the anniversary of Dr. King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech and that sucks ass, so I'm sorry.

But hell, I need to say something and the Tea Party movement is still out there and even though this particular event has come and gone, this still matters.

There is a very good article on the issues of race and faith as they relate to the rhetoric of Glenn Beck.

My first comment on the article is this. Butler is right about the absurdity of comparing Beck to Malcolm X.

Not because of their opposing ideologies, but because they are not anywhere close to being in the same league.

Brother Malcolm was a goddamn hero.

He was one of the great minds of the 20th century and comparing ANYBODY to him is a leap and there are very few people alive that are worthy of such a parallel.

And to compare someone like Glenn Beck to him is just fucking dumb.

Okay, let's move on.

I don't believe every single person who follows Beck or watches Fox News or goes to Tea Party rallies is racist or stupid. Let's just get that out of the way up front.

People believe what they do for a wide array of reasons.

There are plenty of Tea-party-people who are simply life-long conservatives, or truly believe they have to go out and protest to protect capitalism as if it were in danger.

Having said that, conservatives who keep insisting there is no racism in the Tea Party movement are either in denial or they're lying.

On its face, the rally in Washington might seem innocent enough.

But given the subtext of the debate of whether or not the Tea Party movement is inherently racist, the act of holding a "Restoring Honor" rally on the anniversary of MLK's "Dream" speech in the spot where he spoke WAS an intentional "Fuck You!" to Black America.

It can't be interpreted any other way.


If one were to be extremely generous and give Glenn Beck the extraordinary benefit of the doubt which he hasn't earned, the rally was at the very least a deliberate "Fuck You!" to the NAACP.

But forget Glenn Beck for a minute.

Right now, I'm talking to those in the Tea Party who are genuine in their principles.

I'm speaking to those of you who are conservatives and go to these rallies for ideological reasons alone, not for the adrenaline rush being part of a mob gives you.

Stop ignoring the racist signs. Stop pretending these guys are on the fringe. They represent a significant segment of your movement and you can't just close your eyes and hope we don't notice them.

When they are pointed out, you can't say the "liberal" media is singling you out and picking on you.

Stop faking that innocent, wide-eyed look when the NAACP tells you that you have blatant racism within your ranks and saying, "What the hell are you talking about?"

It makes you look stupid because you know what we're talking about.

I've talked to Tea Party people who have told me point blank that the "N" word has NEVER been used at a rally.

Really? Never?

We see the signs at every Tea Party event.

Let's turn back the clock for some perspective.

When we protested Bush, we were unpatriotic. We hated America.

And when we assembled, we were arrested en-masse.

You have people coming out, literally talking and acting like the Klan and look the other way.

You deny that they're there.
When your people make violent threats, you brush them off.

Just a few years ago, you were screaming for the heads of any actor or Dixie Chick who dared question the leader of our great nation because doing so was unpatriotic.

We were seeped in yellow-ribbon McCarthyism.


Don't get me wrong, it's not your protests themselves I have a problem with. It's okay for you to hate Obama, or any leader for that matter.

As a Socialist, I am not happy with our President either because he's a rabid capitalist who's expanding free trade and dragging out both of the wars we're in.

I could list a few more reasons, but that would be getting off point. Let's just say that, like many leftists, I do not consider him a liberal.

But coming from the same assholes who, less than two years ago were telling us that if we love America, we couldn't criticize the President, is disingenuous.

Imagine the uproar if a country music group came out and criticized Obama and as a result was pulled off of every radio station in the country.

My point is, you and your protests, by contrast are being treated with a lot of dignity compared to what we went through for eight years.

You guys have no idea how easy you have it.

I'm getting off topic again, aren't I? Sorry, it's late.

Back to acknowledging and denouncing the racists in your ranks.

I mean, they can't even come up with newer material than "Go back to Africa?" At least be original.

Jesus.
If you want us to take you seriously as a populist movement, at the very least admit that there are dissenting voices in your ranks and that a chunk of the people who show up might be racists.

Then denounce them.

Until then, mainstream America is going to keep on thinking you're fucking idiots.

Heartbreak for a Hero

President Mandela, a man like you, who has already endured such suffering and showed the spirit of Christ more than anyone who claims his name here in the west, should never have to know heartbreak like you have suffered today.

My family is grieving with you and praying for your family.

Thank you for everything and we love you.

Make that Change

The political center of America has been moving decidedly to the right for decades.

Actual liberals have been all-but banished from the Democratic Party.

Ask yourself, do we have any heroes in America like Marek Edelman, who left us this past October? Uncompromising and fierce, even in the face of death, even in the face of the scorn of his countrymen and allies?

