Uh oh, looks like the Passion might be creating hate crimes already

Farer, Web Producer created: 3/6/2004 4:44:35 PM
updated: 3/6/2004 4:58:18 PM








DENVER - A Denver synagogue was damaged with graffiti overnight. Swastikas were drawn on the synagogue on south Monaco Parkway.


The graffiti was in the doorway and across a sign. There were also several symbols drawn on the back wall of the building.

A holocaust survivor who saw the graffiti says it was almost too much to take. There was no official response available from the congregation Saturday, although several people who called 9NEWS to report the damage said that they blamed Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” for rekindling anti-Semitism.




http://www.9news.com/storyfull.aspx?storyid=25197

"create hate crimes."

and Hitler knew very well his movies that demeaned jewish people was excellent propoganda.

create hate crimes.

It's not like people aren't standing up and yelling Fuck the Jews or Fuck the I-Ties. It's not like people aren't putting racist messages against the Jews on church signs in Church yards....

No, Passions isn't creating hate crimes at all.

I saw "Passion" and, as usual, afterward wondered what all the insane, crazy vitriol against Gibson was about.

The movie wasn't that good, or that bad, one way or the other. I was grossed out by the graphic violence, but so what? I've seen "Hannibal" too.

The actor playing Peter had the biggest nose in the movie. Peter was the first "Pope." So I guess there was a subtle, hook-nosed slur aimed at the Catholic church too, huh?

Good god...:eyes:

Movies like this give the usual nuts another reason to do their work in the name of some god none of us are familiar with. Interesting that Jesus forgave his tormentors. The right wing hates Jesus so they can't alsos forgive.

If someone is not already filled with hate, a movie is not going to make them go out and commit a crime. But a person who is hate-filled and has held back from acting solely because of fear of social disapproval is a lot more likely to commit a hate-crime after seeing a movie that seems to justify it.

The question is not whether "The Passion" will create hate where none existed before, but whether it will release a flood of hatred that has been lurking just under the surface. I don't know if that fear is accurate or not, but it's what gives significance to incidents like this one.

Here's a link which provides a glimpse at how "The Passion" has validated the kind of anti-semitism you described:

http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/gibson_extremists.asp

http://www.jameswickstrom.com/

and he lives in Michigan! Gads I can smell his hatred from here
and he calls himself a pastor...gads! what a nut..!!!!

Her beautiful pictures of Hitler, and the aryan Olymipic champions had no connection to how the NAZIs resonated with the rest of the German fence sitters?

Lynchings increased after the release of Griffith's Birth of a Nation, but that was just coincidence, right?

:crazy:

'nuff said.

Remember, some snipers thought they were living in the Matrix and decided to kill Agents. :eyes: Impressionable minds...

Impresisonable kids will watch their peers line up to the yellow double-line on a highway and live to tell the tale, thinking it's cool watching traffic from a unique perspective until *SPLAT*...

I could go on, but I'd be diverting from a movie's message to people thinking the movie is reality and copying the same events... something I've already done.

The very racist movie BIRTH OF A NATION had a terrible impact on the lives of African Americans. It caused many whites to fear and hate blacks resulting in violence against them throughout the south.

In fact, they don't even NEED an excuse.

There were 50 anti-semetic vandalizing incidents around NYC last year, well before Gibson's movie came out.

There was no official response available from the congregation Saturday, although several people who called 9NEWS to report the damage said that they blamed Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” for rekindling anti-Semitism.

Synagogues are vandalized nearly everyday in this country. The movie isn't antisemitic, but is deemed so by those who haven't seen it. It is much less flattering to Romans/Italians. Now Italians might have a beef.

"Ill pray for them and hope they are someday written into the Book of Life" and his dads Holocaust denial Id say theres some concern amongst the jewish community.

Is the guy supposed to say he hates and denounces his father? Mel has said he DOES NOT share his father's views on the Holocaust.

Care to back up that claim?

No fan of Mel, but he did come correct on the Holocaust issue. From his interview with Diane Sawyer:

"Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenseless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do, absolutely," Mel Gibson told Sawyer. "It was an atrocity of monumental proportions."

"And you believe there were millions -- 6 million?" Sawyer asked, to which Mel Gibson responded, "Sure."


