The Counterpunch Take on the Ten Commandments

Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch this week runs an article entitled "The Subversive Commandments" by one CARL G. ESTABROOK, a far-Left regular columnist there.

Estabrook begins by writing:

'In the midst of an illegal war, a torture scandal, and lawless administration actions -- such as imprisoning an American citizen, Jose Padilla, for almost three years now without trial or charge -- the court recently heard arguments on the question (as the New York Times put it), "what does it mean for the government to display a copy of the Ten Commandments? ... The Ten Commandments in their historical setting are a revolutionary manifesto, dedicated to the overthrow of traditional authority and religion..... The Ten Commandments in their proper historical context commend atheism in regard to the religion of the gods and anarchism in respect to the laws of the kings. Arising from a revolutionary people, they support the overthrow of authoritarian structures in the name of human community.'

No, that is not all a mess of typos. Estabrook really claims the Ten Commandments represent the Panzer division of an all-out atheist assault AGAINST religion.

His evidence? Well, first he deconstructs the part in the Big Ten about not taking the Lord's name in vain. He correctly points out that this does NOT mean what people commonly think, that is, it is NOT a prohibition on using the Divine name when cussing. Instead, Estabrook insists: "It (the prohibition) is (not) to use the name to wield numinous power, as was done with the names of the gods -- that is to say, it is to practice religion." Huh? (Actually the prohibition is simply against taking false oaths using the Divine name.)

From there, Estabrook gets even sillier:

'The commandment about the sabbath has nothing to do with going to church. On that day, "You shall not do any work": it is a commandment against the idolatry of work. The revolutionary Israelites were slaves, valued only for their work. "We are people, but you have forgotten it." The next commandment is similar. "Honor your parents" has nothing to do with obedience: it means not to discard people just because they are too old to work.'

Now as amazed as we are to see anything at all on Counterpunch that speaks favorably of anything connected with Jews, we must point out that Estabrook's parsing of the Big Ten is malarkey. In fact, the fourth and fifth commandments mean precisely what they say about the sabbath and parents. The Top Ten are not a revolt against religion but rather are the concise summation of the foundations of belief, religion, and humanism, which the Bible does not see as different things.

So who is this Estabrook inventing a Deconstructionist Take on the Big Ten?

Estabrook has been a long-term visiting professor of sociology at the University of Illinois, although not in their department of sociology, but rather in some sort of arms control unit there, and before that was at Notre Dame. Searching high and low in the computerized bibliographies of academic research, we just could not find a single academic publication by Estabrook in sociology, religion or history (which he also claims to be expert in. Please do not confuse this Carl Estabrook with another one at Dartmouth, the latter being a serious scholar and historian.)

So, rather than doing any academic research, what does our Estabrook do with himself? Well, he tries to lobby the University of Illinois to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, he lobbies on behalf of Fidel, he justifies bin Laden's 9-11 attacks on the US, he compares Bush and his people to German Nazis while praising Norman Finkelstein, he prepares leftist agitprop, bashes Israel and Jews, teams up with Fisk to bash America, sucks up to Noam Chomsky, denounces Americans Ward-Churchill style as terrorists, and gets creamed trying to run for Congress as a Green Party rep .

No wonder Cockburn has recruited him to join the other critters serving as Cockburn columnists at Counterpunch.