Jesus and the Murderous Men.

Passages in the bible have traditional names that aren’t original to the text. These are headings that have been given to the passages by people studying them or simply a printer’s decision to make the Bible more readable. The names can be very revealing (and dictating) of the way we predominantly read these passages.

 For example, The Prodigal Son is a title given to a parable that is only partly about that son. The Prodigal Son arguably aims its teaching more at the son’s hard–hearted brother instead.  Because it is named The Prodigal Son though, it takes effort to see that teaching. I’ve even heard abridged or children’s versions of the parable which entirely omit the older brother. The title has led to a misreading of the text.

Likewise the following is also misnamed. Here is the passage (John 8:1-11) from the 21^st Century King James version;

8 Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.

² And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them.

³ And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,

⁴ they said unto Him, “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

⁵ Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned but what sayest thou?”

⁶ This they said testing Him, that they might have cause to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.

⁷ So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

⁸ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing in the midst.

¹⁰ When Jesus had lifted Himself up and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?”

¹¹ She said, “No man, Lord.” And Jesus said unto her, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”

This passage is called the Pericope de Adultera (Passage about the Adulteress) in Latin. In the Contemporary English Version of the Gospel of John this passage is titled The Woman Caught In Sin, in the popular Good News Translation, The Woman caught in Adultery and in the New American Standard Bible, The Adulterous Woman. Not every printing of the Bible gives this passage a title but those that do invariably follow this theme.

The effect of this titling is to decide who the story is about. Our focus is put on to the woman in the story. We may even end up viewing adultery as the sin in question in the story as if the story was meant to say something about that in particular. Unfortunately this plays into a very pious anxiety over whether Jesus was making light of adultery or not. We the reader, end up in the position of the men with stones in hand saying “Come again Jesus? What are you really saying about her actions?”

This concern about making light of adultery has both a legalistic and an empathic aspect to it. Legalistically a person might be concerned about the contradiction between not punishing adultery and the instructions of traditional moral law. In such a concern the affront of tolerating adultery is to the authority of moral teaching against it – even to the authority of God. I think this is the author’s assumed motivation for the men who approach Jesus in this story.

On the other hand to make light of adultery is something which could ignore the pain of those who have suffered cheating spouses. This is the empathic reaction to making light of adultery. This is probably not the motivation of the men in the story. The wronged husband is certainly not featured. However this empathic concern about making light of adultery can be a challenge for modern readers. Surely Jesus is not asking this of us?

My response to this is to challenge what we know of this ancient woman’s “sin”. In Jesus’ time a woman could be married at the age of puberty, at least as young as thirteen. However she also was commonly betrothed from much younger and always without consent. If while betrothed she had sex with another man she could be stoned for adultery. Furthermore if she was raped in a populated area and her cries were not heard according to the strictest definition of the law she was a willing participant.

It is within the Jewish law of Jesus’ time that a nine year old girl could be flung down at Jesus feet by a group of men, intending to stone her, because she was raped. The “offended party” (not offending) might be a man who was much older and unknown to the girl – who has lost the virginity of his future child bride or the child’s own father whose family has been shamed. That’s an extreme case, and unlikely (given the language in the passage and Jewish culture at that time) but it gives us a sense of how little we really know of this woman’s situation.

Whatever her age the following is plain; her husband could beat her legally, she probably never chose to marry him and she had an extremely limited means to divorce him (he could divorce her much more easily). Her husband may have had multiple wives as well. Polygamy was legal for Jewish men in Jesus’ time with different families in different towns for those who traveled, though probably uncommon.

We shouldn’t think that our ignorance of the woman’s situation is accidental. A function of saying “this woman was caught in the act of adultery” is that what needs to be said about the situation feels like it has been said. Adultery is a word which locates the woman’s “act” within a legalistic moral system. Detail that might muddy the situation is washed away to reveal the relevant kernel of the woman’s action vis a vis the rules that make up that system. That’s what a process of naming-the-sin does.

Naming-the-sin happens in the story but is more importantly reinforced by the titles given to this passage. In the story it is merely the one of the discredited men who names her sin but as a title it has the authority of the Bible. This even enables us to make a 1^st century story into one in which we evaluate modern actions that also correspond to the legal category of adultery. Identical logical kernels of a deed (i.e. adultery) are locatable now and then once we no longer pay any attention to the muddy detail of either the 1st century or an individual’s situation today.

I don’t think the Jesus of this story buys into this notion of sin as the context-less kernel of a deed. When all the men have retreated Jesus refuses to condemn the woman and he bids her to go “sin no more”. We can choose to hear in Jesus’ answer that he had a perfect, miraculous, insight into the woman’s broader circumstances. We could speculate that Jesus knew exactly what the woman’s act of adultery meant in her story – maybe she was part victim and part sinner and both she and Jesus knew how those parts combined. Thus when Jesus says to “sin no more” he and she knew exactly what he is referring to; perhaps even some sin other than adultery.

However it’s also possible that Jesus says what he says in this passage from ignorance of the woman’s situation. Jesus knows she’s done something these men call adultery but perhaps the why and the how and the whole context of that is as unknown to Jesus as it is to us. Does her husband spend most of his time with his first wife and family? Has she succumbed to another’s attention in order to put food in her children’s mouths? Or to feel something good for herself in a community where she is mocked as if a concubine? Jesus won’t condemn her from ignorance but still asks her, in a general way, to live a holy life.

As interesting as this speculation might be if this story leaves us with merely speculation then we can say it’s not a very good teaching tool. It’s too vague. It doesn’t really tell us anything about adultery. That however is because, thanks to the title, we have been misled. This is not a story about adultery at all – the sin in this story is something else entirely.

It’s very easy in white middle-class Australia to completely minimize what stoning is. It is the brutal public murdering of a person. In contemporary Iran this practice continues. Women are buried up to their neck and stones thrown at their head until they are dead.

Stoning is a torturously slow way to execute someone, however there is another reason why it might have developed. No single stone can be large enough to kill a person in one or two blows. This shares the responsibility for the murder amongst the mob. In a way, all modern executions by the state do the same thing. They diffuse responsibility so that nobody is considered a murderer. But someone is still killed and dies outside of their community.

This is the action that these men propose.

In the first century, precisely because it was understood to be ordered by God, stoning was a part of the Jewish legal system. This passage is not the only time it is mentioned in the Christian bible. The apostle Paul states that he participated in stoning a Christian before he converted to Christianity himself. However it also seems that doubts existed in Jesus’ time as to the legitimacy of capital punishment. There is a record of rabbinical debate in the first and second centuries known as the Mishnah. In the Mishnah one Jewish teacher is cited as describing as “destructive” any Sanhedrin (Jewish Temple Court) that executes a single person in seven years. Another says that such a Sanhedrin is destructive if a single person is executed in seventy years. Over the next two to five centuries complicated requirements will be developed within Rabbinical Judaism to effectively make the death penalty impossible to impose.

This debate is the context in which this story belongs. It is the sole reason why “the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery” rather than just stone her. The same sort of exchange occurs in other passages in the bible where Jewish scholars test Jesus for where he stands on other debates of their age. When Jesus is asked about divorce (Mathew 19: 1-10) it is also a question that divided the schools of two major Jewish teachers (Hillel and Shammai). When Jesus is questioned whether Jews should pay taxes to the Romans (Matthew 22:15-22) that was a particularly divisive issue in his time and his answer could have put him between the zealots and the authorities. In all these cases (including John 8:1-11) Jesus’ answer is a rhetorical dodge that opens up alternative conceptual spaces to what readers might have imagined.

We can read these interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees in one of two ways. Perhaps these are accurate records of events. In which case the questioners of Jesus would have imagined that whatever answer Jesus gave would have placed him in one camp or another and alienated him from their opposite. That’s a very plausible political tactic. It drags Jesus into disputes between two other schools and reduces Jesus to a commentator on their positions. Cynically they might have been attempting to split Jesus own followers or expose him to ire and ridicule. In John 8:1-11 that seems to be expressed in the bible verse, “This they said testing Him that they might have cause to accuse Him”. Alternatively as Jesus was teaching at the temple they may have been trying to gain his support for their own position.