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Primetime/Entertainment/mel_gibson_passion_040216-2.html

From a Frank Rich column which appears in today's New York Times, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/arts/07RICH.html?pagewanted=
1&ei=5062&en=f3aad2c8b485ff98&ex=1079240400&partner=GOOGLE
(Note I have broken the very long URL into two parts as to not screw up the format of the page here at DU. Anyone interested can paste the address back together. )

Mel Gibson Forgives Us for His Sins

Published: March 7, 2004
(excerpt)

Nor do some of these pundits seem to recognize Holocaust denial when it is staring them in the face. In an interview in the current Reader's Digest, Ms. Noonan asks Mr. Gibson: "The Holocaust happened, right?" After saying that some of his best friends "have numbers on their arms," he responds: "Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps." Yes, mistakes happened, atrocities happened, war happened, some of the victims were Jews. This is the classic language of contemporary Holocaust deniers, from David Irving to Mr. Gibson's own father, Hutton Gibson, a prominent anti-Semitic author and activist. Their rhetorical strategy is to diminish Hitler's extermination of Jews by folding those deaths into the war's overall casualty figures, as if the Holocaust were an idle byproduct of battle instead of a Third Reich master plan for genocide. Rather than challenge Mel Gibson on this, Ms. Noonan merely reinforces his junk history. "So the point is that life is tragic and it is full of fighting and violence, mischief and malice," she replies.

Another excerpt:
Bill O'Reilly was not so circumspect when he returned to this same theme last week, asking an editor from Variety why Mr. Gibson has taken so much heat for his film. After beating around the burning bush for a while, Mr. O'Reilly said: "I'm asking this question respectfully. Is it because that the major media in Hollywood and a lot of the secular press is controlled by Jewish people?" With respect like this, Jews hardly need any disrespect. Besides, the idea that Jews control the media is disproved by Mr. Gibson's own media campaign. Just as he kept most Jewish journalists out of early screenings of "The Passion," so he cherrypicks his interviewers now. No Jewish journalist on network television (and there are some) has been permitted to question him thus far — a press manipulation by Mr. Gibson's flacks that is worthy of further investigation.

A sampling of other articles pertaining to Mel Gibson and his own brand of holocaust denial:
http://strangewomenlyinginponds.typepad.com/strange_women_lying_in_po/2004/02/more_on_mel_gib.html
and
http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/gibson_ii.asp

is rather hypocritical, especially in this case. No matter what mel says, it will be interpreted as antisemitic.

The Holocaust was separate from World War II.

There were Jewish casualties - soldiers and civilians - in World War II, but the slaughter of the Holocaust is not a subset of that.

By making the Holocaust seem but another facet of World War II, Mel Gibson is minimizing it.

The Holocaust happened in the context that was WWII. There was indeed a war going on worldwide against the same monsters that were killing the Jewish people. The two are inseparable.

I don't think Gibson or anyone else can minimize the Holocaust. I don't think that is what he said. I think people look at his father and want to paint him with the same brush and that is unfair.

the Holocaust and World war II are separate events, period.

The fact that they were instigated by the same regime makes little difference. Suffering and misery caused by Bush's economic policies are separate from suffering and misery caused by Bush's wars.

Making the victims of the Holocaust seem simply casualties of Wolrd War II, and not innocent people deliberately and maliciously slaughtered by one of the most cruel and genocidal regimes in human history, is indeed attempting to minimize the Holocaust.

But the events are inextricably tied. Perhaps we are debating semantics, but I don't think that is the case.

Yes, Jewish people were horribly slaughtered. At the same time, much of the world was at war with the evil regime that was doing the slaughtering.

but Mel Gibson isn't simply tying them - he is making the Jewish victims of the Holocaust seem victims of the war, which they weren't.

I think Mel Gibson could say anything at this point and people are predisposed to view it negatively.

"Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps."

Tell me, how exactly were the victims of the Holocaust victims of the Second World War?

The two events are connected, but different.

In that statement. If he does, I will indeed jump on him for it.

the Holocaust and World war II are separate events, period.

Oh, I see. So the fact that the Nazi war machine planned in advance to utilize the labor potential of the CC prisoners, both for production and to free up citizens for duty on the front has nothing to do with WWII?

