Bill Maher being a typical arrogant asshole to Communist rapper "Boots" Riley

[Adi Shankara]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-9qBY-Bypk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xDd6ZzKnMM#t=7m38s

something about him using strawmen like "have you looked at the 20th century" really pisses me off...

[redcoyote89]

God i hate the libertarian circular logic of "human nature".

[Blackscare]

God i hate the libertarian circular logic of "human nature".


Exactly, there is no such thing as human nature, only human behavior.

[dearest chuck]

bill maher's face always reminded me of joe camel for some reason.

[Robocommie]

Ah yes, the "Clash of Civilizations" argument. Bill Maher, you racist essentialist fuck. Samuel P. Huntington is a fucking scumbag.

Note the glee with which he relegates Islam and Muslim culture to being something from 10 centuries ago, and therefore something completely outside of modernity, while characterizing Muslims as inherently medieval, bloodthirsty savages who enjoy beheadings. To him, America is a guardian of a far superior culture - which of course can justify any number of imperialist actions because if the US is truly, objectively superior simply by it's values and culture, than any imposition from that culture on others is acceptable.

It's a trick as old as history itself, in order to justify treating your enemies and rivals in a way less than humans deserve, you must first make them out to seem less than human, make them into savages, primitives, people locked in the past and badly in need of an updating delivered by smart bombs.

This is why he's such a hardcore Zionist - to Bill's simplistic Clash of Civilizations scheme, Israel is on "our" team while Palestine is on the team of barbaric Muslim savages, the "other" team.

[Sir Comradical]

Why politicize the first issue? If the woman doesn't want to take her veil off for the license photo, then she shouldn't be given a license. If I'm not allowed to cover my face with a bandana during my license photos, then this veil nonsense shouldn't be allowed either, I mean, it's not really ID if you can't see her face. I think Boots should have addressed that point.

[Hoggy_RS]

Boots Riley is on the ball though. Fair play to him for getting his points across when he was being spoken over by those eejits.

[Robocommie]

Boots Riley is on the ball though. Fair play to him for getting his points across when he was being spoken over by those eejits.

Yeah, I couldn't stand being on a show like that. Trying to make a case while having Bill Maher and the conservatives talk down to you and shout over you... fucking A.

[Adi Shankara]

Is it just me, or does Bill Maher have unlimited contempt for people from Asia and the Middle East?

And when the actor guy said "we're all immigrants here", Boots should've spoke up and said his ancestors were kidnapped and brought to the USA by force.

[Robocommie]

And when the British guy said "we're all immigrants here", Boots should've spoke up and said his descendants were kidnapped and brought to the USA.

Eric Braeden's German, and I think you mean ancestors, but yeah, that's exactly right otherwise. ;)

[Adi Shankara]

Eric Braeden's German, and I think you mean ancestors, but yeah, that's exactly right otherwise. ;)

I've been speaking English since I was 9 years old, looks like it's time for another English class for me lol

[Buffalo Souljah]

The problem with the American media in general is that it's too biased and one-sided, and if you fall anywhere outside the mainstream, there's not much you can say that's anywhere outside the box between commercial breaks. We know this.

Also, neo-liberal administrations since Reagan have eroded what little media regulation that exists, so now you can pretty much "get away with murder". Ergo, conservative talk radio and ass-hats like Bill Maher.


Eric Braeden's German, and I think you mean ancestors, but yeah, that's exactly right otherwise.Europeans all look alike... :p

[Adi Shankara]

http://twitter.com/bootsriley

ha his twitter is cool; look at the background image, it shows he isn't just a bandwagon communist, he subscribes to the ideas--I heard his name earlier in a chat room, looked him up, and been listening to his music all day.

[Obs]

http://twitter.com/bootsriley

ha his twitter is cool; look at the background image, it shows he isn't just a bandwagon communist, he subscribes to the ideas--I heard his name earlier in a chat room, looked him up, and been listening to his music all day.
Pff, I wish communism was popular enough to be considered a bandwagon.

[Blackscare]

http://twitter.com/bootsriley
I heard his name earlier in a chat room, looked him up, and been listening to his music all day.


You're welcome :cool:

[Adi Shankara]

You're welcome :cool:

lol that was you?

[The Vegan Marxist]

To give Bill Maher some credit, the video provided is old & Bill Maher "now" is a lot different than Bill Maher "then". He use to be very pro-capitalist & very anti-socialist. He's now become quite anti-capitalist, as you can tell through his latest discussions on Real Time with Bill Maher, especially when with Noam Chomsky &/or Michael Moore. He's also become quite pro-socialist as well, which I started noticing when he had a discussion on it with Brad Pitt (though he remains under a social-democratic fixation of what socialism is to him).

[Obs]

He's still a Zionist prick, though.

[The Vegan Marxist]

He's still a Zionist prick, though.

I don't know particularly what his views were at one time, but I remember Bill being very anti-Israel, especially on his coverage on the Freedom Flotilla attack & the edited tapes given to US media by Israel, themselves.

[Revy]

To give Bill Maher some credit, the video provided is old & Bill Maher "now" is a lot different than Bill Maher "then". He use to be very pro-capitalist & very anti-socialist. He's now become quite anti-capitalist, as you can tell through his latest discussions on Real Time with Bill Maher, especially when with Noam Chomsky &/or Michael Moore. He's also become quite pro-socialist as well, which I started noticing when he had a discussion on it with Brad Pitt (though he remains under a social-democratic fixation of what socialism is to him).

A few years ago Bill Maher was on Larry King and I was watching some of it and he said that the Iraq war was wrong because Iran was the real threat. I thought that was completely dumb and I had to change the channel.

[RadioRaheem84]

Well in an old debate with liberal actor Ron Silver, Maher admits that his arguments are simply about technique and method concerning the war on terror. That's all it is with the mainstream "left" in the media; a question of how best to conduct war. He too believes Western civ is special and needs to defend itself against the unwashed masses that practice religion.

[NGNM85]

This thread is burying the needle on the bullshit detector.

[Robocommie]

This thread is burying the needle on the bullshit detector.

I assume this is the opening salvo of a defense of Bill Maher over how he's not that bad, despite all the reactionary shit he's said over the years?

[DaComm]

He's still a Zionist prick, though.

Incorrect. Maher denounces people's religion personally at every shot he gets (yes, this is the current Bill Maher), he would never support fundamentalism. And Vegan is right, he has recently denounced Israel. It's clear that his religion is Ultra-Secularist to say the least, much like I. To say that he is Zionist is to show that you really don't pay attention/follow him.

[NGNM85]

I assume this is the opening salvo of a defense of Bill Maher over how he's not that bad, despite all the reactionary shit he's said over the years?

I want to make this clear, I don't care if anybody doesn't like him, or doesn't think he's funny. If only people could be content to be honest enough and say that. But that, apparently isn't good enough, so you people are just making up ridiculous nonsense to justify said feelings. I also think a lot of the people saying these things actually know they aren't true, and I think that's the worst part.

[mosfeld]

Semi off-topic, but for those interested, Boots Riley is a really underrated rapper and The Coup is an extremely groovy band and one of my favorite hip hop acts.


At times I find my mind can think fast
Like when a pig has a trigger saying nigger that's your ass
Thoughts of a slave master rise from the past
The past is the present cause I still feel the lash
It's against the law just to be black
Cause the war on drugs is just thugs on the attack
The C is not the source of course so just get back
Why try a lot, I doubt it's just about crack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E0Levf6iDU


Join the Revolutionary Hip Hop (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=341) group!

[Blackscare]

I want to make this clear, I don't care if anybody doesn't like him, or doesn't think he's funny. If only people could be content to be honest enough and say that. But that, apparently isn't good enough, so you people are just making up ridiculous nonsense to justify said feelings. I also think a lot of the people saying these things actually know they aren't true, and I think that's the worst part.


Care to cite examples and back up your argument?



Also, Sankara, yea that was me, PKSoviet.

[NGNM85]

Care to cite examples and back up your argument?


An example of what? I'm going to assume you're asking for an example of people making shit up.(?) Well, a number of these people claim to have seen at least a few complete episodes of his tv shows, and seen Religilous, yet they make these extreme, and untrue, accusations that Bill Maher is a racist, for example. Now, I'm taking them at their word that they've actually seen more than one episode and watched this movie. Perhaps I shouldn't do that, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt. I am taking a leap of faith on that one. Anyone who has just a passing familiarity with his work will come to the obvious conclusion that he is not racist, because he isn't.

Moreover, it's the people making these accusations that have to meet a burden of proof. Racism is an extremely serious charge. You don't get to just toss it around or call someone racist because you dislike them.

[bcbm]

not sure why this is in politics.

[Adi Shankara]

not sure why this is in politics.

Because it's related to politics, in that they are both talking about the role that corporate power should play into government policy, and Bill Maher, being the shill he is, starts changing the subject into a "Western civilization is better than X" game.

[bcbm]

seems like the talk is more about boots/maher as individuals more than what they are discussing in the video.

[bots]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhvhNZC51gY

Heh. He makes some good points.

[HEAD ICE]

NhvhNZC51gY

Heh. He makes some good points.

Why does Bill Maher keep making these extreme, untrue accusations about Bill Maher? It just ain't right.

[NGNM85]

Why does Bill Maher keep making these extreme, untrue accusations about Bill Maher? It just ain't right.

Most of what he's saying is simply true, a lot of it is actually pretty inoccuous. No-one has produced anything that justifies calling him a racist. Probably because they know he isn't, they're just throwing tantrums.

[RadioRaheem84]

Most of what he's saying is simply true, a lot of it is actually pretty inoccuous. No-one has produced anything that justifies calling him a racist. Probably because they know he isn't, they're just throwing tantrums.

Oh shut the hell up. You're defense of Maher is weak. No one is saying that he is an outright conservative hag like Ann Coulter or a right wing nut like Hannity, but that his humor is laced with 'clash of civlization' mantras and elitist rants.

Seriously, NGN, what the fuck is your problem? How can you watch the video that was posted by bots and not see that the guy is literally hawking Samuel Huntington, Islamo-fascist, clash of civilizations, west is best, xenophobic, pro-Guantanamo Bay, ra ra sis boom bah ,the third world is shit and needs to enlightened, crap?

Ann Coulter could spew out a similar rant.

Seriously, this is just stupid that I have to sit here and actually debate with you on something that is plain as day!




Most of what he's saying is simply true,


Go fucking sign the Euston Manifesto, then. If you cannot analyze how the third world has been robbed of 'enlightenment' through out the ages by the enlightened west, then you just need to join the Hitchens crowd and become a pro-war liberal hawk.

Most of what he says is true? Our fundies are better because they pick out gay teletubbies and do not cut off hands? Did he miss the fact that our 'funny' fundies bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors?

[HEAD ICE]

boBzrqF4vmo

I'm not going to bother writing anything out so I'm just going to link bomb.

[Robocommie]

Stagger Lee, that man seems familiar somehow. :lol:

[Obs]

Incorrect. Maher denounces people's religion personally at every shot he gets (yes, this is the current Bill Maher), he would never support fundamentalism. And Vegan is right, he has recently denounced Israel. It's clear that his religion is Ultra-Secularist to say the least, much like I. To say that he is Zionist is to show that you really don't pay attention/follow him.
Very few Zionists are religious fundamentalists. In fact, you'll find that the most orthodox of Jews are very vehemently anti-Zionism.

[Adi Shankara]

NhvhNZC51gY

Heh. He makes some good points.

There is NEVER a good point to support the hedgemony of Western culture over other cultures. that is a completely anti-Communist position.

[Robocommie]

There is NEVER a good point to support the hedgemony of Western culture over other cultures. that is a completely anti-Communist position.

And anti-historical materialist, as well. Peoples and nations are not more or less advanced because of culture, they are more or less advanced because of the material conditions at their disposal.

[Adi Shankara]

NhvhNZC51gY

Heh. He makes some good points.

"Western Civilization is not just different, it's Better. I know whole generations have been raised on Multiculturalism, and in the belief that civilizations are just different, but sometimes, things are just better."--Bill Maher, in the video.

seriously, I believe in free speech, but if you want to talk about this shit here and about something so antithetical to communism, there is a forum for that:

***************

Request that Bots be restricted for supporting Western Chavunism and Western Supremacy

[Obs]

Sankara, I'm with you on a lot of things, but it really gets tiresome to see you accuse people of fascism at the drop of a hat.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yeah, I mean I don't know if Bots agrees with everything Maher said but it would just a little f-ed up if he did, not ban worthy.

[NGNM85]

"Western Civilization is not just different, it's Better. I know whole generations have been raised on Multiculturalism, and in the belief that civilizations are just different, but sometimes, things are just better."--Bill Maher, in the video.

This is a blatant truism. It's so obviously so it should be totally inoccuous.


seriously, I believe in free speech, but if you want to talk about this shit here and about something so antithetical to communism, there is a forum for that:

***************

That's such an extreme exaggeration it's absurd. To conflate something so mild and inoccuous with nazi rhetoric is absolutely ridiculous. You're making it impossible to take you seriously.

While we're on the subject, I'm not a communist, so I don't particularly care if I don't measure up.


Request that Bots be restricted for supporting Western Chavunism and Western Supremacy

..And we sink to new levels of absurdity.

[bots]

This reminds me of the ending of Cannibal Holocaust. All the arrogant western kids have been eaten by the savage indigenous cannibals because they decided to film themselves raping their women and killing their pigs and what not...and the narrator goes:

"Who are the real savages? The natives, eating people? Or us, going to their villages and raping their girls and filming it for our pleasure?"

And it makes you think. Did I just participate in that whole god damn piece of exploitation by watching it? Am I guilty? I feel so guilty all the time now. Probably not as guilty as Thomas feels...I guess I should probably feel guilty about that too.

[bailey_187]

‘All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission that fell to them.’ - Franz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967 [first pub 1961]), p253

‘I denounce European colonialism...but I respect the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation.’ - CLR James, ‘The Making of the Caribbean People’, in Spheres of Existence: Selected Writings (London: Alison and Busby, 1980), p179


Just saying brahs and srahs. Lets not abandon hisotrical materialism and marxism.

CAN I GET SOME COMMENTS ON THESE QUOTES? I just want to see what people have to say about them.

[TheSamsquatch]

Sankara, I'm with you on a lot of things, but it really gets tiresome to see you accuse people of fascism at the drop of a hat.

I use fascism probably more loosely than i should. To me it's synonymous with hardcore conformity and absence of free though.
But hey, i'm old fashioned.

[the last donut of the night]

Moreover, it's the people making these accusations that have to meet a burden of proof. Racism is an extremely serious charge. You don't get to just toss it around or call someone racist because you dislike them.

italics don't make you more correct, dude

[TheSamsquatch]

italics don't make you more correct, dude

Just like in the video, when the actor leans forward, he acts like by doing that he looks like he's making an amazing point that puts down everything that's been said or will be said. I bet he even pauses for applause in his head.

[DaComm]

I hope I do not come off as a fascist/reactionary/whatever when I say that I found nothing racist in that footage. He is making an arguable comparison of Western tolerance on varying issues to that of the Middle East. Do you have a better chance of survival as a homosexual in western regions than in the Middle East? Most certainly. Is there anything wrong or racist with proclaiming that? NO. Is there anything Anti-Communist about it? NO, I don't know if this is in the know, but Maher is a huge critic of religion, and his target in that footage was blatantly Muslims. I will tell you what IS anti-communist, defending these practices in the Middle East and pointing fingers at anyone who takes note of the fact that these methods are primitive (to say the least) when compared to Western areas. Am I a Western Supremacist? No. I just think Maher has a valid point in saying that a little tolerance in Saudi Arabia has a lot to be desired. Please do not refer me to the GULAG.

[Robocommie]

Marxism should not be seen as a "civilizing mission" because those claims are almost inevitably made from the perspective of those who would want to do the civilizing, and never from the other side.

Not only do these claims tend to overlook the fact that truly successful social change, like revolution, occurs from within and cannot be genuinely and legitimately imposed from without (in fact, this tends to breed a reactionary blowback which inevitably brings about a new regime more severe than the one it sought to replace), it also completely assumes that the people making this charge, that "our" civilization and "our" culture is inherently better, actually truly understand their own culture and the historical forces which brought it into being, as well as just what the real situation is on the ground for the "other."

Bill Maher isn't just a fucking idiot because he says our culture is better than theirs because they chop off people's heads and kill for religion and hate women - he's a fucking idiot because he, like all xenophobes, assumes that the most reactionary and unpleasant image presented is in fact the default reality - that Arabs in general going around raping women and chopping off heads. But these people almost never actually know what they're talking about. Edward Said wrote about how so many people who feel or are recognized as qualified to judge "the East" are experts in theory only - they've read a great many books about how incredibly fierce lions are and so they feel eminently qualified to write about the fierceness of lions - except they've never actually seen a lion themselves. European colonizers in the age of Balfour used to write about how Arabs rutted in the streets like animals and barely even had an understanding of lavatories, and that the very concept of roads and highways was an oddity to them. Needless to say, you'd be hard pressed to argue apples and oranges in that case, except the comparison being offered is one entirely tainted by colonial racism.

http://www.amazon.com/Orientalism-Edward-W-Said/dp/039474067X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278461448&sr=8-1

For fuck's sakes.

[bots]

Bill Maher isn't just a fucking idiot because he says our culture is better than theirs because they chop off people's heads and kill for religion and hate women - he's a fucking idiot because he, like all xenophobes, assumes that the most reactionary and unpleasant image presented is in fact the default reality - that Arabs in general going around raping women and chopping off heads. But these people almost never actually know what they're talking about. Edward Said wrote about how so many people who feel or are recognized as qualified to judge "the East" are experts in theory only - they've read a great many books about how incredibly fierce lions are and so they feel eminently qualified to write about the fierceness of lions - except they've never actually seen a lion themselves. European colonizers in the age of Balfour used to write about how Arabs rutted in the streets like animals and barely even had an understanding of lavatories, and that the very concept of roads and highways was an oddity to them. Needless to say, you'd be hard pressed to argue apples and oranges in that case, except the comparison being offered is one entirely tainted by colonial racism.

http://www.amazon.com/Orientalism-Edward-W-Said/dp/039474067X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278461448&sr=8-1

For fuck's sakes.

Yeah I suppose. Though it could be argued murdering homosexuals is no longer institutionalized in the West whereas in Saudi Arabia it, uh, is.

[bots]

As an aside, what do you think of the Pope's condemnation of cultural relativism?

[Obs]

Yeah I suppose. Though it could be argued murdering homosexuals is no longer institutionalized in the West whereas in Saudi Arabia it, uh, is.
I'm tempted to get into how your viewpoint is against dialectic materialism, but since I'm not sure what an "anarcho-Maoist" is, I'd like to first ask you if you accept dialectics.


As an aside, what do you think of the Pope's condemnation of cultural relativism?
Guilt by association, the best argument on earth!

[Robocommie]

Yeah I suppose. Though it could be argued murdering homosexuals is no longer institutionalized in the West whereas in Saudi Arabia it, uh, is.

Oh yeah, Saudi Arabia. Great one. Let's pick out the absolutist monarchy run by a hardline Wahhabist dynasty as the example.


As an aside, what do you think of the Pope's condemnation of cultural relativism?Don't know, don't give a fuck.

[RadioRaheem84]

Damn robbocommie, couldn't have said it any better. The west is just more "civilized" in it's brutality and tends to shift burdens to other nations. Then self righteous assholes like Maher hock drivel worse that Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis. His defenders really have no argument other than; he is a comedian.

[Robocommie]

Damn robbocommie, couldn't have said it any better. The west is just more "civilized" in it's brutality and tends to shift burdens to other nations. Then self righteous assholes like Maher hock drivel worse that Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis. His defenders really have no argument other than; he is a comedian.