We can also see this as a story concocted to show a Christian position on these issues. This is not an unusual way to write history in ancient times. Ancient speeches could be inventions by historians in the style of the speaker. This scene seems to be a little too neat to me to be an actual event. Both the men and the woman go from and to nowhere else in the gospel narratives.  The “Pericope de Adultera” is also almost definitely not an original part of John’s Gospel. It appears in none of the earliest copies still in existence and is ignored in important biblical commentaries up to the fourth century. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t recorded elsewhere but we don’t have those records. It does raise doubts as to whether there ever was an actual woman charged with adultery at Jesus’ mercy.

Whether this story is a record or a concoction however the point of the story is to show Jesus’ response to the requirement under Mosaic Law to stone people and the debates of Biblical times about that issue. For that reason the passage ought to be retitled if it’s going to be titled at all. It could be called Jesus and Capital Punishment, though I like Jesus and the Murderous Men myself. “The Adulterous Woman” misses the point.

I also disagree with attempts to make the story more relevant to middle class Australian choices by broadening what is understood as the men’s behaviour to include all negative comment or judgment. “Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone” is not the same as “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. Only the second refers to metaphorical stones. In the first there are issues of violence and the sanctity of life. In the first there is also the institutional power held by some over the lives of others. Jesus is expected to take a place in that circle of power as a fellow man and teacher but he doesn’t.

If you really are so removed from the type of violence depicted that the story bears no direct relevance to you (a claim that mightn’t survive scrutiny) then I think it’s still best to keep the stories original intent clear. As a second step of interpretation you can contemplate how its principles, for example that a life is only God’s to take, might apply to you in other ways. Changing stories in order to “middle – class” the gospel, produces a Jesus who came to save the “worried well” from their malaise. That removes any challenge to the perspective of the worried well.  Maybe the hardest part of the gospel for us privileged Australians to swallow could be that it isn’t always about our priorities.

Having outlined what question I think John 8:1-11 is about I’m not actually going to say what I think is the teaching in this passage.  Jesus answer is genuinely a complex and intriguing one that I am still pondering. I encourage you to ponder John 8:1-11 too. I merely hope I’ve refocused your attention to what I feel confident the story is about. It’s not the woman’s alleged adultery.

Further reading:

On Marriage in Judaism in Jesus day;

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_and_Partners/About_Marriage/Ancient_Jewish_Marriage.shtml

http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/women%20and%20the%20law%20in%20ancient%20israel.htm

On Polygamy specifically;
http://jhom.com/lifecycle/marriage/polygamy.htm

http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/11040/questions-about-polygamy-in-jewish-law-and-culture

On Capital Punishment in 1^st Century Judaism and it’s evolution;

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Life_Events/Death_and_Mourning/About_Death_and_Mourning/Death_Penalty.shtml

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03929.html

On Stoning in particular;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10089270/Iran-amends-law-on-stoning-for-adultery.html

http://www.neurope.eu/article/iran-death-penalty-stoning

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/yo-rape-victim-stoned-to-death/story-e6frg6uf-1111117947483

On the scriptural authenticity of this passage;

http://www.bible-researcher.com/adult.html

http://www.tektonics.org/af/adulterypericope.html

http://www.pastordave.info/1/post/2010/03/bibles-accuracy-does-john-8s-story-of-the-adulterous-woman-belong-in-the-bible.html

On the teaching of this passage;

http://www.goshen.edu/mqr/pastissues/July09Belousek.pdf

…and your own comments below.

Part two of One Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election

Welcome to part two of my grueling investigation of the Senate preference ticket groups. Check out part one for an explanation of what I’m doing and of the first half of the Victorian Senate ballot paper.

In this section I’ll discuss the Democrats out of ballot order because their situation has ramifications for understanding other parties' preferences and it also ties in with my last post’s ending.

Australian Democrats.

You could say pretty much what I had to say about the Greens at the end of my last post in regard to the Australian Democrats. That makes it a poor description, sorry. It’s true both parties tend to like “sin taxes” or “nudge economics” – government incentives to affect economic decisions for health, social and environmental reasons. Emphasising that in my description of the Greens reflects my own bias that I’ve always felt the Australian Democrats and the Greens could have worked closer together.

I say could’ve because the Democrats have pretty much imploded now. In fact when I first searched for the Democrats website a week before posting this I had to click through a letter from the National President of the Australian Democrats. Confounding what my eyes see on the ballot paper it reads ; The National Executive of the Australian Democrats did not put forward candidates at this election, nor did it authorise any preference deals.

The party has split into warring factions who are contesting who actually is a Democrat. There are two Democrats websites. http://www.australiandemocrats.org.au and http://www.australian-democrats.org.au (Succint coverage of the issue can be found here.) It’s the latter website that has the candidates.

This continues a public disintegration begun when Cheryl Kernot knifed her own party to join Labor back in 1997. Who would’ve thought that an activist party like the Greens would hold their shit together better than what’s been labeled a small business party? Probably anyone in small business perhaps.

As historically a party for small business the Democrats are supposedly on the economically conservative side of Labor. Yet when in office the Democrats called for increases in foreign aid and public funding for health and education along with the Greens in excess of Labor usually. It was the Democrats who negotiated to keep the GST off fresh food too. They’d look pretty left in our current landscape with those policies despite their desire to call themselves centrist. Given how Labor has drifted past the centre the Australian Democrats are probably now only to the right of the Greens and the Socialist Equality Party.

I wouldn’t count them out just yet. They or at least half the party have done quite well out of preference allocations this election. The Democrats seem to get a lot of love even from people who can’t stand the Greens. If they can get over their internal toxicity they may yet make a come back but that’s a big if.

Their own preferences will be heading either;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First 3. Greens 4. Labor 5. Liberal/Nationals

Or on ticket two with Labor and Liberal reversed;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First 3. Greens 4. Liberal/Nationals 5. Labor

Stop CSG Party

The “practice of fracturing the ground for coal seams can damage underground water reserves with toxic chemicals that are dangerous to humans, animals and plants” according to the Stop CSG party.

According to the CSIRO this risk is “low”. How low? Well that, in the words of CSIRO bigwig Dr. Peter Stone, is “related to the probability of contamination occurring and the actual nature of the risk associated with that contamination, so it's not something that can be answered with a simple number.”- http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2012/04/16/qa-csiro-scientist-discusses-impacts-csg

This is a response that makes me rethink our society’s choice to abandon augury. No witch would have earnt her silver with that hedged bet.

Everyone agrees that CSG has a lot smaller carbon footprint than the coal industry. But understandably if you were a farmer or local townie whose water supply “might” be contaminated those are benefits you wouldn’t care to pursue. Is this just a case of NIMBY politics or the last ditch defense of our nations' food basins? That’s “related to the probability of contamination occurring and the actual nature of the risk associated with that contamination”, so it's not something that can be answered with a simple vote.

But that’s all you’ve got. Your preferences might be heading this way;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First 3. Greens 4. Labor 5. National/Liberal

Katter's Australia Party
I have a soft spot for Bob Katter. Not only is he like some daft fun uncle but when he talks about suicidal farmers he drops the larrikin act quick smart. It’s rare to find a single character who can do both quirky and gravitas.

Katter's fierce opposition to the Greens is along the lines of those of the Lifestyle Rights parties (with recreational fishing a primary concern) and in relation to the impact of marine parks on aquaculture. Yet the party’s website also makes a great case for action on reducing emissions with acknowledgement of the scientific consensus around climate change.

The Katter's Australia Party also has possibly the harshest policies for refugees wrapped in a strangely welcoming rhetoric. It’s very confusing. They will forcibly turn back boats, only grant successful refugees temporary protection visas, monitor them electronically and make them build their own housing under a work for the dole scheme. But they do make a lovely reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan as inspiration.