I don't think so.

operation til 2 years after the invasion of Poland. Before that the Nazis tried hard to 'transfer' the German Jews (no other country would accept more than a few), and they imprisoned them, but they didn't start systematic mass murder--the 'Endlösung' (Final Solution)--til -I believe- 1941.

the Holocaust didn't start with World War II, though admittedly it ended with the war's end.

But it is still inextricably tied to the war.

Am I to assume you were responding specifically to my post? Because if simply providing references in which this topic is discussed -- even if they happen to express opinions counter to your own -- makes me a hypocrite then that's very interesting indeed.

Here are a few more hypocrites who must have been deluded about their interpretations of Mel's comments:

http://www.wisinfo.com/thereporter/news/archive/opinion_14675207.shtml
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1158725,00.html
http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2004/02/jewish_leaders_.html

Defending the new Iraq governing council and deriding Anti-war activists for their insistence that the US went to war on false pretenses.....Defending racist John Rhys-Davis.....Joining the NRA.....Dude tries to make himself sound pretty middle of the road about it all, too.

I weep for the future of this once-great country.

that the Jews are the blame for Christs death and now feel have different feelings toward jews.

I won't see it cuz I know Mel Gibson is a NUTCASE and he is a RACIST. When I use the term RACIST I also include Blacks. I've heard about nasty things he's said about black folk. So, he will never get my money.

As for blame, if the Jewish people get blame for Christ's death, I'd say it more than evens out since Christ was JEWISH!

Of course Jesus was Jewish.

Of course Jesus teached tolerance, meaning that he wouldn't have liked people hating others in his name.

Of course Jesus was supposed to die in the end anyhow.

Of course the Romans viewed him as an enemy, and wanted to kill him.

Of course the mob, and any other Jews who may have been involved, were not necessarily representative of Jews as a whole.

(The above is of course assuming that the New Testament is accurate. If it isn't, then there is little point to this whole discussion).

You think they care? If facts get in the way, they can be ignored.

no wonder the world is so screwed up, cant even get past something that happened over 2000 years ago

I understand it. Hell, my neighbors have heard me on this one often enough. They find me a weird mix, but too bad.

logic escapes some people. The argument that one should ignore this film and any other such possible anti-semitic work because it is illogical is not a legitimate one.

I have not seen the film. I do not know for sure whether or not it is anti-semitic, and I will not claim to. Reasonable and trustworthy people disagree quite a bit on this issue. Nevertheless, if it is there is absolutely no reason the matter should be brushed away.

I'd like you to know they aren't from the US. They had very strong feelings against jews after seeing the film. They said in their religion which is close to Greek Orthodox there are smaller books that talk about Christ's cruxifiction in the graphic details similar to Mel's movie.

My hair stylist who is black and very religious thought that the movie was very accurate. She thought that it shed light on the Jews breater participation in Christs death.

Talked with my a friend of my mom's today. She left her husband in the theater. She couldn't take the movie. She thought it was too violent. She said she could see how people would have greater feelings of negativivity towards Jews after seeing the movie.


Want more?

I meant citations for this: "When I use the term RACIST I also include Blacks. I've heard about nasty things he's said about black folk."

I'll admit I don't know much about that particular subject, but I believe there was similar controversy regarding some other Gibson films, including We Were Soldiers and The Patriot. I haven't seen either film, but there is mention of the latter at http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,343929,00.html and also some interesting discussion of the topic at the site for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Anyway, I would also be interested in reading any citations on the topic.

And don't know of any controversy. In fact, it seemed like the We Were Soldiers picture was pretty liberal in its attitudes. Sort of expressed the classic military attitude that the only color that matters is the green of the uniform.

I'll be honest and say that Gibson's character in THAT movie was not at all racist. It was quite a good movie, IMHO. I would say the same about his character in the far worse movie, the Patriot.

Was already dangling at the precipice, just waiting for a good breeze.

Here's one: http://www.SupportMelGibson.com/

Though I've found that providing references when asked is usually dismissed.

Is more of a defense of Gibson than an attack on the Jewish people.

If you believe the Bible, the Jewish people were indeed involved in Christ's death. Of course, that makes sense since it occurred in a Jewish area and Christ was also Jewish.

Did you actually read what was on that site or must I post excerpts of their hateful racism on this forum for all to see?

