Politics, Corporations and Religion Don't Mix? : Melbourne Indymedia

When the big media are against something or someone they really attack them now days, in a frenzy [like wild animals] [mob] but there are plenty of reasons for it. You know it, but just look at this will you? [see blog and links below].

I mean even Pope Benedict XVI wouldn't get this much attention from the Australian media, 24/7, would he?

Yes I'm afraid this is just another one of those scams directed from Pope Judas Cain of Australia against Islam, Muslims in general and Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali - seemingly civil public enemy number one to the Neo Lib/Lab Coalitions' national interests.

Everyday the federal government find some Muslim to use as a scapegoat - for their political interests - which includes a hatred of Isam - because of, no doubt, their war on terror [resources] - and manipulating the fear factor - to provide the opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian public against all the alleged Islamic fundamentalists - in earlier times, demons and witches.

And to divide and conquer our community to accommodate for their war on our [freedom] controlling the masses [mob]-[wild animals that don't understand capitalism] that are outraged at this attack dog provocative behaviour against fellow citizens.

If it's not fear of a terrorist attack it is fear of suspected terrorists and it is also a fear of our brothers and sisters [other community members].

Praise the Lord what religion is this? What do we do about the MONSTER and war criminals that argue that there is something wrong with selected Muslims? And imply that all other religions must be better than Islam because some Muslims are Islamic fundermentalists? Like there are no fundermentalists in any other religion?

Now you can't say that this material below is not offensive propaganda because it is, there can be no doubt. I mean I'm a Catholic and it annoys the shit out of me to see this sort of provocation because I know only too well what this provocation can do and may lead to [Cronulla Riots].

Provocation just plays with people's emotions.

Provocation in fact is a number one killer in our society, believe it or not. A lethal meme. Included in such provocation are wars of aggression.

This is not just propaganda but 'provocation' that is projected very deeply into the hearts and souls of our people - and is used in its breadth very widely - all across Australia and the world today. And covers many complex subjects that our government and their corporate media allies have decided is un-Australian.

They have also projected this now for many years on the majority of our community in a bias fashion [The Latest Fascism] against Muslims and Islam religion. [Standing right behind it imho is PNAC and AIPAC]

Well normally I'd ask when are they going to leave Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali alone however, under John Judas Cain of Australia I don't think that is possible. Do you truth seekers?

The man has no remorse whatsoever for his crimes against humanity. Not just that but he is a psychopathic thinker. I.e. no conscience. A person who continues causing harm, fear and hatred by aggressively attacking other people for political purposes otherwise he and his government cannot support their doctrine's of colonialism and imperialism. And provocation, propaganda and false flags operations are the fuels these doctrines run on.

I haven't listed everything here either but I thought I'd better start a blog because this is getting way out of control. I think everyone is aware of all the other stuff anyway. But just to keep track here it is for now. This is a pattern.

============================

Islamophobic Blog:

Agencies asked to 'review status' of Islamic group

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has asked the relevant agencies to review the status of the controversial Islamic group, Hizb ut-Tahrir.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1835919.htm

==========================

Ruddock won't do it and the State won't do it then the police might do it? As long as it stays on the front page? Notice no one will arrest those war criminals like John Howard and his cronies either? Because one of them is Phillip Ruddock. That makes everyone else a potential witch!

============================

Islamic group could face legal action: NSW Neo-Liberals

The New South Wales Opposition says a radical Islamic group in Sydney could face court over what it says is the racial vilification of non-Muslims.

The group, called Hizb ut Tahrir, held a conference in south-west Sydney yesterday and called for the establishment of an Islamic state under sharia law somewhere in the world.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says there is insufficient evidence to ban the group.

But the NSW Liberal's justice spokesman, Chris Hartcher, says the State Government has the power to prosecute Hizb ut Tahrir separate to the Commonwealth.

"The whole thrust of Islamic extremism in Australia is to vilify the races in Australia who are not adherents to Islam," he said.

[But some might say that Neo-Liberal conservatism 'stick' and mass media 'power' in Australia is to vilify the races in Australia who are not adherents to Christianity?]

"That clearly constitutes vilification under the racial discrimination sections of the racial discrimination act."

Mr Ruddock says NSW will have to decide itself if it wants to ban the controversial Islamic group.

