Emotionalist Rousseauvian gibberish once again tries to lay claim to art.
“Metropolitan Opera romanticizes one NYer’s murder” :
In 1985, New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer, 69, and his wife Marilyn took a cruise to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. Leon never came back: Four members of the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked the Achille Lauro, shot him in the head and threw him overboard in his wheelchair.
Starting in October, The Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center plans to show a mockery of this brutal murder — the long-dormant “The Death of Klinghoffer.” The title gives away the show’s agenda: Klinghoffer didn’t “die”: This World War II vet was murdered by terrorists.
The show has widely been denounced as anti-Semitic and sympathetic to the hijackers. Performances planned in Boston and elsewhere were cancelled shortly after 9/11. If it wasn’t then, what makes it acceptable now for Lincoln Center to glorify the murderers of a disabled New Yorker?
Do the so-called “humanists” at The Metropolitan Opera care that the permance will hurt Klinghoffer’s surviving children? After an initial screening of the show in 1991, his two daughters said, “We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the cold-blooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.
“Moreover, the juxtaposition of the fight of the Palestinian people with the murder of an innocent, disabled American Jew is both historically naive and appalling.”
In this work of “art,” the hijacker Molqi sings: “We are / soldiers fighting a war / We are not criminals / and we are not vandals / but men of ideals.”
These lyrics fit with a recent letter from Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager. Gelb said, “John Adams has said that in composing ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ he tried to understand the hijackers and their motivations, and to look for humanity in the terrorists .?.?.”
What humanity can — or should — be found in the murderers of innocents? When do we get an opera painting the 9/11 bombers as “men of ideals?”
On stage, hijacker Rambo says “Wherever poor men / are gathered they can / find Jews getting fat / You know how to cheat / the simple, exploit / the virgin, pollute / Where you have exploited / Defame those you cheated / and break your own law / with idolatry.” This is plain and simple anti-Semitic language.
Now, there’s plenty to be said, theoretically, for creating characters whose romantic notions of their own ideals turn them into tragically self-blinded figures and, in the end, villains. These types are in fact a literary staple. But this is something else entirely, particularly if we believe the stated intent of the piece’s author / composer that he was trying to understand the “hijackers and their motivations, and to look for humanity” in what is quite obviously and quite ruthlessly disgusting and inhumane. There, we’re aren’t dealing with complex literary characters, regardless of the form of the piece and regardless of its potential “beauty.” We are instead channeling the ghost of Leni Riefenstahl.
The question then becomes this: why do so many among us feel that by looking for motivations behind blind ideological hatred they are somehow more erudite, nuanced, and worldly than those who see evil and immediately recognize it for what it is? Because that’s precisely the metadynamic here: This is nothing more than a feel-good piece for delusional bein pensant posers looking to fuel their phony cosmopolitanism and rank narcissism. This production is about its intended audience and its composer.
That it’s acceptable to romanticize the murder of a disabled American Jew by heartless terrorists — to “understand their motivations,” not in actuality, but filtered through the mind of some radical chic headscarf humper — at a time when savages are raping and beheading their way through the middle east, even as their ideological mouthpieces wear fancy suits and enjoy White House accommodations, is yet another sign of an American cultural ethos in decline — and more proof that the re-emergence of anti-Semitism isn’t something to take lightly.
When the patina of sophistication is applied to ennobling savages whose actions in every way reject any sane rationale for ennobling, what you have is not nuanced thinkers negotiating complex geographical, political, and emotional issues. Instead, you have propaganda dressed up as “art,” and a bunch of useful idiots being propped up as its monetary and radicalized benefactors.
(h/t Joy McCann via Facebook)
The US captured at least some of the hijackers, who were on a plane bound from Cairo to Tunis (I believe), forcing the plane down in Italy with F-14s to be greeted on the tarmac by Delta Force encircling their craft, ready to take them into custody.