It's pretty natural for us at times to see other's faults and overlook our own, forgetting how other people see us. What's shocking to me is that leftists could ever have the balls to support this idea of "western" culture being better, given that it was the west who does heinous shit like support the Shah of Iran, or Fulgencio Batista, or Pinochet - we're the ones who, with our heinously irresponsible financial sector, caused a global economic meltdown which has caused suffering around the world. We're the ones who are the bastions of capitalism, as with the exception of Japan, the Group of Eight are all made up of "western" countries. Aren't these things "our" culture?

Do I think we're worse? No, because I really don't see the value in ranking things like that. But I do think that before we start laughing at other people for having their flies down, we might want to check our own zipper first.

[bots]

I'm tempted to get into how your viewpoint is against dialectic materialism, but since I'm not sure what an "anarcho-Maoist" is, I'd like to first ask you if you accept dialectics.

I am tempted to answer your question.


Oh yeah, Saudi Arabia. Great one. Let's pick out the absolutist monarchy run by a hardline Wahhabist dynasty as the example.

So you admit that some countries have better values than others.

[Robocommie]

So you admit that some countries have better values than others.

Obvious troll is obvious.

[bots]

Obvious troll is obvious.

That was quick. I still love you. Maybe we can have ice cream some time.

[Robocommie]

That was quick. I still love you. Maybe we can have ice cream some time.

You go on ahead. I'll be there "eventually."

[bots]

You go on ahead. I'll be there "eventually."

Fine. Be that way. I was going to take you to the good ice cream parlor too. The one where you can make your own flavor. You know? The one without ad hominems.

[mikelepore]

In that youtube video v=NhvhNZC51gY, Maher is correct. Perhaps not all of his wording is correct, but his point is correct. Compared to a tradition in which women get whipped for not wearing veils, etc., a tradition that guarantees women's rights is "not just different - it's better." Compared to a tradition in which people get death sentences for committing religious violations, a tradition in which people who commit religious violations merely get advised by private organizations that their souls will go to hell is "not just different - it's better." There are some aspects in several Islamic societies that remain stuck in superstitious habits that other countries progressed beyond hundred of years ago. If Maher is expressing the problem wrong, then the people at this site should suggest an improved way to express the problem, instead of denying that there is a kernel of truth in what he is saying.

[RadioRaheem84]

Mikelepore, cmon man, you're smarter than to get into a west is best argument. The west funded a lot of the religious zealots that we now hate and rail on against. We pardon terrorists like orlando Bosch and derail democracy abroad. The only reason why you say we're a better society is because we hide a lot of our dirty laundry. Heck our society runs on the back of mega exploitative third world labor. Why even consider that we're somehow better? It's rather pointless.

[Robocommie]

Fine. Be that way. I was going to take you to the good ice cream parlor too. The one where you can make your own flavor. You know? The one without ad hominems.

If you want to be taken seriously and not dismissed as a troll (and you've certainly been acting like one) then you might want to consider what I actually said.

Saudi Arabia is a repressive society, and anyone who wouldn't expect that from an absolutist monarchy which imposes it's own particularly hardline interpretation of religion on it's subjects is a fool. And yet if you were going to assert that this is in anyway the result of Arabic culture as some kind of essentialist thing, which is frozen in time and never subject to the influences of economics and politics, you would have to ignore all the other Arabic nations which are not like this. They'd have to explain the success of Arabic secularists who have come to power in the 20th century, like the Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq, the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt which enjoyed incredible popularity despite it's own secularism, so on, and so forth.

There's a reason this Clash of Civilizations bullshit is considered bullshit by anyone who isn't a neo-conservative hack - it relies on racist stereotypes, horrid generalizations and incredible oversimplification.

[mikelepore]

Mikelepore, cmon man, you're smarter than to get into a west is best argument. The west funded a lot of the religious zealots that we now hate and rail on against. We pardon terrorists like orlando Bosch and derail democracy abroad. The only reason why you say we're a better society is because we hide a lot of our dirty laundry. Heck our society runs on the back of mega exploitative third world labor. Why even consider that we're somehow better? It's rather pointless.

Does that mean you wouldn't be opposed to enacting a new law in some western countries would require women to cover their faces with veils? How about a new law that would say that anyone who quits their religion shall get the death penalty -- would that be a step forward or a step backwards?

[bots]

If you want to be taken seriously and not dismissed as a troll (and you've certainly been acting like one) then you might want to consider what I actually said.

I'm not acting like a troll. I'm just not using the same passwords as you. I've got a sense of humor. If I was a troll I would have just stopped after posting the Bill Maher video and let you geniuses fight it out.


Saudi Arabia is a repressive society, and anyone who wouldn't expect that from an absolutist monarchy which imposes it's own particularly hardline interpretation of religion on it's subjects is a fool. And yet if you were going to assert that this is in anyway the result of Arabic culture as some kind of essentialist thing, which is frozen in time and never subject to the influences of economics and politics, you would have to ignore all the other Arabic nations which are not like this. They'd have to explain the success of Arabic secularists who have come to power in the 20th century, like the Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq, the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt which enjoyed incredible popularity despite it's own secularism, so on, and so forth.

When did I assert anything about Arabic culture? I fucking love algebra.

[chegitz guevara]

There isn't a clash of civilizations, but let's face it, we implicitly accept that some civilizations are better, because that's where we chose to live, in as much as we have a choice, materially.

There may be material reasons for the differences, such as a history of struggle allowing women in the West to be comparatively freer today than their counterparts in other parts of the world, but it wasn't so long ago the situation was different.

The extreme conservatism of the Middle East is a relatively young phenomenon, almost certainly related to oil wealth, and the need to subvert a demand to share the wealth. But it is real. It sucks to be there if you're a woman or gay or a different religion. You face a lot of bullshit in the west, but you don't get executed by the government for being gay, for what it's worth, or for having an affair, or for being raped.

These societies are as oppressive as hell, and communists need to oppose these societies and seek to support efforts by communists there to overthrow them.

[NGNM85]

italics don't make you more correct, dude

It's not correct because it's in italics, it's correct because it's the truth. I'm simply trying to emphasize key points which people don't seem to comprehend. When you accuse someone of something, you're obligated to support that accusation, the burden of proof is determined by the severity of the accusation. That's just fucking common sense, which is in short supply.

[RadioRaheem84]

We do oppose them but we also oppose western chauvinism to mask it's own brutality.

[DaComm]

In that youtube video v=NhvhNZC51gY, Maher is correct. Perhaps not all of his wording is correct, but his point is correct. Compared to a tradition in which women get whipped for not wearing veils, etc., a tradition that guarantees women's rights is "not just different - it's better." Compared to a tradition in which people get death sentences for committing religious violations, a tradition in which people who commit religious violations merely get advised by private organizations that their souls will go to hell is "not just different - it's better." There are some aspects in several Islamic societies that remain stuck in superstitious habits that other countries progressed beyond hundred of years ago. If Maher is expressing the problem wrong, then the people at this site should suggest an improved way to express the problem, instead of denying that there is a kernel of truth in what he is saying.

Mike is right. And also, Maher does not exemplify "Xenophobia" in that he believes that every Islamic follower wears a stick of dynamite on their belt. However, it isn't like the things he says are fictitious; people are harshly abused over there for dogmatic reasons that lack any logic. To say such a society is equal to that of the west is questionable. Now then, it isn't like Maher believes the US to be a perfect system either; nay the flaws of our society make up a lot of his critical career. He is not an oblivious racist fascist whatever you want him to be. Now then, being a liker of Maher, I seriously doubt he seeks to implement US-leveled tolerance for some personal gain, he humanitarian-like pities those in the Middle East that are victimized. That is why he views such change as necessary, because those people on the other side, the victims, need it. This, I sympathize with.

[Robocommie]

Mike is right. And also, Maher does not exemplify "Xenophobia" in that he believes that every Islamic follower wears a stick of dynamite on their belt. However, it isn't like the things he says are fictitious; people are harshly abused over there for dogmatic reasons that lack any logic. To say such a society is equal to that of the west is questionable. Now then, it isn't like Maher believes the US to be a perfect system either; nay the flaws of our society make up a lot of his critical career. He is not an oblivious racist fascist whatever you want him to be. Now then, being a liker of Maher, I seriously doubt he seeks to implement US-leveled tolerance for some personal gain, he humanitarian-like pities those in the Middle East that are victimized. That is why he views such change as necessary, because those people on the other side, the victims, need it. This, I sympathize with.

He's a fucking former libertarian turned progressive liberal who lives in Beverly Hills while promoting the narrative of the Clash of Civilizations, and thereby promoting the American imperialist agenda by promoting a racist narrative about Arabs and their savage, primitive culture, overstating the realities of a situation - a narrative that you are way too eager to play along with. I don't give a fuck about his motives. He's not a member of the working class, he's not a socialist, and regardless of his motives he's part of the ideological machine that drops bombs on Arabs. "Humanitarian" bombs.

You want to promote secularism in the Arab world? Promote Arab socialism. Promote the PFLP. Don't promote corporate media types like Bill Maher who line their pockets spewing neoconservative bylines and supporting Israel. Others, you might as well just say fuck it, give up this whole Marxism thing and become Christopher Hitchens.



To see how anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry is accepted and applauded in America, one has to look no further than HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, hosted by “left-wing” comedian and political commentator Bill Maher. “Liberal” pundits like Maher pass off their anti-Arab/anti-Muslim rhetoric as an innocent invocation of Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations.” Yet, Maher’s vitriolic diatribes are no different than one saying, “black people are ruthless, welfare grubbing criminals.” Nonetheless, to a “liberal,” the previous comment is racist and wrong, because black people, unlike the days of slavery, are now “like us,” meaning white Anglo-American society, whereas Arabs and Muslims (as if they are a unitary, monolithic people), can still be labeled wholly as “backwards, ruthless, Jew-hating animals.”

In Maher’s program, he regularly brings on guests that espouse anti-Arab/anti-Muslim views, some of them being supposed “self-critical” Muslims. These guests, however, principally serve to support Maher’s own bias against Muslims and Arabs, bolstering his pro-Israel feelings. These guests include conservative Israeli politician and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Lebanese-born neocon and political hack Fouad Ajami, putative introspective Muslim moderate Irshad Manji, and former Muslim, now professed atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, among many others.

Showcasing the “tolerance of liberalism,” Maher brought on his claimed “hero,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, of the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, to help him explain to HBO viewers just what was wrong with Islam. Like a fat kid in a candy store, Maher looked to Hirsi Ali on his panel this season and stated, “[I]s Islam a religion of peace? You are one of the brave people who say it’s not really a religion of peace.” More than happy to respond, Hirsi Ali proclaimed, “It’s not a religion of peace. Immediately after 9/11 they should have said, it’s not a religion of peace, we’re up against Islam.” That’s right because Pat Robertson speaks for all Christians and the list of disgruntled students that have gunned down their schoolmates since Columbine speak for all people under the age of 25. What if Hirsi Ali said, “Immediately after the black thug robbed the liquor store, they should have said, black people are criminals, we’re up against black people."http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/bill-maher%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Ctowel-headed-hos%E2%80%9D/

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Most of what he's saying is simply true, a lot of it is actually pretty inoccuous. No-one has produced anything that justifies calling him a racist. Probably because they know he isn't, they're just throwing tantrums.
You're kidding, he says in the video he doesn't give a shit about the "300 murderers in Guantanamo Bay" as if those people are actually murderers when most of those people are released without being charged with any crimes. People are tortured there, people are humiliated there, treated like dogs, and he says "I don't care, they're murderers". He just supported torture of innocent people and you didn't even blink. The man is a supposed liberal voice but he says the people in Guantanamo are crabbing about people not respecting their religious belief, eat what we eat. We shave them, piss on their holy book, force them into homosexual positions, etc, and all Bill Maher has to say to that is "STFU stop crabbing about how we treat you savages". Imagine if we were doing that to Jews! What do you think he would say "Stop crabbing"?

[NGNM85]

It seems the anti-Maher camp is getting increasingly shrill, incoherent, and crazy by the minute.


http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/bill-maher%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Ctowel-headed-hos%E2%80%9D/

The author of that piece is a goddamn moron. I'm not going to dissect the whole thing, but that last paragraph is just complete bullshit. Of course Islam isn't a religion of peace. Crack open the abrahamic texts and actually take a look at what these books actually say.

Like I said in the other thread;
The most violent and bigoted individuals are not necessarily representative of the rank and file. However, they are absolutely representative of their respective faiths. What does the Bible say about women's rights or homosexuality? Or the Koran? Read the books, it's all in there. These books contain very obvious, and explicit exhortations to violence. According to the scripture homosexuality is an 'abomination' that should be punishible by death. That's not subtle, there's no room for misinterpretation. Read Levicticus, whatever, just pick a page and start reading, in no time you'll find impetus for some atrocity or another. The Osama bin Laden's and the abortion clinic bombers read the books cover to cover, I assure you. They can quote chapter and verse. They were able to square everything that they did with what they found in those books, in fact, that's where they got the idea. There's definitely a problem within Islam, but I'm not singling them out by any means. For Christians to decry Islam as violent and brutal is the definition of hypocrisy. Devout christians massacred, and tortured heretics, really, in thost abominable ways you can imagine, just about the worst acts of sadism you can conjure, for centuries. As I've said, the individuals doing this read the book cover to cover. They read the sermon on the mount and they were able to square their actions perfectly with that book. The new testament does not repudiate all the awful shit in the first half, even jesus has his bad days where he says things like if you find a heretic you should "bring him hither and slay him before me." It's pretty easy to see where people might go with that. So I'm not pre-judging, I'm judging. These books are filled with bigotry, sexism, intolerance, and deliberate, open exhortations to do violence.

The Pat Robertson's or the Revered Phelps' and the Osama Bin Laden's are absolutely representative of their respective dogmas. They've read the books many times. That's where their awful ideas come from. Make no mistake about it. The equivocation with race is false, it's completely incomperable. First because race is an inherited biological trait, whereas religion is an ideology which people subscribe to. Second, because that ideology repeatedly, explicitly promotes bigotry and violence.

So the problem is religion, itself. Islam has no monopoly on crazy, as the Evangelical right clearly demonstrates. However, while these factions are equally crazy, they are not equally prevalent. The sheer amount of suicide bombings, honor killings, etc. that are happening in the Middle East has no equivalent in the West. We have a few isolated crazies, in the Middle East, it's an epidemic of violence. While most seem reticent to discuss it with outsiders, I actually think most Muslims are actually very concerned about this and very aware that they have a problem within their culture, that they are privately aware that there is a serious problem.

I also don't deny that politics and economics play a substantial role in perpetuating violence and oppression in the Middle East, and fuel this extremism. However, to claim that religion is entirely blameless when a guy goes into a marketplace and screams "Allahu Akbar!" before igniting the dynamite on his chest is just an insult to everybody's intelligence. If we're going to be assigning blame, and demanding accountability, we have to be consistent. It's time we realized that this dogma is literally the antithesis of civilization.

[NGNM85]

You're kidding, he says in the video he doesn't give a shit about the "300 murderers in Guantanamo Bay" as if those people are actually murderers when most of those people are released without being charged with any crimes. People are tortured there, people are humiliated there, treated like dogs, and he says "I don't care, they're murderers". He just supported torture of innocent people and you didn't even blink. The man is a supposed liberal voice but he says the people in Guantanamo are crabbing about people not respecting their religious belief, eat what we eat. We shave them, piss on their holy book, force them into homosexual positions, etc, and all Bill Maher has to say to that is "STFU stop crabbing about how we treat you savages". Imagine if we were doing that to Jews! What do you think he would say "Stop crabbing"?

Incidentally, that clip was from seven years ago, if I'm not mistaken, before Abu Ghraib. He's changed his position on this issue significantly, since.

To your question, though, and this is sort of like a fantasy hypothetical, but nonetheless; if Jewish extremists had fairly recently killed roughly 3,000 Americans I imagine he very well might have said the exact same thing.

As I said before, this charge of racism is baseless, and worse, I think it's deliberately dishonest.

[A.R.Amistad]

Exactly, there is no such thing as human nature, only human behavior.

THANK YOU I LOVE YOU I WANNA MARRY YOU. There is no fucking human nature, its an idealist copout.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Incorrect. Maher denounces people's religion personally at every shot he gets (yes, this is the current Bill Maher), he would never support fundamentalism. And Vegan is right, he has recently denounced Israel. It's clear that his religion is Ultra-Secularist to say the least, much like I. To say that he is Zionist is to show that you really don't pay attention/follow him.
A quick search on youtube will show this to be false, on the Flotilla raid he said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-v-_CyDSgE
Does not look like he denounced Israel to me. It looks like he said "Well they didn't handle it very well, but shit happens," to me.
*Note* I don't know how to make the video show up on Revleft, there is a youtube button but I'm retarded when it comes to internet stuff
How about on Religilious(Or however the hell you spell the name of his movie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6e8oBdoV7o
The Jew he could find to make look retarded(While cutting out parts of what he says of course) happens to be anti-Zionist while Maher seems to be a pretty damn Zionist.

[mikelepore]

I'm not defending Maher's nationalistic and conservative ideas. I'm saying, first, that his false claims should be exposed as false by describing them accurately. It's the correct use of the English language that I'm defending. A criticism or a bitter satire of religious fundamentalism, and of the laws of theocratic regimes, is neither "racism" nor "xenophobia." His agreement with the policies and actions of the government of Israel, however murderous those actions are, is not "Zionism", a word which refers to belief in the historical Jewish homeland concept ("This land is mine; God gave this land to me" -- lyrics to the "Exodus" song.)

Interestingly, insisting on the correct use of words when denouncing someone is exactly what got Maher fired from his job at the ABC network in 2002. When it was considered mandatory in the U.S. for speech-makers to say that suicide bombers are "cowardly", and Maher pointed out that, according to the definition of the word, they are not cowardly, the network fired him for allegedly "defending" them.

Secondly, I'm saying that his true statements do not cease to be true statements merely because they are delivered in close conjunction to some false statements. As an atheist I appreciate his efforts to expose the harmfulness of religion. That fact isn't negated even though a minute later he may make some nationalistic remark or pro-capitalist remark. I don't just say "this guy is a dick, don't 'defend' anything that this guy says." Instead I evaluate each sentence that comes out of a person's mouth according to "I think this is a true sentence"; "I think that is a false sentence."

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Incidentally, that clip was from seven years ago, if I'm not mistaken, before Abu Ghraib. He's changed his position on this issue significantly, since.

To your question, though, and this is sort of like a fantasy hypothetical, but nonetheless; if Jewish extremists had fairly recently killed roughly 3,000 Americans I imagine he very well might have said the exact same thing.

As I said before, this charge of racism is baseless, and worse, I think it's deliberately dishonest.
Good to know Bill Maher is not one to think for himself then if he succumbs to the type of propaganda post 9/11. How much of a good defense is that, saying he would have bought into the BS just like the average American did that brought us into two wars we shouldn't have fought in the first place.

[Glenn Beck]

If Maher is expressing the problem wrong, then the people at this site should suggest an improved way to express the problem, instead of denying that there is a kernel of truth in what he is saying.

Or they could not waste their time, and point out that he's a racist dick and his racist dickery motivates his statements.


Instead I evaluate each sentence that comes out of a person's mouth according to "I think this is a true sentence"; "I think that is a false sentence."

Where do you find the time to be such a pedantic douche?

[Robocommie]

It seems the anti-Maher camp is getting increasingly shrill, incoherent, and crazy by the minute.

Hah, yeah, that's an amazing thing to say just before going off on your little hyperbolic rant. You criticize the other side for being overly emotional and then you post... that. Fucking Spock would be proud.

I was debating spending the time pointing out just how many bullshit presumptions are marbling what you just said, about how you clearly do not have the understanding of religious doctrine you think you do, and how you're just running roughshod over the history of western civilization. (of which religion played a crucial part - hello concept of natural law and inalienable human rights!) I could try and point out about just how INCREDIBLY fucked up it is that you not just entertain, but embrace stereotypes about Muslims, but there's really no point, because you're a dogmatic zealot yourself. Way to go buying into the War on Terror, "leftist."