[NSW Yes!]

"If the State Government believes it should be banned as an organisation simply because they don't like their views, I would suggest they've got power to do it," he said.

"The Commonwealth doesn't and we know that from the Communist Party dissolution case."

[But this is just another way to change their mind by using the State as a different entity than that of the federal regime and somehow not connected to the same constitution? We can't do it but someone else can I think?] Sure someone else can most likely Morris Iemma. But Peter Debnam would have to push him into it so that he gets the credit?]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1835361.htm

===========================

In anycase it's just another round of Islamophobic bashing that's going on in Australia and in particular NSW. Must be electioneering? War related?

It would still be happening even if there weren't and election looming in NSW or in Federal arena so it's war related electioneering? It's also another in the very long list of Australian Islamophobic webblogs or should I say webwogs?

============================

Islamic super state

How to wind up the community with nonsense!

===================================

Banning Muslim group 'would be dangerous'

A leading Muslim says the Federal Government is right to allow the controversial Islamic group, Hizb ut Tahrir, to practice in Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1835066.htm

==============================

Tell me what line I crossed?

2nd Renaissance - Beyond Industrial Capitalism and Nation States

Go forward in peace. And always remember the line from Gravity's Rainbow: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/115092.php

============================

Sydney conference speaker demands Islamic state

A speaker at a conference in Sydney's south-west says a revolution or a civil war may be necessary in order to create an Islamic state, or caliphate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1834944.htm

=============================

The article describes what someone is alleged to have said but fails to provide the context. Typical rubbish beamed into our Sunday lunch.

Islamic group moves meeting after council ban

A controversial Islamic group that was banned from holding a conference at a Sydney town hall is today meeting at an alternate venue in the city's south-west.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1834903.htm

=======================

In addition this seems to be where the witch-hunt started.

============================

Sheikh Hilali warned off sermon

Controversial cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali pulled out of his weekly sermon at the Lakemba Mosque yesterday after he was told his address would have to be apolitical.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1834582.htm

===============================

Even though Islamic cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali never offered himself up as a personal candidate for the State foregone conclusion? Does Peter Debnam, john hoWARd's bum boy, think everyone was born yesterday? Why? Because he's a racist scumbag that's why! If you want to make some trouble ask Peter Debnam about this:

============================

Sheikh urged to end election speculation

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma says Islamic cleric Sheikh Taj el-din Al Hilali should announce whether he is going to run in the state election.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1833703.htm

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/137723_comment.php#137757

=========================

Group won't support Sheikh's MP push

The president of Australia's Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), Tom Zreika, has distanced himself from Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali, who reportedly wants to field three candidates in the south-west Sydney seats of Lakemba, Bankstown and Auburn in the state election.

=============================

You say, "Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali, who reportedly wants to field three candidates in the south-west Sydney seats of Lakemba, Bankstown and Auburn in the state election."

Then why didn't anyone including the ABC tell the New South Wales Deputy Premier John Watkins?

Debnam urged to rule out Hilali preference deal

New South Wales Deputy Premier John Watkins is calling on the State Opposition to rule out preference deals with Islamic cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali if he decides to run as a candidate in the state election.

========================
Does New South Wales Deputy Premier John Watkins think we don't know that Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali publicly declared on National TV that he was not offering himself up personally as a NSW candidate? Or is he just acting dumb? Perhaps no one told him? Nah! So what would he have against any other Muslim candidate anyways? Islamophobia?

What would Peter Debnam Say? I love you I love you all?

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/137206_comment.php#137235

============================

Islamophobic Australians attack peaceful Aussie mufti

January 15, 2007 - Aussie mufti Sheik Taj al-Din Hilali's recent comments during an Egyptian TV interview have triggered more Islamaphobic outrage in Australia, with a number of politicians, including Federal Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone, laughing him off as an "irrelevance" or demanding he "stay in his native Egypt if did not like Australia."

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/57907

============================

Sheik's comments spur calls to Immigration Dept?

Now it's alleged that the Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali comments spurred calls to the Immigration Department? What was the point of the pr exercise if people weren't going to call her? Why does she distance herself from her government and political media establishment's xenophobic pr campaigns?

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/136146.php

============================

debnam has got to go!