I witnessed my client — for whom I was doing a home renovation, and who was at that time a State Dept liaison to the Nat. Security Council — that morning, as she was called from home after being up all night working in the White House with Ollie North to effect that capture, called back to the White House to deal with the Italians’ surrounding the Delta guys demanding they cease and desist — the Italian gov’t had cut a deal with the PLO, evidently, and agreed to let the bastards go in return for promises (I surmise) not to see their nation terror-bombed when the PLO took the fancy.
From elation as she arrived home exhausted that morning “We got them!”, to utter despair a few minutes later at learning our “ally” had sold us out. Quite a day: not one I’ll forget soon.
Mr Klinghofer will never remember it.
Corporations are not people but, terrorists are.
I can imagine a few useful idiots creating something like this but, think how many people have to think this is a good idea to get the production completed. Life imitates “Springtime for Hitler”.
That’s true Jeff, whereas his widow would remember it, as may the survivors of the thousands slain by Islam terrorists in the many attacks thereafter, who can see in the Achille Lauro event one among scores of puny concessions to the Islam terrorists over that decade and those to follow — concessions actually creating the conditions for the great attacks to come, just as now we see additional conditions built hand over fist.
I’m ok if the filthy palestinians want to perform their filthy little play for a bunch of filthy new yorkers. And jewish people need to know where they stand in this neo-fascist America so many of them are so bizarrely enthusiastic about.
If I remember my history correctly, those lines are pretty much lifted right out of anti-Semitic literature, circa 1930’s Germany.
The incident on the Achille Lauro was my introduction to Palestinian fighters. Until that moment I had always thought of Palestine as the place Jesus lived, and only that.
This sort of rehabilitation of historic fact is obnoxious and your insight on preening bein pensants is well spoken.
Know who else is a preening bein pensant? John Kerry, that’s who. Listen awhile to him pontificate on the urgency of the most pressing state affairs.
sdferr:
His widow would remember it, except that she died only four months later, aged 59. The cruise was supposed to be a last chance to enjoy life together, since she was dying of cancer, while he was in good health – well, except for whatever put him in the wheelchair, but his life expentancy was high until he met the PLO.
One more disgusting thing, from Wikipedia: “PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi said that perhaps the terminally ill Marilyn Klinghoffer had killed her husband for insurance money; however, the PLO later accepted responsibility and apologized.”
The only good thing about the Klinghoffer story: their daughters sued the PLO in court and won an “undisclosed settlement”. Even a huge settlement wouldn’t have been much compensation for losing their father, but was obviously way better than the admission of responsibility and apology.
To clarify: the nice thing about winning a lot of money from the PLO is not so much having the money, as thinking of all the Jews they could have killed with it if they hadn’t lost the lawsuit.
Should I have to explain that the temporary capture took place soon enough after the Achille Lauro docked in Port Said that Mrs. Klinghoffer would be well aware of that capture and subsequent Italian backstabbing, which awareness and memory would have nothing to do with her death some months later? Don’t see why.
Why more American Jews do not speak out about Antisemitism like this is astounding.
One more thing that impressed me at the time: if the PLO murderers (four of them, one calling himself ‘Rambo’) had thrown Mr. Klinghoffer’s body overboard still strapped into the wheelchair, his body wouldn’t have turned up on a beach in Syria a week later to prove their guilt. Whether they were too lazy, too wimpy, or just too stupid to do their nasty job right, I don’t know: probably a bit of each.
Most disgusting sentence in the Wikipedia article on the opera: “Both Adams and Sellars have acknowledged the affinity of the opera’s dramatic structure to the sacred oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, in particular his Passions.”
Musical theatre has been swirling down the drain since “Sweeney Todd” was hailed as “genius.”
This is all part of an elaborate scheme by the Palestinian “government” to get the Jews of New York to riot, maybe storm the PLO’s delegation to the U.N. and take a few hostages.
