Film Reviews – Page 2 – About Things That Matter

Jordan and Gender: Workers’ Power to Undo Patriarchy

Like every other basketball fan, I’ve just finished watching ESPN’s ten-episode series, “The Last Dance.” It was about the 1997-’98 championship year of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls’ – their sixth such triumph in eight years.

The series took on special meaning for me, since at the same time, I was reading the late Allan G. Johnson’s book, The Gender Knot: unraveling our patriarchal legacy. Johnson’s analysis made me realize that I was witnessing in the Jordan video saga the stark exposure of the same system Johnson was explaining in his book. Feminist scholar, bell hooks, calls it the “white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist patriarchy.” That’s the oppressive paradigm in which all of us – men and women alike – live and move and have our being. Hooks and Johnson agree on that point.

But Johnson goes further. He suggests guidelines for escaping the paradigm to make room for its replacement. Following Episode 10 of “The Last Dance,” I found myself wishing Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had followed their direction. If they had, we might today be living in a very different world.

Before I get to that, consider first The Gender Knot, and then “The Last Dance.” Together they reveal our patriarchal dilemma.

The Gender Knot

The main thought of The Gender Knot is that every one of us is influenced by a powerful force called patriarchy. It represents our culture’s fundamental paradigm – its unspoken social arrangement and set of assumptions – this one driven by men’s fears and their need to control. It promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered. It’s what undergirds capitalism, racism, classism, and, of course, sexism.

For Johnson, patriarchy sets the rules of the game. It’s like we’re playing “Monopoly” barely aware that its instructions force us to adopt attitudes and activities that would be disturbing in other situations. “Sorry to drive you into bankruptcy,” we might find ourselves saying, “but those are the rules of the game.”

Understood in this sense, patriarchy governs the jokes men tell, our banter with other men. It governs male self-images as we compare ourselves with peers, competitors, co-workers, friends, characters in movies and on the field of play. It also governs workplace interactions between labor and management.

For many, that thesis in itself might be familiar. What was not as familiar (to me at least) is Johnson’s more penetrating insight that patriarchy is not primarily about men’s fearful and controlling relationships with women.

Instead, patriarchy is chiefly about relations among men. Psychologically, it’s about men justifying and protecting our “manly” and strong self-image before other men whose scrutiny hovers over every aspect of life – on the athletic field, at the bar, in the stadium, in the bedroom, and on the job. In all of these venues, we judge ourselves through a patriarchal gaze. At the deepest level, then, it’s other men we fear – how they might threaten, ridicule, replace, or even rape us.

Economically, it’s about how they might fire us from our jobs after our work has made them rich.

Jordan’s Last Dance

Those watching “The Last Dance” with such analysis in mind can see it played out in the series.

It brings us into the hyper-male context of locker room, court, fawning reporters, and fans. (Virtually no women have significant roles in any of the episodes.) It’s an entirely man’s world and so provides a kind of petri dish for observing and testing Johnson’s theory about men’s fears and desire to control. It also provides a context for analyzing the bigger patriarchal issue of white supremacist capitalism.

At the psychological level, “The Last Dance” displays situations where males must continually prove their fleeting manly worth through attitudes and activities that would be disturbing in other situations. The rules of the basketball world turn them into super patriarchs – openly, proudly (but also fearfully) competitive, aggressive, greedy, self-promoting, belligerent, domineering, vengeful, trash-talking, and preening – again, in an exclusively man’s world completely devoid of women and children.

All of that is true especially of Michael Jordan, the principal focus of the ESPN series. Under the threat of inevitably waning powers and the advent of younger rising stars, he’s driven to constantly prove he’s the best by vanquishing and humiliating all comers. He has to defend his position as GOAT (greatest of all time) by winning more scoring championships, All Star Game nominations, MVP awards, Olympic gold medals, and (above all) NBA championships than any other player.

And that brings us to the economic aspect of “The Last Dance” and its unwitting depiction of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. . .

Though universally admired, Jordan’s a kind of tyrant on the job. In labor terms, he’s the ultimate foreman. As a result, grown giants of men – Michael’s teammates – alternately cower and obsequiously smile under M.J.’s judgmental gaze. His leadership style embodies the fear and control Johnson identifies as patriarchal system’s underlying values. So, he berates his teammates, makes fun of them, gets up in their faces, laughs at them, calls them names, and (on one occasion at least) punches them out – all for the sake of more efficient production.

Ironically, Jordan is particularly hard on his boss, Jerry Krause, the General Manager of the Chicago Bulls. Jordan constantly taunts him for being fat and short – at 5’6, a full foot below his tormentor. But like a kid bullied in the school yard, Krause too does the sheepish smiley thing, rolls over and takes it.

However, beneath it all, Krause, perhaps the most unathletic person in the story, is actually its most powerful patriarch. Yes, he’s fat, short and white in a world of giant African American supermen. Yes, they make fun of him and resent his taking credit for the Bulls’ success and for his vendetta against Phil Jackson, the team’s popular coach.

But in the end, it’s Krause along with Jerry Reinsdorf (the Bulls’ owner) who’s the boss – the one who finally decides to break up the greatest basketball team of all time. And this despite his “workers’” desires and those of millions of fans.

And the reason? In episode ten, Reinsdorf explains why. It’s the money. It’s profit. Referring to some of his frontline players, he said, “Now after the sixth championship, things are beyond our control, because it would have been suicidal to bring back Pippen, Steve Kerr, Rodman and (unintelligible). Their market value was going to be too high. They weren’t going to be worth the value they’d be getting in the market . . . So, . . . I realized we were going to have to go into a rebuild. . .”

In other words, the reason for not pursuing a seventh world championship was that that the organization would have to pay the workers too much. So, white ownership and management (Reinsdorf and Krause) bit the bullet. Or, rather, they forced their African American workers and the consumers of their product to do so.

But that’s the point. It’s the way the racist capitalist patriarchy works. It delivers to a few (usually white) men absolute power over the many. If it were up to the workers, if it were up to the consumers, the Bulls would have gone on to compete for and probably win a fourth consecutive championship. But it wasn’t profitable to the powerful few. So, it didn’t happen.

So much for consumer sovereignty. So much for workers’ rights.

Lines of Greatest Resistance

Confronted with such dynamics both psychological and economic, Johnson’s Gender Knot asks its central question: What would it take to shift the entire paradigm even as so clearly depicted in “The Last Dance?” What can be done to transform the white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal paradigm both psychologically and economically?

Johnson’s answer: take the line of greatest resistance. That’s because, like all paradigms, the very purpose of patriarchy’s system is to shunt all of us towards lines of least resistance. Its intention in all spheres is to make it easy for us to go along to get along.

On the other hand, effective resistance means:

Following Gandhi and embodying the paradigm we’d like to see the world adopt.
Realizing that most of humanity’s 250,000 years were lived under matrifocal, matrilineal, non-capitalist societies.
Therefore, rejecting the myth that patriarchal capitalism is somehow inevitable and permanent.
Giving up the comforting idea that there’s nothing we can do to synchronize our lives and decisions with history’s ineluctable paradigm shift.
Rejecting the related myth that change is meaningless or irrelevant unless we’re around to see it. (We can’t use our human lifespan to judge social progress.)
Embracing in every sphere every chance to interrupt the flow of “business as usual.”
Daring to make people feel uncomfortable.
Beginning each day with the question, “What risk for change will I take today?”
To that end, adopting the slogan “Organize, organize, organize.”

Conclusion

The great Larry Bird once described Michael Jordan as “God pretending to be Michael Jordan.” Indiana Pacers legend, Reggie Miller, called him “Black Jesus.” Such transcendent references make me think. . .

Imagine if the collection of black workers called the Chicago Bulls led by their highly driven and charismatic foreman had shared the consciousness explained in The Gender Knot. What if they had organized, interrupted the flow of business as usual, and taken (admittedly large in their case) risks for change in the white supremacist system of capitalist patriarchy?