The New South Wales Flopposition Leader, peter debnam, says an anti-American statement made by Sydney cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly was a virtual declaration of war on Western society. So debnam actually thinks war crimes against humanity and the death of 665,000 Iraqi men, women and children for democracy is a fair argument? Sack him before it's too late, please!

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/40531/index.php

============================

Xenophobic rocket launcher, so why was it reported really?

Police say they are unsure if the claims, published in a 'Sunday newspaper', are true and they are now being investigated. [So why was it reported today by howard's 'abc' and the 'Melbourne age'?]

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/50226

============================

Man refused bail over rocket launcher charges, discrepancies?

Peter Debnam is also a 'chip off' the old neo-liberal rocket launcher 'war criminal', block, John Howard, who has a very good reason to hype up and generate fear in the community for an illegal and degrading war in Iraq. Sinister?

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/135990.php

Part thereof Corporate Media Blog

Bill Moyers: "Big Media is Ravenous

Bill Moyers: "Big Media is Ravenous. It Never Gets Enough. Always Wants More. And it Will Stop at Nothing to Get It. These Conglomerates are an Empire, and they are Imperial."

http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=42717

Christians United for Israel: New Christian Zionism Lobby Hopes to Rival AIPAC

We take a look at a new recently established group called Christians United for Israel - an evangelical organization that believes supporting expansionist policies of the Israeli government is: "a biblical imperative." We speak with investigative journalist Max Blumenthal who reports they lobbied the Bush administration to adopt a confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand in its attack on Lebanon.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/15/1326256

========================

Part thereof Scapegoat Blog:

Australians have become a victim of terrorism

The John Howard government's terrorist antics have been the most dangerous acts of aggression on sovereign nations for 200 years. Why wouldn't people fear some form of retaliation or false flag terrorist act now? What you do is what you get! So why do it? Why take the risk? Then tell us about the risks because of what you do? Who should be scared? John Howard should be scared at the next election. We should be scared that he was elected last time and that the mass media power help reinforce that fear by propping up a war criminal and his governments terrorist antics.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/142131.php

THE POLITICS OF CRIME IN AUSTRALIA TODAY

How is it that Prime Minister John Howard can accuse other people of some crime or lies? No, you do not need to be clairvoyant or have any special supernatural talents to meet up with or to see one of the more see-through inhabitants of politics in Australia today. You just need a strong heart and an eager mind. While other people, who are being accused, belittled, tainted or desecrated by numerous criminal politicians and their media allies. Politicians who don't lead us by any form of example and who break their own morals, principals, values, and ethics. Politicians who break their own laws in order to deceive us and to suit their own political ends.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/141552.php

If you're waiting for Lib/Lab then you're just waiting for a catastrophe!

What about all the scapegoats the Howard government has produced for their war on terror/resources? Most, still languishing in isolated segregation prisons and still waiting to be heard. Rendition and torture of our citizens? 20 years for thought crimes? Jury asked to push on when they couldn't make up their mind? Rules of evidence and standards lowered in our local courts? 5 years in Guantanamo without trial or charge? Military style Kangaroo Courts, Control Orders? Detention Orders? Indefinite Detention? Then we have Australian citizens being held in detention and even being deported?

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/139474.php

SDO Demo Crazy Failures mp3

It is not about defending D Hicks, it is about OUR rights of protection from powerful individuals and state - radical radio 30 mins stereo

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/138093.php

Document says 15 Million Australians planning terrorist attacks

A leaked Australian intelligence document says Australian politicians are facing a greater threat from terrorists than at any time since the September 11 false flag operations by the US neocons in the US in 2001.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/141003.php

hoWARd, will keep chilling you!

All this nonsense to hide the fact that the Bali bombing was not State Sanctioned Terror when it clearly was in relation to the explosive used in the second Bali bomb blast in 2002 which was clearly military hardware.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9465

Australia's Terrorism Wake Up Call [164]

The horrific bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali, on October 12, 2002, considerably strengthened the hand of the CoW in pursuing the War on Terror. Here was an opportunity to harden the hearts of the Australian and US public against Islamic fundamentalists. It was also a chance for the Indonesian government to justify harsh measures in the war against terrorists and secessionists, such at those in the province of Aceh.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107756.php

Ruddock wants answers to Hilali donations in Lebanon

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he is anxious to receive information about how money raised by Australia's Lebanese Muslim community has been spent in Lebanon.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1887491.htm