Then the PLO will be forced, forced to negotiate peace terms with the Isrealis like they’ve really always wanted to but can’t. Because not even Al Jazeera can sell that load of camelshit to the folks back in
PeoriaGaza.Wheels within wheels
This is nothing more than a feel-good piece for delusional bein pensant posers looking to fuel their phony cosmopolitanism and rank narcissism. This production is about its intended audience and its composer.
Damn, if that doesn’t hit the nail on the head.
to “understand their motivations,”
Homicidal Psychopathy.
Next question?
Wow.
I’ve been blocked by @hughhewitt. That wasn’t true a few weeks ago.
It’s a well known fact that you’re a vicious hatey b*tch.
In fact, many people mistake you for Jeff Goldstein.
Since when did people confuse a little pink heart-shaped fleur with the guy from Clockwork Orange?
No kidding, eh? You don’t have Scooby-Doo on your wallpaper, either.
And you hardly ever tweet about jock itch.
That I’ve noticed, anyhow.
Can we pose the contrast:
Mr. Klinghoffer murdered and his murderers captured mere days later (only to be freed within hours of their capture), with Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods and Glen Doherty murdered and a sole member of the hundred or so strong gang-of-terrorists captured two years later (we might call him the StrawberryFrappeJihadist), itself an event taking place mere days after the release of the SoftServeJihadiFive back into the bosom of their war?
How is it that the undercover sorts were so far more competent back in 1985 than today?
Well, it’s probable they weren’t, but that the difference can be lain at the feet of the two different executives in charge. One of those wanted justice, and the other wanted a politically useful distraction.
speaking of scooby doo
James “Scooby Doo” Warren said he has put together a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) plan and is “putting it in place across the whole state.” Warren said he is not working with the Cochran campaign itself but for the PAC and Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr.
So what lies did the meretrix Clinton have to tell the gullible droolers at Fox?
The Quote that Should End Hillary Clinton’s Political Career
levin is playing hillarity clips from fox
Since when did people confuse a little pink heart-shaped fleur with the guy from Clockwork Orange?
*raises hand*
But I’ve known I need new glasses for a while now…
Hillary Is Stuck Between A Video and The Truth…
sdferr, she didn’t say anything we haven’t heard before.
She couldn’t recall.
In her book she says . . .
She’s know a few presidents (cackle cackle)
Nod, nod, nod while the interlocutor is asking a pre-screened question.
It was pukey.
Though I haven’t heard her yet leigh, I would be surprised if she didn’t have brand spanking new mendacities to peddle, it being a hallmark of the Clintons to baffle ’em with bullshit, the harder and faster the better from their point of view.
“It was pukey”.
The counter from Krauthammer (and Hume if he’s on tap) tomorrow on special report will undoubtedly be brutal.
I miss Brit Hume on FNS.
There is scum, and then there is SCUM…
Bob ‘Big Daddy’ Belvedere: What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room? There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity!
Caroline Glick: Ignoring the Elephant
*** Three Jewish boys were abducted by Palestinian terrorists while trying to catch a ride home from school Thursday night. And as far as the foreign press is concerned, it’s their own damned fault.
As Honest Reporting documented, everyone from The Guardian to CNN, to Sky News to the Christian Science Monitor blamed Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frankel for their victimization.
The boys deserve whatever they get, according to the media, because they are Jews and Jews have no right to be located anywhere that the Palestinians demand be cleansed of Jewish presence. And the Palestinians demand that Gush Etzion be emptied of Jews.
So the boys, who dared to be located in Gush Etzion, had it coming.
And the blame doesn’t end with the victims. In trying to rescue them, the Israeli government is also committing an unpardonable crime – against Palestinian unity, no less.
According to The New York Times’ Israel bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, by searching for the boys, Israel has “further destabilized Israeli-Palestinian relations, and challenged the new Palestinian government’s ability to hold together disparate political factions and reunite the West Bank and Gaza after a seven-year split.” ***
Greetings:
When you cruise the Mediterranean,
Watch out for Arab and Iranian
Cause on the Achille Lauro
Anything goes.