What if Michael Jordan had used his charisma and marvelous talents in the service of Johnson’s suggestions? What if the Bulls had not simply rolled over for the two Jerrys — Krause and Reinsdorf? What if they had employed their unprecedented status and star power in the eyes of millions worldwide to similarly raise public consciousness about the patriarchal paradigm that oppresses us all.

What if Jordan and company had just said “No!? We’re embracing and appropriating our own power. What’s more, we’re going to organize the NBA Players’ Association into a collective worker-owned cooperative run by us, for us, and for our fans? After all, you owners need us more than we need you. You’re history!”

It would have been revolutionary – and not just for the NBA.

That’s what might have been. But it’s not just fantasy. Changes like that are entirely possible. The fact is that workers united have far more power than Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls ever had.

And as both The Gender Knot and “The Last Dance” suggest, the white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy is more vulnerable than it seems.

Betrayed: Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”

At last the left-wing environmentalists have come to their senses. Even the most extreme of them like Michael Moore has admitted that climate change is a hoax. So-called energy alternatives do more harm than good. And nothing can or should be done to address the Chicken Little faux problem of global warming – unless it’s reducing the number of people who have irresponsibly overpopulated the planet.

That’s the position adopted by more than one right-wing commentator gloating over Moore’s newly released documentary, “Planet of the Humans.” And for those who haven’t paid attention to the environmental movement, the evaluation might well ring true.

The film Itself

In making its case, “Planet of the Humans” for instance presents formidable rows of solar panels as perhaps only enough to energize a kitchen toaster. The film demonstrates that the elements required to manufacture wind turbines and electric cars require environmental devastation that destroys tribal lands and exactly parallels the coal industry’s mountaintop removal. And biomass is just crazy. The same holds true for ethanol and elephant manure. Too often, the purveyors of solar and wind technologies turn out to be fly-by-night con artists.

As for the heroes of the environmental movement, there just aren’t any (except, perhaps, for India’s Vandana Shiva who in a brief cameo dissents from biomass madness). Forget about the Sierra Club and Al Gore. Gore’s in bed with Virgin Airlines’ Richard Branson, Mike Bloomberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barack Obama, and the Koch brothers. They’re all compromised, interested only in corporate profit, and speak uniformly with forked tongues.

The same holds true for Bill McKibben and his organization 350.org. He’s fumbling, inarticulate, and evasive – just the opposite of how many of us have seen him repeatedly over the years in venues like Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.”

No wonder climate change denialists loved the film. Observing their gleeful victory dances will disappoint progressives who likely find themselves upset with Michael Moore, whom so many have come to admire for his other films and his general political leadership. Even a sense of betrayal might not be out of place as the film undercuts an environmental movement at a particularly crucial juncture where time to save the planet is rapidly running out.

Josh Fox’s Counterpoint

In response to such understandable disappointment, Josh Fox the producer-director of “Gas Land,” – a documentary critique of the fracking industry – appeared recently on Krystal Ball’s and Sagaar Enjeti’s “Rising” news program. There, Fox criticized “Planet of the Humans” as fundamentally misleading. He pointed out the film’s puzzling misdirection in support of its thesis that renewable energy is not the panacea for climate change that environmentalists claim. However, according to Fox, “Planet of the Humans” errs when it:

Attacks and dismisses the basic premise of the alternative energy movement that relies on solar and wind sources, but not exclusively as the film suggests. Alternative energy must be complemented by reductions in consumption, by conservation of public lands, and by recycling and reusing.
Holds instead that reduction of consumption and population control represent the only viable ways forward. (The Malthusian overtones of such argument are especially reprehensible, Fox said, during a time of pandemic.)
Focuses on 10-year old technology as if huge strides have not been made in the past decade with both solar and wind power
Similarly advances the arguments that are not merely 10-years but 40-years old. They mirror perfectly what the fossil fuel industry has been saying during that near half century despite the fact that its leaders have known the links between their product and climate change the whole time. Even with that knowledge, they’ve argued (as the film itself implies) that the need for and viability of alternative energies is a matter of debate. In reality however, virtually the entire scientific community is in contrary agreement on the issue.
Spends an extraordinary amount of time addressing the pitfalls of biomass as though it were a major part of the alternative energy proposals. (In reality it accounts for 1.4% of non-fossil fuel alternatives.)
Ignores the environmental movement of the past 10 years, while arguing at the same time that a new more radical environmental movement is required
Specifically, avoids mentioning the extremely important Green New Deal, the Sunrise Movement, and the work of activist heroes like Naomi Klein, Greta Thunberg, and Bill McKibben around divestment from the fossil fuel industry. Instead, McKibben is specifically singled out as though he were a shill for the industry he’s been working against for decades. He’s criticized for support of biomass despite the fact that he informed the filmmakers beforehand that this is no longer the case.
Ignores the fact that most within the alternative energy movement stand in agreement with the filmmakers’ position that capitalism and renewable energy do not mix. At this moment of crisis with its need for an F.D.R.-like mobilization of productive resources, socialism is much more compatible with the movement’s goals.

Additional Points of Criticism

One could add to Fox’s criticism the facts that:

As John Gilkison has indicated, criticizing today’s electric cars for their continued dependence on coal, oil and gas is like disqualifying Model Ts in 1908 as viable transportation alternatives because they still relied on horse drawn wagons for delivery of materials to the Ford factory.
Obviously, wind power is not dependent on mountaintop removal procedures. In fact, mountaintops in Vermont do not at all represent the ideal spot for wind generators. Those would be found in the wind corridor stretching from North Dakota and Montana in the north to western Texas in the south.
Biomass does, of course, have a valuable place among today’s energy alternatives. It takes the form of fuel for wood stoves used by individual homeowners to supplement the energy generated by their rooftop panels.
The film misleads on the subject of population. At one point, it says that in a period of just 200 years, the globe’s population increased by a factor of 10. During the same period, energy consumption “on average” rose by the same measure. Clearly however, figures for average energy consumption make it appear that everyone on the planet is equally responsible for energy depletion. They are not. The United States with less than 5% of the world’s population, consumes around 25% of its energy. Meanwhile people on the African continent and elsewhere in the Global South consume far less. So, rather than giving the impression that there are too many people in the world, it would be more accurate to say there are too many Americans. The film avoids making that specific, but hugely important point.

Conclusion

“Planet of the Humans,” of course, is correct in positing that energy corporations like BP and Exxon are trying mightily to co-opt the concept of green technology. Moreover, the corporate version of energy alternatives continues to centralize and control solar and wind sources in massive plants. So, they build expensive energy-intensive installations that depend on solar panel arrays the extent of football fields or on thousands of easily destructible mirrors located in the desert to reflect and somehow gather the sun’s energy. The business model of these concerns has them retaining control of “smart grids” just as they did with the dumb ones formerly powered by oil and coal.

Moore’s film is correct: such “solutions” are top-down and hugely problematic.

However, there are more democratic bottom-up models of energy production. These have homeowners installing solar panels and water heaters on their own rooftops. Bottom-up models similarly turn every office building into its own energy production unit. In this way, solar energy democratizes production and takes it away from the giant corporations. Even today it has those concerns actually paying consumers for the energy homeowners’ solar panels feed back into the larger system. Jeremy Rifkin, for example, has written a great deal on this.

So, we’re left wondering why Michael Moore chose to ignore such patent truisms. Instead, he leaves his audience without constructive scientifically founded hope or alternative. He releases this disturbing film at this particular point in history when the Green New Deal is on the table. He gifts its opponents with the argument that even the “extreme left” now admits that anthropogenic climate change, if it exists at all, represents an insoluble problem.

Why in the face of contrary evidence, did Moore choose to support the right’s position like that? Why ignore the advances in the opposite direction that have emerged over the last 10 years? Why vilify climate heroes like Bill McKibben?

There are no apparent answers to these questions. Michael Moore’s credentials as filmmaker and progressive activist are impeccable. Progressives are still scratching their heads. . .

“Where’s My Roy Cohn?”: A U.S. Coup D’état by Nihilists, Mobsters, Pedophiles and Blackmailers

Recently, I spent two weeks in Tijuana working with Al Otro Lado (AOL). I’ve written about that experience here, here, and here.