Sheikh asked to account for Lebanon aid cash

Questions are being asked about how controversial Muslim cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali spent money raised for victims of last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1886995.htm

Perhaps anything that changes the subject from Iraq and David Hicks would be suitable right now?

conservatism is the ENEMY -- ALL religions fall in that category with most political parties. Tweedle dee and tweedle dum are fighting each other! Keep it up, please. You save us the trouble later -- as a matter of fact you also supply good and justifiable cause for drastic action

Religion is POISON -- Mao Zedong

Tell you a secret, we'd be lost without sheeple/morons like you -- a great resource, too easy.

GET A BRAIN, YOU FUCKING SLAVES

Show me your God and I will show you a text a MAN wrote, you brainless fucks. No sooner Zionists piss off then the Islamists rear their empty heads -- same shit same smell -- give my regards to Abraham (not PBUH) but, TBUH -- which means, for the uninitiated, 'Turd Be Upon His HEAD and every other LIAR and slave master in history.

Shame of you gutless slaves -- cowards and death worshippers, the lot of you.

Tell you another secret, < L-I-F-E > GET ONE!

Then what if someone's religion was a clown suit?

It's the insults and finger pointing that do the damage not what people believe in imho. Just because someone has a belief that is no green light to provoke them especially in the eyes of the community, all the time…..

They want to jail him because he didn't do what they said and that has embarassed the CoWARd government. Hence the conspiracy theory.

VERY GOOD, Yep, you got it in ONE! Everyone's relIgion is ALREADY a "clown suit", you fuckinG clown!

The only diff between Hilali and Howard is that one is a better liar and manipulator than the other -- THEY ARE BOTH CONSERVATIVES, ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES.

And in case you haven't noticed THE FUCKIN ENEMY IS (I'LL SPELL IT SLOWLY JUST FOR, YOU DUMBARSE RELIGIONIST)

......................C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-S-M...........................

You say, "The only diff between Hilali and Howard is that one is a better liar and manipulator"

============================

Nope there are many differences between them because we are all unique individuals who are priceless.

However, people have their own characteristics, Coward is a sociopathic manipulating war criminal who has all the power and Hilali is the scapegoat.

The Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA) has asked Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali to provide proof that he did not mishandle charity funding meant for victims of last year's Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1887846.htm

Get a fuckin grip lamer .. if the tables were turned, Hilali would have already beheaded the infidel, Howard -- LOL (not a bad idea!)

Check the history of IS-'bloody'-LAM before you make idiotic statements.

Now take a look at ALL the wars on the PLANET atm -- and all the warring nations -- they are all FUCKIN conservative/religionist!!! But of course we conveniently are blind to those tragic facts -- dream on slave boy -- but it woUld be better if you freed yourself -- you know its the truth.

RELIGION/CONSERVATISM IS THE LIE!

Takes courage to LIVE .. and that few religionists possess.

Convince all the lobotomised readers on this site that religionism is NOT slavery, salve boy. You should be bloody ashamed of your cowardly self

The truth is under your nose dimwit but of course you are blind to it -- otherwise you would be free! Now get back to the Mosque and seek solace from all the other cowards and slaves -- for fuck's fuckin sake

FIN

Just how would those tables be turned? So you're talking through your arse.

For a start Hiali is a law-abiding citizen so what you say is not what people can see or know about him. Therefore your hypothetical garble is angry talk.

How appropriate that the Divine Fool is celebrated today both because it is April Fools Day and Palm Sunday.

Radical Theologin Harvey Cox wrote a whole book on the divine fool.

The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (1969),

One of the Protestants who has addressed festivals is Harvey Cox who argued that human beings are “essentially festive and ritual creatures” (1969, 8; cf. Browning 1980). As homo festivus and homo fantasia, human beings express festivity and fantasy through festival as a form of “theatre of the body.” Cox argues that with the march of secularization and the continued rejection of festivity “Christianity has often adjusted too quickly to the categories of modernity” (Ibid. 15), and with this, important facets of what it means to be human are neglected. As a result, Cox believes that there is a real need for Christianity in the West to develop a theology of festivity

An article from that book was published back in the early Seventies in Playboy, I read it for the articles back then, which included an illustration one rarely sees; Jesus Laughing.

