By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The page rejects a traditional anti-Jewish blame narrative around Christ's death by recasting responsibility as state violence carried out elsewhere.
Its analogy to death-penalty protest is sharp and polemical. The final turn toward Palestine extends the argument historically, insisting that confusion and radical pressure belonged to that past as much as to the speaker's present.
A polemic that refuses the old charge of deicide outright - 'The Jews have nothing / to do with killing Christ' - and reframes the crucifixion as state execution: the people outside are only 'protesters for / or against the death penalty / outside the prison, while / the Governor is pulling the / switch'. Responsibility belongs to the executioner, not the crowd. The second stanza's jabbing 'And don't try and tell me / that Palestine was just as / confused and radical then, / as it is now' yokes first-century Judea to the present, insisting the chaos is continuous rather than safely historical.