Retreat into Ignorance: Darwin Picture Effectively Banned in America

Lisa Derrick has a rundown over at La Figa on the recent news that domestic distributors are balking at bringing the Darwin biopic, Creation, to the United States. The film is said to depict the loss of faith in Christianity by Darwin, following upon the death of his 10-year-old daughter, Annie. As the trailer for the film shows up above (H/T Derrick), the film appears to portray many of the conflicts, personal and professional, that Darwin faced as he struggled with the idea of bringing his theory to the public. In the end he did... 20 years after he had first formed it.

Lisa notes that poll after poll shows that a majority of the American people do not believe in the theory of evolution. Darwin's theory is evolution through natural selection, but there are other theories of evolution. His theory became the core of the modern scientific understanding of evolution, which rests on many more facts than even Darwin had available to him at the time he wrote (genetic understandings and researches, radioactive dating processes, etc.). American ignorance and/or hostility to evolution is a reflection of the horrendous education system foisted upon the bulk of the population, and a turning away from truth and scientific curiosity, with a population addicted to trivia and mindless game playing -- all of which is promoted by a ruling elite that wants nothing more than a nation of sheep so their government can pursue unmolested an imperialistic foreign policy. To think in America is becoming a crime. Independent thought becomes labeled as deviancy.

An article in the UK Telegraph notes the failure of the film to find a U.S. distributor, which has not been a problem in the rest of the world. Right-wing, evangelical and fundamentalist Christian hostility is seen as the main obstacle.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying"....

Creation was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council, and stars Bettany's real-life wife Jennifer Connelly as Darwin's deeply religious wife, Emma.

Where is the courage of the U.S. film community? Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein, David Geffen, where are you on this? Big-name U.S. actor/director/producers, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, Robert DeNiro, etc., are you calling in your chips on this issue? What do you stand for? The failure to distribute this film amounts to a de facto banning of the film. It is an indictment of the entire U.S. film community, and the fault should not be laid at the feet of the distributors only (though they deserve the immediate blame).

I wrote a comment at the La Figa post, replying to a commenter who thought too much emphasis was being placed on Darwin himself: "he’s not some saint of science, he just figured out evolution. Let’s talk about Evolution, not Darwin."

Oddly enough, Darwin would agree with you. He hated the idea of biography, and was himself a shy, retiring man. Still, he knew he had become an icon by the end of his life. He also knew that the battle to win over adherents to his views would take a long time. He urged patience on his followers who wanted to to build a militant Athiest league (though he’d have them over for dinner).

The story of Annie is a heart-breaking one. Darwin nursed his daughter through a horrifying fatal illness, his wife, Emma, being laid up in the final stages of pregnancy. His daughter is buried in the Malvern Hills, a rare outcrop in western England from which one can look out over the flat countryside, towards the Cotswolds and beyond.

For years, Darwin and his wife could not bring themselves to visit the grave. When they finally did, during a particularly terrible health and emotional crisis fifteen years later, it helped the man break through his stifled grief, and give him strength to return to his work and writings post-Origin, as he was worn down with the defense of himself and his views.

No one knows for sure when Darwin lost his faith in the Anglican Church. It’s not clear how far he ever moved past agnosticism. The theory that he lost his faith after the death of his daughter comes from a book by Darwin scholar, Randal Keynes. Surely there were many contributory factors. When Darwin left on the Beagle journey at age 24, he believed he would become a clergyman. By the end of his voyage, where he saw not only geological and biological phenomena that helped shape him into an evolutionist, but also slavery, coups, and close-up the wars of extermination against native South American populations, he had decided in a career as a scientist (actually, a geologist, at that point).

The suppression of this movie is an outrage. It would certainly help humanize Darwin, whom the religious right want to demonize and make pariah. You cannot at this point in time separate Darwin from the issue of evolution. Years after his death he remains a symbol not only of the fact of evolution, but of courage and truth-telling, or belief in the powers of reason to subdue those of superstition and destructive passions.

Bush's 4th Horseman: Cholera Spreading toward Baghdad

Cholera is a serious intestinal water-borne illness that can reach epidemic proportions, especially when the water supplies in an area are contaminated or suspect. Hence, it often follows where war and social disintegration occur. In 2003, there was an outbreak in the Basra area. An even more serious contagion has emerged recently in northern Iraq and is moving south.

While an Associated Press article on the spreading cholera epidemic in Iraq headlines it is "contained", the article belies such spin by noting that the vicious intestinal disease has spread to three provinces now. The New York Times own article covers the story in more depth, and notes the danger:

A cholera epidemic in northern Iraq has infected approximately 7,000 people and could reach Baghdad within weeks as the disease spreads through the country’s decrepit and unsanitary water system, Iraqi health officials said Tuesday. [emphasis added]

Bush's Rapture = Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Like all would-be prophets, Bush feels very certain of himself. He has long had the support of fundamentalist evangelicals, who, according to a Glenn Greenwald article last year, "believe the Rapture is what is driving (and justifying) not just our current, but also future, conflicts in the Middle East.