And, what else, the symbol of Christ that best symbolizes this theology is "Christ the Harlequin" (as in The Parable, New York World's Fair 1966), who personifies festivity and fantasy in an age that has almost lost both.

Perhaps because as a divine fool he was high.

The Feast of Fools, known also as the festum fatuorum, festum stultorum, festum hypodiaconorum, or fête des fous , are the varying names given to popular medievalfestivals regularly celebrated by the clergy and laity from the fifth century until the sixteenth century in several countries of Europe, principally France, but also Spain, Germany, England, and Scotland. A similar celebration was the Feast of Asses.

The central idea seems always to have been a brief social revolution, in which power, dignity and impunity is briefly conferred on those in a subordinate position. In the view of some, this makes the medieval festival a successor to the Roman Saturnalia.

In the medieval version the young people, who played the chief parts, chose from among their own number a mock pope, archbishop, bishop, or abbot to reign as Lord of Misrule. Participants would then "consecrate" him with many ridiculous ceremonies in the chief church of the place, giving names such as Archbishop of Dolts, Abbot of Unreason, Boy Bishop, or Pope of Fools. The protagonist could be a boy bishop or subdeacon, while at the Abbey of St Gall in the tenth century, a student each December 13 enacted the part of the abbot. In any case the parody tipped dangerously towards the profane. The ceremonies often mocked the performance of the highest offices of the church, while other persons, dressed in different kinds of masks and disguises, engaged in songs and dances and practiced all manner of revelry within the church building.

I highly recommend Harvey Cox's work which in many ways compliments Bakhtin's work on the subversive nature of the Carnival and the role playing of the Fool.

"The carnival was not only liberating because for that short period the church and state had little or no control over the lives of the revellers—although Terry Eagleton points out this would probably be 'licensed' transgression at best—but its true liberating potential can be seen in the fact that set rules and beliefs were not immune to ridicule or reconception at carnival time; it 'cleared the ground' for new ideas to enter into public discourse. Bakhtin goes so far as to suggest that the European Renaissance itself was made possible by the spirit of free thinking and impiety that the carnivals engendered."

The Carnivale and Feast of Fools became recuperated in post Renaissance society as comedie della art, and play festivals like the Fringe, which exists world wide and is a popular summer festival here in Edmonton, reflect the same anarchic festivus that one would see at carnival or the earlier Fool's Feasts.

And we see the modern Carnival not only during Mardi Gras but with Feast of Fools that is the Burning Man festival. As pointed out in this article by John Morehead, whose blog is well worth perusing for it's writings on alternative religious movements..

"Burn, Baby, Burn, Christendom Inferno: Burning Man and the Festive Immolation of Christendom Culture and Modernity"

Second and related to the context of counter-modernity and counter-Christendom, Burning Man expresses itself within a cultural context that exhibits a decidedly post-modern and post-Christendom approach to spirituality. Christianity continues to play a significant role in American culture, and may have been the dominant religion in America and the Western world in the past, but in recent decades there has been a “declining influence of religion – particularly Christianity” (Heelas & Woodhead 2005, 1). This has come about through a secularization of the West which in turn has led to a spiritual re-enchantment[1] process. This re-enchantment involves the preference for spirituality rather than religion, and is characterized by an emphasis upon an individualized, subjective, and eclectic spiritual quest. In this environment of the post-modern spirituality seeker, Christianity is perceived negatively as a dogmatic institution rather than a vibrant spirituality whose adherents have often failed to live up to the moralizing they present to the culture. In reaction, many Burning Man participants have either rejected Christianity outright, or consider it of no consequence as a viable option in creating a spirituality suited for the challenges of the twenty-first century

[1] Christopher Partridge explores the ramifications of the re-enchantment thesis in The Re-Enchantment of the West, vol. 1 (London & New York: T & T Clark International, 2004).

Since the play is the thing, we can see that since the earliest days of Christendom the Easter pageant played a significant role in society, as we know by way of the York Guilds which in a gift economy share their surpluses by holding feasts and a two week series of plays, it comes full circle, with the sacrificed god being the fool king.

If the power of the King/Church/State lay in divine right, the power of the people lay in the fool king whom they crowned. It is why in the movie Andre Rublev, about the icon painter, the opening scene has a village fool crucified for making fun of the priests. It too was produced in 1969 when Cox published his book.