Anyway, Chris Hitchens Lite, I hope you and your liberal atheism are very happy together.

"Allahu Akbar." What a fucking idiot.

[Adi Shankara]

Yeah, I mean I don't know if Bots agrees with everything Maher said but it would just a little f-ed up if he did, not ban worthy.

lol he sent me this in a private message:

bots (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=18305) http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/statusicon/user_offline.gif
anarcho-rambo
Join Date: Nov 2008
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http://www.revleft.com/vb/images/icons/icon1.gif Thomas!
"Im so sorry! Can we be friends? I was just trying to be funny! I did not mean to hurt your feelings! Oh God I am so sorry! Please! Please forgive me! I thought you would laugh and go "Oh that guy! He is silly!" but no! You got mad and that is the last thing I ever wanted! I am SO SORRY! FORGIVE ME!"

***

smells like some troll got kicked out of it's cave

[Adi Shankara]

Sankara, I'm with you on a lot of things, but it really gets tiresome to see you accuse people of fascism at the drop of a hat.

Yeah, my bad, I just get sick of people who come on here saying western civilization is better than every other society--maybe I get a little hot headed from it, but it makes me rage lol

Anyways I think what makes the Islamophobia (which sometimes translates into racism against Arab people) more ridiculous is, in many Arab societies, like Lebanon, Morocco, UAE, etc. Women aren't forced to wear veils, nor are they disenfranchised by the state--yes these places still have leagues to go before they achieve full equality in these nations, but to associate that with islam is just unfair.
Saudi Arabia supports Wahabiism, the form of islam most associated with oppression of women. the reason why Wahabiism is so popular in the rest of the Arab world is because Saudi Arabia has a warchest full of cash to send missionaries all over the globe and they are the "gate keepers" of Mecca.

tl;dr if we didn't buy all our oil from an oppressive monarchy like Saudi Arabia which exports their brand of religious zealotry, women would've already had full rights in the Middle east and western asia by now.

[Adi Shankara]

There isn't a clash of civilizations, but let's face it, we implicitly accept that some civilizations are better, because that's where we chose to live, in as much as we have a choice, materially.

I live in the USA because I was born here and all my friends live here. hardly a political reason for my domicile.


There may be material reasons for the differences, such as a history of struggle allowing women in the West to be comparatively freer today than their counterparts in other parts of the world, but it wasn't so long ago the situation was different.

The freedom of women in the west is an illusion. women still can't have many military positions, women almost never get full reimbursement for maternity leave, women still get treated like grown children by a society as a whole--the only two countries I can think of off the top of my head that are overtly oppressive towards women are Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Afghanistan doesn't really count because, well, We put that Taliban government there to do our bidding against the soviets in the 80's and 70's.


The extreme conservatism of the Middle East is a relatively young phenomenon, almost certainly related to oil wealth, and the need to subvert a demand to share the wealth. But it is real. It sucks to be there if you're a woman or gay or a different religion. You face a lot of bullshit in the west, but you don't get executed by the government for being gay, for what it's worth, or for having an affair, or for being raped.

Matthew Shepard, were he alive, would disagree with you. also, take into account the much higher rate of suicide amongst homosexuals than the hetero mainstream--it shows we aren't a paragon of diverse virtue. hell, gays still have trouble adopting, still can't marry, still hear the word "faggot" used everywhere as a pejorative... and gay people aren't allowed to donate blood. imagine the psychological impact of that.


These societies are as oppressive as hell, and communists need to oppose these societies and seek to support efforts by communists there to overthrow them.

and thats your problem. you split societies into nifty little groups of lesser evils.

well guess what? the lesser evil is still evil. we have almost no room to talk about other people's business, esp because our societies are just as oppressive (we still have slave labor in other countries manufacturing our shoes, growing our food, etc.)--we just do it more to others, and we are better at hiding it.

[Barry Lyndon]

He's a fucking former libertarian turned progressive liberal who lives in Beverly Hills while promoting the narrative of the Clash of Civilizations, and thereby promoting the American imperialist agenda by promoting a racist narrative about Arabs and their savage, primitive culture, overstating the realities of a situation - a narrative that you are way too eager to play along with. I don't give a fuck about his motives. He's not a member of the working class, he's not a socialist, and regardless of his motives he's part of the ideological machine that drops bombs on Arabs. "Humanitarian" bombs.

You want to promote secularism in the Arab world? Promote Arab socialism. Promote the PFLP. Don't promote corporate media types like Bill Maher who line their pockets spewing neoconservative bylines and supporting Israel. Others, you might as well just say fuck it, give up this whole Marxism thing and become Christopher Hitchens.

This, this and this. The emancipation from the shackles of US imperialism, feudalism, and Islamic fundamentalists must be the act of the Arab workers and peasants THEMSELVES, it will not be brought about by US imperialist butchery and its cheerleaders like Bill Maher. As someone who has relatives from Iraq who have died or been jailed for being Communists, I find it extremely insulting that there seem to be leftists who implicitly buy into this garbage about Arab or Middle Eastern culture being inherently reactionary and/or primitive.
Also, I have lived in an Muslim country(Egypt) for years and women were not walking around in 'beekeeper suits', there is a wide degree in how strictly Islam is practiced -it's over a billion people in a part of the world stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Maher is so fucking ignorant it's sickening. He clearly has the means to learn but has not interest in doing so, because that would undermine the chauvinist three-ring circus he's got going.

[Adi Shankara]

This, this and this. The emancipation from the shackles of US imperialism, feudalism, and Islamic fundamentalists must be the act of the Arab workers and peasants THEMSELVES, it will not be brought about by US imperialist butchery and its cheerleaders like Bill Maher.

FINALLY someone gets why I oppose Chinese occupation of Tibet (even if you might not agree with me there, lol it's the same point I've been trying to make, but you make it better), even if we're talking of the PanArabia.

[Adi Shankara]

Incorrect. Maher denounces people's religion personally at every shot he gets (yes, this is the current Bill Maher), he would never support fundamentalism. And Vegan is right, he has recently denounced Israel. It's clear that his religion is Ultra-Secularist to say the least, much like I. To say that he is Zionist is to show that you really don't pay attention/follow him.

Zionism isn't a religious ideology (you should know that if you read into Theodor Herzl, who was an atheist) but a secular racial ideology that holds Jews, as the "chosen people", deserve to reclaim their "homeland" Israel from those wicked palestinians who have lived there since they were first called "Canaanites".

There is almost nothing religious about Zionism.

[Glenn Beck]

There isn't a clash of civilizations, but let's face it, we implicitly accept that some civilizations are better, because that's where we chose to live, in as much as we have a choice, materially.

There aren't actually civilizations, bro. Like, it's an invalid concept

[mikelepore]

Zionism isn't a religious ideology (you should know that if you read into Theodor Herzl, who was an atheist) but a secular racial ideology that holds Jews, as the "chosen people", deserve to reclaim their "homeland" Israel from those wicked palestinians who have lived there since they were first called "Canaanites".

There is almost nothing religious about Zionism.

The idea of "chosen people" isn't religious? Then who chose them? (Hint: he's invisible and his voice comes out of a burning bush on a mountain.)



Where do you find the time to be such a pedantic douche?

I do in parallel processing mode so that it gets completed concurrent with my ordinary tasks.

[bots]

lol he sent me this in a private message:

bots (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=18305) http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/statusicon/user_offline.gif
anarcho-rambo
Join Date: Nov 2008
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http://www.revleft.com/vb/images/icons/icon1.gif Thomas!
"Im so sorry! Can we be friends? I was just trying to be funny! I did not mean to hurt your feelings! Oh God I am so sorry! Please! Please forgive me! I thought you would laugh and go "Oh that guy! He is silly!" but no! You got mad and that is the last thing I ever wanted! I am SO SORRY! FORGIVE ME!"

***

smells like some troll got kicked out of it's cave


Tommy! That was supposed to be PRIVATE! Oh God I am so embarrassed! And here I thought you actually cared! You're just like all the others!

Also, since it appears you're too stupid to understand irony or sarcasm, I am fucking with you.

[bots]

This, this and this. The emancipation from the shackles of US imperialism, feudalism, and Islamic fundamentalists must be the act of the Arab workers and peasants THEMSELVES, it will not be brought about by US imperialist butchery and its cheerleaders like Bill Maher. As someone who has relatives from Iraq who have died or been jailed for being Communists, I find it extremely insulting that there seem to be leftists who implicitly buy into this garbage about Arab or Middle Eastern culture being inherently reactionary and/or primitive.
Also, I have lived in an Muslim country(Egypt) for years and women were not walking around in 'beekeeper suits', there is a wide degree in how strictly Islam is practiced -it's over a billion people in a part of the world stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Maher is so fucking ignorant it's sickening. He clearly has the means to learn but has not interest in doing so, because that would undermine the chauvinist three-ring circus he's got going.

Well, yeah. I wouldn't disagree with you there. Also I don't think anyone is implying that Arab or Middle Eastern culture is inherently reactionary...well maybe they are. I kind of just skim those long posts...but anyway, Muslim culture is inherently reactionary. If you disagree with that maybe you're the one who is "failing" as a "leftist".

EDIT: Muslim culture is inherently reactionary except for maybe the Sufis or the Hashishim. Taking loads of drugs and getting wacky with your brain seems like a pretty good way to troll mainstream Muslim culture. Yeah, those guys are cool.

[RadioRaheem84]

It seems the anti-Maher camp is getting increasingly shrill, incoherent, and crazy by the minute.



The author of that piece is a goddamn moron. I'm not going to dissect the whole thing, but that last paragraph is just complete bullshit. Of course Islam isn't a religion of peace. Crack open the abrahamic texts and actually take a look at what these books actually say.

Like I said in the other thread;
The most violent and bigoted individuals are not necessarily representative of the rank and file. However, they are absolutely representative of their respective faiths. What does the Bible say about women's rights or homosexuality? Or the Koran? Read the books, it's all in there. These books contain very obvious, and explicit exhortations to violence. According to the scripture homosexuality is an 'abomination' that should be punishible by death. That's not subtle, there's no room for misinterpretation. Read Levicticus, whatever, just pick a page and start reading, in no time you'll find impetus for some atrocity or another. The Osama bin Laden's and the abortion clinic bombers read the books cover to cover, I assure you. They can quote chapter and verse. They were able to square everything that they did with what they found in those books, in fact, that's where they got the idea. There's definitely a problem within Islam, but I'm not singling them out by any means. For Christians to decry Islam as violent and brutal is the definition of hypocrisy. Devout christians massacred, and tortured heretics, really, in thost abominable ways you can imagine, just about the worst acts of sadism you can conjure, for centuries. As I've said, the individuals doing this read the book cover to cover. They read the sermon on the mount and they were able to square their actions perfectly with that book. The new testament does not repudiate all the awful shit in the first half, even jesus has his bad days where he says things like if you find a heretic you should "bring him hither and slay him before me." It's pretty easy to see where people might go with that. So I'm not pre-judging, I'm judging. These books are filled with bigotry, sexism, intolerance, and deliberate, open exhortations to do violence.

The Pat Robertson's or the Revered Phelps' and the Osama Bin Laden's are absolutely representative of their respective dogmas. They've read the books many times. That's where their awful ideas come from. Make no mistake about it. The equivocation with race is false, it's completely incomperable. First because race is an inherited biological trait, whereas religion is an ideology which people subscribe to. Second, because that ideology repeatedly, explicitly promotes bigotry and violence.

So the problem is religion, itself. Islam has no monopoly on crazy, as the Evangelical right clearly demonstrates. However, while these factions are equally crazy, they are not equally prevalent. The sheer amount of suicide bombings, honor killings, etc. that are happening in the Middle East has no equivalent in the West. We have a few isolated crazies, in the Middle East, it's an epidemic of violence. While most seem reticent to discuss it with outsiders, I actually think most Muslims are actually very concerned about this and very aware that they have a problem within their culture, that they are privately aware that there is a serious problem.

I also don't deny that politics and economics play a substantial role in perpetuating violence and oppression in the Middle East, and fuel this extremism. However, to claim that religion is entirely blameless when a guy goes into a marketplace and screams "Allahu Akbar!" before igniting the dynamite on his chest is just an insult to everybody's intelligence. If we're going to be assigning blame, and demanding accountability, we have to be consistent. It's time we realized that this dogma is literally the antithesis of civilization.

You'll be a future signer of the Euston Manifesto, I guarantee it. Quit while you're ahead. Read Oliver Kamm's Antotalitarianism: The Left Wing Case for Neo-Conservatism and subscribe to Democratiya, a "liberal-left" journal that you would happily enjoy. If there is anything else you need to help you become a proponent of western superiority and "anti-totalitarian" liberalism, then just pm me.

[Adi Shankara]

Tommy! That was supposed to be PRIVATE! Oh God I am so embarrassed! And here I thought you actually cared! You're just like all the others!

Also, since it appears you're too stupid to understand irony or sarcasm, I am fucking with you.

it's the internet; sorry if your words written in latin script don't carry dialectic marks to measure tone, so I could know you were fucking with me or not, and considering how many weirdos live on the internet, that's not too far-fetched.

dipshit.

[bots]

it's the internet; sorry if your words written in latin script don't carry dialectic marks to measure tone, so I could know you were fucking with me or not, and considering how many weirdos live on the internet, that's not too far-fetched.

dipshit.

Wow. I just want to rub your belly.

[The Red Next Door]

The last time I check, it was western civilization, who brought my ancestors from Africa and turn them into slaves, and also murder many of my native american ancestors and colonized Africa, Ireland, Asia, and the Americas for their queens and kings.

[The Red Next Door]

Wow. I just want to rub your belly.

creepy.

[Obs]

You're a funny man, bots.


And in case you're too stupid to understand irony or sarcasm, I am fucking with you.

[bots]

The last time I check, it was western civilization, who brought my ancestors from Africa and turn them into slaves, and also murder many of my native american ancestors and colonized Africa, Ireland, Asia, and the Americas for their queens and kings.

Would this count as clash of civilizations mumbo jumbo or what?


You're a funny man, bots.


And in case you're too stupid to understand irony or sarcasm, I am fucking with you.

Nice one ya hack. Get your own material.

[NGNM85]

Hah, yeah, that's an amazing thing to say just before going off on your little hyperbolic rant. You criticize the other side for being overly emotional and then you post... that. Fucking Spock would be proud.

I said “shrill, incoherent, and crazy.” You and the others are making increasingly emotional and vehement charges that Maher is a racist (And a Zionist, and a xenophobe.) for which no evidence is actually provided, and simply growing more strident, as well as incoherent, as time goes on. I explained myself very clearly. When I say religion is the antithesis of civilization, I’m not being hyperbolic, I’m being completely serious.


I was debating spending the time pointing out just how many bullshit presumptions are marbling what you just said,

Again, I explained myself very clearly, and I maintain any analysis will support these conclusions.


about how you clearly do not have the understanding of religious doctrine you think you do,

Again; what do these books actually say about heretics,, homosexuality, or a woman’s place in society?


and how you're just running roughshod over the history of western civilization. (of which religion played a crucial part

This seems to be the only thing we can agree on. Yes, that’s an undeniable fact.



- hello concept of natural law and inalienable human rights!)

Religion may have informed these ideas, I don’t really dispute that. However, for starters, there are very logical, secular reasons to believe in this ideas. Second, these ideas are based on a very selective interpretation of religion. For example, the Bible clearly endorses slavery, along with all sorts of antisocial behaviors.


I could try and point out about just how INCREDIBLY fucked up it is that you not just entertain, but embrace stereotypes about Muslims,

No, no, no. This is completely false. I explicitly stated that these individuals do not represent the majority of the Muslim community. However, they absolutely represent Islam, just as the worst of the evangelical bloc absolutely represent Christianity. I’m not talking about Muslims, in general, or just a fragment, I’m talking about Islam.


but there's really no point, because you're a dogmatic zealot yourself. Way to go buying into the War on Terror, "leftist."

This stuff about ‘fundamentalist atheism’ is completely absurd. My ideas are based on facts and observations, critical thinking. Religious ‘faith’ is based on blind certitude based on zero evidence. That’s the definition, in that context. They are fundamentally divergent.

The ‘War on Terror” is an asinine concept. One cannot wage war against an activity, at least not literally. Furthermore, the ‘War on Drugs’ should illustrate any such project is doomed to be a dismal failure. This “War on Terror” has been no different. In fact, the methodology is directly in conflict with the professed goal, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan substantially increased terrorism, exactly as it was expected to.

That said, there is an epidemic of violent extremism in the Muslim world, and it isn’t going to magically disappear on it’s own. I don’t claim to have ‘the’ answer, but I could make a few suggestions; Ending the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Changing economic policies that are destructive and unfair to the region. Ceasing support for human rights violators. Joining the global consensus on restoring the 1967 borders in Israel/Palestine, and pressuring the Israeli government to follow International law. Last but not least, any steps that can be taken to promote secularization, most essentially education. The best weapons against Islamic extremism aren’t bombs, but schools.


Anyway, Chris Hitchens Lite, I hope you and your liberal atheism are very happy together.

See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. The abuse of language here is galling.

I agree with Christoper Hitchens on a number of things, I also disagree with him on a number of things. On his total opposition to religion, as an Anarchist, I completely agree, he also provides an excellent analysis of the Vietnam war and Henry Kissinger’s role in government policy, however he’s a bit batty when it comes to the wars in the middle east, which is what I think you’re referring to.


"Allahu Akbar." What a fucking idiot.

Very intelligent.

I know I’m wasting my time, but just to reiterate;

I fully acknowledge the substantial amount of suffering and misery inflicted on the region by western governments and corporations, and that the actions of said entities have contributed to making the environment more fertile for Islamic extremism. However, as much as you hate to hear it, the perpetrators have to actually carry some of the responsibility, too, as does the primitive dogma that inspires them.

[NGNM85]

You'll be a future signer of the Euston Manifesto, I guarantee it. Quit while you're ahead. Read Oliver Kamm's Antotalitarianism: The Left Wing Case for Neo-Conservatism and subscribe to Democratiya, a "liberal-left" journal that you would happily enjoy. If there is anything else you need to help you become a proponent of western superiority and "anti-totalitarian" liberalism, then just pm me.

I'm not even sure you know what 'liberal' means. I'm only vaguely familiar with what you're referencing but I'm nearly positive it's nothing I'd want to be associated with. Personally, I'm an Anarchist. You're also completely mischaracterizing what I said. I don't believe that westerners are superior, I think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic. That's a crucial distinction.

[RadioRaheem84]

I think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic.You are not an anarchist. :lol:


I said “shrill, incoherent, and crazy.” You and the others are making increasingly emotional and vehement charges that Maher is a racist (And a Zionist, and a xenophobe.) for which no evidence is actually provided, and simply growing more strident, as well as incoherent, as time goes on. I explained myself very clearly. When I say religion is the antithesis of civilization, I’m not being hyperbolic, I’m being completely serious.I guess the Ann Coulter-lite rant that was posted above didn't change your mind? We've done all we could with you. You're defense is weak and reeks of the same tripe spewed by Euston Manifesto types. Believe me, you will enjoy what you read from the references I listed. Not all of it is pro-war, in fact most of it is actually anti-war but from a different pro-western perspective.