Where Katter shines is the championing of economic protectionism over pure rationalism. The Nationals have been obliged in coalition with the Liberals to support the sale of public assets and oversee the abandonment of protection for Australian manufacturing and farming. That’s never been a winner with their constituents. Those who are truly disgruntled by it can jump ship with Bob Katter.

When they do their vote will roam in this way;

1. Family First 2. National/Liberal 3. Labor 4.Australian Democrats 5. Greens

Palmer United Party

Palmers first policy is to prevent paid political lobbyists from holding senior positions in political parties. Abbott denied Palmer this goal in the Liberal Party and maybe wishes he hadn’t now. As Palmer said at the time, defining the key issue of World War Two, we wouldn’t want to live in Nazi germany where a person couldn’t even put forward a resolution.

That’s just one way this billionaire empathises with the victims of tyranny. He has a novel way to “stop the boats”; let refugees fly here. He’s also deeply committed to “Ending the Class War” and replacing it with a system where tax revenues are returned to the regions they are collected from. When your local hospital depends on attracting a mining magnates investment (for example) class war probably will fracture. But without more detail we can’t know if our huts will be inside or outside our Lords castle walls.

Preferences from Palmers party are in the national interest only;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Greens 4. Liberal/Nationals 5. Labor

Justice For Animals Party

A specific policy on wombats; that is the level of detailed commitment you are dealing with here. I don’t mean that lightly. These people have held gun shot native animals in their hands, screaming at the absence of a God who protects, and broken the creatures necks to spare them slow agonizing deaths. You think they won’t then put sugar in that roo-shooters gas tank? They will beat him to death with a roo skull.

That’s the kind of drive behind these folks. And as we consistently chew our way through the unidentifiable ammonia-washed pink slime of a trillion sentient beings we know we deserve the judgement they bring.

To be clear Justice For Animals are not “greenies” who idealise an abstract idea like “the environment”. These are people whose constituency are non-human animals. No kill animal shelters for example are a goal without anything directly to do with environmental sustainability.

A fall-out with the ACT greens over a Green support for a cull of kangaroos has led to preferencing against each other in some places.

1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First 3. Greens 4. Labor 5. Liberal/Nationals

  

The Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party

The Australian Motoring Enthusiasts party claims to consist of  “a very diverse range of average Australian families”. They pledge to keep this in mind as they “moderate extremism” in legislation. There’s a vague but strong suggestion of threat on their website to the honest practice of modifying ones motor vehicle based upon “freedom of expression.” I have absolutely no idea what this describes. Did we recently stop people putting spikes on their cars or something?

I am touched by their efforts on their facebook page to overcome differences in their own community based on the cars that people drive. Too many Ford loving parents have rejected their children for driving a Toyota. It’s time to heal.

Most importantly the first of their long list of core values is a belief in the Australian people. That’s fairly crucial to running for election.

Ticket one;

1. Family First 2.Australian Democrats 3. National/Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

Ticket two splits the National candidate from their Liberal peers;

1. Family First 2.Australian Democrats 3. Nationals 4. Labor 5. Liberals 6. Greens

Wikileaks and the Pirate Party

 Governments are free to know everything about their subjects and we are not free to know a thing about that. Both Wiki-Leaks and the Pirate party aim to reverse this. 

The Wikileaks campaign has unfortunately stalled. The second spot on their Senate ticket left the party after the National executive council was circumvented and mistakes were made with preference deals. Fundraising is massively below target. In straw polls amongst my friends Julian Assange isn’t a vote winning figure head either. It’s a shame because those same people still believe Gillard should have tried to defend him from U.S. prosecution on principle (instead of treating Assange like John Howard treated David Hicks). If this election was meant to show that support, it probably won’t.

The Pirate Party have avoided any possibility of Wikileaks mistakes by choosing to have an entirely open and transparent process of allocating their preferences. In fact they are the only party to do so. (They still got duped by the Australian Democrats candidates into believing they spoke for the whole party though but so did everyone it seems).

This transparency plus their easily searchable policy wiki suggests an impressive skill set for such a young party. Honestly I have looked at twenty seven political parties web sites so far and this was the second easiest to comprehend (Justice for Animals was number one actually).  I liked what I saw of Pirate policy from their stance on refugees to the reform of pharmaceutical patents.

In fact I was so impressed I joined the party.

Preferences for Wiki Leaks;
1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Labor 4. Liberal/Nationals 5. Family First
And for the Pirate Party;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Labor 4. Liberal Nationals 5. Family First

Sex Party

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am down with the sex positivity. Hence it might be a surprise that I am not a fan of the Sex party. That springs from the suspicion that this is really a sex-business party with a sex-positivist gloss. The links between this party and the Eros Foundation (lobby group for the sex-industry) are extensive. For fucks sake one of their candidates in NSW promises to get rid of the ban on plastic bags on the Sex party website. What’s that got to do with the size of orgasms?

Another of the Sex party’s policies is the legal sale and regulation of cannabis. The model they propose for this is perfect for the Eros Foundation members who already sell legal highs through their “adult” stores. There’s the question of whether business or pleasure is really the motivator here.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Sex shops are not necessarily dens of iniquity. Bliss in Melbourne is a sex-shop specifically for women with a lovely and healthy vibe. Why can’t good drug or sex policy also have a capitalist expression and a business constituency that will benefit from it?

Because in our culture the filter of commercialism is almost invisible. This means that the replacement of a DIY sexyness with one from the gift shop is even more troubling than one mediated by religion. You can think you are getting “raw” sexuality from a sex shop but in fact it is very well cooked to create the relationship of customer to seller that such a business relies on. More specifically to this election, if the sex party is all about gay marriage and legal dope why do they put Labor before the Greens;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Labor 3. Greens 4. Liberal/National 5. Family First

Australian Labor Party

Just for a moment let’s forget that the Labor party has been its own circus/abbatoir for three years. Let’s breathe deep of the lavender and imagine all that is behind us.

Two things ought to get Labor re-elected. We have a national disability insurance scheme now. That’s huge. Secondly the Gonski education reforms have been developed (blame Western Australia, Queensland and until recently Victoria for holding them up). These reforms are the fix school funding has needed since John Howard made it a coke-fest for the wealthy. Health and education; when you consider there’s no real debate about defence or law and order in this election, that’s politics sewn up.

But then the issue of refugees has been made into both a defence and law and order issue for some people. If you can’t walk the beaches for fear of being mugged by a group of people rowing ashore for the first time what good is a properly funded education sector? On that issue even if Rudd personally decapitates an asylum seeker on public television he will still come off second best to a Liberal party prepared to feast on the victims still warm heart. And everyone knows it.

Also Labors big tale of preventing recession from reaching our shores like a boss (as if they personally were buying our minerals from China) doesn’t correspond to how people feel. It’s fine to say GDP is healthy overall but people are hurting from factory closures even if other people are making a mint importing waistcoats. The two only balance on paper. A new extension in one home and an eviction at another don’t cancel each other out at the polls. In that context, and because even the winners of our economic lottery “feel” poorer than they are, a government whose message is success seems out of touch.

Finally the party is like a beacon of anti-excitement. They underwhelm on the elections sexiest issue by promising to have just another conscience vote about gay marriage. They take the hot-button issue of Abbott’s sexism and defuse it by appointing a leader who undermined the first female prime minister more than the opposition. They have hands down the most boring website so far in this review. Perhaps the last legacy of Kevin Rudd will be that the word selfie can now no longer be used by anyone under the age of twenty.

For those who like dry white toast;

1. Labor 2. Greens 3. Australian Democrats 4. Family First 5. Liberal/Nationals

Drug Law Reform

This is a really recent party, founded in March this year by the son of the founder of the Australian Democrats. They draw on the support of people who have lost loved ones to drugs more so than drug users themselves. At least that’s the vibe of their web site. Their take and I get this, is that were those drugs legal the fatal harms associated with them might not have been there.