Only by learning to laugh at the hopelessness around us can we touch the hem of hope. Christ the clown signifies our playful appreciation of the past and our comic refusal to accept the spectre of inevitability in the future. He is the incarnation of festivity and fantasy. (Harvey Cox 1969, 142)

Jesus as Fool, is a subversion on the classic church iconography of the slain and resurrected lord. For as Harliquen, fool, clown, he is life giver, alive, part of the meme of a living humanity. Not an icon but a living force. For the truth of his sacrifice is that life goes on.

Thus the religious heresies originating in Gnosticism that arose during the transition from the Catholic and Orthodox Empires to Protest-ism were about this spirit.

What if it is possible to awaken to a profound state of oneness and love, which the Gnostic Christians symbolized by the enigmatic figure of the laughing Jesus?

What the sacrifice originally meant was ironically the end of sacrifice. Which is why the religion of Christianity began with Agape feasts hidden away in caves and grotos, where all could be equal. The slave religion was about the end of sacrifice, the end of all sacrifice, not only of animals, but of people and of freedom.

Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St Matthew (1973)

The portrayal of Jesus as a clown may have been offensive to some, however this reviewer found it to be refreshing, the clown communicates joy while communicating the seriousness of the gospel message. He reminds us that the gospel is a message of great joy and humility, love and peace, of triumph and victory. However in saying that there are some aspects that don't fit with our understanding, for instance the betrayal scene, Jesus kisses Judas. Then it does finish with a question hanging over it, that being, why no resurrection scene? Or maybe there was, perhaps the grand finale represents the risen Jesus, carried lifted high into the crowded streets, it gives a sense of inclusiveness, that somehow Jesus lives on in each one of us.

Jesus the fool returns again and again as a radical revolutionary icon for popular spirituality and its heresies, in opposition to the institutions of Christianity.

THE ENIGMA OF SANCTITY
The Flowers of St Francis 1950

Still, theologian Harvey Cox saw the Sixties' counterculture as a reclamation of facets of humanity eclipsed by the rise of technological society — essentially, Rossellini's jester side of man. In his book the Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity & Fantasy, Cox idenfied certain aspects of the youth revolt - the recovery of celebration and imagination — not just with a hunger for for wholeness, but vital to both psychological health and, significantly, to being able to have compassion for the oppressed of the world. A capacity for being able to imaginatively "put themselves in other shoes" was prerequisite for the developed nations to be able to have understanding and compassion for those oppressed and different than themselves.

Here we see why Rossellini takes this "jester side" so seriously and so centrally: his offering of St. Francis as a model for conflict-weary Europe isn't a simple-minded Utopian vision, a rejection of private property and reduction to begging (that begs the question "begging from whom?"), but a recovery of that sense of play and imaginative identification with others that makes people more valuable than efficiency, and the "abnormality" of the Other less prone to threaten and result in conflict. The mere existence of the jester is a check on the hubris of power in both ruler and system. In his book, Cox cites an essay by Leszek Kolakowski titled, "The Priest and the Jester":

The philosophy of the jester is a philosophy which in every epoch denounces as doubtful what appears as unshakeable; it points out the contradictions in what seems evident and incontestable; it ridicules common sense into the absurd — in other words, it undertakes the daily toil of the jester's profession along with the inevitable risk of appearing ludicrous.

The jester is the quintessence of the carnival spirit, and just as the jester's cap is pants worn on the head, carnival turns upside-down the values by which the world is typically run. Carnival mocks the pretensions of permanence and power, defies the illusions of the masses. No wonder the faith of Francis has been described as a "carnivalized" Christianity: his topsy-turvy insistence that Perfect Joy is found in suffering, his irrational love for everything and everybody, his scandalous rejection of all the world holds dear — power, property, status, etc. Technically, of course, this is Christianity, for which the adjective "carnivalized" is required only when it forgets its own scandalous identity. Yet the upsidedowness of a faith whose God is born in a stable, the meek inherit the earth, and whose secrets are given to children and fools is all too easily domesticated, and even the court of Christ himself would seem to require its own jester.

