Posted on 03/17/2006 4:41:34 PM PST by bondjamesbond
If there were poetic justice, if Hollywood or the publishing industry had true courage, the story of Rachel Corrie would be coming to a big screen or bookstore near you.
For now, the streets of Seattle will have to do. Tonight marks the third anniversary of the day Rachel died. A public reading of her mature writings will be held at 5 p.m. at Westlake Plaza.
Rachel was in the Middle East, trying to protect the home of a Palestinian from immoral demolition, when an Israeli soldier driving a Caterpillar bulldozer killed her. He ran her over.
Maybe the young student from The Evergreen State College was a tad naive, a puppet of left-leaning loonies with the International Solidarity Movement. Some people think this. Maybe she was prescient beyond her 23 years, recognizing that her white skin and U.S. passport could bring vital attention to ignored people in subhuman and desperate conditions. Some think that.
Whichever the case, too many people are reflexively afraid of Rachel's message, of what her short life and brutal death means.
The issue has gotten to the point that what passes for dialogue is either polemical shouting -- or, worse, a campaign to silence the legacy of the young woman who addressed human suffering with fiery grace. Rachel cared about ordinary people outside of her comfort zone -- enough to get off the couch and do something.
The New York Theater Workshop recently canceled a scheduled production of a play about Rachel amid rumors that gurus in the theater world and pro-Israel audiences would not like a script challenging their view of the world.
In Seattle, the Bread and Puppet Theater production of "Daughter Courage," a different play about Rachel, met with warm embrace. Still, my colleague, Regina Hackett, who wrote about it, received a rash of rebuke. On the Seattle P-I's online blog, "Dr. Evil" wrote: "Only in this wonderful, liberal city would a pathetic naïve girl who tried to protect terrorists be celebrated."
If fear of offending Israel -- a country in blind lockstep with the United States on foreign policy -- drives this second silencing of Rachel, then her story is needed now more than ever.
Friends of Israel and Jews tend to react fast when they feel they're getting a raw deal.
Seattle official Cindi Laws learned this the hard way. She made remarks that were considered anti-Semitic during a re-election bid for the monorail board, and people howled. Laws lost.
And remember what happened in 2004? The local Middle Eastern community tried to get pro-Palestinian language in the plank of the King County Democratic Party platform. Again, people howled. The language got nixed.
In both instances, the message was clear: Don't mess with us.
The unease surrounding Rachel makes me wonder if she hits too close to home.
Her life follows the Aristotelian prescription of a good story. It features a protagonist with a desire for peace that takes her on a vision quest far away. She's smart, young, idealistic -- a female character that would draw A-list actresses.
The story overflows with potential villains, starting with the Israeli government, which illegally uses bulldozers as weapons of terror; Palestinians who resort to suicide bombs as an insane tool of revenge; and, even, U.S.-based Caterpillar, which counts the money as its bulldozers are used to spill blood.
There's room for cameos by the State Department, which could ramp up pressure to get answers, and by concerned Israeli citizens who also want to know if the bulldozer operator, as he claims, didn't see Rachel in her bright orange vest. There's the bigger question of why no "Palestinian evil" was unearthed at the home Rachel died trying to protect.
The story presents another surprise -- the unlikely transformation of Rachel's parents, who have gone from being middle-class suburbanites to advocates for Palestinian justice.
When I spoke with Craig and Cindy Corrie a few weeks ago, they'd just come back home to the Seattle area after a rattling episode. In the Middle East, Palestinian activists had tried to kidnap them. The activists had a change of heart when they were told the couple's last name. If that is not a powerful testament to Rachel's legacy, I don't know what is.
Rachel's story has the incendiary aspects of "Crash," the political and corporate machinations of "Syriana," the death-on-foreign-soil intrigue of "The Constant Gardener," and the socially conscious punch of "Brokeback Mountain."