Although from just their slogans you can guess what they stand for, it’s almost impossible to pin it down online for sure. You can join the party having agreed to no more than humane legislation, discussion and education which someone could claim are already features of the current system. Only after asking through their facebook site for directions could I find an actual policy page. It seems like the only definite stance they have is to call for a Royal Commission into the War on Drugs. That’s frustratingly bare and hopefully something they fill out soon.

Are they calling for the legalization of Marijuana? Almost definitely. What about all drugs across the board? Maybe?

They went with two tickets;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Labor 4. Liberal/National 5. Family First

Ticket two has the ALP and Liberals reversed;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Liberal/National 4. Labor 5. Family First

Bullet Train For Australia

One of the questions in the leaders’ debate this election was when will Sydney build a second airport. Flights between Melbourne and Sydney, Australia’s peak route include around 110,000 seats per week.  Between Brisbane and Sydney air traffic is almost as heavy. Sydney airport is considered choked and travel along the Eastern seaboard is a big part of why.

Showing a complete lack of faith in teleportation  and a general snub to the benefits of slow travel, Bullet Train for Australia have a plan to solve Sydney's airport congestion. Along the way they might just help with some other small problems like the environment and the East coast economy.

The very fact that only this party exists instead of an actual Bullet train is an affront to common sense. By promising clearly not to weigh in on any other issues they’ve made it safe for fans of either Family First or the Sex Party to vote 1 for a Bullet train and then personally number the rest of their ballot how they’d like.

But if you tick 1 for the Bullet Train above the line it’s odd that your preferences go here;
1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First 3. Labor 4. Greens 5. Liberal/National

  

Australian Christians

This kind of party makes my blood boil a little. It’s bad enough that Labor get’s away with calling itself Labor or The Country Alliance implies they have allied the country but the chutzpah hat gets taken off them by Australian Christians and then ridden around like it’s a pony. I’ll just check with my friend the Christian drug and alcohol worker if she feels represented by a “zero-tolerance approach” to drugs that rejects any harm-minimisation education. What’s that sound? Is she breaking things?

Of course language being what it is, there is no more stopping me from claiming to represent all Zoroastrians than there is this crew from claiming to be particularly Christian. In fact I’m tempted to start a party called the True Christian Faithful Party.

Celebrating further the beautiful fluidity of language Australian Christians express the desire to “create a better Australia for all Australians, no matter what their faith and belief”. Then they have the following policy;

Regarding refugee intake in general, we believe Australia should re-balance the refugee intake to reduce the number of Muslim refugees and take more persecuted Christians from various African countries.
I guess there’s a loophole in that they aren’t Australian yet. A refugee policy that discriminates on the basis of ones own religion is one way to increase your parties support.

Preferences;

1. Family First 2. Liberal/Nationals 3. Labor  4.Australian Democrats 5. Greens

Citizens Electoral Council

As described in the CEC “Fighting Platform” the powerful global British banking system are not only laundering drug cartels money but they are financing the legalization and decriminalisation campaigns for their drug cartel allies. The basthards. Except legalization would devastate drug cartel profits so that doesn’t make sense.

It’s little things like this where a perfectly ordinary hard–left party can betray the crazy. The Citizens Electoral Council is just such a party. However you could also call them hard-right because they prove the adage that such extremes meet at some point. That meeting point can thrive in the land of conspiracy politics, where every single aspect of our time is part of one totalizing power structure; the left and right of politics are only two hand puppets of the shadow government after all. If you thought land rights or environmentalism were resistances to power these guys explain how both are somehow just a new way for the British banks to turn us into slaves. Only the CEC can provide the true red pill.

I actually believe it’s our responsibility to listen carefully to conspiracy theorists. Firstly to deny all conspiracies is the most inane position of all. Of course people in power work together. Secondly the way my brain wants to stop thinking just because the CEC describe the royal family ( a classic conspiracy villain)  as the masterminds of a plan to cull the human race, well that’s exactly what would happen if I was a programmed sheep of such a global conspiracy. I would want to stop thinking about it, right?  So it’s true?

That’s why I only say after calm consideration that the policies of the CEC are wrong. I’m not balking at their history of political violence or the fraud convictions against the economist whose ideas they worship, both of which could easily be fabrications of the shadow government. I’m talking about their plans to re-develop the biosphere through irrigating deserts and to colonise new planets so that humanity thrives without any population limits or use of alternative energy.

Now here’s the rub though. In order to argue against these ideas I have to rely on general scientists to back me up. People like David Attenborough who is a part of the conspiracy, are obviously going to say the CEC are wrong.

These poor guys had to choose which part of the conspiracy to preference first and couldn’t quite. So on Ticket one;

1. Family First 2. Liberal/Nationals 3. Australian Democrats 4. Labor 5. Greens

And Ticket two;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal/Nationals 5. Greens

  

Group AJ

Bob Nicholls is a small business man with a common sense, level-headed approach. He’s no dandy but he can wear a tie and not look silly. Him and about everyone’s dad are going to get along.

He knows from running a business that you don’t sell off money making public assets to pay off debt. Not only that but his policies include to “Collectively uncover and root out misogynistic tendencies hidden in our cultural background” and in regard to abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia he states “It is not my role to tell other people how to live their lives.”

Let’s clone him and never have an election again.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find much on his running mates under the AJ ticket. On Facebook Bob informed me one is his daughter and another a business friend with various skills.

Like a true independent thinker Bob has scattered his preferences all over the place, a single green and then a single ALP member, then a Liberal National and so on. The Democrats are split up but all of Family First are last. I have no idea what effect this will have.

Socialist Equality Party
This is a Trotskyist party. Leon Trostsky was a Russian Communist who was expelled from the party and eventually assassinated for opposing Stalinism. Stalinism was that style of KGB driven communism that looked exactly like Nazism except for minor aesthetic differences. That makes Trotsky a good guy, though some claim this is only by comparison to one of history's worst dictators.

What this means today is that the Socialist Equality party is economically communist but unlike the communism of Stalin and Mao they believe in democracy.

They use the word “expropriate” to describe putting institutions under public ownership. Banks and major corporations are to be expropriated under their policies. The money that presumably would bring in can be spent on free public education and housing. I wonder whether in the transition period would this mean kids will use bank pens at school and people will live in refurbished McDonalds? Who cares? It still sounds great.

One reason not to vote for these guys is that most of their party are probably members of ASIO under cover. Still if they stay in role does that matter?

Actually now I look at their preferences I hate them. Ridiculous. Ticket One;

1. Liberal/National 2 . Democrats 3. Family First 4. Greens 5. Labor

Ticket two;

1. Labor 2. Liberal/National 3. Family First 4. Greens 5. Democrats

Ticket three;

1. Greens 2. Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal/National 5. Family First


Democratic Labour Party
The Democatic Labour party are famous for forming after many of their members were expelled in 1955 from the Labor Party. They were predominantly Catholic and saw as their main enemy the communist influence in the Labor Party.  This is classic cold war stuff and the mere mention of the characters in play when the DLP began, B.A. Santamara and Archbishop Mannix cause grainy black and white news footage to play in my head.

When the 60’s swung round the D.L.P. moved their focus of criticism to the new “permissiveness” opposing abortion, pornography, drugs and the removal of electrodes from the nipples of lesbians and gay men. Today they not only oppose gay marriage but same-sex civil unions or relationship registration of any sort.

They also make dog-whistle comments about the Family Courts unfairness and express “solidarity” with non-custodial parents which I suspect may be part of a fathers rights paradigm but can’t be sure. Our Family Court is explicitly biased towards the child’s rights.