Is fighting in order to bring about the Rapture -- whereby "believers will spontaneously disappear from their homes and workplaces and be carried to heaven" -- really all that different from 72 virgins awaiting martyrs in heaven? And much of that language is how the President publicly describes his view of the Middle East.

Then, there was the famous quote by Bush reported in the Guardian UK a few years into the Iraq War:

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."

But, as Greenwald pointed out, the press studiously avoids questioning Bush about his messianic beliefs, especially as they relate to the Iraq War. My question to Bush would be (and David Gregory, are you listening?): President Bush, given that you believe God has sent you on a mission in your war on Iraq, and given the support you receive from those who believe the Second Coming is at hand, would you interpret the appearance of a cholera epidemic in Iraq to presage the appearance of the fourth, pale green horse of the apocalypse, as marking the imminence of the success of the surge? Or do you wish to announce the coming of Christ right now?

How the "War on Terror" Brought Plague in its Wake

While the bacterium Vibrio cholerae is the material agent of choleric infection, the efficient causal agent is the war itself (to utilize Aristotelian categories of causation). The New York Times article explains how the cholera epidemic begun in the northern regions of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya, where almost a dozen have died, and thousands stricken, has spread to the provinces of Erbil and Nineveh. What follows is a description of how the contagion has been exacerbated by the actions taken to stem the insurgency:

“The water system represents the main problem,” [Dr. Cerko Abdulla, chief of the Sulaimaniya health directorate] said. “The disease can spread widely through water, and that’s a very serious matter.”

... Dr. Adel Mohsin, said that he was not aware of any cases on the Diyala border. But he said that further spread of the epidemic was “very likely” unless government agencies followed strict guidelines on water testing and maintaining sufficient levels of chlorination, which kills the bacteria.

In a chilling reminder of how difficult it may be to maintain those levels, Dr. Mohsin said that chlorine imports had been severely curtailed as a result of recent insurgent bombs that had been laced with chlorine, which in concentrated form can be deadly.

This is what cholera looks like:

The clinical description of cholera begins with sudden onset of massive diarrhea. The patient may lose gallons of protein-free fluid and associated electrolytes, bicarbonates and ions within a day or two. This results from the activity of the cholera enterotoxin which activates the adenylate cyclase enzyme in the intestinal cells, converting them into pumps which extract water and electrolytes from blood and tissues and pump it into the lumen of the intestine. This loss of fluid leads to dehydration, anuria, acidosis and shock. The watery diarrhea is speckled with flakes of mucus and epithelial cells ("rice-water stool") and contains enormous numbers of vibrios. The loss of potassium ions may result in cardiac complications and circulatory failure. Untreated cholera frequently results in high (50-60%) mortality rates.

Untreated? But surely there are plentiful hospitals and good medical care in Iraq. Sadly, the medical system in Iraq has all but collapsed, according to an article by David Wilson.

Destruction of Health System Another U.S. War Crime

Wilson notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 56, states:

To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishment and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.

Wilson continues, reporting on the disaster that is the Iraqi medical "system":

The Iraqi Health Ministry estimates that, as of October 2005, 25% of Iraq's 18,000 physicians had left the country since the invasion in 2003. Earlier this year MEDACT reported that "doctors and other health workers were being attacked, shot at, threatened, kidnapped, and told to leave the country or die"....

Hospitals, their staff and patients have also come under attack from Coalition forces. In the US attack on Fallujah in 2004 the General Hospital was not the place to be for better health and security. Its services and those of clinics throughout the city were obstructed by US Marines with US snipers targeting medical facilities and ambulances....

Iraq's hospitals were once the envy of the Middle East....

Power supply is a major problem for most Iraqi hospitals.... Many hospitals do not have fully functioning backup generators because they lack funds to have them repaired. In many cases, spare parts are unavailable.

Al-Yarmouk, the largest emergency hospital in Baghdad, lacks medicines, disinfectants, surgical requirements, bed sheets, cleaning aids and personnel.... A medical aid worker in Basra informed MEDACT that most hospitals there have limited - and in some cases no - supplies of IV fluids, IV cannulae, antibiotics and oxygen.

Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City, one of two hospitals covering an area of nearly two million people, has a shortage of most supplies with the lack of potable water the major problem. Chief manager, Dr Qasim al-Nuwesri has said: "of course we have typhoid, cholera, kidney stones but we now even have the very rare Hepatitis Type-E and it has become common in our area". He added that they had not faced these problems before the invasion of 2003.

Meanwhile, in order to further their war aims, the U.S. and their Iraqi partners cut off crucial supplies of chlorine, endangering many thousands with water-borne plague. Why was General Betray Us, I mean Petraeus (so there Faux News!) not questioned by this in the pro-war on terror Congress?

