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Introduction Greetings loyal readers! There is so much disinformation flying in our faces these days that it boggles the mind. The media's intent is to play upon our fears and terrify us into losing all our critical thinking skills and trusting our government – a government that time and time again has given us reason NOT to trust them or believe their lies and propaganda. It is also time to deconstruct the rhetoric of the fanatics that surround us. This column attempts to tackle these weighty issues. Clear Thinking Requires Clear Language The average person in the USA wonders why the rest of the world could possibly hate us so much. Let's start with arrogance. First of all, this country is called the United States of America. It is located on the continent of North America. North America adjoins Central America, which adjoins South America. So there are hundreds of millions of people living in the Americas. Yet people in the United States refer to themselves as Americans. This is colossal arrogance on our part. Are Chileans not Americans? Are Canadians not Americans? Are Mexicans not Americans? Well, you get the idea. There is a clear relationship between thought and language. This relationship exists on a conscious and on a subconscious level. Therefore, when we in the United States refer to ourselves as Americans, we are insulting all the people in the rest of North, Central and South America. Therefore, I have coined the new phrase "US American" to refer to those of us living in the country currently being destroyed by a Nazi-inspired dictator named George W. Bush. This may seem like a trivial thing, but it is important to keep in mind that the language we use affects not only our thinking, but also how we are perceived by others. There, I am trying to re-educate myself to use the term "US American" instead of "American" and would advise you to do the same. Religion Is Not the Problem -- Fundamentalist Fanatics Are Since nearly everyone in the Bush administration calls himself or herself a Christian (this doesn't mean they actually ARE Christians, but I'll get to that in a moment) they tend to behave as if everyone in this nation is also a self-referential Christian. This is hugely insulting to the millions who are not. Since September 11, the media make many subtle (and not-so-subtle) attempts to demonize Islam. True Islam is a peace-loving religion. Yet the Taliban, along with Osama bin Laden and his followers, are not peace-loving people. They are harsh, repressive, destructive, hateful and cruel people (just like our friends in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). Clearly these people are not true followers of Islam. They are fundamentalist fanatics. True Judaism is a peace-loving religion. Yet the Israeli Jews in the Sharon administration and all the fundamentalist and fanatical Zionists worldwide who support them are not peace-loving people. They are also harsh, repressive, destructive, hateful and cruel people. Likewise, these people are not true followers of Judaism. True Christianity is a peace-loving religion. Yet the Christians in the Bush administration are likewise harsh, repressive, destructive, hateful and cruel people. Therefore, these people are not true followers of Christianity. The person so-called Christians claim as their prophet, the Christed Jesus, was a pacifist. Jesus was called the Christed Jesus (or Jesus Christ) because at the age of thirty Jesus became imbued with the Christ spirit of unconditional love and acceptance. These so-called "Christians" who support the death penalty and bombing civilians all over the world forget that Judas betrayed Jesus because Jesus refused to take up arms against the Romans. In other words, Judas sold Jesus to the Romans because of Jesus' pacifism. Jesus was opposed to killing of any sort. Thus it is obvious to any clear-minded and logical thinker that anyone cannot possibly be a Christian who supports killing in any way, whether state-sponsored (euphemistically referred to in our society as capital punishment, war and/or justice) or sponsored by individuals acting without color of state authority (such as the oxymoronically named white supremacist Christians who call for the extermination of Jews and people of color while wholly oblivious to the fact that the man they claim as their prophet was a black Jew). These people are anti-Christians. They serve the antichrist spirit, which manifests as the complete absence of any kind of love, divine or otherwise. Antichristian minister Jerry Falwell was recently quoted as saying that if Osama bin Laden converted to Christianity (which, as currently practiced, is in fact antichristianity) Osama would be forgiven, but would still have to be killed. How much more proof does one need that Jerry Falwell represents the exact opposite of everything the Christ spirit taught through the vehicle of the man Jesus who died on the cross. And speaking of Jesus, any person with the slightest knowledge of world history knows that there were no white Europeans anywhere near the Middle East during the time of the Christed Jesus. The skin color of the man who died on the cross 2,000 years ago could not have been anything other than dark. So why do virtually all of the so-called Christian churches all over the planet portray images of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, Germanic looking Jesus on the cross? Even more mind-boggling, why do so many black churches carry these images, and why do so many black clergy willfully perpetuate this myth as Jesus as white? The only explanation I can find is that these people are identifying with (and trying to emulate) their white oppressors. If you have another explanation I would be most interested to hear it. (You can find my e-mail address at the end of this article.) So if the Christ is actually a spirit of unconditional love and acceptance that was embodied in a human being 2,000 years ago but is not itself a human being, then what does the biblical prophesy of the second coming of Christ mean? The best answer I have found to this question comes from Matthew Fox. Matthew Fox was a Catholic priest who is currently an