Ter wrote:Oh, I see, blame the West for the atrocities committed by Muslims on Muslims.
That is easy.
You forgot to mention Iran and Hezbolla also being involved... how come?
Your song about fragile feelings is getting old, TIG.
Quote us some more texts from Marx and Lenin to enlighten us.
You constantly evade discussing the issues, you just spew insults.
But I did all that and you completely ignored it until I used Hulk Speak to boil it down to an emotional crassness that you did respond to.
Because of this and your seeming acceptance of Milo's emotional blubbering devoid of any facts, what else am I supposed to conclude beyond your inability to understand anything that isn't based on your feelings?
Oxymandias wrote:From what I can understand from your post, you are arguing that the reason for radical Islam is due to a lack of political and economic self-determination?
This is part of the conclusion. My initial post was an attempt to go through why Islam itself was no different than any other religion that reactionaries have complained about since the first monkey pledged devotion to the sun. It, in itself, is not that interesting or important. Certainly there is no vast conspiracy between the left and Islam for no apparent reason.
But if we are to take why this imagined importance of Islam becomes important, it is certainly related to economic self-determination. This became very clear during the Russian Revolution which proved Uneven and Combined Development; that is to say, that there is a world economic system that does not apply evenly everywhere. The initial theories, like those of Kautsky held, more or less held that there were stages of development everybody would go through confined to various borders as the world came together under capitalism. The Bolsheviks (especially being in backward Russia) challenged this, things would not advance so cleanly:
Lenin wrote:Let us assume that all the imperialist countries conclude an alliance for the “peaceful” division of these parts of Asia; this alliance would be an alliance of “internationally united finance capital”. There are actual examples of alliances of this kind in the history of the twentieth century—the attitude of the powers to China, for instance. We ask, is it “conceivable”, assuming that the capitalist system remains intact—and this is precisely the assumption that Kautsky does make—that such alliances would be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in every possible form?
The question has only to be presented clearly for any other than a negative answer to be impossible. This is because the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength of those participating, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries is impossible under capitalism. Half a century ago Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? It is out of the question.
The Middle East, largely, is what Lenin there refers to as Asia, and his scenerio is exactly what happened years ago.
The Middle East is no different. And, like Russia and other backward places, it was given the chance and oppertunity to have a revolution and join a socialist system. Many of them did.
But few ever came close to succeeding. Because of this, the best kind of liberation that was possible was the strictly liberal conception of emancipation from religion that Marx described in my first post; which did not come close to addressing (nor, incidentally, did the Soviets) the full idea of human emancipation that could have only been achieved in fully breaking out the economic reality upon which its base was built upon--which had been global.
Regardless, the British, French, and Americans are not stupid. And should these divisions they set down and countries they built start to challenge their imperialism by becoming socialist atheists, who then would they turn to? Certainly religious traditionalists. And they did.
The result is obvious, tragic, and what Milo and others are complaining about. But they are complaining about a symptom while waving their hand to the actual causes of their fanatical fear.
As for Ingliz, this ahistorical example might illustrate:
Let us say that Texas breaks off from the Union after the Civil Rights Act (or whatever). Looking for an ally against a US trying to isolate the country, it establishes trade with Cuba.
The CIA, looking for an ally in Texas, finds the religious nature of many Texans and tries to leverage that against collaboration with the Cubans, and by proxy, the Soviets.
The CIA does this by finding the most fanatical in Texas, who happen to be extreme Christians, and give the Branch Davidians weapons, training, maps, propaganda in nearby areas, local support, etc, etc, etc. In attempting to crush the Branch Davidians, Texas commits atrocities, which makes more rally to the Branch Davidians who end up taking control along with their ilk. This means child sex, violence against women, getting rid of non-believers, etc, etc, etc.
Would it not be easy to trace a line through Christianity back to at least the Munster Revolt and say that this was inherent in Christianity?
The Christians in this scenerio are not evil because they are Christians, or even because Christianity is somehow backward. This is a situation that developed because of a lot of issues.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!