In the 70’s the DLP lost a lot of their support when the country opposed the Vietnam War which they had strongly supported. The cold war was over and although the DLP were opponents of neo-liberalism and small government as much as they were communism no-body cared for them and they lost representation in the 1974 double dissolution election. Their preferences had kept Labor out of office for two decades until Whitlam won in 1972.

Cue bugle call. For several years the DLP were that sort of surprise nostalgia jolt on polling day when some old dude with a comb over hands you a green and gold pamphlet of their particular hue. Then all of a sudden in 2006 a Victorian DLP candidate wins a state senate seat. They lose it at the next election but in 2010 another DLP candidate won a Federal senate seat for Victoria narrowly and on preferences. Feck me. It’s alive.

Preferences flow to;

1. Family First 2. Liberal/Nationals (mostly) 3. Labor (mostly) 4. Democrats 5. Greens

Group T

Joseph Toscano and Beth Matthews are “anarchist independants” according to some site I stumbled on. That site and a Wikipedia entry with no particular relevance to the election campaign are the most clear indications I could find of their candidacy.

I left this group to last because I wanted to crack the case of what they stood for. I was keen to write awesome things about an anarchist running for senate. Then I got waylaid by some out of date 2010 site where all their links to policy were dead links. Joseph Toscano’s website invited me to renew his expired domain name. I can’t figure out how to contact them… aaagh. Is there some anarchist rule that you have to be terrible at self-promotion?

Backtracking I managed to download a sort of  policy document which included a 1% stock market turnover tax and a wealth tax, the replacement of Australian states with a Federation of fifty Regional Councils and the creation of an economic system of co-operatives and collectives.

They say they are running for the senate to raise their issues rather than to win but I think they are on track to do neither.

Preferences go for;

1. Greens 2. Labour 3. Democrats 4. Liberals 5. Family First

_____________________________________________________________________

And that's that. I hope its been helpful.The second half got delayed by the start of a new job which will probably keep me from regularly blogging for a while. Sorry if you were kept hanging there.

I've actually been impressed by quite a few of the people and groups running for the Victorian Senate this year. Most of them are sincere at the very least. I'll probably end up voting below the line, now that I have an idea of many of the candidates. I most likely will put the Pirate Party first followed by the Greens. But how do I decide whether Bob Nicholls goes higher than Wiki-Leaks? Or whether Animal Justice goes lower  than the ALP? And then there are all the candidates and parties I didn't research (because I was focusing on the above the line groups). Good luck with your own decision and no matter how you vote may it be with your mind on the disadvantaged in our society

One Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election

When Australians vote at their federal polls in a few weeks time they will face a bewildering amount of choice. Particularly in the Senate, many minor parties and independents that no-one will have heard of before will be listed. In Victoria, my home state and senate electorate, there are ninety seven candidates vying for six senate seats.

Voters can register a legal vote by numbering in order of their preference every individual box below the line on the senate ballot paper. Voters can also choose to register a legal vote by putting a one in a single box above the line next to a grouping’s name, usually a political party. If they do it’s as if their ballot below the line is filled out automatically according to the grouping’s preference ticket.  These preference tickets are made available online by the Australian Electoral Commission. Not every candidate has a box above the line. Some have missed the deadline to submit their preference ticket to the commission.

With ninety seven boxes to number this year I began to worry that I will stuff up my usual voting below the line by listing two people with the same number. That wouldn't actually render my vote invalid as I first thought;
“The act and the ballot paper instructions state that a below the line vote must have preferences for all candidates, but there are a couple of savings provisions. You only have to fill in 90% of squares, which in NSW means 99 preferences, and your vote will be able to survive up to three preference breaks, that is duplicated or missed numbers.” – From Anthony Green’s election blog.

Voting below the line also got easier with this great online tool.You can basically construct your own how-to-vote card before the day.

I still might vote above the line this year though. There’s the benefit (or curse) of letting a party research where my preferences go. I can also check what any above the line grouping will do by checking their preference ticket online. Groups with more than one preference ticket will be splitting their above the line votes between each ticket sending equal portions one way or the other.

For the benefit of people still trying to decide their votes and because it’s interesting to see who is really aligned with who despite the rhetoric I've tried to give a break down of each of the Senate groupings and their preference tickets. To do that I've reduced each preference ticket to five parties that I think could reasonably be the destinations for all the preferences from all the other minor parties.

Of course it’s impossible to absolutely say who will win an election before it’s held. However it’s reasonably possible to predict a party’s chance of gaining one or more seats based on recent history. It’s hugely unlikely that a senate seat will go to anyone other than a member of the Liberal/National Party coalition, the Labor Party, the Greens, Family First, or the Australian Democrats. In fact it’s unlikely to be any more than one Victorian senate seat that doesn't go to Labor or Liberal and probable that none will. That means we can estimate that votes for any party will end up here.

This is a particularly dangerous year to make this kind of estimation because there are some brand new parties contesting. Wikileaks, Katter’s Australia Party and Clive Palmer’s vanity project are brand new contenders. I’m taking an educated punt that they won’t be winning a single seat in Victoria at least. (Katter and even Clive Palmer have bigger followings in Queensland). If I could have one wish it would be that we don’t wake up to a surprise win on preferences for some pure racist party like One Nation. Fortunately no-one is predicting this.

So without further ado here are the groups and the flow of their preferences in the order (pretty much) that they appear on the ballot. 

Rise Up Australia

Why are anti-multicultural groups also consistently climate change denying? That’s just one question raised by a party that in its “manifesto” states that our country is founded on both the Ten Commandments and freedom of religion. Do they not know that the first of the Ten Commandments is to worship no other gods but Yahweh?

By freedom of religion Rise Up Australia does not mean freedom to wear the Burka. That is number one of the religious freedoms they do not mean as it is actually their first policy to ban it. Interestingly they describe climate change as a quasi-religious claim but this is insufficient to base government policy on. I presume only fully religious claims will do.

This party has the good fortune of being first on the ballot paper. That alone might net them some accidental votes. Their party song failed to move me.

Votes above the line here will flow;
1. Family First 2. Liberal 3. Democrats 4. Labor 5. Greens

Senator Online (Internet Voting Bills/Issues)
Here is a party with pretty much no policies. To be fair they can’t really have any. This is because they propose that any of their successful candidates will follow the majority vote of the general public via online voting.

Is that a good thing? Indicate yes or no in the comments below.

How on earth did they decide how to allocate preferences?;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Greens 4. Labor 5. Liberal

Liberal/ Nationals

If you squint they look a lot like Labor. That’s what Thatcher looked like before she was elected too. Or Joe Hockey the last time. Or that German Charlie Chaplin who wasn’t funny. You only think you can estimate the range they can possibly destroy. Imagine something totally evil like Native Title overridden in a northern economic tax-free zone for mining interests or Little Ted, homeless and forced to perform tricks for bucks and these people have imagined it too with a chardonnay in hand and laughing.

Oh God, they are going to win aren’t they?

For some reason the Liberal National Coalition have two preference tickets. Both follow the same path;
1. Liberal/National 2. Family First 3. Australian Democrats 4. Labor 5. Greens

HEMP (Help End Marihuana Prohibition Party)
From their website “Our sole purpose is to agitate for the re-legalisation of Cannabis for personal, medical and industrial use.” and that it seems to be.

The prospect of a Liberal victory sure makes this party much more attractive. I even find their unwillingness to be distracted by any other legislative concern admirable. It’s like when you can’t find any papers at the party and someone tries to talk to you about the music that’s playing.

What is annoying is that they have three preference tickets. Two of them have:
1. Australian Democrats 2. Labor 3. Greens 4. Family First 5. Liberal

One of them has the Greens before Labor:

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens 3. Labor 4. Family First 5. Liberal

Family First
One of the few parties that put house-affordability and work-life balance on the agenda. I want to go to church with them for that. Then they drop the ball with climate change denial and support of a voucher system that will undermine public education. That house you can afford will be on a sinking island of your separatist subculture.