Your arguments remind me a lot of Paul Berman's critique of Noam Chomsky in his book Terror and Liberalism (I also suggest):

http://demosophia.mu.nu/archives/169849.php


The notion that, in large parts of the world, a mass movement of radical Islamists had arisen, devoted to mad hatreds and conspiracy theories; the notion that radical Islamists were slaughtering people in one country after another for the purpose of slaughtering them; the notion that radical Islamists ought to be taken at their word and that shariah and the seventh-century Caliphate were their goals, and that Jews and Christians were demonic figures worthy of death; the notion that bin Laden had ordered random killings of Americans strictly for the purpose of killing Americans--all of this was, from Chomsky's perspective, not even worth discussing. It was because, to Chomsky, movements of that particular nature and style do not exist. What do exist are, instead, the two factors in his political theory; the instincts for greed and the instinct for freedom. How, then, to explain the 9/11 attacks? Chomsky knew what to think because it was what he had always thought. He could hardly deny that the 9/11 attacks had taken place. But his first impulse was to deny that the attacks were especially bad.. He compared the attacks to Clinton's missile strike on the Sudan in 1998--Clinton's feeble effort to attack bin Laden and his enterprise. In Clinton's attack on the Sudan, a pharmaceuticals factory (which the Clinton administration apparently in error, had identified as a bomb factory) was demolished. One person was killed--possibly two people. In Chomsky's interpretation, the damage that resulted from this attack easily outweighed the damage that resulted from the 9/11 attacks.

[Adi Shankara]

You are not an anarchist. :lol:

This--why would an anarchist be an anarchist if they had no problems with the state, or thought that the current system "worked"? it sounds like you're wearing inappropriate labels to add to your "rebel chic".

[Adi Shankara]

Personally, I'm an Anarchist. You're also completely mischaracterizing what I said. I don't believe that westerners are superior, I think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic. That's a crucial distinction.

I think that's the only time I ever gave negative reputation before.

Seriously, wtf? the very definition of being an anarchist is to be disatisfied with the current state of government and society, and you just completely contradicted yourself right there.

You're not an anarchist, you're just a poser. Probably listened to RATM and thought to yourself "gee, wouldn't it be cool if I called myself an anarchist? that'd make me look rebellious" :thumbdown:

[NGNM85]

This--why would an anarchist be an anarchist if they had no problems with the state,

It would just about impossible for such a person to be an Anarchist. I won’t guess at what point you think you’re making.


or thought that the current system "worked"?

First of all, using a phrase like ‘the system’ is such a crude, and simplistic generalization it’s almost completely useless. Obviously, our system (Political system? Economic system?) ‘works’ in the sense that it is doing things. Although, I don’t think this is what you meant. More to the point of what I think you’re trying to say is that I do not believe our present political, and economic systems are not ideal, some parts need to be changed, others, dismantled entirely. However, even though it’s not hip to admit it, they do actually serve some legitimate functions and meet certain needs. This is why any legitimate Anarchist should be opposing right-wing efforts to dismantle Social Security, or Medicare. Alas, I fear this is too subtle for some.


it sounds like you're wearing inappropriate labels to add to your "rebel chic".

I don’t think you know enough about me, or my ideas to make that determination.


I think that's the only time I ever gave negative reputation before.

Whatever. I’m not interested in winning the popularity contest, although I seem to have a pretty good batting average. Frankly, I don’t think very much of you, either.
However, I’m not interested in issuing demerits; I’m content to simply say my piece.


Seriously, wtf? the very definition of being an anarchist is to be disatisfied with the current state of government and society, and you just completely contradicted yourself right there.

That’s actually a rather poor definition of Anarchism. I would never use Wikipedia as a primary source, but it offers a very decent, if simplistic definition;

“Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.”

Or, as Chomsky put it, in simplest terms, the guiding principle of Anarchism is to identify systems of oppression and coercion and oppression in society and scrutinize their legitimacy, those that can’t meet a heavy burden of proof should be dismantled or replaced.

Nothing I said contradicts that in any way.


You're not an anarchist, you're just a poser. Probably listened to RATM and thought to yourself "gee, wouldn't it be cool if I called myself an anarchist? that'd make me look rebellious"

Very intelligent. Although, it’s interesting that I came to a similar assessment of you.

[NGNM85]

You are not an anarchist. :lol:


Oh, well since you put it that way. Seriously, if this is the best you can do...

I already defined Anarchism in the other post, I'm not going to do it again, I also highly recommend the Anarchist FAQ.



I guess the Ann Coulter-lite rant that was posted above didn't change your mind? We've done all we could with you. You're defense is weak and reeks of the same tripe spewed by Euston Manifesto types. Believe me, you will enjoy what you read from the references I listed. Not all of it is pro-war, in fact most of it is actually anti-war but from a different pro-western perspective.

This is part of you're problem. You see things in such crude oversimplified terms, and you conflate things together erasing crucial distinctions.

Yes, what I say about Islam sounds somewhat similar to what you hear on the right. However, there's crucial differences. For one, those people love to point out the flaws of Islam, but give Christianity a free pass, I don't do that, Christianity is equally backward, primitive, and hateful. Second, a lot of these people are very clearly racists, and I am not. I have no prejudice in this matter. 'Islamophobia', for lack of a better term, is a big problem in the west, and there has been a lot of repulsive anti-Arab, anti-Muslim vitriol ever since 9/11. I find it abhorrent, myself. However, there's a difference between taking objection to this anti-Muslim, or anti-Islam bigotry, thinly veiled or not-at-all, and completely absolving Islam or individual Muslims of any and all responsibility. I criticize those facets or elements of Islam, or other cultures that deserve to be criticized. It's like when Bill Maher made that joke about Obama being 'gangsta' ', and Rush Limbaugh playing the song "Barack the Magic Negro", one was just making a harmless joke, while the latter was genuinely racist. I can't teach you how to make these distinctions.



Your arguments remind me a lot of Paul Berman's critique of Noam Chomsky in his book Terror and Liberalism (I also suggest):

http://demosophia.mu.nu/archives/169849.php

Chomsky is one of my greatest influences, philosophically. I actually just picked up "Hopes and Prospects", yesterday.

I don't need to read this guy's book to know he's a nimrod, his analysis of the missle strike on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility isn't even wrong. If he actually read Chomsky's analysis, as he claims, he's a liar, as well, because Chomsky cited all the relevant data right there.

[The Red Next Door]

i'm not even sure you know what 'liberal' means. I'm only vaguely familiar with what you're referencing but i'm nearly positive it's nothing i'd want to be associated with. Personally, i'm an anarchist. You're also completely mischaracterizing what i said. I don't believe that westerners are superior, i think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic. That's a crucial distinction.


anarchist my ass!

[NGNM85]

anarchist my ass!

Translation; "I don't have anything intelligent to say."

[Robocommie]

Translation; "I don't have anything intelligent to say."

There's really not much to say at this point, man. That's certainly why I didn't bother responding to your more recent posts. Your argument is specious because it's inconsistent. You cite all these examples of Middle Eastern barbarism which somehow reflects badly on the entire culture at large, ignoring both the extreme cultural plurality implied by the label "Islamic" or "Arabic" and the fact that these extremities are, as a general rule, only found in areas that are either very impoverished or under extreme political environments, like the absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia, tribal warlordism in Afghanistan, or Israeli occupation in Palestine. That you don't recognize the primacy of these political and economic influences on the manifestations of culture marks you as more of a liberal at best, and not a leftist.

You become inconsistent when you insist that Western culture is superior because of it's democracy and secularism, ignoring all the numerous occasions of illiberal activity and politics in Western society - ignoring the essential fact that neither Western cultures and societies nor Middle Eastern cultures and societies are monolithic wholes. That this inconsistency of your argument strikes you as such an undeniable truism is why I accuse you of cultural chauvinism. You're blinded by an essentialist outlook on cultures and therefore you are inconsistent.

You hold up the two of these monolithic cultures, Us and Them, and compare them, and while you are quick to condemn the extremes of Christianity as well as Islam, this doesn't make you non-biased. In fact it highlights your evident chauvinism because while you acknowledge that western civilization suffers from fanatics like Pat Robertson and abortion clinic bombers, you still hold up western "civilization" and society as superior despite it, while Islamic "civilization" and society is still inferior, even though you acknowledge that terrorism and social oppression are not representative of the majority. The extreme example doesn't condemn the whole in one case, but it does in the other. That's cultural chauvinism man, and it's fucked up.

To you, all those Muslims who don't beat their wives and who don't blow themselves up in marketplaces simply don't count, because some do, and that's enough to dismiss the whole religion. Likewise with Christians, the most extreme examples are apparently the only ones that count because they were able to reconcile horridness with their religious beliefs, even though a vast majority of Christians reject these extreme examples as being hypocrites and inconsistent with core Christian values - because extremists exist who are somehow driven to radical lengths by their ideology, that ideology is bad. Somehow though, I don't imagine that you're put off by leftist politics and condemn it as the anti-thesis of civilization despite the atrocities committed by the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Japanese Red Army, or the Weathermen Underground. Again, inconsistency.

On the issue of why everyone's giving you shit now over your claims of anarchism; it's because you're inconsistent there as well. You call yourself an anarchist and yet you also express support for Social Security and Medicare. That's kind of ridiculous. You're saying that you, as a self-proclaimed anarchist, want to smash the state but keep the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services standing? It beggars belief.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Translation; "I don't have anything intelligent to say."

You're a racist. Deal with it.

I'm not gonna say you can't be a member of the black and red club, but if you've abandoned a strictly material analysis of culture you're probably not on the Left. In fact, if you go on to talk about how culture (which essentially is a result of material conditions) makes one superior or inferior chances are you're pretty close to being reactionary as fuck. It's really that simple.

You're a racist gtfo.

[NGNM85]

There's really not much to say at this point, man. That's certainly why I didn't bother responding to your more recent posts. Your argument is specious because it's inconsistent. You cite all these examples of Middle Eastern barbarism which somehow reflects badly on the entire culture at large, ignoring both the extreme cultural plurality implied by the label "Islamic" or "Arabic"

I didn’t say anything about Arabs. Ethnicity is a meaningless distinction that has no bearing on personality development, that’s the product of culture and environment. Islam is a belief system with very specific and well-defined ideas, codes of conduct, etc.


and the fact that these extremities are, as a general rule, only found in areas that are either very impoverished or under extreme political environments, like the absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia, tribal warlordism in Afghanistan, or Israeli occupation in Palestine.

Predominantly, but not exclusively.


That you don't recognize the primacy of these political and economic influences on the manifestations of culture marks you as more of a liberal at best, and not a leftist.

I said economics and politics are important factors. However, that doesn’t mean the actual perpetrators, the individuals who promote this behavior, and the Koran, which gave them the idea in the first place, are just totally washed clean of any responsibility at all. That’s sort of ridiculous.


You become inconsistent when you insist that Western culture is superior because of it's democracy and secularism, ignoring all the numerous occasions of illiberal activity and politics in Western society

I didn’t say it was perfect, actually I said the opposite, merely that it was the better by comparison.


ignoring the essential fact that neither Western cultures and societies nor Middle Eastern cultures and societies are monolithic wholes. That this inconsistency of your argument strikes you as such an undeniable truism is why I accuse you of cultural chauvinism. You're blinded by an essentialist outlook on cultures and therefore you are inconsistent.

Well, we have to generalize to some extent otherwise we couldn’t talk about it. For the most part, what I said is accurate.


You hold up the two of these monolithic cultures, Us and Them, and compare them, and while you are quick to condemn the extremes of Christianity as well as Islam, this doesn't make you non-biased. In fact it highlights your evident chauvinism because while you acknowledge that western civilization suffers from fanatics like Pat Robertson and abortion clinic bombers, you still hold up western "civilization" and society as superior despite it, while Islamic "civilization" and society is still inferior, even though you acknowledge that terrorism and social oppression are not representative of the majority. The extreme example doesn't condemn the whole in one case, but it does in the other. That's cultural chauvinism man, and it's fucked up.

This is a misunderstanding. No, I fault religion. Christianity and Islam are equally crazy, backward, primitive, and the extremists in both cases are equally representative of the nonsense they preach. However, they are not proportionally comparable. The violence of the Christian right is really a drop in the bucket, a handful of incidents, whereas in the Muslim world there is a substantial epidemic of violence. It may represent a fraction of the Muslim population, but a much bigger percentage than in the predominantly Judeo-Christian west. I also give Judeo-Christendom zero credit for this. If it were up to them, exclusively, they’d still be burning heretics. I credit about two centuries or so of Westerners pushing back against religion. I truly hope one day something like this will happen in the Middle East, for their sake as much as my own.


To you, all those Muslims who don't beat their wives and who don't blow themselves up in marketplaces simply don't count, because some do, and that's enough to dismiss the whole religion. Likewise with Christians, the most extreme examples are apparently the only ones that count because they were able to reconcile horridness with their religious beliefs, even though a vast majority of Christians reject these extreme examples as being hypocrites and inconsistent with core Christian values - because extremists exist who are somehow driven to radical lengths by their ideology, that ideology is bad.

I really hate repeating myself like this, but, again, what do the Koran/Torah/Bible actually say about women, about homosexuals, or about heretics? These books contain very clear, and very explicit exhortations to commit violence. They prescribe exactly how women should be treated (As chattel.), how homosexuals should be treated (Painful death followed by an eternity of torment.), as well as heretics. (Same prescription.) This are long texts, and with any large data set you can probably find something you want to see if you look hard enough, just by the law of averages. However, those that paint these ‘faiths’ as religions of love are exercising serious tunnel vision. You have to excise so much of these documents to interpret them that way it’s absurd. Moreover, none of these religions has any kind of monopoly on charity, humility, etc. These are very natural and logical impulses that are in no way dependent on belief in an omnipotent creator. However, the idea that women should be chattel, that the correct response to seeing you’re 13-year-old daughter talking to a boy is to cover her in petrol and burn her alive, that all homosexuals should be murdered, that condoms are worse than AIDS, you name it; these ideas don’t occur in a vacuum, they aren’t natural inclinations. Even if one were to claim that these are misinterpretations, that when the book says bring a heretic “hither, and slay him before me.” He means something totally benign, how have these passages been interpreted, historically? Moreover, if there were any product that, even when used improperly, was prone to malfunctioning and causing the kind of extreme wanton violence, bigotry, etc., that religion does, with the frequency that religion does, it would be completely indefensible. I totally acknowledge, thankfully, that fanatics are not the majority of any of these religions. However, that’s because they aren’t all that devoutly religious. Like, somebody else said, slightly religious people are a little goofy, fairly religious people are little crazy, and extremely religious people are fucking nuts. Also, even if none of this horrible violence and bigotry existed, simply the fact that religion is so fundamentally illogical, and destructive to rational thought is more than enough reason to get rid of it.





Somehow though, I don't imagine that you're put off by leftist politics and condemn it as the anti-thesis of civilization despite the atrocities committed by the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Japanese Red Army, or the Weathermen Underground. Again, inconsistency.

I wouldn’t conflate all of those groups together. Moreover, there isn’t one central text behind leftist politics. If there was, and it said that women should be second-class citizens, homosexuals and non-believers should be murdered, etc., I’d never associate myself with it.


On the issue of why everyone's giving you shit now over your claims of anarchism; it's because you're inconsistent there as well. You call yourself an anarchist and yet you also express support for Social Security and Medicare. That's kind of ridiculous. You're saying that you, as a self-proclaimed anarchist, want to smash the state but keep the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services standing? It beggars belief.

Not really, it’s only inconsistent for people who have a shallow conception of Anarchism. Chomsky sums it up in this passage;

“..the state is an illegitimate institution. But it does not follow from that that you should not support the state. Sometimes there is a more illegitimate institution which will take over if you do not support this illegitimate institution. So, if you’re concerned with the people, let’s be concrete, let’s take the United States. There is a state sector that does awful things, but it also happens to do some good things. As a result of…extensive popular struggle there is a minimal welfare system that provides support for poor mothers and children. That’s’ under attack in an attempt to minimize the state. Well, Anarchists can’t seem to understand that they are to support that. …meaning put more power into the hands of private tyrannies which are completely unaccountable…and purely totalitarian.
…If you care about the question of whether seven-year-old children have food to eat, you’ll support the state sector at this point, recognizing that in the long term it’s illegitimate.
..In fact, protecting the state sector today is a step towards abolishing the state because it maintains a public arena in which people can participate and organize, and affect policy, and so on, though in limited ways. If that’s’ removed we’d go back to a…dictatorship, or a private dictatorship, but that’s’ hardly a step towards liberation.”

So the question is; “Do you care?” If the answer is, “No”, then you can’t really be an Anarchist.

[Franz Fanonipants]

I said economics and politics are important factors. However, that doesn’t mean the actual perpetrators, the individuals who promote this behavior, and the Koran, which gave them the idea in the first place, are just totally washed clean of any responsibility at all. That’s sort of ridiculous.

You are a racist/cultural chauvinist/imperialist pig. This is nothing more than proof of my prior point. You cannot ignore or even lessen the importance of material conditions, otherwise you are essentially an enlightenment-era thinker who curses the "darkness of Mohammadean essence."

So, kindly, as I said, gtfo.

[Robocommie]

I don't really expect you to understand NGNM, because as I said, you're a cultural chauvinist, and I don't think you are one out of ignorance, because you're clearly well enough educated, but rather you're a chauvinist out of deeply seated biases and prejudices. You should really read Edward Said to see just how bluntly you're playing into the Orientalist narrative.

I also think it's funny how everything I had said to you regarding transhumanists being Eurocentrists has proven true.

Racist, gtfo.

[Franz Fanonipants]

You should really read Edward Said to see just how bluntly you're playing into the Orientalist narrative.

I don't think the dude can read.

E: unless its sci-fi. probably. that's my prognosis.

[NGNM85]

You are a racist/cultural chauvinist/imperialist pig. This is nothing more than proof of my prior point. You cannot ignore or even lessen the importance of material conditions,

That isn’t what I said, you’re the one with the blind spot. I have repeatedly acknowledged that political and economic problems have helped to foster Islamic fundamentalism, and provided new spaces where it can grow. All I’m saying is that Microsoft doesn’t set women on fire, nor did it write the book that gives people the idea in the first place. I’m saying there’s responsibility all around. You and the others don’t want anything to interfere with your narrative that the west is the epitome of all evil and 100% responsible for absolutely everything bad that ever happened or will happen.


otherwise you are essentially an enlightenment-era thinker who curses the "darkness of Mohammadean essence."

It might sound similar, but it isn’t. Those people were racist, to some degree or another. I’ve said many times I don’t think Islam, as a doctrine, is any worse than Christianity, or Judaism.


So, kindly, as I said, gtfo.

I don't think the dude can read.

E: unless its sci-fi. probably. that's my prognosis.

Very mature.



I don't really expect you to understand NGNM,

Please…


because as I said, you're a cultural chauvinist, and I don't think you are one out of ignorance, because you're clearly well enough educated,

You’re too kind.


but rather you're a chauvinist out of deeply seated biases and prejudices. You should really read Edward Said to see just how bluntly you're playing into the Orientalist narrative.

I’m only vaguely familiar with his work. However, I think you’re mischaracterizing what I said.


I also think it's funny how everything I had said to you regarding transhumanists being Eurocentrists has proven true.

That’s really a subject for a different thread.


Racist, gtfo.

You’re doing yourself a real disservice. I thought almost everything you said in your last post was wrong, however you articulated yourself clearly and offered intelligent, if inaccurate, criticism. We go from an adult conversation about philosophy and religion to this petty elementary-school crap? I’m pretty sure the other fellow is just a moron, but you can do better.

Second; “racist”?! You’ve got to be fucking kidding. This is asinine. Nothing I have ever posted can be accurately described as racist. I just said race is a meaningless distinction that has no bearing on behavior. (Because that’s true.) This is a blatant lie. It also proves my earlier point about Bill Maher. You make it impossible to respect you. Frankly, I would think you would have more self-respect.

[Franz Fanonipants]

blah blah blah

Microsoft makes women in Taiwan sterile and die young from cancer by inhaling chip fumes, but capitalist patriarchy is way better than Islamic patriarchy cus Microsoft isn't made up of hellacious Browns, right brah?

