In the footsteps of Kropotkin

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Dec 20, 2011 14:04

Religion is not necessarily the demon you paint. Its when it goes fundamentalist dogmatic it becomes toxic..whether Christian, Judaic, Muslim ot Hindu..the four that seem most rancid at present. The founders of the universalist religions were trying to elevate the consciousness of their followers beyond local tribal gods and initiate a bigger mindframe, and human perspective. The problem is when the exclusive priesthoods get cemented into place and feel they have a monopoly on the 'one true church'. Atheism itself can lead to a dogmatic rejection of the healthy impulses still exercised and practised by many honest religious individuals, who use their belief systems to understand the world, and particularly to form ethical foundations in what otherwise can be a moral desert of commerce and animal competion. I agree blind belief is psychologically pathological, but most believers, whatever their codes, are not so naive. And the really dangerous fundamentalism at present is the combo of 'muscular Christianity' and Zionist Judaism, which with its imperial crusading totalitarian 'vision' is largely reponsible(along with the Wahabbi Saudis)for driving the reactionary Muslim variety. I've travelled in Islamic countries, and never once encountered anything but tolerance, which is not surprising when you realise Muslims accept the Judaic and Christian theologies as precursors of their own creed. Most people, whatever their overt beliefs, will return respect for respect. And then you have the religious belief in the 'invisible hand of the market', possibly the most fundamentalist and toxic blinder of them all.

by Atheist Mon Dec 19, 2011 19:39

joe has a specific agenda on this site
to attack imperialism in muslim countries
while defending Islam from "Islamophobes"

I have no problem with the first part but when will joe see that Islam is just another oppressive religion that is actually being used a lot lately by imperialists to achieve their goals.

How did the imperialists topple gadaffi? by sending in their religious nutjob al qaeda operative to lead the "rebels"and arming them and promising to turn a blind eye to the imposition of an islamic state and sharia law in Libya if they play ball regarding the oil.

Useful idiots dying to make the imperialists rich. No gods or masters!

by Orthodox-Trotwatch Mon Dec 19, 2011 07:33

Joe you must have some eel DNA. The support for the rebels is mentioned in six other paragraphs of the story. You are relying on people not going to the link to check. Trouble with that is now no one believes a word that you post here.

by JoeMc Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:28

The anonymous introduction to this Other Press article gives the impression that Douglass' piece concerns “some English anarchists’ .......support for Islamic rebels in Libya". From my reading of it ,this is quite the opposite of what the article is supposed to be about . It's almost as if the author of the introduction hadn't read what Dave Douglas had to say beyond the first paragraph .

That first paragraph does indeed talk about ……“ Libyan rebels, many of whom are trying to impose some form of fundamentalist, theocratic Islamic state. ” But Douglass immediately insists in the second paragraph that this should not be the main issue .He wants readers to be “quite clear” that the support given by the "rebels" ,and the likes of anarchist Ian Bone ,to NATO’s military agenda should be the main concern . For Douglass , the Islamic nature and goals of the “rebels” is “almost unimportant” :

“However, let us be quite clear here. The nature of the forces involved and their goals is almost unimportant, compared to the main issue: that of calling for and supporting Nato’s military agenda in Libya”.

by T Sat Dec 17, 2011 01:39

This is typical of the Left in general. It is a measure of how navie they can be because in general they totally refuse to believe in any Machevellian motives of the Capitalist powers because that implies a conspiracy and they are totally scared of the consipiracey label and outright refuse to believe in any of any kind.

It is quite simple to manipulate the consensus of the Left because the Capitalist powers just have to use their propaganda machinery -i.e. the state and corporate media to suggest that thinking in a certain way is consipatorial. The Left then immediately falls into line by taking a stance that is opposite.

A really good example is the fact that the Western powers had planned the Libyan campaign at least a year well in advance. In general most of the Left totally denies this. In fact General Wesley Clarke (of NATO) gave an interview at least 5 years ago, in which he outlined the planned theatre of operations and laid out that these would be Libya, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Somilia and Sudan. Funny enough he was spot on. The current rhethoric in the media is to impose a no-fly zone in Syrira and once they bomb the shit out of that, then they have a clear run to Iran, where covert operations have already been extensively under way, including two terrorists attacks recently with explosions at their nuclear facilities.

But returning to the main point, it is the way that the Left goes out of their way to avoid the consipiracy word that they fall into the trap of the Capitalists and thus become their tool and they are then able to use them to convince the fairly large liberal section of the Middle Class that indeed bombing the crap out of various places is in fact the correct and just course of action to take.

Since 2001 the Left has abdicated its moral authority and totally handed it over to the PR machinery of the war-mongers by refusing to address head on the issue of conspiracies.

It should be plain office that all the wars and all the fake terrorists attacks are part and parcel of the whole package. The War on Terror which should be called the War Of Terror is simply a new form of the Class War. The Financial Crisis is really just a Financial Coup d'Etat. This is what the West has done on the Third World since the late 70s and early 80s. It is now been done this us. Yes it has all been planned. Yes it is a conspiracy. And yes the wars, every one of them were planned, and the Arab uprisings were things they were able to tap into and use.

The Left is just too busy trying to make things fit into their theory of the World and how events unfold. One thing they hate to think is that the masses can be manipulated because in all Left theories the masses rise up in revolution. This is the purity of thinking of the Left and while I wish it was true, the fact is that the Capitalist understand the grievances of the masses and are able to foresee and use this and thereby direct these movements to their own needs quite easily. For the Left though this is a sacrosant and really upsets them and they cannot accept that the central feature of where all the hopes and desires lie has been inflitrated and manipulated.