AOL is a legal defense service for refugees seeking asylum mostly from gang-rule in Mexico and Central America. The emigrants want escape from countries whose police forces and allied power holders are controlled by ruthless drug rings whose only goal is accumulation of money and social dominance.

As I did my work helping clients fill out endless forms concocted by those who would illegally exclude them, everything seemed so hopeless. I wondered how those gangs achieved such power? Isn’t it a shame, I thought, that entire countries are now controlled by criminal mobs with names like “MS 13,” “Nueva Generacion,” and “18?” How sad for these people!

Then, during my flight home to Connecticut, I happened to watch the documentary “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” (WMRC). It introduced viewers to the dark and criminal mentor of Donald Trump.

On its face, the film illustrated the absolute corruption of the U.S. government as the unwavering servant of the elite as the only people who count. But in the light of my experience in Tijuana, it made me realize that our country too is literally controlled by shadowy gangs to an extent even worse than what’s happening south of our border. I mean, the United States of America now has the most prominent protege of Roy Cohn, an unabashed mafioso, actually sitting in the Oval Office! Both Cohn and, of course, his disciple turn out to be absolute nihilists without principle or any regard for truth.

The film made clear how both men tapped into a similar nihilist strain within huge numbers of Americans who identify with the Republican Party and ironically with the Catholic faith and Christian fundamentalism. Nonetheless, WMRC wasn’t explicit enough in probing either Cohn’s corruption, that of Donald Trump or of our reigning system’s complex of government, education, church and mainstream media.

It failed to show how the phenomena of Roy Cohn and Donald Trump represent mere surface indications of a profoundly anti-democratic coup d’état that has gradually unfolded in our country over the last 40 years. The actuality of this takeover was revealed most clearly in the recent impeachment proceedings. They provided a kind of last straw undeniably exhibiting how nihilist “Christians” have seized power in perhaps irreversible ways.

The Film

To see what I mean, begin by watching “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” for yourself. It not only details Cohn’s life as an infamous New York mafia consigliere. It also shows how he started his career in crime as the 23-year-old advisor of the equally villainous Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. (McCarthy, of course was the force behind the nation-wide communist scare of the early 1950s.)

However, most importantly WMRC describes the film’s subject as the mentor of Donald Trump. By both their admissions, each recognized in the other a kindred spirit. Each used mafia and friends in high places (from Ronald Reagan to New York’s Cardinal Spellman) to enrich himself in terms of power and money. In the end, the alliance brought Trump to “the highest office in the land.”

To that point, here’s the way the film’s (highly accurate) preview-teaser reads: “Roy Cohn, a ruthless and unscrupulous lawyer and political power broker, found his 28-year career ranged from acting as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist-hunting subcommittee to molding the career of a young Queens real estate developer named Donald Trump.”

In the course of the film, witnesses testify that Cohn taught Trump his basic approach to life. To wit: here are Cohn’s (and by extension, Donald Trump’s) implicit Ten Commandments. They also summarize the guiding principles of perhaps the majority of the most prominent politicians in the U.S. and across the world:

Value money as the highest good.
Manipulate the law to enhance personal wealth and privilege
Put your own interests above everyone else’s
Bully opponents mercilessly
Wrap yourself in the flag while you do so
Never admit wrong-doing or failure
When accused change the subject and make vigorous counteraccusation
Lie unceasingly with great confidence and bluster
Declare even the worst defeat a victory
Win at all costs

All of that was actually Cohn’s personal ethos. It worked for him throughout his life. It is reaping at least short-term benefits for Donald Trump as well. In fact, with Cohn as his mentor and as the man’s protege, Donald Trump would seem to merit all the adjectives on the film’s cover envelope: ruthless, unscrupulous, powerful, flamboyant, notorious, despicable . . .

Deeper Corruption

Unmentioned however in the film is Cohn’s connection with the very way our country (and the world) is run. It’s largely a blackmail game connected not merely with money and power, but with sex, pedophilia, blackmail and complete disregard for truth or moral principle. In fact, Whitney Webb’s four-part study of pedophile-racketeer, Jeffrey Epstein is called just that: “Government by Blackmail.”

And right at its heart, we find Trump mentor, Roy Cohn, listed prominently among figures like the Mafia kingpin Myer Lansky, and Lew Rosenstiel (of Schenley distilleries). For decades following World War II, they were real powers behind mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, presidents, and (yes) behind the world’s remaining kings and potentates, along with assorted church officials.

In fact, according to Webb, all during the ’70s and ’80s, Rosenstiel, Lansky’s close friend, regularly threw what his fourth wife (of five) called “blackmail parties.” The photos and recordings gathered there long kept Lansky out of trouble from the federal government. They also delivered entire cities to Mafia control in the post WWII era. In the end, Lansky blackmailed numerous top politicians, army officers, diplomats and police officials. He had photos of FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover in drag and performing homosexual acts.

Again, according to Webb’s research, Rosenstiel’s protegee and successor as blackmailer-in-chief was Roy Cohn himself who was closely associated with the Mafia bosses referenced prominently in “Where’s My Roy Cohn,” as well as with J. Edgar Hoover and the Reagan White House. (Nancy Reagan even phoned Cohn to thank him for enabling the election of her husband.)

Simultaneously, Cohn took on the central role in the blackmail pedophile hustle Lansky and Rosenstiel had started. As usual, its main targets were politicians often interacting with child “prostitutes.”

That was the real source of Cohn’s power. So were his dear friends in high places including (besides Clinton, the Reagans and Trump) Barbara Walters, Rupert Murdoch, Alan Dershowitz, Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Chuck Schumer, William Safire, William Buckley, William Casey, and top figures in the Catholic Church.

It’s those latter figures that connect Cohn’s pedophile ring as inherited by Jeffery Epstein even with the Church’s child abuse scandal. It directly involved the aforementioned “American pope,” Francis Cardinal “Mary” Spellman of New York, and Cardinal Theodore “Uncle Teddy” McCarrick of Washington D.C. Father Bruce Ritter’s Covenant House (a multi-million-dollar charity for homeless and run-away boys and girls) was also deeply implicated. In fact, when Ritter’s involvement in sex acts with his underage wards came to light, it was secular powers more than ecclesiastical forces that rallied to his defense.

Right-Wing Coup and Presidential Impeachment

All of that leads me back to where I started – to the right-wing coup d’état whose final straw debunked any pretense of democracy that may have been persuasive to some before impeachment proceedings put them completely to rest. “Where’s My Roy Cohn” showed the profound extent of the take-over in question – never far distanced from predominantly male sexual perversion.

Yes, we all know about such depravity within the Catholic Church – all the way up the chain of command. But the Cohn film along with the ancillary Epstein revelations it ignores reveal the centrality of that debauchery to standard operating procedure among government officials in the United States and across the world. It’s evidently what they do.

Am I exaggerating? Go back to the above list of Cohn’s and Epstein’s “friends.” See for yourself: they include presidents, princes, prelates, professors, pundits, pushers, and publishers. All of them have always had a lot to fear from the tapes and videos made by Cohn. But the same holds true for the ones confiscated from Epstein’s special safe, and from the still unpublished manifestoes of passengers on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” to the man’s “Orgy Island.” Additionally, there’s remains a lot to learn from the testimony of Epstein’s procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell. Inexplicably the latter remains at large and allegedly unlocatable by international agencies possessing the world’s most sophisticated technology.

In other words, what we know about connections between Cohn, Epstein, the Mafia, CIA, DOJ, White House, and church officials represent the mere tip of an iceberg whose continued submersion seems assiduously assured by the agencies involved, by Britain’s royals, and other powerful entities — all aided and abetted by an entirely cooperative MSM.

[And no: it’s not baseless “conspiracy reasoning” to implicate the deep state officials just mentioned – not in the face of Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious “suicide” whose suspicious circumstances (within a specifically federal prison) include transgression of standard protocols for prisoners on suicide watch, missing surveillance tapes, sleeping guards, unexplained screams reported by fellow inmates as coming from Epstein’s cell, and lack of follow-up by the MSM.]