The thing is, you are siding with imperialism and capitalism when you claim that the West is innately superior to Islam. I don't really understand how you don't get that you're a HUGE racist for that assertion.


It might sound similar, but it isn’t. Those people were racist, to some degree or another.

You're. A. Fucking. Racist. Just like those people. It's that simple.

E: you'll also notice that, while you're going to the "HE MADE ADHOMINEMS HIS ARGUMENT IS NULL!" brand of rhetoric, I've mostly attacked the fact that you're a raging racist. Don't call me a moron.

[ZeroNowhere]

I think that this thread would be best served if people who decided to label others with various popular Revleft slur terms would cite evidence from the person in question's posts, and then explain, defining their terms, why this evidence demonstrates the accuracy of the label. Otherwise, it would make sense to just be quiet and stick to addressing their points.

[RadioRaheem84]

NGN keeps failing to miss that to even believe that the West is a better "alternative" is to presume that there are these fixed societies that are clashing. That is a very non-anarchist way of thinking. Very orientalist, non-materialist, and very Bernard Lewis-ish. He keeps saying that christianity is just as bad if not worst than Islam, as if that is even a point that we were making! He even went into comparing an Ann Coulter rant vs. Maher, as if to suggest that Maher's "real black president" joke was less racist due to it's sincere hilarity (which is also subjective). NGN, this is what markedly distincts a liberal from a conservative anyway. They share the same basic presumptions but disagree on solutions, methods, techniques. Hence the whole pro-war, anti-war argument being reduced to merely one of method and technique (as Maher himself suggested).

[Franz Fanonipants]

I think that this thread would be best served if people who decided to label others with various popular Revleft slur terms would cite evidence from the person in question's posts, and then explain why this evidence demonstrates the accuracy of the label. Otherwise, it would make sense to just be quiet and stick to addressing their points.


I think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic. That's a crucial distinction.

That right there is pretty much all the evidence needed to call the dude a liberal at the least. Capitalism is neither essentially free nor democratic, I think that's a point we can all agree upon. Now, he did say that he doesn't specifically think that "free and democratic" society makes any Westerner superior to your average Muslim, but the thing is it follows that if Western society is structured in superior ways, those who live outside of Western society live in the darkness of "Mahometan superstition."

That is by itself racist. I'm sure he'll have counter-arguments about how vehemently anti-theist he is and how he doesn't feel like his criticism especially target Islam, and that would be great in a Western world that wasn't in the middle of targeting Islam as a counterpoint to everything good that it stands for. In his context, targeting Islam as evil and reactionary is racist by its own.

Is that more what you want?

E: you're probably a racist too, for defending him.

[Glenn Beck]

I always find it funny when "leftists" get all fixated on how horrible "Islamic civilization" is. It's like they never stop to think about why they are hearing so much about how awful Muslims are, and the wider implications of the exceptional scrutiny of Islamic practices in the present context of ongoing imperialist struggle for control over Central Asia and the hysterical nativist backlash by many of the enlightened and noble citizens of the tolerant West against Muslim immigration.

I feel like some of you people would have been cheering on the Spanish-American War and the conquest of the Philippines to fight Catholic superstition and spread democracy. The wars that inspired the writing of The White Man's Burden, no less.

[Franz Fanonipants]

I feel like some of you people would have been cheering on the Spanish-American War and the conquest of the Philippines to fight Catholic superstition and spread democracy.

well you see papistry...

[Franz Fanonipants]

You know, though, thinking about it, if NGN is a self-identified anarchist who loves the freedom and democracy of capitalism...doesn't that basically just make him a Libertarian?

[NGNM85]

Don't do that.


Microsoft makes women in Taiwan sterile and die young from cancer by inhaling chip fumes, but capitalist patriarchy is way better than Islamic patriarchy cus Microsoft isn't made up of hellacious Browns, right brah?

Actually, I don't think Microsoft gives a damn about the gender of their sweatshop workers. Cheap labor is cheap labor. The rest is just hyperbolic nonsense.


The thing is, you are siding with imperialism and capitalism when you claim that the West is innately superior to Islam.

No, I'm not. I didn't say the West is 'innately superior.' I said that Western society is more democratic, we have freedom of speech, secular government, women's rights, gay rights, etc. I also said nothing about capitalism, which I'm against. I'm also against the corporate communism that is actually practiced in the West.


I don't really understand how you don't get that you're a HUGE racist for that assertion.

You're. A. Fucking. Racist. Just like those people. It's that simple.

I didn't assert what you claim, and I'm not a racist, and nothing I've said remotely qualifies as racist. That is, if we go by the actual definition. It's as absurd as the right-wingers who claim any and all criticism of Israeli foreign policy is anti-semitic. Absurd.


E: you'll also notice that, while you're going to the "HE MADE ADHOMINEMS HIS ARGUMENT IS NULL!" brand of rhetoric, I've mostly attacked the fact that you're a raging racist.

No, you just stated it as if it were self-evident and acted pleased with yourself.


Don't call me a moron.

Don't act like one.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Like, honestly, man, you'd probably be better off going to over to Sciences and Environment and talking about how stoked you are about having real life catgirls at some weird point in the future.

If you don't understand the linkage between capitalism and every alleged Western "right" you've identified, you aren't really the kind of person to be asking other people to not act like morons.

It's cool if you're a racist libertarian, but I don't know if this is really where you oughta be.

[Robocommie]

No, I'm not. I didn't say the West is 'innately superior.' I said that Western society is more democratic, we have freedom of speech, secular government, women's rights, gay rights, etc.

Did you forget what started this whole thing? Bill Maher saying that western culture isn't just different, it's better. Bet-ter. In a word, superior. He was in no way ambiguous about that. And because you tied your banner to him and defended those remarks as an obvious truism, you can't back out now, shift goalposts and simply state, "I'm just saying we're more democratic blah blah"

Particularly considering that the problems of development, which includes stable bourgeois democracy and the civil rights that accompany them, are completely tied up first with Turkish imperialism, and then by British and French colonialism in the area. Economic determinism, man. Societies do not develop in a straight line, where either tomorrow is more advanced than yesterday or else it's stalled. I guarantee you that if history had been radically different, and a foreign power had conquered western Europe or North America and instituted colonial rule, then none of these wonderfully stable and democratic societies would be likely to exist today.

[NGNM85]

Did you forget what started this whole thing? Bill Maher saying that western culture isn't just different, it's better. Bet-ter. In a word, superior. He was in no way ambiguous about that. And because you tied your banner to him and defended those remarks as an obvious truism, you can't back out now, shift goalposts and simply state, "I'm just saying we're more democratic blah blah"

He didn't just say that, though. He followed it up by saying essentially the same thing, that our society is more equitable, free, and democratic, that's why it's better. You're just removing the context and interpreting it the way you, apparently, want to hear it.


Particularly considering that the problems of development, including of reliable democratic government and the civil rights that accompany them, are completely tied up first with Turkish imperialism, and then by British and French colonialism in the area. Economic determinism, man.

"I've acknowledged economic factors!"

Yeah, except then you go right back into saying that REALLY, for really really? It's about religion. Which is not economic determinism.

If you are seriously saying that honor killings, jihadist martyrs, etc., have absolutely nothing to do with religion, at all, you're living in a fantasy land. That's completely absurd.

[Franz Fanonipants]

If you are seriously saying that honor killings, jihadist martyrs, etc., have absolutely nothing to do with religion, at all, you're living in a fantasy land. That's completely absurd.

So basically, you're entirely rejecting material determinism in favor of some wishy-washy "b-b-b-b-buh CULTURE MAKES SAVAGES" argument.

Man I can't even imagine how you could NOT tie honor killings or "jihadist martyrs" (go the fuck back to free republic btw) to material conditions. I think your problem is the universal problem of all reactionaries when faced with material determinism, you believe that saying that because material conditions create certain problematic patterns of behavior the people who carry out those patterns are blameless. So, in a reactionary fury you've backed yourself into a corner trying to find every excuse for the actions of Muslims you don't like to be condemned without sounding racist, and you've fallen upon religion as the best way to get your deepseated racism out without feeling like you're being racist.

[NGNM85]

If you don't understand the linkage between capitalism and every alleged Western "right" you've identified, you aren't really the kind of person to be asking other people to not act like morons.

'Capitalist human rights' is like 'Jewish physics.'


It's cool if you're a racist libertarian, but I don't know if this is really where you oughta be.

The charge of racism is obviously false. I am a libertarian, however, in the classical sense; meaning a left-wing, or anti-state-socialist, or 'Anarchist.'

[Franz Fanonipants]

The charge of racism is obviously false. I am a libertarian, however, in the classical sense; meaning a left-wing, or anti-state-socialist, or 'Anarchist.'

There isn't a single left-wing thing about you.

E: and I'd shift where I'd put the quotations on that capitalists human rights deal. it oughta be capitalist "human rights."

[Wolf Larson]

Anyone defending Bill Maher needs to come have a few beers with me so I can talk some sense into you. Or maybe you need to stop having so many beers? Either way there's beer involved.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

As soon as he mentions Communism they all jump down his throat. Typical Capitalist attitude towards differing opinions.

I love how the Erin person thinks its so controversial that Boots "believes more in material equality than in individual rights" whats so wrong about that when you think about it?

[Robocommie]

He didn't just say that, though. He followed it up by saying essentially the same thing, that our society is more equitable, free, and democratic, that's why it's better. You're just removing the context and interpreting it the way you, apparently, want to hear it.

Yeah, and he's still a fucking chauvinist, and you're both still wrong.

I'm so glad you're taking your cues from a Zionist liberal, bro.



If you are seriously saying that honor killings, jihadist martyrs, etc., have absolutely nothing to do with religion, at all, you're living in a fantasy land. That's completely absurd.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Islam



Under Islamic law, marriage was no longer viewed as a "status" but rather as a "contract", in which the woman's consent was imperative. "Women were given inheritance rights in a patriarchal society that had previously restricted inheritance to male relatives." Annemarie Schimmel states that "compared to the pre-Islamic position of women, Islamic legislation meant an enormous progress; the woman has the right, at least according to the letter of the law, to administer the wealth she has brought into the family or has earned by her own work."

William Montgomery Watt states that Muhammad, in the historical context of his time, can be seen as a figure who promoted women’s rights and improved things considerably. Watt explains: "At the time Islam began, the conditions of women were terrible - they had no right to own property, were supposed to be the property of the man, and if the man died everything went to his sons." Muhammad, however, by "instituting rights of property ownership, inheritance, education and divorce, gave women certain basic safeguards.

So-called Honor killing (murders, nearly exclusively of women, of persons who are perceived as having brought dishonor to their families) are often identified with Islam, however Islam doesn't allow honor killings. Even though honour killings are more common in Muslim-majority countries, they occur in other countries as well. Many Muslim scholars and commentators say that honor killings are a cultural practice which is neither exclusive to, nor universal within, the Islamic world.

According to law professor Noah Feldman in the New York Times, Islam "condemns the vigilante-style honor killings that still occur in some Middle Eastern countries."You know which Muslims agree with your views on women in Islam? Conservative Muslims. It's funny, it's as if politics are at play within the religion, affecting society from some kindof... I dunno, economic and political base?

Etc, etc. Suicide bombings occur in warzones like Palestine and Iraq where violence is endemic. You know who loved the suicide bombings? Tamil Tigers. They were Marxist.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Jihadist Marty lives down the street from me. The dude gets real uptight a lot. But he's down.

[mikelepore]

This concept of "cultural chauvinism" makes no sense to me. There's no rule that people can't criticize the oppression in another country because that distracts them from criticizing the oppression in the country where they live. The brain doesn't have just one compartment for thinking about this. People should analyze the problems and situation in every part of the world. But if someone here makes a comment about the oppression that occurs in another part of the world, they get accused of being a "racist" or "chauvinist", because they don't live in that other land and yet they made a critical comment about its laws and political system. This approach is dead wrong. (Okay, your turn. You can call me a "racist" now.)

[Franz Fanonipants]

superiority and the use of words like "better" or "worse" is where the problem comes in.

I think that Wahhabist strains of Islam aren't really awesome, but I'm not gonna pretend that Western "rational" capitalism is better.

[Obs]

superiority and the use of words like "better" or "worse" is where the problem comes in.

I think that Wahhabist strains of Islam aren't really awesome, but I'm not gonna pretend that Western "rational" capitalism is better.
Wahhabist Islam is caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't a Western thing - it's the chains weighing down the whole world. Remember that.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Wahhabist Islam is caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't a Western thing - it's the chains weighing down the whole world. Remember that.

I stand corrected, yeah.

[RadioRaheem84]

Wahhabist Islam is caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't a Western thing - it's the chains weighing down the whole world. Remember that.

Bingo. This where the crux of the argument lies. Capitalism isn't bound by borders. It's exists in the east regardless of western influence and strangles true democratic progress. Many people fall back on religion as a means to sigh in an oppressive world. Others use it politically to construct an alternative. All in all capitalism creates the condition for these movements to flourish. It isn't like these movements sprung out of a vaccum. But that's what people like Maher try to spew. That there are just these mass pathalogical movements that spring forth out of a desire to enslave and to tie it to the material conditions created by globalization is spurious. How NGN cannot see this is beyond me, especially if he considers himself a leftist who reads Chomsky. Why does he think that we don't see the extremism he describes as horrible too? He makes it a point to emphasize this aspect as if it over rides the materialist outlook even though this is the exact thing that seperates Hitchens from the real left. That he thinks that extremist religion poses the biggest threat to civilization even over the source that brought it all about. It's pure liberalism. All people like Hitchens (and NGN) did was slide over to conventional liberalism.

[Barry Lyndon]

'Capitalist human rights' is like 'Jewish physics.'



The charge of racism is obviously false. I am a libertarian, however, in the classical sense; meaning a left-wing, or anti-state-socialist, or 'Anarchist.'

Ha! You spend enormous amounts of energy denying that Bill Maher's cheerleading(I'm sorry, 'criticizing the conduct of') the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned Muslims is not rooted in racism. Then, you turn around and insinuate that exposing the hypocritical capitalist discourse on human rights is comparable to anti-Semitism. Good job going in circles.

[mikelepore]

People here are opinionated about Bill Maher's use of the word "better."

Of course no human population is better than another, but a legal idea may be a better idea, a suggestion about a form of government may be a better suggestion.

Let me give everyone a short history lesson.

When the U.S. government was founded (yes, founded by rich, white, male slave-owners, we all know that), three of the founders by the name of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton had received their childhood education in Scotland, where they were influenced by the philosophical movement that is often called the Scottish Enlightenment. In addition to a bunch of scientists and inventors, that tradition in Scotland included a philosopher named John Locke. They came back home to America and reported that they had studied some books about a radical idea called "separation of church and state", which was Jefferson's name for it.

This idea resonated with the Americans, partly because of the memory that some settlers had previously emigated to America to avoid religious persecution in England. In England, under Henry VIII people would get killed for being Catholics, and then under Bloody Mary people would get killed for being Protestants, etc., so instead of pretending to flip-flop on religion every few years to save their lives, some people boarded ships and went to America, with the intention of making religion voluntary. Of course there were setbacks and hypocrisy, and one case that is well-known was the Massachusetts witchcraft trials of 1692. However, America tended to be a place where the idea of "separation of church and state" would eventually take root.

Later when the founders of the U.S. government drafted a written constitution they put this law into it: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (As amended in 1791.)

Many other countries and political writers around the world have adopted this idea also. In the "Essay on the Jewish Question", this is the concept that Karl Marx is talking about where he writes: "Man emancipates himself politically from religion by banishing it from the sphere of public law to that of private law." All atheists in the world agree that religious practices should never be required by any country's laws, but should always be kept separate and voluntary.

Compared to legal codes of various countries that haven't yet included this provision, legal codes that have included it are better. That one point alone is what Bill Maher is talking about when frequently makes this comment about theocratic legal codes: "Our system isn't only different from theirs -- it's better." There is nothing to condemn in what he said. Maher is right. In composing a set of laws for any country, anywhere on earth, for religious observances to be non-compulsory is a better arrangement.

He could have found clearer wording when he chose the phrase "our system", but the context of the whole speech perfectly clarifies what he is talking about. Only someone who doesn't hear the entire speech could miss what the topic was.

Under a theocratic law, people who decide to quit their religion or violate its customs get a whipping and imprisonment, if they're lucky -- killed if they're unlucky. Women usually get abused worst of all. To repeal and to avoid such laws is better. Yes, I just used the word "better."

If the word "racism" is going to be redefined so that it means the atheists' and civil iberties proponents' uncompromising call for a separation of religion and government, throughout the world, then please add my name to the list of racists. But, fortunately, the writers in this forum are not a committee empowered by anyone to redefine words for everyone else.

[Robocommie]

Completely missing the point, Mike.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Mike, your post was long and boring and I didn't read anything but the bolded part.

But I'm pretty sure you basically just confirmed that you don't know a goddamn thing about what's being discussed here.

Now, if you wanna go around calling yourself a racist, openly, for believing that the American system is "better" then that's fine. But I'd question deeply why you're on a website called RevLeft if that's what you believe.

[NGNM85]

Ha! You spend enormous amounts of energy denying that Bill Maher's cheerleading(I'm sorry, 'criticizing the conduct of') the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned Muslims is not rooted in racism.

That's not a fair characterization of what he said, and he obviously is nor racist, at least according to the actual definition of the word. However, just as anti-semitism has been re-branded to include everyone who has the audacity to criticize Israel's foreign policy, you've created a brand new definition of 'racism'.



Then, you turn around and insinuate that exposing the hypocritical capitalist discourse on human rights is comparable to anti-Semitism. Good job going in circles.

No, my point was human rights are no more inherently capitalist than physics is Jewish, which is to say, not in the slightest.

[Franz Fanonipants]

you've created a brand new definition of 'racism'.

lol lol lol

[NGNM85]

Bingo. This where the crux of the argument lies. Capitalism isn't bound by borders.

For the most part that's accurate.


It's exists in the east regardless of western influence and strangles true democratic progress.

In some cases, yes, but it's not the only stumbling block to progress.


Many people fall back on religion as a means to sigh in an oppressive world.

Unfortunately, so.


Others use it politically to construct an alternative.

Nothing that is positive, nothing real, comes from religion that can't be better acquired by other means.


All in all capitalism creates the condition for these movements to flourish. It isn't like these movements sprung out of a vaccum.

I fully acknowledge that political and economic factors contribute to the spread of fundamentalist Islam, I've never denied that.


But that's what people like Maher try to spew.

There you go, again...


That there are just these mass pathalogical movements that spring forth out of a desire to enslave and to tie it to the material conditions created by globalization is spurious.

Again, I never denied that outside influences played a part in it.


How NGN cannot see this is beyond me, especially if he considers himself a leftist who reads Chomsky. Why does he think that we don't see the extremism he describes as horrible too?

Do you? I'm not convinced. Or perhaps you do, however you don't want the perpetrators, or their ideology to be held in any way responsible. That's been made abundantly clear. Apparently the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, etc., are completely blameless and beyond reproach. I just said if we're going to be holding people accountable that the perpetrators and their beliefs should also be named in the indictment. apparently, that's bot completely unacceptable and 'racist.'


He makes it a point to emphasize this aspect as if it over rides the materialist outlook even though this is the exact thing that seperates Hitchens from the real left.

I don't speak for Christopher Hitchens, he doesn't speak for me, I don't want to speak for him.


That he thinks that extremist religion poses the biggest threat to civilization even over the source that brought it all about. It's pure liberalism. All people like Hitchens (and NGN) did was slide over to conventional liberalism.

No, I'm saying that religion (No superfluous adjectives.) is one of the biggest threats to the human race. It's actually one of a diabolical trifecta which is responsible for eight or nine-tenths of all human suffering in the world. The three heads of the hydra are thus; (In no particular order.)