was more than a juggler. He was also a poet, singer, all-around entertainer. The Indeed, Francis referred to himself as "the jester of God," and the Italian title of Rossellini's film is Francesco, giullare di Dio — "Francis, God's Jester". The Italian term refers to a French one, jongleur — whence comes "juggler" — but the jongleurjongleur was in fact more earthy than the troubadour: the Latin joculator means "joker", and Francis's joculatores Domini ("ministrels of God") were renowed for putting on a good show when they pulled into a town to preach. Francis's name and terms point to France, home to a Medieval love cult which, though eventually declared heretical and wiped out, left a deep and permanent mark on European culture. So much of what we know as "love in the Western world" finds its source in this flamboyantly romantic vision, including the veneration of an ideal lady — whether Dante and his Beatrice, or St. Francis and his "Lady Poverty."

Today there is the reinvention of the feast of fools, not only in the neo-pagan movement, or the Burning Man festival but in the far left as well. Paul Goodman and other Marxist Freudians talked about humans being playful, that the alienation of work under capitalism was that it meant that it was labour, as in slavery, drudgery rather than fun, playfulness. A Little Eros For Valentine's Day

Since Cox wrote his book in the sixties, the search for this human playful utopia continues.

I was involved with one utopia called Minnesota Experimental City. It was in an era when in the United States there was a lot of utopian thinking. Harvey Cox’s book, The Secular City, was an all time best seller that told us that as soon as we get rid of symbol and myth, get enough guitar players and good architects and civil rights workers, the Kingdom will have come.4 Three years later he was back with a better book called The Feast of Fools.5 These were written just before New York burned and Detroit burned and Watts burned, just before the U.S. committed troops to Vietnam, just before everything went bad. But we were building Minnesota Experimental City. Fifty-eight corporations put up four million dollars for our study. Buckminster Fuller – Mr. Twenty-First Century – was on the panel; Harrison Brown (Lyndon Baines Johnson’s doctor, head of the Mayo Clinic); and then they salted it with a few humanists who would ask the human questions.

We were to build a city – utopia – of two hundred and fifty thousand people. It had to be at least seventy-five miles from any other urban centre. It would be built around a branch of the University of Minnesota; 3M and all the other big firms would have a base there. We thought through everything. It’s cold up there, how are you going to play tennis all year, and how are you going to keep people from arthritis cramps? Well, Buckinster Fuller said, "nothing to it, we build a one mile square plastic dome." How do we get on with pollution? Well, we owe you a ride on an elevator in a building, so we owe you horizontal transportation in our Minnesota Experimental City. You get to the edge, and we’ll take care of you from there.

Situationism was a game of revolution and revolutionaries at play in the Sixties. So it makes sense that the recuperation of their radical politics should, like the surrealists before them, end on the stage. For once the world of 1968 was their stage today they are the play.

The meta-play is an example of Reflectionism through performance. Professor Steve Mann of the University of Toronto, who invented EyeTap to literally mediate monocultural reality, proposes: ?Reflectionism as a new philosophical framework for questioning social values. The Reflectionist philosophy borrows from the Situationist movement in art and, in particular, an aspect of the Situationist movement called d?tournement, in which artists often appropriate tools of the "oppressor" and then resituate these tools in a disturbing and disorienting fashion. Reflectionism attempts to take this tradition one step further, not only by appropriating the tools of the oppressor, but by turning those same tools against the oppressor as well. I coined the term "Reflectionism" because of the "mirrorlike" symmetry that is its end goal and because the goal is also to induce deep thought ("reflection") through the construction of this mirror. Reflectionism allows society to confront itself or to see its own absurdity. The participants of the meta-play who do not wish to see themselves in the mirror (thus confronting themselves) quickly turn away, but are left with the lingering image of grotesque ugliness, which will haunt them until a profound internal resolution is reached. Drawing upon traditional folly, but appearing in a disenchanted post-modern society, the concept of The Fool is resurrected, challenging and satirizing oppressors in order to cause reflection on their positions, attitudes, and worldviews. Harvey Cox describes the Fool?s perennial message in his 1969 The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy: It is the eternal message of The Fool, who takes the stage whenever greed, arrogance, authority, pride and sycophancy lay claim to the public headspace. These are the acts of real fools, without which The Fool would be useless and mute. The Fool is a looking-glass. She is male and female, he is human and animal, they are one moment immersed in the workaday routine and the next overturning the norms of daily life. When we play The Fool, we are The Other, strangers who are in this world but not entirely of it. The ancient term Narrenfreiheit means "freedom of the fool." That freedom reminds us that in a moment of ecstasy we can sweep away the illusion of so much of what we endure. The Fool breaks the trail; the revolutionaries follow. Those who participate, reflect, and achieve the ?moment of ecstasy,? will soon realise that playing the Fool is not only one of the most satisfying and liberating experiences they will ever encounter, but is also an urgent direct action to reclaim the public headspace. To counter the oppressive and ubiquitous corporate monoculture that is so prevalent in late capitalist society, culture jamming through performance may well be the only solution to cause reflection, hence shattering a dystopic corporate reality. The idea will, I sincerely hope, spread like a virus until such a time whereby all human beings are free to express and play without fear of reprisal, are free from oppression and exploitation of all sorts, and are truly equal to one another.