Edited to add comments such as this one which can be found at the site:

The answer is simple: Jewish leaders want a monopoly over the spiritual life of the Jewish people, and do not want them to learn about the liberating faith of Christianity because Jewish leaders would lose their power.  

Because of this near-dictatorial control over the spiritual lives of Jews, Jewish leaders are able to spread lies and disinformation about Christianity in the Jewish community, depriving individual Jews of the opportunity to escape the legalism and corrupt power structures of a faith that denies the divinity of Christ.

More significantly, by attacking this movie, Jewish leaders could prevent millions of people from all of humanity from hearing the Gospel and receiving salvation in Christ.

I watched the video, which is what I thought you were referencing.

I misunderstood you.

I went to the website. The first and largest item there is the video about the film. I watched that which, though overly dramatic, didn't look offensive.

If I misunderstood his comment, so sue me.

But that makes sense since he clearly went after Gibson and the movie.

but that has more to do with his support for Holocaust deniers like Silvio Berlusconi, war criminals like Ariel Sharon, and incompetent, imperialistic neocons like George W. Bush than his opinion on highly questionable fundamentalist films by possible anti-semites.

But I was not speaking of Foxman. I was responding to your statement about the Jewish people.

the hate was already inside them

that's pathetic. Let's get real. People are 100% responsible for their actions. I believe that much of the climate of hatred against the Jewish citizens of this country results from a "ruling class" that has raised the level of anxiety and paranoia in the country. I believe that we will in one of the most violent, hate-saturated cultures that has ever existed. And I have no problem recognizing that 95% of "christians" have no idea of the correct relationship between Jesus and the Jewish religion. But the media coverage of the movie has created a greater stir than the movie. And even still, that is not the root of any violence against Jewish people. If anyone commits an act of violence against another human being, they are responsibile. I've had many years experience in dealing with forensic cases. Holding people responsible works. Blaming movies is counter-productive.

there is no proof that it was due to Mel Gibson's film.

I think this is just a side product of regular old-fashioned bigotry combined with a trendy, controversial topical reason for it. I don't think they go together in this case.

neo nazi factions of extremist right wing aryan groups who identify with themselves as ultra christian organizations might be more then happy to paint symbols on synagogues...

Jews are the literal children of Satan, the descendants of Cain, who was the offspring of Eve's physical seduction by Satan. By controlling the international banking system and promoting such practices as abortion and intermarriage, "world Jewry" is gradually forcing the extinction of the white race. According to the Aryan Nations platform, "The Jew is like a destroying virus that attacks our racial body to destroy our Aryan culture and the purity of our Race." Consequently, Aryan Warriors prepare for a coming race war, "a day of reckoning" when the enemy will be defeated and Christ will establish his true kingdom on earth. In 2000, Aryan Nations was forced into bankruptcy and the sale of its compound and name after a jury awarded over six million dollars in a lawsuit brought by Victoria and Jason Keenan. The Keenans claimed that they had been assaulted and shot at by security guards outside the Aryan Nations Idaho compound. Although its future is in doubt, several former Aryan Nations members have founded splinter groups, and the aging Butler, now well into his seventies, has named a successor and insists the group will rebuild.



http://www.epwijnants-lectures.com/ct_aryan_nations.html

I doubt it was a soccer mom who was moved into a bigoted frenzy after seeing the movie.

However, will some freakazoids now use Gibson's movie, regardless of whether it was anti-Semitic or not, to promote their hateful rhetoric? You better believe it. :(

who smile a lot , and you can get a raving lunatic (think Andrea Yates)
Ive seen some awfully nice people turn into absolute monsters when I question them on some of their belief structures.. I dont trust too many people who smile all the time and behave in a beautific manner..they scare me
I prefer people who admit they are a little fucked up and confused.
=)

What's that got to do with Jews today? They didn't do it!
How can people be so stupid to blame someone today for something someone did 2000 years ago? Get over it! Besides if they didn't kill Jesus...he couldn't have died for our sins and there wouldn't be anything called Christianity. Seems to me I heard some rumor that Jesus said something about forgiveness, correct me if I'm wrong.

not historical fact. But these kinds of things, swatztikas on temples, make me glad I left religion a long time ago. The christians I hang out with are really really liberal minded people who embrace the concept of tolerance and empathy. and they have great potlucks.