Nationalism
Capitalism (Or the corporate communist system we live under.)
Religion

These are the primary sources of mankinds' ills, the same devil wearing three different faces. I'm not arguing against a specific type of religion because it's all bad. However, although the PC police forbid saying so, some are worse than others. Tibetan Buddhism certainly has a much smaller bodycount. As I was saying, all religion is fundamentally bad. Ultimately, we're going to have to choose between it and civilization, or human progress will have to come to a standstill.

I'm still not convinced you know what 'liberal' means. However, my ideology is Anarchism; a secular, anti-state, or left-wing socialism.

[RadioRaheem84]

NGN, I blame capitalism for the horrible crimes committed by gangs but I still think they should be held accountable for their crimes. It's the same way I view radical extremists. I still don't get though how you even defend Maher if you're a leftist and anarchist.

[RadioRaheem84]

Corporate communism? What the hell?

[Franz Fanonipants]

Corporate communism? What the hell?

I think dude is just making shit up. Or is claiming that corporations enjoy communist economic structures from collusion with the state.

Either way, he's basically just making shit up and has a garbage critique of capitalism.

[RadioRaheem84]

Isn't it a right wing argument that to suggest that capitalism is to blame for terrorism is to absolve the crimes of terrorists? Why does NGN think that we excuse their crimes because their is a bigger source for the violence?

[Franz Fanonipants]

Isn't it a right wing argument that to suggest that capitalism is to blame for terrorism is to absolve the crimes of terrorists? Why does NGN think that we excuse their crimes because their is a bigger source for the violence?

I actually addressed this earlier in the thread, it is a deeply reactionary response to believe that analysis of material conditions absolves people of responsibility.

NGN is essentially mouthing Libertarian (in the American sense) propaganda continually.

[mikelepore]

Mike, your post was long and boring and I didn't read anything but the bolded part.

I was already aware that there are some people who think that ignorance itself is something to be proud of.


But I'm pretty sure you basically just confirmed that you don't know a goddamn thing about what's being discussed here.

You don't realize it, but what is being discussed here is how the left is discredited in the eyes of the working class, partly because many people on the left run around calling people "racist" for no valid reason, using the word "racist" as a catch-all epithet to mean "anyone that I had any sort of disagreement with." Because of this disgraceful behavior by many on the left, the entire working class is driven away from considering leftist principles and beliefs, causing society to get stuck with living under capitalism for an additional hundred years.


Now, if you wanna go around calling yourself a racist, openly, for believing that the American system is "better" then that's fine. But I'd question deeply why you're on a website called RevLeft if that's what you believe.

Okay. The record is plain. I'm on record as saying that it is "better" if people who live under a government where women get whipped for not obeying dress codes, where women are prohibited to go to school, etc. were to take power and get those laws repealed. You're on record as saying that abolishing such oppressive laws would NOT be "better", and that the position that it's "better" to avoid religion-based laws is called "racism."

I was looking recently at an article about a women in Sudan who was stopped by police for not having her head covered and was sentenced to receive forty lashes of the whip on her back and fined 10,000 dinars. I have no hesitation at all with saying that it would be better if that law were removed from the legal code. Vastly better. Infinitely better. (You see, I don't have any phobia that causes an adverse reaction when I say the word "better." No skin rash, no heart palpitations.)

I'm allowed to say that even though I live on the opposite side of a national boundary. I don't care anything about national boundaries, which are nothing but dotted lines on map. I only care about human beings.

What's the basis for the claim that the laws enacted by the legislature in each country are a "race", so that, if someone who lives in one country criticizes the legal system of another country, that constitutes "racism"? Is the prevailing theory here that people in each country have genes or perhaps entire chromosomes that determine the laws enacted by their governments?

[Robocommie]

You don't realize it, but what is being discussed here is how the left is discredited in the eyes of the working class, partly because many people on the left run around calling people "racist" for no valid reason, using the word "racist" as a catch-all epithet to mean "anyone that I had any sort of disagreement with." Because of this disgraceful behavior by many on the left, the entire working class is driven away from considering leftist principles and beliefs, causing society to get stuck with living under capitalism for an additional hundred years.

If oversensitive white leftists feel threatened by the discussion of racism and don't like having their discourses challenged in regards to cultures which have historically been colonized by whites, then they should get out. The world does not need the obstacle of their self-centeredness when we try and repair the damage done by colonialism. Any revolution that doesn't understand the need for vigilance in it's discourse about people of color is not a revolution worth having.



I was looking recently at an article about a women in Sudan who was stopped by police for not having her head covered and was sentenced to receive forty lashes of the whip on her back and fined 10,000 dinars. I have no hesitation at all with saying that it would be better if that law were removed from the legal code. Vastly better. Infinitely better. (You see, I don't have any phobia that causes an adverse reaction when I say the word "better." No skin rash, no heart palpitations.)Since you're having such a good time being so hyperbolic about it; I'll join you - it would be much much better if that law was not on the books. It's a horrible horrible law and Sudan would be a far better place without it.

The thing is Mike, the Sudan is hardly representative of the Arab world at large, or of the Islamic world at large. Does it not occur to you that the Sudan is going through a horrific civil war right now, characterized by religious and ethnic conflict? That since the contested south is largely Christian, and the government is officially Islamic, harshly enforcing sharia law might just be a method of the state exerting its power over southern Sudan? This shit does not happen in a vacuum, Mike.



I'm allowed to say that even though I live on the opposite side of a national boundary. I don't care anything about national boundaries, which are nothing but dotted lines on map. I only care about human beings.

What's the basis for the claim that the laws enacted by the legislature in each country are a "race", so that, if someone who lives in one country criticizes the legal system of another country, that constitutes "racism"? Is the prevailing theory here that people in each country have genes or perhaps entire chromosomes that determine the laws enacted by their governments?As I said, you're completely missing the point. This has nothing to do with national boundaries, this has nothing to do with good laws or bad laws... seriously, I don't understand how you missed this.

The argument is not that you cannot criticize another country's policies without being a racist. That'd be fucking stupid. Nobody here is saying that. Frankly I don't even know where you came up with this idea that this is what we are saying. Nobody here is defending theocracy or brutally oppressive theocratic governments; not one person. What we are saying is that this is in no way representative of the Middle East or the Islamic world in total, and that by suggesting it is in fact representative is actually fairly bigoted, chauvinist, and in so far as it regards Arabs or Iranians, racist.

This is why the Clash of Civilizations is such a ridiculous, offensive idea; it robs foreign cultures of their complexity and pluralism. Whereas we give ourselves the luxury of recognizing that our own society is complex, and full of many different social forces, opinions, sets of values, and attitudes, we deny this to other cultures and instead let them become a blurred mass.

We don't let it occur to us that repressive laws are enforced by repressive governments; instead we're too quick to assume it's the result of a repressive culture, even though nobody here would ever blame the German working class and German culture at large for Nazi Germany, or Chilean workers and Chilean culture for Pinochet, Cuban workers and Cuban culture for Batista, etc, etc.

Because the state narrative is one of unrelenting hostility towards the Islamic world, the media adopts this narrative and perpetuates it. And you guys pick it up and run with it like a bunch of rubes.

These abuses and horrible atrocities are real just as Nazi death camps or Chilean rape rooms were real. However, they are not a constant throughout the Islamic world, a world encompassing 1 billion people, nor throughout all of Arabic society, nor Iranian or Turkish or Azerbaijani or Kurdish. They appear in areas of extraordinary state repression or incredible poverty, or in areas torn apart by war and conflict, such as the Sudan, Palestine, or Iraq.

This is not hard to understand.

[bailey_187]

We don't let it occur to us that repressive laws are enforced by repressive governments; instead we're too quick to assume it's the result of a repressive culture, even though nobody here would ever blame the German working class and German culture at large for Nazi Germany, or Chilean workers and Chilean culture for Pinochet, Cuban workers and Cuban culture for Batista, etc, etc.

The culture of Nazi Germany was, for the most part Nazi etc. "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas" etc
The culture in the Muslim world is that imposed by the ruling classes in the Muslim world, the same way dominant American culture is that of the American bourgeosie. So why are you so quick to defend it or react to critcism of it?



Because the state narrative is one of unrelenting hostility towards the Islamic world, the media adopts this narrative and perpetuates it. And you guys pick it up and run with it like a bunch of rubes.

On the one hand, yes that is the narative of Islam from the right, however on the other "liberal" hand it is that "Islam is a religion of peace!". I think it was Jcky Smith, a Labour minister who said we should call suicide bombers "anti-islamic terrorists" as their action go against the Koran.



These abuses and horrible atrocities are real just as Nazi death camps or Chilean rape rooms were real. However, they are not a constant throughout the Islamic world, a world encompassing 1 billion people, nor throughout all of Arabic society, nor Iranian or Turkish or Azerbaijani or Kurdish. They appear in areas of extraordinary state repression or incredible poverty, or in areas torn apart by war and conflict, such as the Sudan, Palestine, or Iraq.

This is not hard to understand.

If by Islamic world you mean majority muslim population countries, of course not, as much of them are secular.

[Robocommie]

The culture of Nazi Germany was, for the most part Nazi etc. "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas" etc
The culture in the Muslim world is that imposed by the ruling classes in the Muslim world, the same way dominant American culture is that of the American bourgeosie. So why are you so quick to defend it or react to critcism of it?

That is such bullshit, there are always, within every society, cultural currents that strain against one another, mingle and compete. Proletarian culture does not arise out of a vacuum at the moment of revolution, and hegemony does not eliminate the culture of subordinate classes. If that were the case, then every Englishman would play croquet and badminton, and hunt foxes. This is about power relationships, not forms of cultural expression.



On the one hand, yes that is the narative of Islam from the right, however on the other "liberal" hand it is that "Islam is a religion of peace!". I think it was Jcky Smith, a Labour minister who said we should call suicide bombers "anti-islamic terrorists" as their action go against the Koran.Yes, and? For many hundreds of millions of Muslims who go about their lives without killing or hurting anyone, Islam IS a religion of peace, for a great many Muslim clerics and scholars, suicide bombers do go against the Koran. Islam is a lot of things to a lot of different people.



If by Islamic world you mean majority muslim population countries, of course not, as much of them are secular.That's exactly my point. A great many Islamic majority countries have secular governments. The theocratic ones are the extreme, manifestations of latter day politics.

[bailey_187]

there are always, within every society, cultural currents that strain against one another, mingle and compete. .....hegemony does not eliminate the culture of subordinate classes. If that were the case, then every Englishman would play croquet and badminton, and hunt foxes. This is about power relationships, not forms of cultural expression.




For many hundreds of millions of Muslims who go about their lives without killing or hurting anyone


Put these two together.




Islam IS a religion of peace, for a great many Muslim clerics and scholars, suicide bombers do go against the Koran. Islam is a lot of things to a lot of different people.

Islam, like all religions, is superstition. For every scholar who says the Koran says this, another will find a quote refuting it. Same with the Bible. Henry VIII found a quote saying he could marry his bro's ex-wife, the Pope found another. Its all a load of bollocks. Whether or not the Koran says peaceful or violent things is irelevent. Stop trying to prove your "multicultural" and liberal credentials.

[Robocommie]

Islam, like all religions, is superstition. For every scholar who says the Koran says this, another will find a quote refuting it. Same with the Bible. Henry VIII found a quote saying he could marry his bro's ex-wife, the Pope found another. Its all a load of bollocks. Whether or not the Koran says peaceful or violent things is irelevent. Stop trying to prove your "multicultural" and liberal credentials.

Whatever bailey, I'm not interested in the same old rehashed anti-theist bullshit.

[RadioRaheem84]

Islam is superstition but it also means different things to different people. Bailey you just did what Robbocommie was criticizing. You said dominant American culture was the the culture of the American bourgoise but the culture in the muslim world is that of of the Muslim ruling class. You give the western world a bit of complexity but not the "Muslim world". C'mon you might as well have called us the "Christian world".

[Obs]

Islam, like all religions, is superstition. For every scholar who says the Koran says this, another will find a quote refuting it. Same with the Bible. Henry VIII found a quote saying he could marry his bro's ex-wife, the Pope found another. Its all a load of bollocks. Whether or not the Koran says peaceful or violent things is irelevent. Stop trying to prove your "multicultural" and liberal credentials.
He wasn't actually saying anything about what the Qu'ran says. But, y'know, whatever works for your bourgeois atheist elitism.

[Barry Lyndon]

We don't let it occur to us that repressive laws are enforced by repressive governments; instead we're too quick to assume it's the result of a repressive culture, even though nobody here would ever blame the German working class and German culture at large for Nazi Germany, or Chilean workers and Chilean culture for Pinochet, Cuban workers and Cuban culture for Batista, etc, etc.

Because the state narrative is one of unrelenting hostility towards the Islamic world, the media adopts this narrative and perpetuates it. And you guys pick it up and run with it like a bunch of rubes.

These abuses and horrible atrocities are real just as Nazi death camps or Chilean rape rooms were real. However, they are not a constant throughout the Islamic world, a world encompassing 1 billion people, nor throughout all of Arabic society, nor Iranian or Turkish or Azerbaijani or Kurdish. They appear in areas of extraordinary state repression or incredible poverty, or in areas torn apart by war and conflict, such as the Sudan, Palestine, or Iraq.

This is not hard to understand.

This. It is interesting that when homosexuals and women are brutalized, beaten, persecuted and murdered in Muslim countries, Islam is immediately blamed. But when the same thing happens in Latin America, East Asia, or India, religion is not fingered as the 'cause' of these abuses. Even though its pretty clear that in all these cases the homophobic and sexist violence arises from a neo-feudal social and economic power structure which subordinates women as property. Religion plays a role, to be sure, but much less of an important role then we are led to believe IMHO.

Another thing that 'New Atheists' such as Sam Harris like to obsess over is the occurrence of 'honor killings' in the Middle East, where husbands or family members kill their wives or daughters in response to adultery, as proof of Islam's inherent barbarity. A family friend of mine, Sabaa Mahmoud(and no, she is not a Muslim, she is Pakistani but has been secular most of her life), a specialist in Muslim women's studies at the University of California at Berkely, wrote an essay in which she pointed out that in proportion to population, the rate of honor killings in Middle Eastern countries is not much higher then the number of 'crimes of passion' in the United States. Sure, the vengeful husband usually doesn't give a religious justification, but does it matter? It's the same basic motiviation and the woman is just as dead.

[mikelepore]

Robocommie, as for this sort of explanation --


What we are saying is that this is in no way representative of the Middle East or the Islamic world in total, and that by suggesting it is in fact representative is actually fairly bigoted, chauvinist, and in so far as it regards Arabs or Iranians, racist.

That's just plain wrong. The position that is being condemned here as bigoted, etc., is a position of sympathy with the people of other countries in their important civil rights struggle.

The people of some other countries are in trouble. They are being forced to live under repressive laws. There are religious preachers who claims to have authority over civil life, and there are governments that allow the preachers to exercise that power. Therefore, some people are in trouble and need to be emancipated.

This problem is more severe in a number of Islamic societies. Do you know of some largely Catholic countries where governments persecute people who fail to attend mass on Holy Days of Obligation? Do you know of some largely Buddhist countries where governments persecute people for improper observation of the Magha Puja festival? Clearly not. The people in largely Islamic societies tend to get hit harder with theocratic laws, and are more urgently in need of emancipation. Just as the US. goes through periods when the Rush Limbaugh ditto-heads and the Jerry Falwell Bible-thumpers control the political scene, the religious fundmentalists are in control of the political scene in several Islamic countries.

The criticism of those legal systems is a matter of sympathy and compassion for the people, and yet in this forum it has been spoken of as though it were bigotry _against_ the people. Total evidence offered here in support of that claim: none.

Bill Maher has displayed a right-wing viewpoint about the Vietnam War and the Cold War, and the stupid things that he has said about them should be denounced. However, the writers here should stop playing the illogical game of "if someone is an idiot then every sentence that he speaks must be false."

When Maher speaks out in sympathy with the people of other countries, whose progress in trying to force their brutal governments to modernize has been painfully slow, the people here should be saying that it's great that he's speaking out on the important subject. But instead what do the people here do - they call him a racist, chauvinist, and xenophobe.

[RadioRaheem84]

Ok that's enough. There's a huge difference between the New Anti theist crap spewed by Hitchens, Harris, Maher, and Dawkins, And the rational materialist perspective of Michael Parenti in God and His Demons. I would suggest people drop the former and read the latter. To subscribe to the current tripe by liberals is chauvinism masked as concern.

[Franz Fanonipants]

When Maher speaks out in sympathy with the people of other countries, whose progress in trying to force their brutal governments to modernize has been painfully slow, the people here should be saying that it's great that he's speaking out on the important subject. But instead what do the people here do - they call him a racist, chauvinist, and xenophobe.

You can't be anything but half-heartedly sympathetic towards people you regard as simply inferior to you. Bill Maher has no real sympathy for Muslims.

[Barry Lyndon]

When Maher speaks out in sympathy with the people of other countries, whose progress in trying to force their brutal governments to modernize has been painfully slow, the people here should be saying that it's great that he's speaking out on the important subject. But instead what do the people here do - they call him a racist, chauvinist, and xenophobe.

Yeah, he only justified the murder of a few million Asians, whats that to you?:mad:

I think its preposterous to claim that hes 'in sympathy' with people he advocates bombing on a regular basis.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Yeah, he only justified the murder of a few million Asians, whats that to you?:mad:

I think its preposterous to claim that hes 'in sympathy' with people he advocates bombing on a regular basis.

The dude basically thinks that Muslims are like genocidal children. Maybe he's advocating bombing them out of sympathy.

[Crux]

Religion is not dictated by what's in their respective holy books, neither are theocratic governments. Or to put it in religious terms, there is no god but the Mammon. Maher is racist, precisely because he claims thing's like equality being Western, implying there is an inherent cultural coding, and thus this superiority can be used to justify anything. I've seen racists do it a million times. Take the Sarkozy governments newfound care for "women's rights" in banning the burqa. It's not about women's right's, it's about cultural hegemony to further very material interests. Equality, democracy etc, in as far as they exist in western society, are not cultural nor a result of cultural superiority. Claiming so is, unwittingly or not, racist and extremely anti-materialist.

[NGNM85]

NGN, I blame capitalism for the horrible crimes committed by gangs but I still think they should be held accountable for their crimes. It's the same way I view radical extremists.

This is a first, then. Up until now, at least, none of the anti-Maher bloc has been willing to concede that the perpetrators of religious violence or their ideology carry any responsibility for the present state of affairs, whatsoever. No-one has given an inch in this, it’s been a blanket refusal. This is totally crazy.


I still don't get though how you even defend Maher if you're a leftist and anarchist.

I’m not his publicist, nor do I have any interest in acting in that capacity. I just like his show, and his stand-up. That’s just a matter of personal preference. I just take objection to people just making these blanket proclamations from their mountaintops calling him a ‘racist, ‘Zionist’, ‘xenophobe’, etc., and treating it as if it were self-evident. I’ve heard a lot of emotional rhetoric but absolutely nothing to justify these extremely powerful accusations. That’s what I have a problem with, this horrific abuse of language and the avalanche of bullshit. Unsurprisingly, I too, now have been tagged as a ‘racist’ and a ‘liberal’. This only further validates my initial estimation of the individuals making these claims.


Corporate communism? What the hell?

Capitalism is economic system where goods and services are exchanged on a free market, regulated by Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, where costs correlate to supply and demand. However, the ‘captains of industry’ and their mouthpieces who proclaim the beauty of this system (Which I don’t think is a particularly great idea, either.) obviously don’t believe a word of it. There really have been very few truly free market systems, usually forced upon developing countries by foreign powers, and with disastrous results. The business elite don’t believe in free markets any more than Bob Avakian does. What we actually have is a system where the state apparatus is used to manipulate the exchange of goods and services and the values of those goods and services, and to redistribute wealth and resources. In some respects this is an inversion of communism, where the state apparatus takes control of the economy to redistribute wealth, only, in this case to redirect it upwards, to increase the disparity between rich and poor and to subsidize the extremely wealthy. Instead of a takeover by the proletariat to use a dictatorship of the proletariat to create a theoretically more equitable society, we have a takeover by the business elite to control the state apparatus increase inequity.

