Today's
Stories
April 20, 2006
Justin E.H. Smith
Doctors and Lethal Injection
April 19, 2006
P. Sainath
More Kids? Pay More for Your Water
Norman
Solomon
When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch
on Iran
Anthony Papa
When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards
for the Rich and Poor in New York
Mike
Ferner
Movement Blues
Stanley Heller
The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later:
Still No Justice
Rifundazione
"We Defeated Berlusconi"
Christopher
Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss
Alexander
Cockburn
The Pulitzer Farce
Website of
the Day
Bunker
Busters: the Movie
April 18, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?
Eric
Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela
Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from
the Black Civil Rights Movement
Greg
Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited
Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Behzad
Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans
Website of
the Day
The
FBI and the Jack Anderson Files
April 17, 2006
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American
Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity
Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox
Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing
of Iran?
John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?
Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch
from Gaza
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress
and the Capitol Hill Police
Website of the Day
Dixie
Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down
April
15 / 16, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic
Ralph
Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin
Thaddeus
Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for
Being Right
Kevin Prosen
/ Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke
Thomas
P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell
Berry
Kristoffer
Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical
Flim-Flam
Fred
Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education
Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the
Poor
Brian
Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback
John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son
Seth
Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and
the Privatization of Public Schools
Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans
Michael
Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation
William A.
Cook
An Israel Accountability Act
Gideon
Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl
Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign
Madis
Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush
Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?
Mark
Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm
of Mark Twain
Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop
Jesse
Walker
Playlist
Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet
Website
of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush
April
14, 2006
Col.
Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials
Resign on Principle
Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets
Stan
Cox
The Real Death Tax
Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?
Brian
McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies
Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ
Ishmael
Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks
to Chastize Blacks
Website of
the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip
April
13, 2006
CounterPunch
News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?
Norman
Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer
Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement
Jeff
Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech
Evelyn J.
Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell
Michael
Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart
Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?
Website
of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"
April
12, 2006
Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences
Alan
Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked,
You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast
Ron
Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear
Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?
Randall
Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"
P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water
Website of
the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"
April
11, 2006
Al
Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration
and a History of Greed
Lawrence
R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight
Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation
Willliam
S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors
Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish
Pratyush
Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"
Grant F.
Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?
Laray
Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights
Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home
Turf
José
Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando
Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455
Website of
the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
April
10, 2006
Ralph
Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats
Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Uri
Avnery
The Big Wink
Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers
Seth
Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations
Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"
Evelyn
Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?
Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill
Lucinda
Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney
Website of
the Day
Brown Berets
April
7 -9, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile
Technology to China
Patrick
Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day
David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
Dave
Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward
Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?
Elaine
Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?
Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules
James
Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film
Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money
John
Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late
Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits
Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America
Jonathan
Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith
John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas
Michele
Brand
Iran, the US and the EU
Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?
Mickey
Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL
Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers
Michael
Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play
Website
of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast
| April
20, 2006
War, Executions and Human Sacrifice
The Authority to
Kill
By DIANE CHRISTIAN
Human
sacrifice is generally contemned. People regard the Aztec practice
of plucking a heart from a victim’s chest and offering it
to the sun god to maintain cosmic order as barbarous. But humans
clearly have a taste for it. Today’s news tells that in two
Baghdad elementary schools militants broke in and slaughtered teachers
in front of their students.
War is human sacrifice, as is capital punishment. Basically human
sacrifice is simply killing for a socially justified reason.
That
socially justified reason is what ‘sacrifice’ signals:
making holy, organizing the killing as something good not bad. The
Aztec priest, the militant, the nation, the state, act as agents
of their societies. They organize the deaths into sacred stories
which supposedly transcend sadism, terror, and vengeance.
The
same person who rejects Aztec sacrifice might well accept Abrahamic.
In Genesis a story sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam has
Abraham obey God by binding his son for sacrifice and raising the
cleaver to kill him. (In Jewish and Christian tradition this is
Isaac, son of Sarah; in Islamic tradition this is Ishmael, firstborn
of Abraham and son of Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian servant.) God
prevents the killing but blesses Abraham for his willingness to
sacrifice his beloved son to God.
The
major monotheisms have human sacrifice as foundation texts. The
follower must be willing to kill even family for God. People who
piously send their sons to war sometimes take comfort in the story:
this is what God/country asks; this is a test of belief; this is
ultimate sacrifice.
The
stories in Jewish and Islamic versions are the same: the father
is told to kill the beloved son and he raises his hand to obey;
God rescinds the command and substitutes an animal.
In
Christianity that story is importantly amended by Christ who is
seen on the pattern of Isaac and Ishmael as the beloved son of God
the Father, who is willing to give his son to death for the sake
of the people. Christ, however, is not a child at the time of sacrifice,
he accepts sacrificial destiny, and he does die. Christ freely consents
where Isaac and Ishmael are bound. The noble act in the Christ version
becomes the victim’s, not the willing killer father’s.
And the agency of the father is just permissive not active—God
doesn’t strike, he allows the Romans to crucify. Christ in
the Passion story also explicitly chooses not to strike to save
himself. He accepts human sacrifice and reveals it as perverse.
The shift from noble would-be killer to noble-killed is significant.
The story transforms the central noble action: it is not killing
but refusing to kill.
Compare
the Oedipus story. Father Laertes and mother Jocaste decide to kill
son Oedipus because the oracle predicts that he will destroy them—he
will kill his father and marry his mother. They attempt to kill
the child to save themselves. Abraham’s motive is not overtly
self-preservation. It is presented simply as obedience—God
commanded him to kill his son. In both narratives the child survives—Oedipus
to fulfill his fate, and kill his father and marry his mother, Isaac
and Ishmael to father the Jewish and Arab peoples. The Greek story
is not told as a religious story until Freud makes the Oedipus complex
psychoanalytic doctrine, but the Genesis story is foundational for
the great monotheisms. Because the God orders the sacrifice, Abraham’s
willingness to kill is transformed from guilt-incurring to righteous.
So,
usually, the acceptability of human sacrifice turns on authority.
How does Abraham differ from the schizophrenic who hears a voice
saying to kill the baby, from the dictator/leader who sends troops
to conquer enemies, from the priest who believes blood must be offered
to the sun to keep the world alive, from the militant who believes
terror is the tool to compel social comity?
The
authority to kill is currently under attack by civilized societies.
Nations cannot join the European Union if they allow capital punishment.
If religion or national custom legitimize human sacrifice, all other-believers
and nationalities are in jeopardy. Human coexistence depends on
rejecting human sacrifice.
Diane
Christian is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at University
at Buffalo and author of the new book Blood Sacrifice.
She can be reached at: engdc@acsu.buffalo.edu
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