People would get to see the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in all of its convoluted craziness -- and see courage in action. To paraphrase the Oscar speech of George Clooney, they'd get to talk more loudly about an issue that remains, relatively speaking, a whisper.
Rachel Corrie is ready for her close-up. Are we?
SOUND OFF: ADD YOUR OPINION
Can Seattle liberals be proud about hosting a play on the remarkable Rachel Corrie without being smug?
All you can do, really, is laugh. I know it's not funny, but how could anybody take seriously a columnist who gets things so backward - - Israel bulldozes the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers thereby causing the Palestinian suicide bombers to blow themselves up? The Israel army is apparently psychic. Oh, nevermind. Trying to figure out liberal "logic" will make your head explode.
What's really not funny is the clear anti-semitism of this columnist, Robert L. Jamieson, Jr., who may as well be shouting "THE JOOOOOS CONTROL THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY!!!" What a sick, pathetic little mouse.
What it means? You mean, besides "Don't stand where the bulldozer's driver can't see you?"
How do privileged Americans like her get so bitter, angry, and self-righteous by age 23? Taliban Johnny was another young American nutcase. Their souls or personalities must be congenitally black, and they are willfully or truly ignorant of the fact that the terrorists and criminals they take up with are nothing but murdering and thieving thugs who prey first and foremost on their on people.
When Rachel stood in front of that bulldozer she was struck by reality for the first time in her life.Most people learn life's lessons at a gradual pace and live a long life but she got her dose all at once.I think she would have lived a longer life if she didn't go directly from an ivory tower fairytale to the most dangerous part of the real world.It was like letting a baby cross the street as soon as he learned how to walk.
This is the sad story
Of poor Rachel Corrie
A letist lover of terror.
She fell under a Cat,
And was mashed quite flat,
Her final liberal error.
Basically, they're religious fanatics with massive egos. Only instead of embracing a religion, they embrace the Holy Granola of modern-day Leftist thought.
I like Catapillaaa... Good this terrorist supporting bi*ch is dead!
Now, waiting for another dumb one ... Jill Carroll...looks like reality is hitting her well....
So, when do we get Rachel's parents going around the country, selling their tears and drama for entrance fees? Just imagine the money to be made. They could use Cindy Sheehan's prototype.
I imagine that if you are privileged, if you never had to work for anything you have, if you never had to earn anything by your own accomplishment, you might not have any great sense of self worth, after all. You might even feel unimportant. One way to compensate might be adopt a conceit that you have a high sense of moral judgment making yourself superior to the average person.
I wish I could take credit for it. And the picture.
LOL. Capitalists crushing communists - since 1917.
As if the people who disagree don't have a right to express it. What a jerk.
A private playhouse can put on whatever show they want. People have a right to protest it.
Foreign affairs really have no bearing on local politics. Putting 'pro-Palestinian' language in a county election campaign is not only pointless, but damaging to the party that wants to use it -- it implies that they are not focussed on the improvement of the county, but want to play secretary of state.
Someone should write a satire about her. Maybe I will. Any chance that I could put it on Broadway? And what are the odds that leftists will not howl and moan about how cruel and heartless and brutal I would be to disgrace the honor of an innocent martyr!
This pontificating preacher, I mean author, can't see two sides on the coin either, but is too obtuse to realize it.
No, she expected the bulldozer to stop.
This is somewhat akin the to the guy who laid down on a railroad track in front of a train pulling out from a California armory. The train severed his legs, a not unexpected result to a reasonable person. But the now legless guy's reaction was total outrage that the train didn't stop.
I could say I sympathized in a way, but I didn't.
We had an expression from high school days: "Well, cut off my legs and call me Shorty."
What did that mean? It was a joke. I don't remember any classmates laying down in front of a train and expecting it to stop.
Jeeez ....it must just kill the left to see their icon mocked as St.Pancake.
You tryin' to stir up trouble against the Jews, fella?
Isn't having sex with a 3-year-old corpse a criminal offense in Seattle?
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