I never–let me repeat–NEVER watch “The View,” that idiotic talk show hosted by Barbara Walters & Whoopie Goldberg. But this morning in looking for a weather report (to see when this subtropical area will come out from under the arctic vortex), I happened across Susan Sarandon discussing the death penalty on the show & stopped for a moment to listen.

Walters, playing devil’s advocate to Sarandon’s opposition to the death penalty, asked if there was ever an individual so evil that the death penalty would be appropriate. I can answer that in the affirmative: Henry Kissinger, who is Walter’s long-time, close personal friend–that is, as close as such a vile reptile like Kissinger can be to anyone. Apparently the stink of this man’s evil doesn’t bother Walters. But I can smell it all the way in Texas. And it will never clear the air in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor, or Chile.

(Photo of Kissinger should have “Wanted for War Crimes” written across the top; use it for target practice.)

Does anyone else wonder at the inexplicable comedic success of Chelsea Handler? She’s good at interviewing celebrities without slobbering & groveling–something Oprah & Ellen could never lay claim to–but her wit is leaden, banal, & focused on celebrity gossip.

Her biography provides little clue to her success because while she came from wealth, it was not tied to the entertainment industry. Although it probably isn’t accidental that her fame crescendoed after a relationship with an entertainment executive.

She wouldn’t be the first witless TV host but what makes her not just leaden but particularly offensive is her relationship with Chuy Bravo (born Jesus Melgoza), her sidekick on the show who she calls her “little nugget.” Bravo is a Mexican-born little person who won the part not through association with Handler but by auditioning when they put out a casting call for a little person.

Bravo claims he doesn’t object to her humiliations because she opened doors for him when he was recovering from alcoholism, cancer, & near-homelessness. He says she taught him “to be humble.” As if an immigrant in the US needs to be taught that by a well-heeled celebrity!

Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, & little people have to learn to eat manure if they want to have a career in entertainment. They have to play the fool, the pimp, the hustler, the drug dealer, the prostitute, the maid, the butler, the slave. Black families are portrayed either as wealthy professionals or dysfunctional because reality & respectful depiction are beyond the capacities of Hollywood. Anyone questioning that indictment should have watched the 2014 Oscars award show.

(Photo of Handler & Chuy from her show, Chelsea Lately, attests to the indignities he endures for fame.)

One of the cultural achievements of the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was a decisive end to the dominance of the cowboy & Indian genre on television. Cops & robbers shows replaced that genre, incorporating racist stereotypes of Blacks only slightly less egregious than Native Americans had been parodied in the earlier genre but perhaps more subordinate in the storytelling.

Burying the history of the genocide against Native Americans & the destruction & vilification of Black Reconstruction (which both occurred in the several decades after the Civil War in the early 1860s) required myth-making skills best served by art: paintings, photography, music, drama, literature, & eventually film. The continuation of this tradition is reflected in the endless proliferation of white savior films & in the cruel irony that Mark Twain is heralded today as an antiracist writer when he was overtly hateful toward Native Americans & drew his depictions of Black characters from minstrel shows using white actors in blackface to lampoon Blacks as stupid, lazy, inept buffoons.

Cowboy movies, which depicted a heroic, white supremacist conquering of the US western states, became a feature of US television when it emerged in the late 1940s. And since neither the Native American genocide nor Black Reconstruction were/are taught in public schools, these cinematic mythologies became the only source of so-called US history. These historic lies were not corrected until the Civil Rights Movement inspired new scholarship, particularly in Black, Native American, & Chicano studies departments.

The Lone Ranger, which ran from 1949 to 1957, was one of the highest rated shows on TV. The series depicted a former Texas Ranger & his Indian scout named Tonto taking on crime in the Old West. Tonto spoke in pidgin English & half sentences (not unlike how the slave Jim spoke minstrel-ese in “Huckleberry Finn”) & played subordinate to the great white masked hero. For those familiar with the Howdy Doody Show, Tonto was a version of Clarabell the Clown, Howdy Doody’s mute sidekick.

Native Americans, of course, found Tonto a demeaning character & so did viewers of Mexican ancestry. Because in addition to being an inarticulate subordinate character, tonto means “fool” or “stupid” or “moron” in Spanish (as well as Portuguese & Italian). It was so offensive to Spanish-speaking viewers that dubbed versions of the series changed Tonto’s name to Toro meaning “bull.” But even the name change could not salvage the character from humiliation.

The extraordinary thing about the series is that despite his crime-fighting prowess, the Lone Ranger was quite an unlikeable fellow with no personality behind that damn mask. It was a franchise that long-outlived its inscrutable appeal. So when the Civil Rights Movement wrote the obituary & dumped it in an unmarked grave, you would think everyone would be relieved it was laid to rest. But the Lone Ranger rides again & again & again in a thousand incarnations & even avatars: it has generated dozens of films, including animated films, & was not long ago considered for another TV series; video games; toys; novels; comic strips & comic books; & parodies & spoofs–though certainly not enough of the latter.

