Posted on 07/15/2007 9:47:39 PM PDT by Coleus
The Mideast seems complicated to most Americans. But those of us who are in the know have a sacred text to which we turn whenever events there seem incomprehensible. That's right, I'm talking about the screenplay from "The Life of Brian." That classic Monty Python movie offers perhaps the most succinct summation possible of the forces that make the Mideast eternally ungovernable. The movie is set in the time of Christ, and the title character, Brian, is a poor shlub who is mistaken for the messiah.
Though it's all played for comic effect, the script for the 1979 movie offered a view of Mideastern politics that was both historic and prophetic. Consider the scene in which operatives of competing insurgent groups in what is modern-day Israel meet up in the cellars below the ruler's palace. Both plan to kidnap the ruler's wife and hold her for ransom. Instead of uniting, the representatives of the Campaign for a Free Galilee and the People's Front of Judea start fighting among themselves. Finally, our hero Brian blurts out: "We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!"
"The Judean People's Front?" the others reply.
"No, no! The Romans!" says the exasperated Brian.
Compare this to what is going on in the same place at present. Hamas and Fatah are going after each other the same way as the Campaign for a Free Galilee and the People's Front of Judea. In Iraq, meanwhile, the two forces of "liberation" are equally crazy. Fanatical Sunni fundamentalists are pitted against fanatical Shi'a fundamentalists in a battle every bit as nutty as that portrayed in "The Life of Brian."
But it's not funny.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Does Paul know that comparing Muslims to Jews tends to really piss of the Muslims to the point of decapitation?
Muslims are really peaceful like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1loyjm4SOa0
“Always look on the bright side of death... as you draw your terminal breath...”
(snicker)
Rogers: Thanks, Reg.
Brian: Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: F*** off!
Brian: What?
Reg: Judean People’s Front! We’re The People’s Front of
Judea! Judean People’s Front, God!
Rogers: Blighters...
Brian: Can I...join your group?
Reg: No, piss off!
Brian: I didn’t want to sell this stuff, it’s only a job! I
hate the Romans as much as anybody!
All in PFJ except Brian: Ssch! Ssch! Ssch! Ssch! Ssch!
Brian: Oh.
Judith: Are you sure?
Brian: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
Reg: Listen! If you wanted to join the PFJ, you’d have to
have really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh, yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you’re in. Listen, the only people we hate more
than the Romans, are the f***ing Judean People’s Front.
All in PFJ except Brian: Yeah!
Judith: Splitters!
Rogers: And the Judean Popular People’s Front!
All in PFJ except Brian: Yeah! Splitters!
Loretta: And the People’s Front of Judea!
All in PFJ except Brian: Yeah! Splitters!
Reg: What?
Loretta: The People’s Front of Judea. Splitters!
Reg: We are the People’s Front of Judea!
Loretta: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg: People’s Front! God...
Rogers: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
Reg: He’s over there.
All in PFJ except Brian: Splitter!
“That’s him over there.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about “Life of Brian” myself. My wife and I were just talking about it today.
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prhip4hYIUA";
Hey, John/Julie Nemecheck lives near me... you remember, the guy who discovered that it’s his right to lecture in drag at a conservative Christian college?
I wonder if we can update this skit for him/her....
I’d like to see a Monty Python muzzlem movie.
FRANCIS:
Yeah. I think Judith’s point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man—
STAN:
Or woman.
FRANCIS:
Or woman... to rid himself—
STAN:
Or herself.
FRANCIS:
Or herself.
REG:
Agreed.
FRANCIS:
Thank you, brother.
STAN:
Or sister.
FRANCIS:
Or sister. Where was I?
REG:
I think you’d finished.
FRANCIS:
Oh. Right.
REG:
Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man—
STAN:
Or woman.
REG:
Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan. You’re putting us off.
STAN:
Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
FRANCIS:
Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN:
I want to be one.
REG:
What?
STAN:
I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG:
What?!
LORETTA:
It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH:
Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA:
I want to have babies.
REG:
You want to have babies?!
LORETTA:
It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG:
But... you can’t have babies.
LORETTA:
Don’t you oppress me.
REG:
I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA:
[crying]
JUDITH:
Here! I— I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS:
Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG:
What’s the point?
FRANCIS:
What?
REG:
What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS:
It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG:
Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
I guess you can say “where are his lectures going to gestate?”
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