In other words, it’s not just that our country has been taken over by right-wing mobsters. No, it’s much more than that: our very world is run by gangsters, pedophiles, blackmailers, and their enablers – with Donald Trump its most recent and blatant evidentiary manifestation of anti-democratic policies.

Ignoring the rest of the world for a moment, consider what we’ve learned from the impeachment process about the extent of America’s de facto coup under Donald Trump whose criminal actions have gutted the Constitution of the United States at its core. Thus:

There no longer remains a separation of powers.
An indicted executive can control his own trial.
Subpoenas mean nothing to the reigning executive. By his decree alone, he can override summonses, forbidding those receiving them from appearing in court.
Impeachment “jurors” can embrace unmitigated bias with impunity announcing their judgment well before the trial’s commencement.
The presiding judge – even as he acknowledges the appearance of his court’s politicization – can with straight face permit a “trial” without evidence or witnesses.
Thus, prosecutors (i.e. the very House of Representatives) are left entirely impotent.

The hell of it is that these are all merely the latest developments in a criminal, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic process that has been in motion for nearly half a century. It has attacked the very pillars of democracy including the Supreme Court, Public Education, the mainstream media (MSM), and the Catholic Church – not to mention the Christian fundamentalists who constitute the heart of the Republican Party. It’s no wonder that Noam Chomsky has identified the latter as the most dangerous organization in the history of the world.

To be more specific, its “Christian” base hold firmly to tenets like the following that can only be described as “Cohnistic,” Trumpian, nihilistic, or (in religious terms) heretical:

There are no basic ethical principles (except that abortion is immoral).
Human life has no value except in its fetal stages.
The concept of truth is completely meaningless. This is because the public’s attention span and memory are so limited that repeated deceits make no lasting impression and will soon be forgotten.
The U.S. Constitution (except for the Second Amendment) is entirely insignificant.
There are two sets of laws, one for the elite and another for the rest of us.
As legal persons, corporations have more rights than living human beings.
International law applies only to U.S. enemies, never to the United States or its allies.
While the United States has the right to assassinate, bomb, drone, invade and occupy wherever it wishes, defense or retaliation against such aggression is criminal and liable to maximum punishment.

Conclusion

Do you see what I mean in describing our situation here in “America” as worse than our neighbors to the south?

It’s a truism to observe that whatever imperial governments – from Rome to Great Britain to our own – do abroad eventually returns to haunt them at home. My experience in Tijuana coupled with watching “Where’s My Roy Cohn” underlined the veracity of that terrible axiom. It all made me realize that our government has been taken over by cynical nihilists – and more than that by mobsters, pedophiles, blackmailers and heretical religious fanatics.

So, my take-away from border work in Tijuana is not only dismay, sadness, and despair for refugees at or border. It’s the same sentiments for ourselves.

With elections on the horizon, it’s also the question, what are we going to do about it? We have to determine which available candidate is freest from the sick contagion I’ve just described.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: An Epic Masterpiece

Last night Peggy and I accompanied Peggy’s brother to a local theater to see Quentin Tarantino’s “Once upon a Time in Hollywood.” All of us came away disappointed and wondering why we didn’t leave the theater about half an hour into this two-hour-forty-five-minute marathon, even though it featured A-list actors including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Al Pacino. We all agreed the film was too long, too slow, too violent, and on the whole seemed pointless.

I’m glad we didn’t leave. After-thought has made me realize that we would have missed a thought-provoking and revealing parable about entertainment-fantasy and its influence on our lives. Even more, the film had the epic quality of all the great classics, Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses. It was about our lives’ journeys, their purpose, about love and friendship.

After all, the film’s very title alerts the viewer to Tarantino’s larger intent. “Once upon a time” is the way all fairy tales, myths, legends, and fables begin. They are vehicles for teaching larger truths — for rewriting history. Typically, they feature:

A main character (all of us) facing decline and death
A long, twisted journey
Its quest for meaning in the second half of life
The character’s double who is more grounded and wiser
A child who inspires and teaches
An alternative community representing the story’s readers
And mirroring the condition of the main characters
Class struggle between the communities
A blind man who more clearly sees life’s true purpose
A dog who saves the day
All resulting in insight about how our lives might be different

Significantly, “Once upon a Time in Hollywood” is set in 1969, the year of the bloody murder of actress, Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and four of Tate’s friends at the hands of the infamous Charles Manson family of hippie stoners. In fact, the whole story can be understood as a commentary on that tragic event as encapsulating American life with its senseless violence specifically provoked by the art of directors such as Quintin Tarantino. As such Tarantino’s own film is a kind of self-parody – yet another feature often characterizing the great literature just referenced.

“Once upon a Time in Hollywood” is about a washed-up TV actor, Tom Dalton and his stunt-man double, Cliff Booth. Tom’s an actor whose identity has been fixed by the success of his past role as an old West bounty hunter. Everybody knows him that way. But in mid-life, he suddenly finds himself jobless, filled with self-doubt and lacking clear direction. He wants to maintain his Hollywood image and lifestyle and is terrified with the prospect of losing them. Who is he without his on-screen role? He’s afraid of death and life’s inevitable call to enter its second half.

Meanwhile, Tom’s stunt-man double (his real self) is a doer. He’s entirely capable of accomplishing in real life, what Tom does only in film. Whereas Tom pretends to be brave, take chances, fall off horses, fight and prevail, Cliff actually does those things. What’s more, Cliff’s not worried about his image or living large. He’s content to be in effect Tom’s butler and chauffeur. His home is a beat-up Airstream trailer; he eats Kraft Macaroni, and his only companion is his fierce and obedient pit bull, Brandy. The dog is actually Cliff’s better half; like his master, he’s simple, faithful, loving, and valiant. Brandy is to Cliff what Cliff is to Tom.

So, shadowed by his double and better-self, Tom sets off on his journey. Tarantino drives the theme home by introducing virtually every character in terms of their footwear – cowboy boots, sandals, go-go boots, and bare feet. Everybody’s on a journey. Tom’s own has him advised by standard Hollywood types – always telling him how to cope with life’s changes by adopting new roles, different costumes, makeup, facial hair, and public image. For them, everything is image and performance.

However, Tom’s best professional advice comes from an eight-year-old girl far wiser than her years. Trudi Fraser tells Dalton to sober up, pay attention to his craft, be true to himself in the roles he plays, and never break character. As a result of listening to her, Tom delivers his greatest performance in a film called Lancer. For him, it’s the turning point in his professional journey. Yet, we find, there’s much more for him to learn. Life’s not merely about professional success.

It’s his better self, Cliff Booth, who makes the deeper discovery. And ironically, it’s the Manson Family who conveys that truth. Led on by a flirtatious Siren, Cliff suddenly finds himself in the midst of the Manson family. Significantly, they live in an abandoned movie lot owned by a declined movie mogul, George Spahn.

Over the objections of the Manson Family members, Cliff insists on consulting his former colleague who turns out to be a blind oracle revealing life’s true meaning. He’s Booth’s interior voice who’s deeply asleep and must be shaken back into awareness. Sightless, old George can’t even remember his former meaningless life. He doesn’t recognize Booth or remember who Tom Dalton is. He only knows that Squeaky Fromme (Manson’s best-known disciple) loves him and that he wants to please her. Loving her is what’s truly important to him, nothing else.

Moreover, the Manson community itself teaches Booth. It proves to be deeper and more loving than the Hollywood assemblage of self-seeking individuals that the Manson Clan mirrors. Yes, they spend their lives in exactly the same way of their better-off counterparts. They even live on an abandoned movie lot and spend their days watching old movies on TV. For them, it’s all sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

However, overwhelmingly composed of women, the Mansons have abandoned the Culver City rat race. They dumpster-dive for food. But more importantly, they exhibit solidarity, sympathy and support for members who suffer or are in danger.

The contrast leads them on the one hand to resent the actual self-centered lives of Hollywood personalities, and on the other to imitate their on-screen violence. (Here’s where the class-struggle comes in.) They reason: The films we’ve watched from childhood have taught us lessons. The actors we’ve admired have advocated senseless violence, and they live like selfish pigs. So, let’s get our revenge and do some violence on them.”