This may be a party particularly attractive to young earth creationists who will appreciate not having to teach their kids about the devils science but don’t underestimate their support. Family First is arguably the fourth or fifth (or sixth if you count National and Liberal separately) choice in Australian politics. As we will see that’s out of a squillion.

Voting above the line here will probably result in a vote for the Liberals;
1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

Country Alliance / Shooters and Fishers / Australian Fishing Lifestyle

Country and Alliance; only the Country Fresh Alliance could possibly be more attractive at first glance. But don’t be fooled, this is not the voice of all rural people but a movement who have drawn a sharp line of division in their communities.

Along with the Shooters and Fishers Party and the Australian Fishing Lifestyle Party the Country Alliance aim to defend the right to fish, hunt and drive motorized vehicles through the bush. The AFLP call them “Lifestyle rights”. These rights are supposedly under threat by the Greens and Greened Labor (rather than actual overuse) who it’s claimed are locking up the environment through native land and marine parks based on bad science.

These Lifestyle rights parties are not insignificant when it comes to mobilizing and that’s a real problem for the Greens in the country. I’ve never handed out how to vote cards without one of these parties being represented alongside me as well. Even when they don’t win votes they shape hearts and minds to be suspicious of “urban” greenies.

I can’t help but feel that this is a conflict that will only get worse as our regional populations grow. I find that a shame as a greenie voter who appreciates the hunter and fisher’s sense of independence and history to their craft. That said I worry these parties are potentially manipulated by big industry and developers. And what kind of a sport is four -wheel driving seriously?

Each of these parties differs on their other policies, a little. But their publicity all sounds very similar and they all hate the Greens.

Country Alliance send their preferences;

1. Liberal 2. Labor  3. Family First  4. Australian Democrats 5. Greens

The Shooters and Fishers Party and The Australian Fishing Lifestyle Party both send their preferences along the following route;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

Australian Voice Party / Building Australian Party.

Why was the question I couldn’t stop asking when reading about these parties.

The Australia Voice Party’s largest policy area is its own party’s structure. The Building Australia Party “has grown out of discontent from within the building industry and the building design profession” according to their website. Really? Do we all need our own parties by profession now?

You can read either party’s policies for a handy sopoforic effect. These groups may be a way of doing politics differently – outside the usual paradigms of left and right – as both suggest but they will need some copywriters if they are going to be successful. Unfortunately those people have all joined the Copywriters party.

One positive; don’t let the Australia in their name fool you. There’s no evident racism or cultural conservatism in these groups.

If you are into Building Australia your preferences will flow as follows;
1. Australian Democrats 2. Family First  3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

If you want to raise an Australian Voice;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Liberal 4. Labor 5. Greens

The Secular Party of Australia

Does what it says on the tin I guess. This might gain some votes from people annoyed at the chaplaincy program in state schools where convoluted hiring processes enable anti-discrimination laws to be evaded. With their support for the removal of religious exemptions to the tax act they are also probably the party whose policies will most balance the budget. Sure it’s not enough policies to govern as a major party but then this is always going to be a protest vote.

What such a protest vote does next is;

1. Australian Democrats 2. Greens  3. Labor 4. Liberal 5. Family First.

The No Carbon Tax Climate Change Skeptics Party

Backed up by no less that six peer reviewed scientific papers (according to their website) here is the worlds’ first party for truth in science. Beyond that issue they just want government to get off our backs and let us make some mon-hay while the sun shines on with no significant increase in intensity.

Strange that they preference Labor before Liberal;

1. Family First  2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal 5. Greens

The Stable Population Party

No.

The Stable Population Party has three separate group voting tickets and I’m just not going through them all. Here’s a conversation starter for your next social mixer though; Should child benefits only be paid for the first two children of each mother?

Smokers Rights Party

 Of their policies only one actually might benefit smokers (lower prices) while the rest simply helped new smokers get recruited (relaxed advertising restrictions). I call bullshit, Smokers Rights, and if you don’t like it I will run up a hill away from you. 

They don’t even have a ticket so I didn’t actually have to review them. Crap. Bed time, I'm done.

The Australian Independents
This might be the only party to actually say upfront that they will ban the sale of puppies from pet stores. (Justice for Animals, I will get to you in my next post.) Braving the under five backlash, this is one of a raft of bold but sensible policies.

Sure singling out specifically Christian welfare agencies as deserving of increased funding is odd and I’m no fan of their off-shore processing policy but they do want a significant increase to our refugee intake. Furthermore they prioritize homelessness and mental health. We could do a lot worse.

Just when you think we’ve done every possible combination;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Greens  4. Labor 5. Liberal.

Bank Reform
Not only Banks but the supermarket and legal oligarchies are in this parties sights. Competition is their goal and they aim to pursue it from the government. Irony aside they have some good arguments that we can regulate against market concentration whereas at the moment we regulate for it in some sectors.

In my own opinion if peer to peer borrowing and crowd sourcing took off we wouldn’t need to care about reforming the big banks. Given that’s years off making a difference maybe the Bank Reform party has a purpose. On the other hand the Bank Reform party is many more years off making a difference so you do the math.

Not sure what they have against the Greens;

1. Family First 2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Liberal. 5. Greens

The Greens

The Greens are equal parts evil and incompetence if you believe many other parties. There’s even one called Stop the Greens whose policy is self-evident. As a participant in their pagan canabilistic orgies however I’ve found them to be generally integritous and thoughtful.

The Greens are really the champions of a certain economic philosophy. This is the philosophy that supports subjecting economic activity to social and environmental assessment. It was ultimately a deal to govern struck with the Greens that forced Gillard’s Labor to introduce a carbon tax.

The Greens don’t view all economic activity as equal. Instead they do what makes traditional economists squirm. They “pick winners and losers” in the marketplace like fresh food over potato chips, clean energy over coal and fair trade over free trade. They then reflect that with taxation and subsidies from government.

That’s not all the Greens are about. With the demise of the Australian Democrats they have taken over the role of the progressive and humanitarian party. If you draw a spectrum of views on issues like marriage reform, access to abortion, foreign Aid levels and our response to refugees the Greens are on one side, Liberals on the other and Labor is in the middle. This makes life hard for those conservative Christians who despite opposing marriage law reform and reproductive freedoms want to see a Green party response to Foreign Aid and Refugees.

The Greens have had my first preference for years. This year I’m tempted to give it to a smaller party so long as I know it will flow to the Greens before any other possibly successful candidates. The reason for my change is that the Greens are sounding too much like a proper political party lately even putting spin on negative polls. It was always their straight talk through the bullshit that I admired most of all.

Here’s where the Greens send their polyamourous love;

1. Greens 2. Australian Democrats 3. Labor 4. Family First 5. Liberal

This is the first page of the preference tickets. There’s another page and twelve more groups to discuss. That will be the next installment of  One Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election.

Who's Your Zombie?

 ZOMBIES DEFINED

What an awful lot of zombies there are on film lately. There’s a world of them in World War Z which I won’t be watching. It looks like every other American-saves-the-day blockbuster. I might read the book though.

I’m much more tempted to watch Warm Bodies which came out recently. I loved Zombieland, enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, didn't hate I am Legend and thought 28 days later was inspired (28 weeks later, less so).

My personal favorite however is Land of the Dead (2008) At this point I should confess that while I've seen other zombie flicks (Resident Evil, Undead and others) Land of the Dead is the only one of Romero’s works (original or remake) that I have ever seen.

George A. Romero’s status as the greatest zombie film maker of all time means this might disqualify me in some peoples mind from writing on this topic. On the one hand I agree. On the other hand I remind people that this is the internet and I am undaunted by my ignorance. Perhaps my brother Tim, as the family’s horror champion, could add his own thoughts.