LMA to refund Al Hilali's donations

Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA) president Tom Zreika says controversial cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali gave Australian aid donations to a Lebanese radio station with suspected links to Iraqi insurgents.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1887993.htm

What about the links to Bin Laden? How many cups of coffee did Hilali have with him hey?

Jihad coffee?

How much money has Green Left Weekly donated to the "cause" of Hizbollah fascismn?

Australian media seizes upon Muslim cleric’s comments to whip up xenophobia

There is now an inescapable necessity for all those opposed to militarism and war, and committed to the defence of democratic rights, to develop an independent political opposition to the xenophobic campaign being directed against Muslims. No faction of the media or political establishment has any opposition to the drive to militarise society under the banner of “Australian values”, and all are complicit in the cultivation of anti-Muslim communalism.

http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/45493

A Canadian Muslim cleric linked by the US Government to the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing has been refused entry to Australia on security grounds.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1889169.htm

The Islamic community has questioned the Government's ban on Canadian Sheikh Bilal Philips, who was to speak at the first Australian Islamic Conference.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1889980.htm

The Federal Opposition says the Government should explain how high-profile British Muslim Yvonne Ridley passed the character test to visit Australia for a conference this weekend.

The Government has refused to allow a Canadian Muslim cleric Sheikh Bilal Philips into the country on security grounds.

Labor's Tony Burke says the Government should investigate the accuracy of comments attributed to Ms Ridley in the past.

"There's reported comments and if they're inaccurate then that's the answer, but if the reported comments from Ridley are accurate, then we're letting someone into the country who has been a defender of the organiser of the Beslan school massacre - somebody who has described suicide bombings as martyrdom operations," he said.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews says the Government's decision is based on assessments done by Australia's security agencies.

"In the case of Miss Ridley, she is judged not to be a threat to the national security of Australia," he said.

"There is a vast distinction between allowing someone into Australia whose views you may not like and somebody who is a threat to national security."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1890541.htm

=====================

Tony Burke says ""There's reported comments and if they're inaccurate"

How's that for slander! You think Burke would check his facts first..Parliamentary privalege was it Tony?

Whatever the merits of letting her in or not letting her in. She did give open support to the murderous thugs of Beslan. But lets not overlook the fact that she would like a "brother" like Al Zarqarwi. That she is a homophobe and anti-semite who wants women chained to the old iron age traditions of Islam.
(http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:7Wk8lMws7CAJ:http://www.dailymuslims.com/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D2255%26Itemid%3D238+Shaheed+Abdallah+Shamil+Abu+Idris&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au)

Shaheed Abdallah Shamil Abu Idris
YVONNE RIDLEY
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
NEWS has just arrived (July 10, 2006) on my desk that Abdallah Shamil Abu Idris, the Military Amir of the Mujahideen of Caucasus, has become a Shaheed.

He's probably better known to most readers of this column as the fearless Chechen commander Shamil Basaev although the likes of Vladamir Putin have always regarded him as an enemy of Russia.

Precise details are sketchy at the moment although the report before me comes from the Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar and it states very tersley that he died as a result of an "accidental spontaneous explosion of a cargo vehicle with explosives on July 10, 2006, in Ekazhevo village, Ingushetia".
Three other fighters also died along with the famous Chechen rebel leader. May Allah (swt) grant all of them what they deserve.

it only gets worse from there