Episcopal priest. Matthew Fox switched religious denominations because he had to. Fox was defrocked by the Catholic Church after publishing a book called The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. The main thesis of The Coming of the Cosmic Christ is that the biggest lie the Catholic church has ever told is the myth that the second coming of Christ described in the Bible means Jesus (the man, not the Christ spirit) is coming back to Earth to save us all. Why is this a lie? Because the true meaning of the biblically prophesied second coming of Christ is that the Christ spirit of unconditional love and acceptance will be awakened in all of humankind, and this will lead to world peace. Harking back to the first section of this article, please notice that I used the word "humankind" instead of "mankind." Since our species consists of both male and female humans, it is disingenuous (to say nothing of degrading and chauvinistic) to refer to our species as mankind, since at least half of us are not men. Living in New York City, I am often exposed to people accosting me in order to proselytize their religions. The Lubuvitcher Jews tell me the only right way to The Divine is for me to light candles, say their prayers, perform their rituals, go to synagogue and submit to male domination and control. The born-again Christians tell me that the only right way to The Divine is for me to accept the Christed Jesus as my personal savior, say their prayers, perform their rituals, go to church and submit to male domination and control. The fundamentalists of Islam say the only right way to The Divine is to call The Divine Allah, say their prayers, go to mosque and submit to male domination and control. Obviously they can't all be right! Furthermore, to say that there is a link between female repression and religious fundamentalism is an understatement. (For a good analysis into how terrorism always springs from sexually repressed males who romanticize death and eroticize violence, have a look at feminist writer Robin Morgan's excellent book The Demon Lover, recently re-issued in paperback.) I must confess, I am particularly amused by the fundamentalist Christians' attempts to convert me to their brand of anti-feminist insanity. They always seem surprised to meet a Jew who has actually read their holiest scriptures, the New Testament. When they tell me their way is the only way, I quote the following passage from their scriptures quoting their prophet, Christ Jesus: "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." I then go on to explain that the "many mansions" language means that Jesus is telling us there are many ways to get to The Divine. They ignore this completely and tell me that "I go to prepare a place for you" means that their way is the only way and all other ways are invalid. I then go on to explain that this passage was Jesus speaking to his people at that point in time – he was creating a special place for them – and that this does not cancel out the "many mansions" language. Jesus was saying there are many paths to The Divine, and he was preparing one way for the people in his personal ministry. This is usually when the born-again proselytizer walks away from me. The Untold Truth About Afghanistan Speaking of lies, I will close this month's column by elucidating some of the many lies being perpetuated by the mainstream media. But first I would like to mention that certain US newspapers that were honest enough to actually run pictures of dead Afghani civilians have stopped doing so because they got so much complaint mail from people who were upset by the images. Well wake up, USA – that's what war does to people. If the media were brave enough to keep printing the truth about the Thief in Chief's phony drugs and oil war, the US American people would not support it. Recently I heard a UN person speaking on National Public Radio about the food relief efforts in Afghanistan. She was asked if enough food is being delivered to the starving people there, and she said yes. This answer was a blatant lie. First of all, only half as much food as is needed is actually getting delivered, and the food that is going through is not going to the places where it is most needed. We keep hearing daily reports about how the war is almost over (have you noticed how many weeks we have been hearing that lie?), yet there is no mainstream media coverage of the fact that thousands of civilians have been killed by US American bombs, many villages have been destroyed, and millions of people will starve this winter despite existing relief efforts. The next myth is that now that the Taliban have been overthrown the women of Afghanistan are free to pursue their pre-Taliban lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The truth is that the Northern Alliance is only marginally less fundamentalist and repressive than the Taliban. The only apparent difference is that the children can now fly kites and the people can go to movies and listen to music. Otherwise, life for Afghani women is still very much as it was under the Taliban. The women are STILL required to wear their burqas and are not being integrated in Afghani life the way they were when a functional Marxist regime ruled the country. But the government propaganda machine known as the mainstream media does not want you to know that, since anti-communist and anti-Marxist rhetoric is such a big part of the mind-control nonsense we are fed in this country since childhood. Will somebody please tell me what is so wrong with Marxism? Marx was right about a great many things. I believe Che Guevera was the sage who said that he who plunders lives in terror. But I do know that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer because global capitalism is an all-out war on the poor. This can only endure for so long before the workers organize (as Marx advocated) and capitalism will eat itself (as Marx predicted). We will see this process occur in the first quarter of the 21st century. It will not be accomplished without a certain amount of blood, sweat and tears – but it will be longer overdue and beautiful Copyright 2002 Marcy J. Gordon. All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com. |