The Democrats will not get their shit together on issues like marriage equality or reproductive rights and they have caved on every economic issue there is.

The Clinton 90's heralded an era of Democratic Reaganomics.

The Democrats are now on the wrong side on the death penalty, the war on crime, the war on drugs, and more or less every other aspect of both our foreign and domestic policy.

Gains are small and usually immediately taken away. Resistance is met with either scorn, or muscle.

We, the left, caught a great deal of grief from the Democratic Party when we dared to refuse to support Gore and Lieberman who might as well be Republicans.

I’m sorry, but you can’t move that far to the right and then complain that the left has abandoned you.

And anyone who has spoken out in the last eight years, from Ward Churchill to Bill Maher to the Dixie Chicks can tell you what it’s like be responded to with simple, brutal, unmoving force.

And now, we are at a crossroads. Did we really mean what we said when we voted for change, or are we just jerking off?

Are we pissed off enough about this recession to demand that the people we just put into office reverse the past 28 years of systematic deregulation that led to this whole mess?
The hubris of the last eight years, the prioritizing of power over party, and party over country has imploded the Republican Party and we have been given a magnificent opportunity. It would be a crime to waste it. But the Democrats have indeed wasted the opportunity.

They could not get meaningful health care for all Americans even with a Super-majority in both houses. You know why? Because they didn't fucking try!

They talked of bi-partisanship as if it were the primary virtue for any politician. As if making friends with the enemy were more important than principle.

They've put Blackwater into Pakistan for Christ's sake!

No more. I've come to a crucial decision. When you choose between the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil.

Go ahead and tell me I'm throwing my vote away.

But from now on, every vote will go to a Socialist, Green or Independent candidate.

I used to think the Democrats' problem was weakness. Now I see that it's a lack of conviction.

And for the record, to you, the Democratic Party, you left us. Adieu.

In Her Wake: An Interview with Dr. Nancy Rappaport

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Dr. Nancy Rappaport, author of "In Her Wake," about her mother's suicide.

This is an unbelievable book that everyone who is depressed or knows someone who is mentally ill needs to read.

Les Chats Persians - Bahman Qobadi (2009)

Qobadi's masterpiece out of Iran doesn't just embody what's great about independent film. It represents everything good in rock and roll.

Hell, I'll go you one better. Les Chats makes a statement about the function of art in general.

That function? Rebellion.

The connection this film makes between political uprising and art isn't a new concept, but Qobadi makes his argument with an eloquent rage I don't think I've ever seen.

Maybe that's because we have the luxury of taking for granted this concept of living in a relatively free country.

The films quieter moments are just as powerful as its raucous, sometimes gleefully angry musical interludes.

One of the most memorable is a scene where one character, mostly obscured by a door, begs for mercy from a harsh judge.

The underground Iranian filmmaker rails against government and religion for just under 2 hours.





It's eerie that the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival just weeks before the now notorious riots following the disputed (stolen) Iranian elections. In retrospect, the film feels prophetical.

Qobadi is filled with fury at how his government treats his people. In an interview, he railed against the treatment of women as 'the voice against God.'

The film, as angry as it will make you does have its share of humor and that is what makes now exhiled Qobadi a gift.

The cinema community embraces him and every one of you should desperately seek this film out.

The UK Inquiry With No Teeth: It's Better Than Nothing

There was a very interesting article in the Socialist Worker on the UK inquiry into the Britain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

At the heart of the inquiry is the question of whether Tony Blair’s administration promised to join the U.S. in invading Iraq with or without UN approval as early as 2002.

And the article has a point. The inquiry is largely meaningless and impotent because its bite has no fangs.

There are going to be no real repercussions for anybody except for some public discomfort.

That’s true. However, this public discomfort does have some value.

Nobody here in the U.S. is going to have to answer for their crimes, even in a meaningless PR nightmare of an inquiry.

What do you think Bush is doing right now? Fishing? Drinking? Duck hunting? Undocumented worker hunting? Maybe he’s out there participating in a couple of these sports at the same time?

One thing I’m sure he’s not doing is squirming.

He’s not somewhere with advisors and lawyers worrying about what he’s going to have to tell prosecutors or a Congressional Committee or even a journalist.

He has nothing to worry about and he knows it.

So, even if the U.K. hearings have no bite, at least they’re happening.

The hearings culminated in the testimony of Tony Blair at the end of January.

Incidentally, someone tried (unsuccessfully) to make a citizens arrest of Blair outside the proceedings.

Hell, there’s a website, http://www.arrestblair.org/ that has a bounty for anybody who makes a citizen’s arrest on the bastard. (Incidentally, yours truly did a piece on this. That’s right, I’m not above shamelessly pimping myself.)