From the Times article again:

“If the water has low chlorination, Vibrio cholerae will go through the central supply,” Dr. Hakki said, and the disease will spread “like a fire in a haystack.”

Dr. Burhan Omar, deputy director of Kirkuk General Hospital, said that because of such problems, water purification plants themselves could be contaminated with the bacteria....

In fact, if those plants are contaminated, the epidemic could hopscotch all the way to Basra, in the south, Dr. Omar said....

The major human displacement caused by the Iraq conflict — people being driven from their homes or simply choosing to leave — is likely to be driving the epidemic, officials say.

Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said: “Frankly speaking, it’s possible that cholera will spread to neighboring provinces and even to Baghdad, because there is a lot of people movement.

End the War Now! No to U.S. Occupation of Iraq!

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, backed by their British junior partners, and facilitated by token forces from "allied" countries that drool after U.S. foreign aid and military assistance, has turned Iraq into a hellhole of misery, war, and death. Bush strides not like Christ, but like Antichrist, bringing chaos, disease, and torture wherever his forces tread. (And I use the terms Christ and Antichrist metaphorically, and with irony, unlike the way Bush and his minions treat these matters -- such true believers, such maniacs.)

Osama bin Laden, who has reappeared like a ghost in videos transmitted in the Arab world (but not in America), speaks in populist terms of the evils of capitalism. But we have nothing to offer the poor and displaced and oppressed peoples of the Middle East, Africa, and Southern Asia, except more exploitation at the hands of multinational corporations seeking cheap natural resources and even cheaper labor to fuel their quest for super-profits.

Rebellious youth in that part of the world have been attracted to Islamic fundamentalism because of its populist, quasi-socialist rhetoric; but only after the U.S. and their third-world allies destroyed the small progressive forces in those countries who fought for democracy, and often for socialism itself. We are watching the same drama unfold in Pakistan today, where a U.S.-backed dictatorship is quashing democratic institutions and imprisoning or banning government opposition. With no other pole of progressive attraction, the youth of that country are being drawn to the Islamic fundamentalists, who promise, as the mullahs in Iran did in the last days of the Shah, more economic equality and a caring approach toward the poor, but delivering social oppression and a religious form of totalitarianism.

We are in deep trouble because what passes for the democratic left in this country is frozen with paralysis and fear. If the Bush regime is not brought down through social protest and impeachment, then the war party will be the stronger for it. And we will await the Fifth Horseman, presumption and hubris, whose task it will be to bring the entire sad affair down around our heads. We must not wait for such a deadly and tragic denouement.

Pentagon Endorses Christian Apocalyptic Video Games for Troops

Max Blumenthal has an article up at The Nation's blog, The Notion, entitled "Kill or Convert, Brought to You by the Pentagon". It describes how an evangelical Christian group, Operation Straight Up (OSU), has received Pentagon permission to send a controversial video game entitled "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" in their "Freedom Packages" to U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Like much of politics today, the entire story has an air of unreality about it, the kind of unreality that one feels after awaking from a particularly disturbing and frightening nightmare.

From Blumenthal's article:

The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' bestselling pulp fiction series about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye's and Jenkins' books [which have sold 65 million copies and are second only to the Bible in sales of Christian books], the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven.

The Left Behind videogame is a real-time strategy game that makes players commanders of a virtual evangelical army in a post-apocalyptic landscape that looks strikingly like New York City after 9/11. With tanks, helicopters and a fearsome arsenal of automatic weapons at their disposal, Left Behind players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who, according to LaHaye's interpretation of Revelation, represent the armies of the Antichrist. Each time a Left Behind player kills a UN soldier, their virtual character exclaims, "Praise the Lord!" To win the game, players must kill or convert all the non-believers left behind after the rapture. They also have the option of reversing roles and commanding the forces of the Antichrist. (Video preview here).

According to some accounts, the video game makers hope to distribute a million copies of this game to churches throughout the U.S., so soldiers will not be alone in getting their chance to fantasize being a soldier of God who gets to kill (or convert -- does one get more points for one over the other?) infidel Jews, Muslims, Hindus, athiests, Wiccans, etc. This should go over big in neighborhoods from Fallujah to Karachi! One wonders how many pimply-faced church goers or bored and terrified soldiers will choose to play the game with the reverse option, as a general serving Antichrist.

More seriously, how many U.S. soldiers will now die because of inflamed passions against this neo-Crusader propaganda?

One of OSU's biggest names is Stephen Baldwin, the actor, whose craft is protected by the same first amendment which, by his organizational affiliations, he desecrates along with unknown Pentagon officials allied with OSU. But then, this is a secular desecration, isn't it?

I'm reminded of a passage by Milton, someone who knew Satan intimately, and Jesus, too.

For neither man nor angel can discern / Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks / Invisible...

Ah, Milton, not invisible anymore, but manipulated by joysticks, right-wing generals, pulp fiction zealots, and oblivious politicians.