And that brings us to Tarantino’s ironic, over-the top, cleansing and healing climax. (Spoiler alert!) In a riot of shooting, stabbing, beating and burning, Hollywood’s fantasy triumphs over real life. The heroic dog, Brandy comes to the rescue; the Mansons are decimated; Sharon Tate, her child and her friends are saved. History is re-written.

But more importantly, in terms of Tarantino’s fabulous intent, Tom Dalton and Cliff Booth discover their actual identity with one another. The two halves of Tom’s personality are united in expressions of their deep friendship. Tom gets over himself and joins a larger community of literally resurrected souls.

As a result, all of us are called to resurrection, love, and friendship. We’re called to own our True Selves.

I’m glad we stayed to watch it all.

“In the Heights” Answers the Immigrant Question in Arts-Friendly Westport Connecticut

On Mothers’ Day, the immigrant invasion that Donald Trump has warned us about, finally reached my new hometown of Westport, Connecticut. It came in the form of Lin Manuel Miranda’s sparkling musical, “In the Heights.” My daughter and son-in-law generously took us to see the play.

At first glance, a performance in Westport might seem literally out-of-place. After all, it’s is one of the most affluent cities in the country. By contrast, Miranda’s play is set in a poor barrio located in Manhattan’s Washington Heights. However, “In the Heights” succeeded in bringing two disparate communities together in a mutual appreciation that should characterize all interactions between “Americans” from the north and those from the south.

Let me explain.

Westport is the home of Wall Street investors, lawyers and insurance brokers. But the town of 26,000 clearly has a social conscience. At least in part, that’s because in the 1930s it was an artist colony animated by the horizon-widening presence of its venerable “Country Playhouse.”

A converted barn right out of a Rooney and Garland movie, the Playhouse was later adopted by local residents, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who inspired its renovation. Over the years, many famous authors, television personalities and actors from Hollywood and Broadway have been drawn to Westport by the playhouse and its theatrical sprites. The best-known personalities include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bette Davis, Robert Redford, Ann Hathaway, Keith Richards, Martha Stewart, Jim Nantz, Phil Donahue, and Christopher Walken.

Miranda brought together Westporters proud of such lineage on the one hand and immigrants far from such pedigree on the other. And guess what: there was not even one of President Trump’s frightening rapists or gang members among the latter. Instead, they included a street graffiti artist, a snow-cone vender, a bodega proprietor, the owner of a small taxi service, his dispatcher, a sassy beautician and her staff of three, and a college student from Stanford University. Over a period of 90 minutes we came to know and care about each one of them.

The characters came from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Yet all of them had lived in New York for years hardly even noticed as somehow out-of-place. Like many of their real-life counterparts, those the Trumpists call “invaders” were marvelous singers and dancers. Each had a story of family idiosyncrasy, love, economic struggle and high aspiration.

Countering Trump’s cheap clap-trap, “In the Heights” underlined the unmistakable gift-to-America brought by its Latinix citizens. They are hard workers with lofty aspirations, and rich cultures with enviable family values, joy, music, dance, colorful language, resourcefulness, patience and faith. They love their children and grandparents. They scrimp and scrape and help each other with their meager resources. With patience and faith, they endure blackouts (recalling months without power in post-Maria Puerto Rico) that render them powerless in more ways than one, without diminishing their indominable carnival spirits.

Capturing all of that, and following the triumph of “Hamilton,” this earlier musical by Lin Manuel Miranda once again displays the author’s unmistakable genius. (Its first draft was written when he was only 19 years of age.) Its main storyline belongs to Nina Rosario, the first in her family to attend college. Her whole barrio is proud of her and her scholarship to Stanford. However, she disappoints herself and her parents when she secretly drops out in March of her first year, because the work necessary just to pay for her books cut so deeply into her study time. (By the way, her bio reminded me of the students I taught over my 40 years of teaching in Appalachia’s Berea College in Kentucky. Its familiarity brought tears to my eyes.)

Returning home for summer vacation, Nina causes a family crisis, when she finally informs her parents that she has lost her scholarship. Initial parental chagrin and anger soon turns into resolve to sell the family taxi cab business in order to finance their daughter’s college costs.

Meanwhile, Nina falls in love with Benny, an African-American who works for Nina’s father and the only one in the story who does not speak Spanish. Nina’s parents’ own prejudice doesn’t allow them to see Benny as worthy of their daughter. But Benny too has his own aspirations. He wants to learn Spanish. He wants to start his own business. He’s serious – and deeply in love with Nina. Their duet, “Sunrise,” makes that touching point.

But in the end, it’s elderly Claudia, the matriarch recognized as abuela by everyone in the barrio who saves the day. Before her sudden passing, she wins the lottery and immediately shares it with her grandson, who in turn shares it with others. Her image and spirit rendered permanent by the barrio’s graffiti artist prevents the neighborhood from disintegrating. Her memory successfully overcomes the centrifugal force of poverty, crime, and economic hardship. The strength of such family ties, memories and tradition hung like a bright shadow over the entire performance.

Not surprisingly, and thanks, I’m guessing, to their art-friendly context, Westporters accepted all of that with open arms and a standing ovation. It was as if the audience recognized themselves in these on-stage first- and second-generation immigrants. And of course they did – precisely because that’s what all of our families are or have just recently been.

Too easily we forget that. We’re all immigrants, aren’t we? At the most basic level, our ancestors were absolutely no different in any way from those we Westporters watched on stage. We’re no different from those our “leaders” fear and cage.

Yesterday’s audience thankfully realized that those Mr. Trump calls “invaders” deserve welcome, appreciation, and standing ovations reserved for the local “celebrities” whose families themselves were once immigrants like those now living in Washington Heights.

Everyone deserves the honor now given to Lin Manuel Miranda. Everyone merits the response we all gave the Country Playhouse yesterday afternoon. That’s the lesson my new neighbors taught me on Mothers’ Day in their hallowed theater.

“Mary Magdalene” Saves My Lent

I didn’t feel good about my Lent this year – until Holy Week. I don’t know why, but my heart just wasn’t in it till then. However, beginning on what used to be called Holy Week’s “Spy Wednesday,” a whole series of events unfolded that returned me to the spirit that should have characterized the previous 40 days. Its highlight was experiencing an extraordinary film that I want to recommend here. It’s called simply “Mary Magdalene.” It raises questions about women’s leadership in today’s Catholic Church.

What I did just before seeing the film prepared me. It began on Wednesday when I watched an Italian production of “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” The next night brought a brief celebration of Maundy Thursday at our new non- denominational Talmadge Hill Community Church. The following morning, I took part in a two hour “way of the cross” through the town of nearby Darien. Immediately afterwards, came a “Tre Ore” observance at the town’s Episcopal Church. The recollection of Jesus’ three-hours on the cross was marked by long periods of silence broken by seven sermons delivered by ministers from a whole variety of area churches. (At times the latter seemed like a sermon slam, with the clear winner the entry delivered jointly in dialog by our own two pastors from Talmadge Hill.)

Then on Holy Saturday, Peggy and I took in “Mary Magdalene,” directed by Australian, Garth Davis. For me, it was Holy Week’s capstone. To begin with, Joaquin Phoenix embodied the best Jesus-representation that I’ve seen so far. It was understated, believable, sensitive, compassionate, and challenging. Phoenix’s mien and demeanor reminded me of the Jesus forensic archeologists have estimated looked like this:

But it is Mary Magdalene (played by an unglamorous, but beautiful Rooney Mara) who supplies the eyes through which viewers finally see the peasant from Galilee. She’s a midwife, we learn. Far from the one defined as a prostitute by Pope Gregory the Great in the late 6^th century, she rejects intimate relationships with men. “I’m not made for marriage,” Mary explains to the shock of her scandalized father, brothers and suitor. “Then, what are you made for?” they demand. All of them join together and nearly drown her as they attempt to exorcise the demons responsible for her refusal to submit to marital patriarchy.