Also, people arriving at the Westminster underground station were greeted by people gathering signatures for a petition for Blair to be tried as a war criminal.

So, some good has come out of this.

To me, the highlight of the Blair's testimony was when he talked about threat versus perception.

"It wasn't that objectively he (Saddam) had done more, it was that our perception of the risk had shifted," Blair said.

Holy Jesus, did anyone catch the significance of those words? Blair said that we went to war because our paranoia level went up even though the actual threat didn’t. And he’s unapologetic about that! Holy Jesus!

Blair did deny promising military aid at the 2002 Crawford meeting.

"The only commitment I gave (at Crawford) was a commitment to deal with Saddam," Blair said. He said he told Bush "we will be with them in dealing with this threat."

A former legal advisor to the Blair administration, Michael Wood told then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in January of 2003 that any invasion in Iraq would be illegal.

Wood testified that his warnings fell on deaf ears. “He took the view that I was being very dogmatic and that international law was pretty vague and that he wasn't used to people taking such a firm position. When he had been at the Home Office, and had often been advised things were unlawful but he had gone ahead anyway and won in the courts."

The reason these warnings went unheeded may have been that the decision to go to war had already been made.

Britain's former ambassador to the U.S., Christopher Meyer, has told the inquiry that Bush and Blair used an April 2002 meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to "sign in blood" an agreement to take military action.

Senior Blair aides deny that. Former British Secretary of State for Defense Geoff Hoon said that Britain did not unconditionally decide to resort to military action before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Hoon said he did not think Blair gave a promise to Bush to support war come what may.

Hoon’s major concern wasn’t the legality of the war, but the logistics of the whole affair.

He testified that he had shared his concerns about planning with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in February 2003, a month before the invasion.

He said the British government also did not fully understand the challenges occupying forces would face.

He criticized Britain's Foreign Office and Department for International Development for delays in sending civilian staff to take over reconstruction work from the military.
With the bloodthirsty amateur hour carnage that Blackwater, (now Xe Services) caused in 2007 that nobody in the Bush administration or at Blackwater is willing to accept any accountability for, it’s good to hear somebody saying that outsourcing military work to civilian staff might not be such a good idea.

Since it's obvious that nobody here is going to hold companies like that accountable for their actions, at least somebody is speaking up.

But back to the invasion of Iraq.

If there's one thing that Bush is, it's decisive.

He's not the kind of man to sit and do nothing when action has to be taken.

I mean, you can't imagine the guy just sitting there for several minutes during a crisis not knowing what to do.

No, he's a take charge kind of guy.

Oh, wait.

Hoon said that former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had initially been suspicious of the British Government. I’m wondering what exactly he meant by ‘suspicious.’

Like if Britain wasn’t going to be as willing as we wanted that somehow that would make them less of an ally?

That attitude is chilling. It’s the ‘you’re either with us or with the terrorists’ mindset. This is a sentiment I resent the hell out of by the way since my response upon hearing that was, “No, I’m not with you or the terrorists.”

I think that by ‘suspicious’ he meant that Rumsfeld thought that Britain might turn out to be a holdout like France and would need to be vilified as such.

Hoon also said it was obvious as early as the summer of 2002 that the U.S. wanted to invade Iraq.

He testified, "There was a real sense of the Americans thinking through in a very practical way the consequences of the 'axis of evil' speech and focussing on Iraq, so we had no doubt at that stage in the summer that they meant business."

British officials worried before the invasion of Iraq that the Americans weren't putting enough thought into postwar planning, the head of Britain's defense ministry at the time said Tuesday.

Hoon told the inquiry that planning was not as "detailed and comprehensive as we would have liked."

He acknowledged the aftermath of the 2003 invasion "did not go as well as we wanted it to go."

No fucking shit, fuck-nuts.

To me, the hero of the hearings (if indeed a hero was to be had) was Former British International Development Secretary Clare Short.

I know nothing about her career up to the invasion. I had never even heard of her until these hearings, but I now adore her.

She talked about the need to speak the truth to friends.

"I think this gets to the root of why we went (to war.) And I think now you can see the leaked documents, the Americans were determined to go, Blair had said he'd go with them, he couldn't get Britain there without going through the UN but in the end if the Americans were going he was determined to go with them. And I repeat, I've said it before but it's very important - there was no need to go at that time, there was no emergency."

She went on to say that, "Britain needs to think about this - the special relationship. What do we mean by it? Do we mean that we have an independent relationship and we say what we think or do we mean we just abjectly go wherever America goes because we think that puts us in the big league. And I think that was it and it's a tragedy. That is the tragedy."