Martin Luther was a rabid , ugly anti-semite. As late as 1950, the notion that the Jews killed Jesus was still being taught to school children in Catholic schools. That it has been so prevalent a dogma in the Catholic religion for hundreds of years, is often cited as one reason for Hitler's obssession with the Jews.

This kind of bullshit was going on long before the Passion movie was made, and will continue to go on in perpetuity, long after the movie is forgotten.

I'd bet it was teenagers, trying to offend people. I SERIOUSLY doubt they saw the movie beforehand. And if it was fundie Christians, they'd have probably left a note like "John, 3:16" or some other religious horseshit.

and can see how it might inflame people, but I have never found it rational to blame a movie, a video game, or some other media for a person's actions.

I am skeptical at the direct causal link being made here.

For the record, I am neither for or against the movie. I haven't seen it.

Marilyn Manson and other singers for teen suicides, and violent video games for turning kids into school shooters.

....if this is the case. This movie didn't cause any anti-Semitic acts anymore than Schindler's List caused people to hate Germans.

In the Chicago area, anti-semetic graffitti on synagogues are so common place they rarely get reported. I don't see a spike in this activity and the Gibson movie. If anything, many Christian acquaintances appear to be interested in the Jewish situation at that time and, surprisingly, many view the Jews as victims rather than killers.

I belong to a small, century-old synagogue in a small town outside Chicago (our membership is scattered for over 100 miles around). The building is in the old part of town that has become rundown with a large number of Hispanics. Security for the building is a constant problem. In fact, we share security services with the Lutheran church across the street.

There is a large concern with security in Jewish Congregations. It's not uncommon to see police cars and private security services in front of synagogues on Saturday or the Holidays. Remember, this is the land of Matthew Hale and his we've witnessed how anti-semetism turned very deadly in 2000.

I can see Gibson's movie creating an anti-semetic reaction only in those that are looking for yet another reason to hate Jews. The rock and a hard place of many Jews is between this life-enduring struggle against anti-semetism and the right wing Jewish groups (many allied with PNAC) who are just as draconian in their world view.

Well...one thing Nazis did was run around blaming people of hideous crimes with very little evidence...usually a precursor to limiting peoples' rights....

although several people who called 9NEWS to report the damage said that they blamed Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” for rekindling anti-Semitism.

OK so...here are two fallacies:

1) It HAS been decided that The Passion is 'anti-semitic'? This has been decided? There seems to be considerable debate on this point

2) People calling into media outlets proclaiming their opinion: this is evidence?

No wonder Bush will win...lack of critical thinking and people more than happy to live in hate and fear mode

What would even cause such a comment like that to be made?

"Passion of the Inquisition";

would that even the score?

to know this movie cause hate crime, who knows. to suggest what is on tv and other media doesnt feed the lower vibrations of people isnt correct either. advertisement, all the money spent on this. is a reason. cause it feeds and conditions the masses. to suggest that what our kids and easily conditioned adults arent effected by what they watch is wrong too

fox, fair and balanced. say it enough it must be true
bush compassionate conservative good ole straight shooting honest boy

all evidence points otherwise, yet so many believe.

conditioning.

is this movie to blame for anything, i dont know

neo-nazi symbols don't really fit anything but neo-nazis whose hatred is more an issue of economic matters than regigious ones.

quite upset at the huge billboard that said "Jews killed Jesus". Get your head out of the sand, movies can and do effect attitudes. Especially for cretins like the Fundies who live in a fantasyland and are the most gullible creatures I have ever met.

to discuss something else completely which is not neo-nazi but is potentially related to the movie albiet accurate. (It is the blame that the Jews were cleared of as in 'his blood be on our hands forever'.) If you are capable of making these fantastic leaps perhaps you're too familiar with fantasyland ?

of people who already believe that the Jews killed Christ? How exactly does that work, again?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x405519

those of you who believe Mel's movie is inciting anti-semitism might want to chime in on the thread above!

Sure, they may have been emboldened by all the talk about how The Passion is anti-semitic, but to put blame directly on the movie is just silly. Unless, of course, you are going to buy into the Joe Liberman argument that people are so stupid that they will commit any violence that they see in a movie.

You either blame all of them or none of them, you don't just get to blame the movies you don't like. The people who did this are assholes and probably would've done it anyway.