Nevertheless, Mary persists and eventually tags along with those following Jesus – the only woman among the band of men called apostles. She herself is baptized by Jesus. She also pays closer and more perceptive attention to Jesus’ words than the others. She even gently corrects her male companions, suggesting that their interpretation of the Kingdom of God entailing violent revolution might be mistaken. Peter’s comment about such impertinence is “You weaken us.” But in the end, Mary quietly retorts, “I will not be silenced.”

Soon Jesus commissions Magdalene to baptize women. As a result, they end up following the Master in droves. From then on, we see Mary habitually walking next to Jesus as he treks across Palestine’s barren landscape from Galilee through Cana and Samaria on his way to Jerusalem. At the last supper, after washing Jesus’ feet, she sits at his right hand. Clearly, she’s in charge and a leader of men nonpareil.

At one point in the journey to the Holy City, Mary unmistakably demonstrates her unique leadership. She implicitly reminds viewers of the words John the Evangelist attributes to Jesus, “The one who believes in me, the works that I do shall (s)he do also; and greater works than these shall (s)he do . . . (JN 14:12) For after witnessing Jesus restore a dead man to life, Mary herself emulates the healer’s ritual and restores to life a score of people left for dead by the brutal Roman occupation forces. None of the males among Jesus’ followers even dares such close imitation of Christ.

Then there is Magdalene’s relationship with a young smiling, cheerful, and very sympathetic Judas. He came to follow Jesus after his wife and child had been brutally killed by the Romans. So, he hears Jesus’ words about God’s Kingdom as a promise that Jesus will inspire and lead a retributive rebellion against Rome. But after Jesus’ participation in a direct-action demonstration in Jerusalem’s temple, Judas appears worried that Jesus is losing resolve and direction. So, in an evident effort to force Jesus’ hand, the apostle cooperates in Jesus’ arrest and collects the reward on his head. Judas fully expects that his teacher’s plight will mobilize his followers to the uprising Judas confidently anticipates. When that doesn’t happen, Judas is filled with despair. He returns home. The next we know, he’s hanging from the lintel of his hovel’s doorway.

Of course, there is no uprising. Jesus is arrested, tortured, and crucified. Afterwards, his limp body is placed in the lap of his mother. He’s then buried. While the other apostles flee, distancing themselves from the corpse, Magdalene faithfully sleeps on the ground outside the tomb. In the morning, she’s awakened by Jesus’ voice. He’s clothed in martyr’s white. Without uttering a word, she quietly sits on the ground next to him, convinced that he has come back to life.

So, she returns to the site of the last supper and tells Peter and the others her good news. They refuse to believe her. It’s at this point that Mary says those words, “I will not be silenced.”

According to Pope Francis, that refusal and her bringing of Good News to the apostolic leadership has merited for her the title of “apostle of apostles.” She is more important than any of them.

As you can see, I’m grateful to “Mary Magdalene” for salvaging my Lent. However, her story makes me wonder about the absence of female leadership in Francis’ church.

How about you? See the film and decide for yourself.

Jesus, the Law, and “Les Miserables” of Today

Readings for 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Is. 62; 1-5; Ps. 96: 1-3, 7-10; I Cor. 12: 4-11; Jn. 2: 1-11

During our family’s recent Christmas trip to France, we spent a couple of evenings watching “on location” films. We saw Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” and loved it. Owen Wilson did such a good job of imitating Allen himself. And seeing Wilson wander through the famous sites we were passing each day was great fun.

But on a more serious note, we also took in “Les Miserables” which was such a success back in 2013. At the Golden Globes that year, “Les Miserables” won the “best film” award in the category of musicals and comedies. Hugh Jackson was named best actor for his portrayal of Jean Valjean. Anne Hathaway won best supporting actress for her role as Fantine. She went on to win an Oscar as well.

Watching the film in France this time made it especially poignant. I ended up in quiet tears at its conclusion.

“Les Miserables” is Victor Hugo’s familiar tale of Jean Valjean, a Christ figure intimately connected with today’s Gospel reading about Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana.

Following the royal restoration after the French Revolution of 1789, Valjean was convicted of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving children. He was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor in the most brutal conditions.

Having completed his sentence under the watchful and threatening eye of the cruel Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe in the film), a bitter and vengeful Valjean journeyed homeward. As he passed through the town of Digne, he was given food and shelter by the kindly Bishop Myriel, the pastor of the local cathedral.

But Valjean is not impressed. He rises in the dead of night, steals the bishop’s silverware and candelabra, and flees the rectory. Soon he’s captured by the gendarmes. When he’s dragged back to the bishop by the police, Bishop Myriel secures Valjean’s release by confirming the thief’s lie that the stolen goods had been given him as a gift by the priest. Valjean cannot believe his ears. The bishop’s act of generosity, forgiveness, and mercy transforms him. He goes on to become a successful factory owner and champion of the poor.

However the former convict has broken his parole. So he’s pursued by his prison tormentor, Inspector Javert. Javert is determined to return Valjean to chains. The inspector is a lawman in the strictest sense of the word. He believes he is doing God’s work in pursuing Valjean, and often prays for success in his mission.

Nonetheless towards the film’s end, Javert falls into Valjean’s hands. His former ward has the opportunity to kill Javert with impunity for opposing the People in their revolution against the French crown. Yet Valjean refuses to do so, opting instead to follow the example of bishop Myriel, even though releasing Javert means Valjean will likely return to prison.

Javert can neither believe nor accept Valjean’s generosity. In his eyes, since the law has been broken, Valjean must pay the price. Yet Valjean has acted towards him with such generosity. . . . Javert doesn’t know how to handle such kindness. His life dedicated to law enforcement now seems entirely wasted in the light of Valjean’s compassion and wonderful disregard of the law. Confused and disheartened Javert commits suicide.

Of course, Victor Hugo’s tale is much more complex than that – and much more beautiful. (The singing and lyrics are gorgeous!) But that’s the story’s kernel – a portrayal of a conflict between love, compassion, and mercy on the one hand and respect for the law on the other. That’s what makes it relevant to today’s Gospel.

There we find Jesus attending a wedding. With the other revelers at this feast of seven days, he’s been dancing, singing, eating and drinking already for days. Then the wine runs out. The party is in danger of losing its spirit; the guests will go home; the bridal couple will be disgraced. So Jesus responds to the alcohol shortage by providing about 200 gallons of the best wine the partiers had ever tasted. Significantly, he takes the large stone vessels full of water for ritual washing according to Jewish law, and turns that water into wine. As a result, the fun never stops. And believers have never ceased telling this story – the very first of Jesus’ “signs” as John calls them. We’ve come consider them miracles.

But let’s take John at his word. He sees this rather trivial event at what turns out to be Jesus’ coming out party as a sign, a symbol, a metaphor. . . . (I say “trivial” because on its surface nothing “great” is accomplished. A party is saved from petering out. Some friends – the bridal couple and their families – save face. But was that worth this exercise of divine power?) Nevertheless, John says this is a sign. But of what?

The answer, of course, is that changing water into wine so early in John’s story constitutes an image providing indication of Jesus’ entire mission as John understands it. Jesus’ mission is to obey the spirit of the law even when that means disobeying its letter.

In John’s poetic narrative, the letter of the law is cold, hard, and insipid – as hard and frigid as the stone vessels John takes care to mention, and as tasteless as water in comparison with wine. But it’s even worse than that. The law as Jesus will criticize it in John’s pamphlet is routinely used against the poor (people like Valjean in Hugo’s tale) – the lepers, prostitutes, beggars, Samaritans, tax collectors, and the generally “unclean.” The law is used to oppress “Les Miserables.” Meanwhile, the privileged and elite use legalisms for their own benefit – to enrich themselves and elevate their prestige. Jesus, John is saying, has come to transform all of that.

He has come to change the water of the law’s letter into everything wine symbolizes. The wine of Jesus’ teaching and life is meant to lift the spirit. (It’s not for nothing that alcohol is called “spirits.”) Wine is red like blood not colorless and neutral like water. Wine relieves pain. It evokes laughter, and singing and dancing as it did for the revelers at the Cana wedding feast. Wine enlivens life which, John implies, has more to do with a seven-day party than with what happens in the Temple (or our churches!).