[RadioRaheem84]

The state takes control? Inversion of communism? You sound like a right libertarian using these "statist" rhetoric. Also it's been pretty well argued that Maher is chavinist and masks it with humor. No one in here argued that extremists shouldn't be held accountable for their actions either. Not once. The fact that you even inferred this leads me to believe that you sorely lack a materialist perspective.

[Crux]

Capitalism is economic system where goods and services are exchanged on a free market, regulated by Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, where costs correlate to supply and demand. However, the ‘captains of industry’ and their mouthpieces who proclaim the beauty of this system (Which I don’t think is a particularly great idea, either.) obviously don’t believe a word of it. There really have been very few truly free market systems, usually forced upon developing countries by foreign powers, and with disastrous results. The business elite don’t believe in free markets any more than Bob Avakian does. What we actually have is a system where the state apparatus is used to manipulate the exchange of goods and services and the values of those goods and services, and to redistribute wealth and resources. In some respects this is an inversion of communism, where the state apparatus takes control of the economy to redistribute wealth, only, in this case to redirect it upwards, to increase the disparity between rich and poor and to subsidize the extremely wealthy. Instead of a takeover by the proletariat to use a dictatorship of the proletariat to create a theoretically more equitable society, we have a takeover by the business elite to control the state apparatus increase inequity.Even though I would have worded it differently, and you do sound somewhat like a semi-recovering libertarian, this is basically the marxist analysis of the state. In capitalist society the state is a tool of class oppression. Still I think it's obvious you ought to recover more. My earlier post was directed mostly at you, so a response would be nice.

[NGNM85]

Even though I would have worded it differently, and you do sound somewhat like a semi-recovering libertarian,

I have no historical, or intellectual relation to right-wing 'libertarianism.' Secondly it might sound the same, but it isn't the same. The context isn't the same, the message isn't the same. It's not my fault some people are too blind or too lazy to differentiate.


this is basically the marxist analysis of the state. In capitalist society the state is a tool of class oppression.

I'm not a Marxist, or a communist. I'm an Anarchist and I simply call 'em like I see 'em.


Still I think it's obvious you ought to recover more. My earlier post was directed mostly at you, so a response would be nice.

‘Recover’ from what, exactly? Y'know, I'd like a toilet made of solid gold. I am not a dancing bear. Personally, I have no inclination to satisfy you're demands after you knock down my rep points (Which I have refrained from doing, even though some people clearly deserve it.) without even bothering to post a rebuttal, and then expect me to jump at a post ‘mostly’ directed at me. Condolences.

[Crux]

I have no historical, or intellectual relation to right-wing 'libertarianism.' Secondly it might sound the same, but it isn't the same. The context isn't the same, the message isn't the same. It's not my fault some people are too blind or too lazy to differentiate.



I'm not a Marxist, or a communist. I'm an Anarchist and I simply call 'em like I see 'em.



‘Recover’ from what, exactly? Y'know, I'd like a toilet made of solid gold. I am not a dancing bear. Personally, I have no inclination to satisfy you're demands after you knock down my rep points (Which I have refrained from doing, even though some people clearly deserve it.) without even bothering to post a rebuttal, and then expect me to jump at a post ‘mostly’ directed at me. Condolences.
You're obviously not worth the bandwith you are wasting, mr "logical". I am sorry that I, for some reason, gave you the benefit of the doubt.

[Burn A Flag]

That guy sitting next to him is such a fucking douche bag to be mimicing his hand gestures like that. It's normal to use hand gestures.

[Crux]

As for the negrep I gave you, NGNM85, I too call 'em like I see 'em.

[IllicitPopsicle]

Is this really worth the time and energy? If you don't like Bill Maher (I don't) don't watch him. Simple.

[Mälli]

Boots is speaking for us once again. The Coup is awesome.

[NGNM85]

As for the negrep I gave you, NGNM85, I too call 'em like I see 'em.

What irritates me even more is that you can't even produce a legitimate rebuttal, (Which should be a fairly simple affair as you are so certain everything I said there was completely wrong.) instead of this anemic response 'mostly' directed at me.



Is this really worth the time and energy? If you don't like Bill Maher (I don't) don't watch him. Simple.

Good advice.

[Crux]

What irritates me even more is that you can't even produce a legitimate rebuttal, (Which should be a fairly simple affair as you are so certain everything I said there was completely wrong.) instead of this anemic response 'mostly' directed at me.




Good advice.
Well, I think the post I made (directed also at, say, mike and chegitz) gave you an inkling. Oh and your infinetely logical is infinetely amusing. So in essence your concept of culture and religion is wrong, wrong, wrong. So you ain't got no reason to be smug. And you're defending Maher's racism, yeah I too find him funny sometimes, racism not so much.

[mikelepore]

You can't be anything but half-heartedly sympathetic towards people you regard as simply inferior to you. Bill Maher has no real sympathy for Muslims.

Your evidence that he regards anyone as inferior? None whatsoever.

Now your credibility is gone. Any time you report on a factual matter other people will have no reason to believe anything that you said.

[bailey_187]

In the time of the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans (IIRC, about 15th century onwards), this Muslim empire allowed the Christian people of the Balkan to carry on with their religion largley untouched. This is at the same time as when in Europe, anyone who defied the Pope (or Protestants from the 16th century) was burned at the stake. Therefore, i say, that the Ottoman Empires 'culture' and 'values' were better than that of Christian Europe's 'culture' and 'values'. Am i now a Turkish Chauvanist? Maybe i would be justifing further Ottoman expansion by saying this?

[Obs]

In the time of the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans (IIRC, about 15th century onwards), this Muslim empire allowed the Christian people of the Balkan to carry on with their religion largley untouched. This is at the same time as when in Europe, anyone who defied the Pope (or Protestants from the 16th century) was burned at the stake. Therefore, i say, that the Ottoman Empires 'culture' and 'values' were better than that of Christian Europe's 'culture' and 'values'. Am i now a Turkish Chauvanist? Maybe i would be justifing further Ottoman expansion by saying this?
Nope, but you're still foregoing materialist analysis.

[mikelepore]

Yeah, he only justified the murder of a few million Asians, whats that to you?:mad:

I think its preposterous to claim that hes 'in sympathy' with people he advocates bombing on a regular basis.

Right, I'll just take your word for this. You were sitting around in his dressing room one day, and as he was tying his shoes he looked up at you and said, "You know what, Barry - millions of Asians should be killed." That's so believable. No, I don't think so.

I never heard him advocate the bombing of anyone except the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Of course he doesn't have any sympathy for the fascist enslavers and mass murderers who are part of organized crime. It's the *population* that he has sympathy for. You never heard him say "Forget about targeting the Taliban and Al Qaeda fortifications -- bomb the population instead." Did you hear him say that? No, you didn't. Stop making things up.

[Franz Fanonipants]

It's the *population* that he has sympathy for. You never heard him say "Forget about targeting the Taliban and Al Qaeda fortifications -- bomb the population instead." Did you hear him say that? No, you didn't. Stop making things up.

Did you literally just sleep through the last nine years?

[bailey_187]

Nope, but you're still foregoing materialist analysis.

how? looking at and comparing the non-material does not mean i no longer regard the material as the primary.

[Barry Lyndon]

Right, I'll just take your word for this. You were sitting around in his dressing room one day, and as he was tying his shoes he looked up at you and said, "You know what, Barry - millions of Asians should be killed." That's so believable. No, I don't think so.

I never heard him advocate the bombing of anyone except the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Of course he doesn't have any sympathy for the fascist enslavers and mass murderers who are part of organized crime. It's the *population* that he has sympathy for. You never heard him say "Forget about targeting the Taliban and Al Qaeda fortifications -- bomb the population instead." Did you hear him say that? No, you didn't. Stop making things up.

He justified the Vietnam War-that means he thinks the violent deaths of millions of Asians was ok. Don't get into a semantics game with me.

[Obs]

how? looking at and comparing the non-material does not mean i no longer regard the material as the primary.
Never said you didn't, I just noted that in this case, you didn't regard the materialist aspects of the period you described. In any case, a scenario from feudal times really doesn't apply when we're weighing the effects of imperialism and capitalism on culture.

[NGNM85]

Religion is not dictated by what's in their respective holy books, neither are theocratic governments. Or to put it in religious terms, there is no god but the Mammon.

This is complete nonsense. Other factors may influence them, but it absolutely follows from the books, themselves. To believe that the fact that the followers of the Abrahamic faiths tend to be intolerant of homosexuality and the fact that the central texts of the Abrahamic faiths proclaim homosexuality to be an abomination is purely coincidental is completely absurd. No, these ideas come from the books, themselves, because that’s what the books say. The Bible/Koran/Torah are absolutely essential to Christianity/Islam/Judaism, that’s what makes them what they are.


Maher is racist, precisely because he claims thing's like equality being Western, implying there is an inherent cultural coding,…

Equality, democracy etc, in as far as they exist in western society, are not cultural nor a result of cultural superiority. Claiming so is, unwittingly or not, racist and extremely anti-materialist.

Again, you’re hearing what you (Apparently.) want to hear, to some extent. Neither myself, nor Bill Maher said, or implied these were inherently western, not in the way you’re thinking. What he/I meant is that these are features that western societies happen to have, while they are rare or nonexistent in the Middle East. Therefore they are western traits, in that they are facets of western society, but because or geographic location or ethnic makeup. No, that has to do with a long complicated struggle for rights and freedoms and social progress over a period of hundreds of years. Also the definition of the word ‘culture’ seems to be leading people astray, in this case the structure of social life and the ideas it’s based on. Specifically, democracy, freedom of speech, secularism, equal rights, etc.



…and thus this superiority can be used to justify anything.

There’s a fundamental difference between saying a system of social organization is better, and saying a group of people, say an ethnic group, are better than others. For example, I don’t think too many would challenge the assertion that western democracies are better than feudalism, or totalitarianism, which is exactly the comparison that is being made.


I've seen racists do it a million times.

No doubt. However, language can sound similar, or even be exactly the same, and carry a completely different meaning. Richard Dawkins criticizes Islam, and so do right-wing racists like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter, if you pull out individual sentences you can find some overlap. However, the context, and the intention being expressed is radically different.


Take the Sarkozy governments newfound care for "women's rights" in banning the burqa. It's not about women's right's, it's about cultural hegemony to further very material interests.

I suspect it simply has more to do with thinly veiled bigotry.


Well, I think the post I made (directed also at, say, mike and chegitz) gave you an inkling. Oh and your infinetely logical is infinetely amusing. So in essence your concept of culture and religion is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Brilliant. That clears up everything.


So you ain't got no reason to be smug. And you're defending Maher's racism, yeah I too find him funny sometimes, racism not so much.

That’s inaccurate. I’m arguing against the charge that he’s racist because I haven’t seen or heard any conclusive evidence that it’s true, probably because it isn’t.

[Adi Shankara]

Wahhabist Islam is caused by capitalism. Capitalism isn't a Western thing - it's the chains weighing down the whole world. Remember that.

Wahhabism, if anything, is more of a political tool than anything else; It's used to extend Saudi control over the Arab world, which is why it's propagation is so heavily subsidized to the point where it's a state religion in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Wahhabism is the equivalent to our own far-right baptists here in the United States. it's certainly not normal Islam, and the fact that they use oil profits to spread it's growth shows its more about control (Saudi Arabia is the "gatekeeper" of Mecca, remember) than anything else.


I am a libertarian, however, in the classical sense;

Then this really isn't the site for you; why not go join the Paultards at freesteader or something and create an ode to why the owning of child sex slaves is morally justifiable as a right to own property.

if there is one thing I hate more than a conservative...it's a conservative who tries to pass himself off as a leftist.

[Adi Shankara]

I'm not arguing against a specific type of religion because it's all bad. However, although the PC police forbid saying so, some are worse than others. Tibetan Buddhism certainly has a much smaller bodycount. As I was saying, all religion is fundamentally bad. Ultimately, we're going to have to choose between it and civilization, or human progress will have to come to a standstill.

I think that, all too often, religion is used more as a cause célèbre than an actual reason for violence. look at any "religious conflict" and more often than not, the reasons are either: a) capitalist; b) ethnic; or c) fear-based, in nature.

For example, as far as Palestine goes, it's not religious. most Israeli Jews aren't even kosher anymore, and many of the most ardent Zionists didn't believe in god. Israel was founded on the basis of race, not religion; a belief that those with "Jewish blood" were superior to the Arabs of the region.

The same factor applies for "religious terrorism"; I can promise you right now, with 100% certainty, that the leaders of the Al Qaeda could give two shits about Islam's growth. Instead, they are lashing out against a capitalist power that abandoned their nations in the 1990's after sucking them dry as cannon fodder against the Soviet Union.

Most of Osama Bin Laden's speeches are political in nature, not religious. to blame religion for all these causes that, upon closer inspection, are caused by ethnic (most of these racial distinctions, mind you, were created by the "superior Western World") or economic relations is simplistic at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.

[NGNM85]

Then this really isn't the site for you; why not go join the Paultards at freesteader or something and create an ode to why the owning of child sex slaves is morally justifiable as a right to own property.

More shrill nonsense. You just get crazier as time goes on. This isn't remotely comperable to anything I've said or in any way reflective of my ideas, which I don't think you understand. American 'Libertarians' are a very marginal group of lassez-faire right-wingers who stole the word which used to be synonomous with Anarchism, and still is, overseas. I have no intellectual or personal relationship with these people.


if there is one thing I hate more than a conservative...it's a conservative who tries to pass himself off as a leftist.

Well, that depends on the definition of 'conservative.' Conservatism traditionbally meant a dedication to the ideals of the enlightenment, invidual rights, freedom of (and from) religion, etc. However, that has absolutely no relation to what is called 'conservative', today. Of course, I don't expect you to appreciate such subtleties. You're claim that I am not a leftist is baseless. Although, just as an aside, I find your statements increasingly difficult to take seriously. By most definitions most of what I've said complies with the core ideals of the political left, specifically the far left, as Anarchism is usually classified. I have expressed opposition to nationalism, authoritarianism, prejudice based on ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, exploitation of labor, and very much for defending the environment and individual rights. My statements reflect this. By most definitions this is almost exactly in line with what are considered to be left-wing politics, not that I aspire to any sort of group status. It should be plainly obvious I don't give a damn about being hip. I'm also becoming increasingly less interested in your rhetoric.

[Adi Shankara]

h these peo I have expressed opposition to nationalism, authoritarianism, prejudice based on ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, exploitation of labor, and very much for defending the environment and individual rights. My statements reflect this.

Hardly the case at all. most of your statements are inherently biased against Middle Eastern cultures, customs, and practices, whether oppressive or not, you lump them together as if they are one in the same.
Your claim that Western culture, the culture that brought us racial slavery, race theories, and mass-capitalism, is somehow superior, is chauvinistic to the point that it could be construed as a racially charged attack against the Arabs and citizens of the Levant.

If I was to say "I have nothing against homosexuals, but to watch two men kiss is disgusting/revolting compared to two heterosexuals kiss", you'd (rightfully so) think I was homophobic, wouldn't you?

because that's basically what you're doing to the Middle East. you're not explicitly saying you are disgusted with them, but you attack everything about them except their skin color.

using your logic, if you make fun of the Chinese language, make fun of their culture, make fun of their food, make fun of their clothing, make fun of their religion, make fun of their accents when speaking english--to you, that's somehow not racist, since it doesn't explicitly call out their race.

[NGNM85]

I think that, all too often, religion is used more as a cause célèbre than an actual reason for violence. look at any "religious conflict" and more often than not, the reasons are either: a) capitalist; b) ethnic; or c) fear-based, in nature.

I've said many times that economics and politics are also important contributing factors. However, to say that the crusades, 9/11, honor killings, the oppression of women in the Muslim world, the mistreatment of Homosexuals among the Abrahamic peoples, etc., aren't related to the books is ignoring reality. These books contain some of the most hateful rhetoric one can find. These texts aren't simply part of the religion, they ARE the religion. The state of ones' religiousness is the state to which one subscribes to these texts. This is why religiousness tends to have an inverse relationship with the capacity for rational thought. As Sam Harris put it; the heretic is infinitely more dangerous than a child molester. The punishment for heresy, it's very clear, is an eternity of suffering. If someone could say something to you're child that would not simply cause them injury or death, but an eternity of excruciating pain, what wouldn't you do? These beliefs, to the extent people hold them, absolutely inform their actions.


For example, as far as Palestine goes, it's not religious. most Israeli Jews aren't even kosher anymore, and many of the most ardent Zionists didn't believe in god. Israel was founded on the basis of race, not religion; a belief that those with "Jewish blood" were superior to the Arabs of the region.

No, it's about the annexation of territory and flagrant violations of human rights conventions. However, the Zionist project was substantially motivated by religious idealogues who literally believed that god, in his capacity as omnipotent real estate agent, garunteed that land to them. Moreover, the religious fanatics make up a substantial and vocal majority of the settlers on the fringes of the annexed territories.


The same factor applies for "religious terrorism"; I can promise you right now, with 100% certainty, that the leaders of the Al Qaeda could give two shits about Islam's growth.

No, I think they want what they say they want, the death of all 'infidels', and a pan-national fundamentalist-Islamic caliphate. They absolutely want Islam to be triumphant, in what they see as a 'holy war', specifically, their own strident, extreme version of Islam. Mostly extreme because of it's literalism.


Instead, they are lashing out against a capitalist power that abandoned their nations in the 1990's after sucking them dry as cannon fodder against the Soviet Union.

Most of Osama Bin Laden's speeches are political in nature, not religious. to blame religion for all these causes that, upon closer inspection, are caused by ethnic (most of these racial distinctions, mind you, were created by the "superior Western World") or economic relations is simplistic at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.

You're doing the same thing you're accusing me of. I fully acknowledge the crimes of western governments, and international conglomerates. However, those vile books also bear substantial responsibility. The 9/11 attacks may have been directed against the US government, and western corporations, however then men who carried it out were inspired and fueled by religion. I have no doubt that they all literally believed that they were earning their place in paradise, and that this belief helped give them strength to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass murder.

[Adi Shankara]

so using your logic, were the Columbine Killings motivated and inspired by video games? afterall, I heard both Eric Harris and Dylan Kelbold were huge fans of Doom...

of course, only an asshat would believe that people don't come to their own conclusions, and that such excuses are used to rid oneself of blame.

[NGNM85]

Hardly the case at all. most of your statements are inherently biased against Middle Eastern cultures, customs, and practices, whether oppressive or not, you lump them together as if they are one in the same.

No, I only criticized what is oppressive, including that book. The Abrahamic faiths are inherently authoritarian, bigoted, and violent.


Your claim that Western culture, the culture that brought us racial slavery, race theories, and mass-capitalism, is somehow superior, is chauvinistic to the point that it could be construed as a racially charged attack against the Arabs and citizens of the Levant.

Not if you actually listen to what I'm saying. All societies are different, but some are better. I'm saying that freedom of speech, equal rights, freedom of, and from religion, the right to political expression and participation, are better than living in a fundamentalist, totalitarian, religious society. That really shouldn't be too controversial.


If I was to say "I have nothing against homosexuals, but to watch two men kiss is disgusting/revolting compared to two heterosexuals kiss", you'd (rightfully so) think I was homophobic, wouldn't you?