She is absolutely right. Being an ally does not mean blindly following, right or wrong.

By the way, Short resigned in protest of the invasion. A politician with a conscience. I love this woman.

Sometimes our friends our wrong and when they are, it’s our responsibility to stand up and tell them ‘no.’

Meanwhile, outside the hearings, the people who knew what they were talking about more than anybody and had the most authority to speak did so very loudly.

"The Iraqi people are having to live every day with aggression, division, and atrocities," said protester Saba Jaiwad, an Iraqi who opposed the war. "Blair should not be here giving his excuses for the illegal war, he should be taken to The Hague to face criminal charges because he has committed crimes against the Iraqi people."

It’s true. Now we need to have to prosecute Donald Rumsfeld. We have the documentation.

His signature is on virtually every memo authorizing torture. The paper trail is there and the Justice Department could easily prove his guilt as a war criminal beyond a reasonable doubt.

I think they could make a case against Cheney, too.

What are they waiting for?

I think it’s our arrogance as a people.

We want to be untouchable as a country and as much as these men should be in prison, we’re not going to punish them because we want to live in the country that can act with impunity.

Sure, we'll hold the occasional demonstration and protest the actions of those in power, but deep down, we don't really want to punish them.We simply do not hold our leaders responsible for their actions. And, as Ms. Short pointed out, that is tragic.

37 Years And Countless Lives Saved

This picture isn't the best, but the purple wristband says "Trust Women 5-31-09" That was the day that Dr. George Tiller , a woman's health care provider was assassinated in his church. It's funny that the trial of his killer starts on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Thirty-seven years ago today, the Supreme Court decriminalized abortion. They ruled that the forth amendment's guarantee of privacy extended to what happened between a woman and her doctor.

Since then the attacks on that ruling have been relentless. What's at stake isn't just a woman's right not only to choose, but the right to make this choice in the only place it should be made: a doctor's office.

Regulations meant to subvert Roe have made abortion all but inaccessible in some parts of the country.

A reported rise in treatment for girls who have tried 'do-it-yourself' abortions that have gone wrong has gone up alarmingly.

This fight is far from over. Roe was only the first step and it is far too early to celebrate.

We are pro-choice because we are the ones who respect the sanctity of life.

Grief and Low

Last July, the night after I got back from my grandma's funeral, Low was playing at the Record Bar in Westport. I know I already mentioned this in the tag of my last post, but I'm doing a whole other post now.

Anyway, standing by myself at the back of the bar, listening to Mimi Parker was the most healing thing I could imagine.

This seems timely because a couple of my friends lost loved ones this week. I love you guys and I'll see you when you get back.

#66 Antichrist - Lars von Trier (2009) - “Nature is Satan’s Church”

Before I start, let me say that I would absolutely recommend that about 90% of you not see Lars von Trier's new masterpiece, Antichrist.

It is unbelievably hard to watch. If Antichrist were food, it would be Guatemalan insanity peppers.

Yes, it is brilliant and von Trier comes closer than ever to reaching the greatness of Breaking the Waves, (#28 on my top 100 list if you were wondering) but seriously, I would not wish this film on most people.

The vast majority of you will not appreciate or understand that and I do not mean that as an insult in any way.

On the contrary, I think that there must be something wrong with me the way I connected so deeply with Charlotte Gainsbourg's character, the figurative Antichrist for whom the film is named, and felt like I understood this movie so well.

Having said that, this is not only an unusually astute film, but also a very important one, socially and philosophically speaking, that the remaining 10% of you must seek out, no matter how hard it is going to be to find.

And it is going to be fucking near impossible to find seeing as how we live in a town without an art-house to speak of and when, at last this is released on DVD I can pretty much guarantee that you'll have to seek it out at an independent shop or buy it online.

And if it ends up making a run at the Tivoli, I'll apologize. They ran Inland Empire and for that, I am eternally grateful. That was Lynch's first film to come out after I moved here and I really thought I was going to miss it so Tivoli, thank you.

One more thing before I dig in.

This is being promoted as a horror film. Oh my God, it is so not.

It is horrifying, revolting even. It says something about a film that it made me look away a couple of times.

But it is not your standard horror fare as there is not a single thrill to be had.

There is also no paranormal element. The title, Antichrist, is metaphorical.

So here we go.

It would be very hard, if not impossible, to argue that Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves was not easily one of the best films to come out of the independent revolution of the 1990’s.

It is equally impossible to talk about feminism in film without talking at length about von Trier's body of work.

He may be one of the most misunderstood filmmakers not only of our, but of any time.

I have heard von Trier called a misogynist, which is a laughable accusation.