What I loved about Land of the Dead is that it explored the meaning of zombie from the outside rather than the inside. Other films do this too but Land of the Dead prioritized it. To explain, consider the following definitions for a zombie;

1. Mindless, rage-filled, diseased, unholy, not really alive, hungry!

2. Expendable, can be mowed down freely as they are not a citizen in any way, too many, threatening,

The first definition includes actual qualities of the zombie. That is the zombie is treated as an actual thing. I use the word actual quite deliberately. Of course zombies are not events in the real world but that doesn’t mean that they are not treated as real in the fictions that discuss them. They are genuinely distinct from non-zombies. That genuine distinction is of the realm of objective qualities rather than merely how they are perceived. I use the word “actual” to describe this.

The second definition is different. It contains not the qualities of the zombie itself but the qualities of the gaze that produces the category of zombie. It is in fact more of a definition of the human ethics by which zombies, deserving or not, are recognized and treated as such.

Land of the Dead is interesting for emphasizing the second definition because while actual zombies don’t exist outside of fiction (or do they?), the category of zombie (the second definition) is very much a part of the real world. There are many people who are considered expendable, too populous and a threat. Tragically refugees in the Australian political context come to mind. What makes a zombie a good metaphor for how these people are being viewed is the idea of “depth of personhood”.

THE DEPTH OF PERSONHOOD.

Our minds can extend out of our bodies. Just imagine your own back yard. Upon imagining it you may well have projected yourself into that space. You are possibly there now (mentally) looking at the yard work that needs doing. In this way we can virtually “see” around corners. Zombies in movies do this too. They hear a noise (not just any noise but the noise of people) and go to investigate. Sometimes they smell living flesh many miles away and travel to it in order to feed. To do this they must be able to project themselves mentally to the source of the sound or smell, to anticipate what they will find when they get there.

My mind and with it my sense of self also extends internally. In the form of my hopes and fears and pain sensations, identity conflicts and so on, I have depth. In fact I would say that most of the time this internal world is a trillion times larger than my external one. The yard work I need to do is dwarfed by the internal feelings of pride and shame that accompany completing it or not.

My self-hood may be infinitely deep. I can, after all, reflect on my reflections. Whole worlds of thought can become enveloped in another world of greater scale by mere pondering. When my heart breaks it feels like the universe ruptures and then from a later vantage point that universe of heartbreak will seem like a single satellite. Over my life there are galaxies and galaxies of internal life created and explored inside of me.

We can’t directly observe this internal world of others and unlike how our minds extend externally we don’t have any great evidence of its processes. It’s not easy to even infer the full depth of another person’s internal word from what we can casually observe of them. Art can be a way to communicate it, intimacy can reveal it, but mostly we have to hypothesize from our own experience of life and our external similarities that we are internally (roughly) the same as other people.

This reasoning process is so ingrained that its conclusions feel intuitive. In fact this is probably the best example of intuition I can think of. We realize that other people go as deep as ourselves because they are otherwise like us. It’s very much the basis of empathy which I believe is in turn the soundest basis for morality.

A zombie despite appearing superficially similar to humans is afforded none of this depth to their personhood. Their internal life is gone (or imagined gone). They don’t hope or fear or attach meaning to events. They certainly don’t reflect on their reflections as deeply as you or I. They are essentially going through the motions of being human. They are “soulless” (or are they?).

Once people are put in this category of Zombie it’s easy to see how they can be indefinitely detained or killed. They are completely expendable because even when they experience pain it just isn’t as meaningful as the pain we experience. It’s a purely sensory thing not the deep universe-rupturing event of our own or another humans suffering.

ZOMBIES EVERYWHERE!

In a much more subtle way than what is happening politically in Australia with refugees I think we are always creating these sorts of zombies around us. That is we are always forgetting or dismissing other people’s equal internal depth.

Perhaps it’s almost impossible to equally appreciate the depth of personhood that others possess as we do our own. We may achieve it occasionally with our family and close friends but it seems to me that we struggle to sustain it even there. Genuinely living with the knowledge of other people’s depth of personhood as infinitely large as my own seems similar to Buddhist concepts of enlightenment. In other words some distance away from my current state of wisdom.

Powerful forces encourage us to perceive people as Zombies – not everyone, as that would make us a psychopath, but certainly neither is everyone supposed to be a human person to us. As I discussed in a post titled "A current cry for help", the perpetrators of violence and our own fear are not the only voices dissuading us from hearing cries of help. Every part of life that simply has another agenda for us – another way for us to spend our time and money – is also interested in us ignoring other people’s situations of need.

To do this we must create our philosophical zombies. Philosophical zombie is an established term which means specifically “a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks …sentience.” I’m using it only slightly differently. I don’t think we care that a zombie possesses the external mind I spoke about that enables it to hunt effectively. That’s sentience too and we anticipate such a mind in those we place in the zombie category.

It’s the internal mind – the depth of feeling and meaning and significance – that we truncate in order to ignore our zombies potential suffering. We don’t even need to truncate it entirely. We only need to shorten it sufficiently to outweigh their needs with our own. Given the infinite size of our own internal life, any finite space for others may even be enough. While we contain galaxies, our zombies can still hold something like oceans of thought without it perturbing us too much if we step on their heads to get past.

Everyday if we live in a major city a million such zombies may get in our way. They clearly have no idea of the magnitude of our internal world when they stagger in front of us, congest our car’s path or buy the last white choc muffin. Certainly they are not actually zombies we might tell ourselves in a quiet voice but louder voices will insist that they must be.

Our tribal leaders, be they radio-shock jocks, pop-stars, preachers, advertisers and even academics thrive on declaring other people outside their fold as un-thinking and/or heartless. In other words, a zombie. And we are constantly stretching our mercy to forgive them. Haters of the graphic novel, watchers of Big Brother, executive and corporate types, Liberal voters, regurgitators of The Secret, are some of my own different tribe’s zombies. Your tribe’s zombies might include atheists or it might include Christians or it might include people who vaccinate or people who refuse to, or fans of Justin Beiber or people who don’t understand how amazing he is. How indulgent we all are to put up with them….just.

HOW THE VIRUS SPREADS.

In most zombie movies becoming a zombie oneself is the critical fear for the hold-out humans. Unlike picky Vampires or Werewolves who pass on vampirism or lycanthropy selectively, zombies tend to come in an overwhelming plague. This threat level of contagion justifies extreme measures in the containment and elimination of zombies. All the civil restrictions and military authority required are justified. The future of the human race is at stake.

Even some humans may have to be cut loose if they drop behind. That’s the thinking of the member of the human party in zombie movies who ends up betraying the others. This person looks at people well before they get bitten as “likely” zombies anyway. They may even have had that attitude before any “actual” zombies showed up. They were always alone in how they understood the unique depth of their own person hood.

Because movies are wonderful the sneaky backstabber who looks out for themselves or who exploits the zombie plague for personal gain will inevitably get bitten. When they do they are seldom that different as a zombie from how they were before. This is because the truncation of their internal life – the zombification of themselves – has already occurred for the audience. They are and were a villain.

While human the villains mind extended externally as far as anyone else’s if not further. They never had a problem tactically projecting themselves where they needed to be to look after their own interests. But then a zombie can do that too. A zombie’s problem is their singlemindedness, the lack of greater significance to their actions and ultimately their reduction of even their loved ones to food. This is exactly (substitute food for target practice) the mindset of the zombie persecutor.

(Whereas the fear the heroes have of turning into zombies is often about not recognizing their loved ones if they do, the villains' fear seems to be of being killed once zombified. They don't recognise any “loved ones” while still human. What humanity are they preserving then?)

It’s a paradox. The very gaze that determines others as zombies turns us into actual zombies. Great films of this genre explore this concept. In the real world we all have to grapple with it too. Whenever we cultivate empathy we deepen our internal life. Whenever we give up on or dismiss the depth of reality for others we shrink who we are; As we see zombies around us we become more and more zombie-like ourselves.

(Note: After watching fifteen minutes on youtube of Survival of theDead (2009) I am hugely impressed. I have a lot of research to do but bandwidth restricts me from using the internet to do it. If you have the movies, I'll make the popcorn.)