We need to be reminded of all that don’t we? That’s especially true today when the law is used so clearly against the poor, while the rich typically escape its reach. Think about the way our political “leaders” villainize the world’s most impoverished people. They tell us that the dirt poor are the cause of the very problems they and their rich friends have produced. (For example, the poor had nothing to do with the Great Recession whose disastrous effects are still ruining the lives of the poor and middle classes.)

Even worse, the coalition of the rich creates refugees by sending planes, missiles and drones to destroy the homes, schools, hospitals of already desperate people throughout the Middle East and Global South. They overthrow the governments the poor have elected, and afterwards install dictators and drug lords to take their places. Then they complain when the refugees they’ve created seek escape in countries like our own.

In the process, distressed mothers and their children are described as drug dealers, gang members, and murderers. So, in the name of unjust laws, our leaders rationalize the separation of pre-teens from their parents and even create baby jails. Meanwhile, the business of privatized prisons prospers, while their dungeons are increasingly filled with the poor and minorities.

In the meantime, the those who dedicate their lives to exposing such crimes are treated like Jesus and Valjean. The Julian Assanges and Chelsea Mannings — the whistle-blowers of the world – are arrested, tortured and threatened with life imprisonment. “The law is the law,” the criminal arresters remind us. Once again, it’s the story of Jesus and Jean Valjean all over again.

Like “Les Miserables,” John’s story of Cana can raise our consciousness about all of that. The tale of water turned into wine can move us to defend the poor, powerless, imprisoned and whistle-blowers that the law routinely oppresses. Jesus’ example calls us to celebrate “spirit,” and feasts, and food, laughter and dancing. It invites us to destroy by our own hands the law-worshipping Javert who resides within each of us.

Both John the Evangelist and Victor Hugo call us to imitate those who dedicate their scandalous lives to obeying the Spirit of God’s Law by disobeying the letter of human law.

Only God Can Save Us from Nature’s 2025 Deadline: Listen to Pope Francis on Climate Change

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I recently came across a powerful but profoundly misleading video about climate change. In the name of progressiveness, compassion and love, it waves a white flag before anthropogenic climate change and invites its viewers to blissfully coast through to their inevitable evolutionary demise.

The film’s resigned surrender contrasts sharply with the more hopeful, clear-eyed vision of Pope Francis and the faith-inspired program he suggests in his all-but-ignored eco-encyclical, Laudato Si’.

The stark difference between the two approaches illustrates the impotence of the secularized left before the world’s most pressing problems. It also shows the potential power of Francis’ faith perspective, which progressives ignore at their own (and the planet’s) peril.

First of all, consider the film in question. The eight-minute piece is called “Edge of Extinction.” It was produced and narrated by Guy McPherson, an evolutionary biologist whose webpage slogan is “Nature bats last. Passionately pursue a life of excellence.”

McPherson’s thesis is that “humanity is behaving exactly in accordance with its evolved genetic imperatives to survive, thrive and multiply today, regardless of the consequences tomorrow.”

In other words, humanity is like other animal species. Its evolutionary short-sightedness has it rushing headlong towards its own inevitable extinction whose ultimate cause is “industrial civilization, the most violent set of living arrangements ever devised.”

According to McPherson, this preordained inevitability means that we should all set aside anger and bitterness about human-caused climate change, replacing such unproductive emotions with “compassion and tolerance” presumably for climate change deniers. This, in turn, will confer peace of mind and a resultant “general happiness” as we glide towards extinction which, Mr. McPherson says will occur in 2025.

None of this is to say that it will be easy, the film continues. We’ll witness the cataclysmic death of 7.5 million people. We’ll run out of food, water, and fuel. The soil will become completely unproductive. The world’s abandoned nuclear facilities will melt down catastrophically. Hospitals will be shuttered; disease will run rampant. There will be no first responders to rescue us. Many will commit suicide. Others will be murdered by the last remnants of the privileged still hanging on to their dwindling resources in their sweltering radiated bunkers.

Is that pessimistic enough for you?

It needn’t be for three reasons: First of all, “humanity” has not actually made the decision in question. Secondly, as signaled by Pope Francis, there are clear alternatives. Third, while climate change deniers might deserve our compassion, they emphatically do not merit tolerance.

To begin with, “humanity” has certainly not decided “to survive, thrive and multiply today, regardless of the consequences tomorrow.” In fact, only a sliver of the human race has done so; the rest are in complete resistance.

The sliver in question is a small part of the planet’s richest 1% most of whom happen to live in the United States whose population comprises only 5% of the world’s inhabitants. To put a finer point on it: the criminals in question have coalesced in the United States and in the Republican Party, identified by Noam Chomsky as the most dangerous organization in the history of the world. Republicans can be removed from office. (Remember that next November!)

Meanwhile, the rest of the world has other ideas as signaled in the nascent reforms of the Paris Climate Accord endorsed by nearly everyone in the world excluding the Republican leadership. Moreover, polls show that 61% of Americans—including 43 percent of Republicans—say climate change is a problem the government needs to tackle.

Secondly, there are simple, common-sense alternatives to the looming catastrophe. They have been outlined most compellingly by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ (LS). They include on the one hand, acts on the parts of individuals such as “avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or carpooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights. . .” as well as reducing the use of air conditioning (LS 55, 212).

On the other hand, Francis says that dealing with climate chaos requires action which national governments alone are capable of performing (38, 129). These include weening national populations from dependence on fossil fuels (165) as well as investment in high-speed railways, and renewable energy sources. National governments must also strictly regulate transnational corporate activity (38).

According to Laudato Si’, changing paradigms additionally includes the submission of national governments to an international body with legislative authority to protect rainforests, oceans and endangered species, as well as to promote sustainable agriculture (53, 173, 174, 175). (BTW, the U.S. already submits to international legislative authorities such as, for instance, the World Trade Organization which has the power of overturning United States law.)

So, all of this is doable. And, as Francis insists, the Judeo-Christian tradition about stewardship and care for God’s creation can be invoked to persuade the 83% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian to save the planet.

Ironically, Republicans have effectively invoked the biblical tradition to support their ecocide. Few on the left have followed Pope Francis in the opposite direction. Progressive church leaders need to make climate change the absolute center of their ministries. 2025 is fast approaching.

Finally, like other criminals, Donald Trump and his Republican cohorts in the Congress certainly deserve our compassion. Perhaps, they’ve been corrupted by gilded childhoods, limited experience of the life’s hardships, and by an overriding love of money, profit, pleasure, power, and prestige.

But no matter how sorry we might feel for them, we must recognize that they are criminals. This sliver of 1% have taken it upon themselves to condemn all of us, our children and grandchildren to the fate so accurately described in “The Edge of Extinction.”

We cannot allow them to do that. Citizens’ arrests are in order, not to mention non-violent revolution – stimulated by recognition of shared humanity and even faith.

That’s the path Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ suggests.

Black Panther: A Nearly Revolutionary Film

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I remember 10 years ago taking Berea College students for a January “Short Term” to Cuba. Our month-long assignment was to study the African diaspora in that island nation. One day we were privileged to have Cuban poet, essayist and historian, Roberto Fernandez Retamar grace our classroom. Now 87, he was then about my age.

On that occasion, the great man said something that struck me as powerful, and that relates to the blockbuster movie everyone’s talking about, Black Panther. Retamar stated that black people in the Americas are the strongest, most beautiful most intelligent people in the world.

He explained why.

Before slaves were transported from Africa, he said, they were closely inspected for their strength, beauty, and intelligence. Their arms and legs were assessed for their musculature. Like horses for sale, their teeth were scrutinized. Women were evaluated in terms of their beauty and apparent ability to reproduce. Only the best were selected and shipped abroad. Those who didn’t measure up were left behind.

Then on the Middle Passage, only about half – again, the best of the best themselves survived.