I don't remember which critic it was, but someone actually called Breaking a "celebration of women's suffering."

Clearly, the suffering of women is the theme that ties his films together, but this misery seems to make him by turns weary, morose and livid.

I truly wonder if something horrible happened to a woman that he loved at some point early in his life for this to be so rooted in his cognition.

Breaking was a grizzly epic, a thesis on both the suffering and the heroism of women.

It was one of those rare film, I think there have only been six or seven of them, when I sat through the credits and several minutes of employees cleaning up popcorn after the showing because I was just too emotionally exhausted to move.

My heart still breaks every time I think of Bess’ willingness to forfeit her very soul trying to save someone she loves, losing her life in the process.

Seriously, try to wrap your mind around the gravity of Bess' actions.

She believes with all of her being that her actions will condemn her to an eternity in the fires of hell.

This belief is very real to her and this danger of burning forever is as real to her as any worldly, physical danger is to anyone.

And she makes the sacrifice anyway to redeem this man she so desperately loves.

Bess is one of the most beautiful and selfless characters, not only in film, but in art.

Von Trier followed Breaking the Waves with Dancer in the Dark, another tribute to women’s proclivity to self-sacrifice.

Selma's child will not go blind even though it will cost Selma her life.

Again, a woman, suffering and selfless.

That was followed by Dogville, where the other side of the coin of the misery of women was wrath rather than nobility.

Von Trier's anger, like Grace's was more than understandable and even righteous up to a point.

These are three masterpieces that will stay with you forever once you’ve seen them and von Trier’s latest film, Antichrist is no exception.

To say that the opening sequence of Antichrist plays out like one of Lynch’s Obsession commercials would be accurate but flippant, thick and unfair.

We are treated, right out of the gate, to a black and white montage of Willem Dafoe making sweet slo-mo love to his special lady inter-cut with images of a toddler wandering around the apartment with an aria from Rinaldo by Handel playing in the background.

Von Trier isn't exactly going for subtle here. Character with a God complex accompanied by music by Handel, the guy who composed The Messiah.

The first thing that struck me was just how goddamn un-Dogma this movie was.

Then, we are jerked from this surreal opening straight into a beautifully shot, devastating tragedy.

The rest of the film continues to break pretty much every rule that von Trier set up for the Dogma movement, but you can still see that harsh realism under the surface, trying to claw its way out of every dream sequence, every camera trick, every metaphor, every art-house cliché.

This is probably the first time I have ever used the word cliché without meaning it as a rebuke.

Von Trier swings them like a hammer with deliberate purpose, contrasting them with the realism of the harsh, raw open-nerved emotions his characters are dealing with.

The dream sequences and artsy flashbacks cut into the horrific realism the way the musical numbers broke up the tragic evens of Dancer.

Willem Dafoe is a therapist whose wife is understandably falling apart after the death of their child.

Dafoe quickly finds fault with the care she is receiving from a colleague and breaks one of the rules he lives by as a therapist: don’t treat family.

Of course, it isn’t long before he finds himself breaking another rule: don’t fuck your patient.

But give the guy a break.

He’s married to the woman.

Still. Turns out, banging your

patient, even if you’re married to her is not a good idea.

It is established almost immediately that this film is about payback.

The puzzle lies in figuring out which character has it coming.

You have the therapist, Willem Dafoe’s best performance since The Last Temptation of Christ, whose narcissism is so bountiful, whose God-complex is so vast that von Trier names the film after the character who defies him: Antichrist.

And just as we have tentatively decided who to indict, we realize, to our shame that nobody has it coming. We have spent a hundred minutes thinking about blame, as have the characters in this harsh and disturbing film.

But despite the events in the opening sequence, bad things do not happen because we fuck.

And suppressing our sexuality to the point of mutilation, sometimes figurative, sometimes tragically literal is never the answer.

Von Trier’s point here is this: Nature is not Satan’s church.

It sounds like a ridiculous notion, but it’s ingrained in our collective psyche nevertheless.

We think of human sexuality, the most natural thing in the world, as a breeding ground for all that is wicked.

We do in fact believe that nature is Satan’s church.

But we do not have it coming. We do not deserve it. We have to stop punishing ourselves.

It’s more than sad, it is appalling how people see God, but this is an accurate portrait of how western Christianity has set him up.

Like von Trier presents Willem Dafoe's therapist, Christians have painted God as a malicious being who talks about love, but whose sole purpose is actually to dole out unflinching, unforgiving and unjust punishment.

Too many see him as evangelical America has presented him: as a brute to be followed by the anonymous and faceless masses.

That is how so many see God because that is what too many of our religious leaders have been insisting for centuries that he is.