The most recent film attempt in 2013 featured Johnny Depp in blackface playing Tonto. Apparently the Disney producers hoped Depp’s facility with parody would bring new verve to a stinking corpse. The film bombed but it stands as testimony that cinematic depiction of Blacks & Native Americans remains white supremacist & not far removed from minstrelsy.

It probably isn’t irrelevant that Fran Striker, the original creator of the Lone Ranger & Tonto in 1932, was a biographer of Stephen Foster, the famous songwriter of minstrel music.

This photo is the cover from a collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie, a Native American writer who exposes & parodies how racist representations in popular culture have replaced reality with minstrel-inspired history.

The mantric explanation for conflict between Palestinians & Israel over the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem is religious: that is, that the site is the third holiest in Islamic tradition & the holiest in Judaic tradition since it is thought to be the original site of Solomon’s Temple said to have housed the Ark of the Covenant. It also plays a role in Christian tradition since the Mosque was taken over by Crusaders (1099) & used as horse stables & headquarters for Templar Knights.

Let’s get real here! There is no archaeological evidence it was the site of Solomon’s Temple from 3,000 years ago despite repeated excavations. They once found a few shards & animal bones dated to the 8th century BCE but this would hardly be evidence of anything other than human life. Even if it was the site of the temple, this would not give Judaism a historic or religious claim any more than those of Celtic heritage can lay claim to Austria or the Rhineland where they originated 3,000 years ago.

There was an actual temple on the site between 516 BCE & 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed it. The Al-Aqsa Mosque has been there since 705 CE–nearly 700 years prior to the Vatican city state in Rome. The dispute around Al-Aqsa is part of Zionist attempts to create a religious heritage that does not exist to justify destruction of the mosque.

When Israel was established in 1948, East Jerusalem (where Al-Aqsa is located) came under the control of Jordan but was annexed & occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. After the 1967 war, Zionism appropriated Biblical prophecies about the building of a third temple under the leadership of Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the Israeli military & later chief rabbi of Israel. In 1983, Goren & several other rabbis claimed to have seen the Ark of the Covenant in an excavation under the mosque. The Zionist regime had the good sense to seal the chamber with cement so no further inspections could make fools of their right-wing rabbinical ideologues.

Constructing a third temple requires the destruction of Al-Aqsa but the real intention of course is to destroy all Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. To accomplish this, Zionist myth-makers began courting allies among right-wing Christian dispensational Evangelicals with an Apocalyptic theology. This religious tradition takes literally Biblical prophecies that the second coming of Jesus will be heralded by the reestablishment of Israel & the construction of a third temple.

After the 1967 war, Evangelicals fiction writers began speculating how Al-Aqsa could be destroyed: Hal Lindsey wrote “Late Great Planet Earth” (in 1973), an end-time prophecy of famines, wars, earthquakes, Antichrist rule, & Armageddon war preceding the second coming; Salem Kirgan wrote “666” (in 1970), where the Antichrist vaporizes Al-Aqsa with a ruby laser ring; Charles Colson wrote “Kingdoms in Conflict” (in 1987), where American Evangelicals bankroll Israeli Zionists in blowing up the mosque. This is where fiction & right-wing politics shade into derangement.

As a result of Zionist collaboration with dispensationalist Evangelicals, many Zionist Christian groups have been formed in the US & elsewhere; many members of the Lost Tribes of Israel have been identified by Evangelical missionaries in Peru, India, & elsewhere to promote settlements in the West Bank (here fiction shades into folly); sister-city relationships have been forged with Zionist settlements; thousands of Evangelicals pilgrimage & march in Jerusalem every year; in 1969, one Australian Evangelical attempted to torch the mosque. Most importantly, AIPAC has developed strong religious allies.

The profound sarcasm of this alliance is that the religious vision of dispensational Evangelicals requires the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity–or their annihilation in the battle of Armageddon. It doesn’t get more anti-semitic than that. Or more repugnant. What the hell would Jesus say!?

And those are the reasons why Israel continues to prevent Palestinian access to Al-Aqsa but still allows right-wing Zionists to guide tours of the mosque; why they militarily attack Palestinians defending their rights to the mosque; & why defense of the mosque is a part of the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

Here Palestinian Muslims pray outside East Jerusalem since Israeli riot cops are blocking access to Al Aqsa after several days of militarily attacking worshippers.

Support Palestinian justice by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729); by supporting the cultural boycotts of Israel; by demanding “No US aid to Israel!”

(Photo by Thomas Coex/AFP)