Superman: Man of God?

Firstly a warning; there are some slight spoilers for the latest Superman Man of Steel movie in this piece. There’s very little beyond what the trailers will tell you but if you’re careful about those things (like I am) then read no more till you've seen the film (or read the comic adaptation). I also won’t be censoring any comments that divulge plot points so they might give away more. 

Secondly another disclaimer; for this piece I watched a movie, flicked through the Bible, read some old comics, and surfed the net. That’s all. I haven’t conducted any research into relevant ancient Greek myths for example. I am not a Superman expert and there are many versions of his tale out there. I've seen most of them but I bow (respectfully) before greater geeks than me on the topic. I say this, not to deflect criticism, but to invite your own playful thoughts on the Superman legend.
_______________________________________________________________________

Zack Snyder's Superman movie, Superman: Man of Steel has generated some fun discussion. I have enjoyed disagreeing with the common description of Superman as an analogy to Jesus. It’s a point made on The Movie Show by David Stratton and a common parallel to be drawn.

To be fair, this latest film strengthens - maybe even labors - this association. The scene in which the Man of Steel visits a chapel is reminiscent of the Garden of Gethsemane. Superman then allows himself to be bound and delivered as a sacrifice. Although he could free himself at any time he goes meekly into his captors’ hands. It’s very Jesus-like. In fact, rather than saying that audiences of Zack Snyder’s film who relate Superman to Jesus got the film’s metaphor wrong, I’d say the film got Superman wrong by making him so Jesus-like.

It’s inevitable given the vast cultural space that Jesus occupies that any modern Messiah is presumed to be, even compelled to become, Jesus in another form. Whether the character is Neo in the Matrix, or Batman, or Superman, they are going to be seen as a variant Jesus. This is partly because we have forgotten that the Jesus story is itself informed by an older messianic myth, one which continues to inspire storytelling in its own right.

That myth is Moses. This is the archetypal liberator of the Judaic tradition. This is, in my opinion, the better fit for who Superman is supposed to represent. Like Superman, Moses’ parents place him in a reed basket and send him down river. It’s an ancient version of a single child sized spaceship sent into space. When found, Moses is raised in an Egyptian household as an adopted son. Superman’s biological mother, just like Moses’, sends him off to relative safety. On the other hand Jesus - unlike Superman - is never separated from his biological mother.

It’s not accidental that this key difference in the mothering of Jesus and Superman is overlooked. The position of the mothers in both Jesus’ and Superman’s story suffers from patriarchal diminishment. The way we emphasis Jesus’ divinity, it is as if Jesus is Mary’s adopted child as well as Joseph’s. Despite her constant involvement in his life Jesus is often only seen as passively parented by her – all his insight come from his divine lineage, not from his mum.

Meanwhile Superman on screen struggles to reunite with his absent father rather than his absent mother. In Zack Snyder’s film this goes so far as to give his dead Kryptonian father a reasonable role in the film. Even his dead human dad has more screen time through flashbacks than Martha Kent.

Commander Zod, the enemy of the piece comes across as another father figure to me, just an abusive one. Perhaps in this Jesusian version of Superman, Zod is supposed to be the Devil tempting Superman with the whole world. Fortunately the holy ghost of Kryptonian Dad protects our messiah. This really is a film about whose male vision for Superman, including his own and the U.S. military's will triumph.

(By comparison the Terminator series has a very active and involved "Mother Mary" in Sarah O’Conner, raising the Jesus figure of John Conner with the absent Kyle Reese of the future representing God the Father. But that’s another blog post.)

Zack Snyder's Lois Lane and Martha Kent are excellently cast and acted but they play support roles only. Lois Lane even abandons the biggest story of the world for Supermans’ privacies sake. The hard-boiled crack reporter and daredevil of the comics would never have made that choice.

The riskier, driven Lois is not the only feminist difference between the Superman comics and the films.They don’t go as far as the Moses story where there aren’t any men involved at all in the send off, rescue and raising of Moses. However the comics also don’t have any of the oppressively heavy daddy issues of the films either. While Martha Kent in the comics isn’t quite as strong a maternal figure as Aunt May (Spiderman’s adopted mum) she isn’t overshadowed by ghosts either. The film’s focus on patriarchal conflicts is a choice to take the Superman myth in a different direction – probably a misread Christian one.

Supporting the claim of a connection between the original Superman and Moses isn’t hard. The character was created by two Jewish authors Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Kal-El, Superman’s Kryptonian name is Hebrew for the vessel of God. The fact that Superman’s creators play down this connection and cite inspiration from a range of science fiction sources as being far more relevant is best ignored for the sake of a good story. Let us say no more about it.

Then there are differences of course between Moses and Superman. Moses’ biological mother actually raises him as a wet-nurse in secret, at least to a certain age. Superman’s biological mother and her people are destroyed on Krypton. Moses’ people are very much alive. He grows up to lead them. Oh and Moses can’t fly.

In some particular differences between Moses and Superman we have a fascinating development of the myth of liberator. By looking directly at these differences we can see a picture of immigrant Jewish identity in the context of 1970’s North America. Moses leads his people to freedom from servitude, drowning his adopted people’s army. Superman instead embraces a dual identity – both as Kansas Farm boy and the last Kryptonian. There’s something counter–Zionist in this both all-American and diaspora identity reconciled. Superman is at home in America as his creators. In fact they flourish there. Whether as character or character creators they are their new home’s greatest champions - yet still aliens.

Superman’s adopted family, the Kents,are idyllic. They represent a small town ethical purity that grounds (no pun intended) Superman in his future use of power. European Jews like Jerry Siegal, the youngest of six children in a family that emigrated from Lithuania, would have appreciated that. In 1941 Nazi Germany conquered Lithuania which had previously been under the repressive Stalinist regime anyway. The idea of an American Way, embodied by “ordinary Americans” more than their government, has older roots than Superman but it’s definitely appealed to here. It is what the migrant hero must defend.

Superman’s power to fly on earth originally came from the fact that his home planet of Krypton had a much heavier gravity than earth’s. This speaks to the ease with which migrants like Siegal and Shuster (the son of a migrant) can view their new countries relative to the tyrannies they flee. The comics also associated Superman’s powers with Earth’s young yellow sun instead of Krypton’s dying one. Superman’s power is a way of expressing the writers’ own flourishing in the young and vital ex-colony of the United States of America. With that flourishing comes responsibility: Siegal and Shuster had Superman fighting Nazis across Europe well before the U.S. entered the war.

A lot of these migrant themes of Superman are sadly confused or lost when Zack Snyder lays Christian weights onto the Superman myth. They can also be missed if we make too much of Superman as Moses for that matter. Ultimately Superman makes the most sense of all as Superman – a local homespun hero and the refugee of a dying world.

It’s questionable whether this exact liberator fantasy continues to hold relevance for how migrants can understand themselves today. The United States of America on the eve of World War Two was an empire in ascendancy. It was a land of a youthful sun for many of its European migrants who flourished following its American Way. As the U.S. economy contracts or as other threats like ecological collapses (which featured in Snyder’s film) loom larger than European Fascism and Communism, Superman, at least as an American Superhero, will have to change to make sense. 

And then there's the question of what a U.S. hero with super-hearing and super-sight means in an era post Edward Snowden's revelations. The differences between the practices of government in Stalinist Lithuania and the Prism project may seem small to modern audiences. The comics have recently had Superman renounce his American citizenship. Zack Snyder made a nod to this concern when Superman destroys a U.S. drone that is following him.

If that is what this latest film tried to do; make such changes as to bring Superman up to date I think it didn't really get there. I particularly hope Lois Lane's character is strengthened in the inevitable sequels and the story never revisits the emphasis on fathers in this film. Worst of all it just felt like a failure of imagination to create yet another cultural analogy for Jesus out of this character. Superman has their own complicated legendary story.