When the slaves arrived at the auction block those evolutionary wonders were once again culled – for strength, beauty, skills and intelligence.

The culled are the ancestors of today’s African Americans, who remain, not surprisingly, the strongest, most beautiful and smartest people on the planet.

That’s what Retamar said. And it thrilled me and our mostly African-American students.

The same thrill is today being experienced nearly universally by millions of African-Americans and others across the world as they view the Disney and Marvel Comics film, Black Panther.

It celebrates the beauty, strength, intelligence and resourcefulness of Africans and African-Americans in a magnificent display of their inherent gifts. The film has been called “a defining moment for black America.”

That’s because Black Panther‘s stellar cast is nearly all African or African-American. And to reference another great man, in the movie’s mythical country of Wakanda, all the women are strong, the men are beautiful, and all the children are above average.

Moreover, the film presents themes that are anti-colonial, pro-liberation, wonderfully African and conscious of the oppression that people of color to this day experience everywhere.

The bare bones of the narrative are reminiscent of Greek tragedy: The benevolent king of a fabulously wealthy African country (Wakanda) has died. His virtuous son, T’Challa, is selected to fill the vacancy. But there’s a rival for the throne. It’s his villainous cousin, who challenges and defeats and apparently kills T’Challa in ritual hand-to-hand combat. The cousin proceeds to head a regime that tramples on tradition, disrespects women, and uses his country’s wealth for evil purposes. But T’Challa returns from his coma to restore order, tradition, and prosperity. He shares his nation’s wealth with the rest of the world.

Again, it’s a classic story whose details celebrate blackness, names white supremacist racism for what it is, and calls for revolution against colonialism in past and present forms. All of that is ground-breaking and entirely admirable.

However, the film pulls its punches severely leaving its potentially revolutionary message muddled and garbled. That’s true to such an extent that Black Panther finally comes across anti-revolutionary propaganda for the status quo and CIA. The attentive will see this as they witness a film that:

* Is entitled “Black Panther” but makes only a nod to the actual Black Panther Party of the 1960s.
* In doing so, deceives the uninformed in its audience about the Party’s nature by portraying its only member in the film as a “Killmonger” (the wicked cousin) instead of a community organizer.
* On the one hand, depicts Killmonger’s program as arming the world’s oppressed against the white colonial status quo that tyrannizes people of color throughout the world.
* But on the other describes him as preparing for that mission by service as a CIA mercenary killing hundreds of those people in Iraq, Afghanistan and other poor countries imperialized by the United States.
* Confronts Killmonger with T’Challa, his good-guy adversary, whose idea of changing the world is charity rather than systemic transformation of what Killmonger correctly perceives (in bell hooks words) as the white supremacist, imperialist, capitalist patriarchy.
* Has T’Challa ally himself with the CIA to defeat the revolutionaries Killmonger has assembled.
* Peoples the movie with “strong black women” whose strength is mostly evident in their machismo – i.e. in their ability to scowl and kill as heartlessly as their male counterparts.
* Celebrates the film’s heroine for allegiance to country above her most intimate relationship.
* Presents a white CIA agent as heroic.

Moreover, any chance of understanding the film’s references to colonialism, white supremacy, and the villainous reality of the CIA is further obscured by Black Panther’s spectacular visuals – by 134 minutes of comic book chases, space ship dogfights, explosions, karate displays, knifings, spearings, shootings, fantastic escapes, and magical returns from the dead.

One comes away from the film happy to have seen blacks centralized and celebrated in a Hollywood blockbuster, but having gained very little in terms of understanding the nature of oppression, the robbery that is the essence of colonialism, or the true spirit of the Black Panther Party, of Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, or Angela Davis. There is no hint of any Free Breakfast for Children Program, of Black Panther health clinics, or the party’s emphasis on food justice. Instead, one identifies Black Panthers as violent Killmongers with utter disrespect for life, women and tradition.

When Roberto Fernandez Retamar gave us his class, he said something else that relates to Black Panther. Though his skin color is as white as my own, he introduced his remarks with the phrase, “I who am more or less black . . .” With those words he reminded us all that, by every account, life began in Africa. So, all of us are more or less black.

In other words, Black Panther is about us all. It can remind us that White Supremacy is a fiction that oppresses every one of us. So is capitalism’s patriarchal regime with its seemingly inseparable colonialism, neo-colonialism, and endless resource wars.

The struggle for liberation depicted in Black Panther is incumbent on all of us to join.

Too bad that point wasn’t made more clearly.

The Shape of Water Is about the Unexpected Shape of God

Shape

It’s about an amphibian creature dredged from a river in South America. It’s a fairy tale about a princess who falls in love with a monster. It’s science-fiction fantasy about a gigantic scaly Merman who learns to communicate and to love. It’s about a God made flesh who’s killed by the state, but then rises from the dead and gives eternal life to his devotee. It’s about an alien trying to get back home.

Put otherwise, The Shape of Water is science fiction, fantasy, fairy tale, myth, and story of humans’ doomed attempts to effect the death of God. It’s entirely redolent of Creature from the Black Lagoon, Beauty and the Beast, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, ET, and the Jesus Myth.

And for that reason, plus its artistic excellence The Shape of Water has struck a chord with viewers subconsciously hungry for meaning. They’ve called it tender, elegant and mesmerizing. It has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

For what it’s worth, I agree. Sally Hawkins‘ performance as Elisa Esposito, the mute janitor-princess who falls in love with the Creature, is nothing short of magnificent. She deserves her Best Actress nomination – and the Oscar.

The film’s central theme is conveyed in its beautiful, mysterious title that invites its audience to imagine the impossible. The shape of water? Of course, it has none at all. Water takes the contours of its container.

And that’s the point imagistically asserted at the very beginning of the picture. There the story’s world is portrayed as filled with the medium of life itself. As the movie unfolds, it’s hard to miss that theological point: the world is full of possibilities for realizing the presence of the divine. The patriarchal establishment can’t see that. Only the social misfits do – a mute janitor, her African-American friend, an aging gay unemployed artist, a Russian enemy of the state.

There are plenty of references that suggest such meaning:

– Biblical themes of the Great Flood and Crossing the Sea, as well as purgative baptismal images of are all evoked by the film’s water-world.
– More than once, we’re told that the film’s androgynous monster is worshipped as a god by primitives in its place of origin.
– It has powers to heal.
– And resurrect from the dead.
– Near the story’s beginning, the fish-human’s demented antagonist, Richard Strickland, discusses specifically his own idea of God. In doing so, he reveals why recognizing the divine in such unexpected form is impossible for him. He’s looking for someone made in Strickland’s own image. God’s actual incarnation is anything but.
– The central character’s apartment is located above a movie theater showing a biblical film, The Story of Ruth who discovers and embraces God in a foreign and unexpected form.
– A supporting character’s name is Delilah, and the story of Samson and Delilah is told twice.
– Meanwhile Giles (the aging unemployed artist) grows back his hair as, like Samson, he owns his ability to help destroy the enemies of the alien god he’s come to love.
– Like the Roman soldier at the foot of Jesus’ cross, Strickland as representative of the patriarchal military, finally recognizes and confesses that the monster is indeed god.

Yes, this film is about our experience of the divine, about God’s shape, and omnipresence. It’s about baptism, cleansing, and salvific intercourse with the divine. It’s about death and resurrection and making it possible for the divine to manifest itself. It’s about the work of misfits (and especially women) that enables the divine to fit into a world created by men – specifically by a military committed to the death of God. It’s about females cleaning up the messes that men create everywhere, from their bathrooms to the battlefield and the world at large.

As Sally Hawkins clutches her Oscar, watch for those feminist and perhaps even theological themes in her acceptance speech.

In the end, however, The Shape of Water is about the total commitment that the discovery of God provokes. For a moment, as the film concludes, Elisa recovers her voice. She gazes at the monstrous but fascinating object of her love and prays the haunting words of the picture’s central air, “You’ll Never Know.” She whispers:

If I can do one thing more
To prove that I love you,
I swear I don’t know how.
You’ll never know
If you don’t know now.

Would that we could all make that prayer our own!