No, that's quite different. First of all homosexuality is like race, an arbitrary biological trait that has no bearing on personality. Religion is a belief system people choose to subscribe to which includes attitudes and codes of conduct. That's important. People don't choose to be black, or gay, they choose to act on their religion. Second, I don't discriminate against particular religions, I despise religion in total, with no exceptions. Christianity, Scientology, Mormonism, Satanism; you name it. I merely stated that there are differences between religions. Some do have more blood on their hands than others. I merely pointed out that Islam has a serious problem. I made it very clear that Judao-Christendom itself has no responsibility for the difference, but rather secular culture is responsible. That's not bigotry, and nothing like the comparison you're making.


because that's basically what you're doing to the Middle East. you're not explicitly saying you are disgusted with them, but you attack everything about them except their skin color.

No, I criticize oppression, bigotry, and violence, and the ideology that inspires it, which I've already explained at length.


using your logic, if you make fun of the Chinese language, make fun of their culture, make fun of their food, make fun of their clothing, make fun of their religion, make fun of their accents when speaking english--to you, that's somehow not racist, since it doesn't explicitly call out their race.

I have two disagreements with that, one, that there's a general sloppiness when it comes to using the word 'racism', although someone who did everything you describe would almost have to be. Criticizing another culture is not necessarily racist. (Of course this is symptomatic of an epidemic of careless use of language.) I said nothing about accents, food, or clothing (Besides the burqa.) What I criticize is the pitiful state of human rights and freedom in the region, for which religion (Along with other factors...) bears substantial responsibility. In the 20th century, in a post-nuclear world, we cannot afford to tolerate the primitive insanity that is religion. Not in the 21st century. Human progress is contingent on this.

[Adi Shankara]

What I criticize is the pitiful state of human rights and freedom in the region, for which religion (Along with other factors...) bears substantial responsibility. In the 20th century, in a post-nuclear world, we cannot afford to tolerate the primitive insanity that is religion. Not in the 21st century. Human progress is contingent on this.

Yet you back the Western world as a paragon of human progress in the realms of democracy and human rights...what's wrong with this picture?

Human rights in Western countries are only afforded to fellow Westerners. do you really think we give a shit what we do in the rest of the world? have you seen what Africa is like these days? you really think they done that to themselves?

The 2nd Congo war, aka the African World war, which cost the lives of nearly 9-15 million people, was caused by US-funded/backed capitalist dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's overthrow, and the ensuing battle between Congolese factions, all pitted against each other by western nations.

the Iranian revolution was a direct response to the undermining of democracy in Iran when Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup by CIA operatives. If you don't like the fact that religious bigots control Iran...you have your "superior" western nations to thank for that.

[NGNM85]

so using your logic, were the Columbine Killings motivated and inspired by video games? afterall, I heard both Eric Harris and Dylan Kelbold were huge fans of Doom...

of course, only an asshat would believe that people don't come to their own conclusions, and that such excuses are used to rid oneself of blame.

If Harris and Klebold literally believed that DOOM was the product of the omnipotent creator of the universe, that DOOM could hear their thoughts and prayers, that DOOM had specific instructions for how they should live, how they should behave, and included all manner of rules and regulations for how to conduct themselves, and that the price or reward for following or not following these instructions was an eternity of paradise, or an eternity of incomprehensible suffering, and they had been taught so from the day they were born.......that would make a lot more sense.

[Franz Fanonipants]

lol forever


The 9/11 attacks may have been directed against the US government, and western corporations, however then men who carried it out were inspired and fueled by religion. I have no doubt that they all literally believed that they were earning their place in paradise, and that this belief helped give them strength to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass murder.


The 9/11 attacks may have been directed against the US government, and western corporations, however then men who carried it out were inspired and fueled by religion. I have no doubt that they all literally believed that they were earning their place in paradise, and that this belief helped give them strength to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass murder.


The 9/11 attacks may have been directed against the US government, and western corporations, however then men who carried it out were inspired and fueled by religion. I have no doubt that they all literally believed that they were earning their place in paradise, and that this belief helped give them strength to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass murder.


The 9/11 attacks may have been directed against the US government, and western corporations, however then men who carried it out were inspired and fueled by religion. I have no doubt that they all literally believed that they were earning their place in paradise, and that this belief helped give them strength to sacrifice their lives in an act of mass murder.

ooga booga islamofascist

dude do you think your atheism makes you NOT equivalent to Fox News when you talk like this?

[Robocommie]

Even if cancer kills Chris Hitchens, his cause of anti-theism above all other concerns, including the dehumanizing of religious populations, will go proudly on.

Look guys, all I'm saying is we should bomb Mecca. It's like the Death Star of Islamofascism.

[RadioRaheem84]

Goddamnit, NGN. You're not an anarchist. When you talk about things that are 'better' you sound like you lack the historical perspective to value different societies. Noam Chomsky would verbally flail your utterly ridiculous assumptions about religion and terrorism and how you think they do not relate to politics.


I've said many times that economics and politics are also important contributing factors. They are the deciding factor on social conditions, not just contributing factors. You're so turned around!


However, to say that the crusades, 9/11, honor killings, the oppression of women in the Muslim world, the mistreatment of Homosexuals among the Abrahamic peoples, etc., aren't related to the books is ignoring reality. The Crusades were territorial disputes, attempts at land grabs and what not. The ruling class in both the East and the West used religion as a tool to motivate the lower classes. Religion was a tool of motivation to initiate political desires.
The human rights violations in the East were and are still all due to material conditions created by the structure of society;capitalism, feudalism. Homosexuality was still condemned in enlightened western nations.


These books contain some of the most hateful rhetoric one can find. These texts aren't simply part of the religion, they ARE the religion.Even if this is so. How do you think this proves your point? Hateful religious texts still doesn't explain why people abide by them? Their material conditions do!


The state of ones' religiousness is the state to which one subscribes to these texts.No the state of one's material condition does.


This is why religiousness tends to have an inverse relationship with the capacity for rational thought. As Sam Harris put it; the heretic is infinitely more dangerous than a child molester. The punishment for heresy, it's very clear, is an eternity of suffering. If someone could say something to you're child that would not simply cause them injury or death, but an eternity of excruciating pain, what wouldn't you do? These beliefs, to the extent people hold them, absolutely inform their actions.Oh man, you're quoting Harris now. But he completely ignores the condition people are in. I am sure he doesn't feel the same way about gang thugs and their criminal activities because they aren't religiously motivated.


No, I think they want what they say they want, the death of all 'infidels', and a pan-national fundamentalist-Islamic caliphate. They absolutely want Islam to be triumphant, in what they see as a 'holy war', specifically, their own strident, extreme version of Islam. Mostly extreme because of it's literalism.Oh man, get the fuck out of there. I remember being banned the first time I ever stepped into revleft with the same rhetoric. I was an obnoxious pro-war "lefty" hawk that hocked this same tripe. My name was JudeObscure84. :blushing: I said this exact same thing in a debate about the Iraq War and how these religious extremists were motivated by religion and not political motives. It was all pro-war crap that I got from Chris Hitchens, Harris and several other ridiculous liberals that wanted to see Mecca bombed to the ground.

It was no different from the ramblings of Bernard Lewis to right wing nut jobs like David Horowitz!!

Now, it's official, trust me man. You will like publications like Dissent Magazine, Democratiya, and most of the writers from the Euston Manifesto. You obviously take Hitchens side in the Hitchens v Chomsky debate. Your stance and your outlook is very liberal, not anarchist nor leftist. You think you're being leftist with your insistence of repeating lovely liberal bourgeois idealistic rights that the ruling classes hypocritically impose only when they feel like it in the "superior" (sorry, "better") western nations, but in reality you're touting nothing but tired Cold War-ish liberal propaganda.

[Robocommie]

In the wake of the Cold War, the United States found that rather than wanting to defeat the Soviet Union, it actually needed the Cold War, to prop itself up as a legitimate vanguard in the fight for liberal democracy and freedom. Lacking the Soviet Union, every heinous fucking thing the US had done in the Cold War suddenly took on a new light and the US could no longer justify it's imperialism. Numerous right-wing academics, most notably those associated with the neoconservative movement and think tanks like the Project for the New American Century, hit on the idea of finding a new justification for American militarism. This is the origin of the Clash of Civilizations - it formed out of a vacuum left by the collapse of the Big Bad Enemy the Soviet Union represented.

Islamic civilization has become that threat, and it's mobilized conservatives, liberals, social democrats and even certain leftists, like Chris Hitchens, for whom anti-theism was more of a priority than the practical realities of economics and material conditions, into supporting American imperialism. It has been amazingly successful, and even with the unmitigated disaster that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become, only the progressive left have actually started to question the underlying justification for the war, rather than the methods actually used. Most people in the US still believe that the US is somehow a guardian of liberal democracy and secularism, even though it in fact allies with Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient, and has been responsible for the establishment of numerous oppressive right-wing regimes for the sake of it's own regional interests. Including, most ironically I should note, the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. This should serve as enough of a demonstration of why this Clash of Civilizations is such utter bullshit.

Ultimately it's served as a pretext for a coalition of American political factions, to merely mobilize them as a tool for the American bourgeoisie, for the cause of promoting empire. This isn't about Bill Maher. Maher's just a tool, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Ultimately, this is about playing into the hands of the neoconservatives, whose interests lie in promoting western civilization and western democracy as something historically unique and special which must be preserved in order to triumph over evil. Leo Strauss wins.

[bailey_187]

In the wake of the Cold War, the United States found that rather than wanting to defeat the Soviet Union, it actually needed the Cold War, to prop itself up as a legitimate vanguard in the fight for liberal democracy and freedom. Lacking the Soviet Union, every heinous fucking thing the US had done in the Cold War suddenly took on a new light and the US could no longer justify it's imperialism. Numerous right-wing academics, most notably those associated with the neoconservative movement and think tanks like the Project for the New American Century, hit on the idea of finding a new justification for American militarism. This is the origin of the Clash of Civilizations - it formed out of a vacuum left by the collapse of the Big Bad Enemy the Soviet Union represented.

Islamic civilization has become that threat, and it's mobilized conservatives, liberals, social democrats and even certain leftists, like Chris Hitchens, for whom anti-theism was more of a priority than the practical realities of economics and material conditions, into supporting American imperialism. It has been amazingly successful, and even with the unmitigated disaster that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become, only the progressive left have actually started to question the underlying justification for the war, rather than the methods actually used. Most people in the US still believe that the US is somehow a guardian of liberal democracy and secularism, even though it in fact allies with Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient, and has been responsible for the establishment of numerous oppressive right-wing regimes for the sake of it's own regional interests. Including, most ironically I should note, the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. This should serve as enough of a demonstration of why this Clash of Civilizations is such utter bullshit.

Ultimately it's served as a pretext for a coalition of American political factions, to merely mobilize them as a tool for the American bourgeoisie, for the cause of promoting empire. This isn't about Bill Maher. Maher's just a tool, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Ultimately, this is about playing into the hands of the neoconservatives, whose interests lie in promoting western civilization and western democracy as something historically unique and special which must be preserved in order to triumph over evil. Leo Strauss wins.

whats wrong with the Saudis? Because they dont conform to the European notions of liberalism? Racist.

[Adi Shankara]

No, I think they want what they say they want, the death of all 'infidels', and a pan-national fundamentalist-Islamic caliphate. They absolutely want Islam to be triumphant, in what they see as a 'holy war', specifically, their own strident, extreme version of Islam. Mostly extreme because of it's literalism.

you fucking bigot, how many Muslims do you even know IRL? Do you even know that the largest muslim nation on earth is not Saudi Arabia, but Indonesia? if Islam is so evil, and it's followers so deluded...why isn't Malaysia or Singapore making headlines every day with tales of extremist worshippers? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT MATERIALLY DEPRIVED IN MALAYSIA OR SINGAPORE, YOU FUCKING MORON!!!!

Ever wonder why, with the exception of an ideological driven state like Saudi Arabia, which also doubles as an oppressed monarchy, there is so little terrorism from Senegal, Singapore, Burkina Faso, Malaysia, etc.? in Senegal and Burkina Faso, it could be attributed to religious tolerance from the population. in South East Asia, they aren't so materially deprived.

hell, not even Iran carries out terrorist attacks. you're just a fucking bigot who has a problem against brown people. if Islam wasn't primarily practiced by people with brown skin, you probably wouldn't even care.

[Robocommie]

whats wrong with the Saudis? Because they dont conform to the European notions of liberalism? Racist.

That's some real maneuvering there buddy, first you build a strawman argument and then hold up that strawman to accuse me of hypocrisy. It doesn't give me much confidence that you've actually been reading what I've been saying, or that if you have, that you've actually been comprehending it.

[Adi Shankara]

In the wake of the Cold War, the United States found that rather than wanting to defeat the Soviet Union, it actually needed the Cold War, to prop itself up as a legitimate vanguard in the fight for liberal democracy and freedom. Lacking the Soviet Union, every heinous fucking thing the US had done in the Cold War suddenly took on a new light and the US could no longer justify it's imperialism. Numerous right-wing academics, most notably those associated with the neoconservative movement and think tanks like the Project for the New American Century, hit on the idea of finding a new justification for American militarism. This is the origin of the Clash of Civilizations - it formed out of a vacuum left by the collapse of the Big Bad Enemy the Soviet Union represented.

Islamic civilization has become that threat, and it's mobilized conservatives, liberals, social democrats and even certain leftists, like Chris Hitchens, for whom anti-theism was more of a priority than the practical realities of economics and material conditions, into supporting American imperialism. It has been amazingly successful, and even with the unmitigated disaster that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become, only the progressive left have actually started to question the underlying justification for the war, rather than the methods actually used. Most people in the US still believe that the US is somehow a guardian of liberal democracy and secularism, even though it in fact allies with Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient, and has been responsible for the establishment of numerous oppressive right-wing regimes for the sake of it's own regional interests. Including, most ironically I should note, the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. This should serve as enough of a demonstration of why this Clash of Civilizations is such utter bullshit.

Ultimately it's served as a pretext for a coalition of American political factions, to merely mobilize them as a tool for the American bourgeoisie, for the cause of promoting empire. This isn't about Bill Maher. Maher's just a tool, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Ultimately, this is about playing into the hands of the neoconservatives, whose interests lie in promoting western civilization and western democracy as something historically unique and special which must be preserved in order to triumph over evil. Leo Strauss wins.

This. then, This again.


Why wasn't Islamic terrorism a serious threat in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? It's because they never were a serious threat. they were created as an enemy by the United States to legitimize their need for enormous armies and military bases in places like Israel and Pakistan.

[Robocommie]

This. then, This again.


Why wasn't Islamic terrorism a serious threat in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? It's because they never were a serious threat. they were created as an enemy by the United States to legitimize their need for enormous armies and military bases in places like Israel and Pakistan.

Well, I want to point out it most certainly became a threat in Iran in 1979 when the Iranians toppled the US-backed Shah, and Libya likewise served as a political demon. But there was a renewed emphasis on it following our increased involvement in Middle Eastern affairs.

[Franz Fanonipants]

whats wrong with the Saudis? Because they dont conform to the European notions of liberalism? Racist.

Exporting the Shi'ite revolution > Sunni imperial lapdogs

[Adi Shankara]

Exporting the Shi'ite revolution > Sunni imperial lapdogs

Even in the Arab world, the Saudis are viewed with extreme contempt, mostly because of their two-faced dealings with the USA, and their view that any other branch of Islam aside from Wahhabbist diatribe is "inferior".

Saudis are NOT innocent victims. half of their problems, they created themselves. They don't need to deal with the USA; they just do it because it keeps the Al Saud family in power.

[Robocommie]

Even in the Arab world, the Saudis are viewed with extreme contempt, mostly because of their two-faced dealings with the USA, and their view that any other branch of Islam aside from Wahhabbist diatribe is "inferior".

Saudis are NOT innocent victims. half of their problems, they created themselves. They don't need to deal with the USA; they just do it because it keeps the Al Saud family in power.

They practically treat the entire Arabian peninsula as their personal family possession. Actually, not practically, they do. Even the name, Saudi Arabia, denotes family control. As a Palestinian professor of mine once put it, can you imagine a Roosevelt States of America, or an Al-Assadi Syria?

[Crux]

This is complete nonsense. Other factors may influence them, but it absolutely follows from the books, themselves. To believe that the fact that the followers of the Abrahamic faiths tend to be intolerant of homosexuality and the fact that the central texts of the Abrahamic faiths proclaim homosexuality to be an abomination is purely coincidental is completely absurd. No, these ideas come from the books, themselves, because that’s what the books say. The Bible/Koran/Torah are absolutely essential to Christianity/Islam/Judaism, that’s what makes them what they are.
No. The Bible/Koran/Torah/what have you say lots of things, none of which in itself dictate the life of their followers. Even the fundamentalists, who perhaps would be closests to those fe you could by your definition call believers do not quite cut it. Religious texts do not put forward a single comprehensive code of morals and law. Why? Well, for the same reason believers do not follow said laws, they shift during different economic and political eras. These aren't just factors, the religious texts are the factors. Charity takes up far more of the bible than laws regarding sexual behaviour (which are ambigous at best), yet gay marriage is seemingly abigger question for some politicized american christians and elsewhere than fighting world poverty. Is it because they are not "true belivers"? No it is because there is no such thing as a true believer.




Again, you’re hearing what you (Apparently.) want to hear, to some extent. Neither myself, nor Bill Maher said, or implied these were inherently western, not in the way you’re thinking. What he/I meant is that these are features that western societies happen to have, while they are rare or nonexistent in the Middle East. Therefore they are western traits, in that they are facets of western society, but because or geographic location or ethnic makeup. No, that has to do with a long complicated struggle for rights and freedoms and social progress over a period of hundreds of years. Also the definition of the word ‘culture’ seems to be leading people astray, in this case the structure of social life and the ideas it’s based on. Specifically, democracy, freedom of speech, secularism, equal rights, etc.
No, I hear what I hear, you on the other hand from the very start acted the desperate apolgetic. The perception that these features (which?) are "rare in middle eastern societies" is debateble, debateble because you yet again code this in a cultural context. For all your "infinetely logical" you just don't get it. Maher isn't saying democracy is great, he is saying western democracy is great. Believe it or not but there's a difference.





There’s a fundamental difference between saying a system of social organization is better, and saying a group of people, say an ethnic group, are better than others. For example, I don’t think too many would challenge the assertion that western democracies are better than feudalism, or totalitarianism, which is exactly the comparison that is being made.
oh please. Are you saying Western isn't etnically coded? And no it is not the comparison being made, further more such comparisons are superflous. Gets some class analysis.




No doubt. However, language can sound similar, or even be exactly the same, and carry a completely different meaning. Richard Dawkins criticizes Islam, and so do right-wing racists like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter, if you pull out individual sentences you can find some overlap. However, the context, and the intention being expressed is radically different.
Different, yes, furthering same agenda? Yes, that too. "Secularism" is not inherently progressive. Again, class, content. Or mayeb you don't believe in class just cultures, sorry social systems?




I suspect it simply has more to do with thinly veiled bigotry.
Same thing.




That’s inaccurate. I’m arguing against the charge that he’s racist because I haven’t seen or heard any conclusive evidence that it’s true, probably because it isn’t.
Possibly that's because you're blind and deaf. Whetever you're doing it on purpose is yet to be seen.

[Barry Lyndon]

In the wake of the Cold War, the United States found that rather than wanting to defeat the Soviet Union, it actually needed the Cold War, to prop itself up as a legitimate vanguard in the fight for liberal democracy and freedom. Lacking the Soviet Union, every heinous fucking thing the US had done in the Cold War suddenly took on a new light and the US could no longer justify it's imperialism. Numerous right-wing academics, most notably those associated with the neoconservative movement and think tanks like the Project for the New American Century, hit on the idea of finding a new justification for American militarism. This is the origin of the Clash of Civilizations - it formed out of a vacuum left by the collapse of the Big Bad Enemy the Soviet Union represented.

Islamic civilization has become that threat, and it's mobilized conservatives, liberals, social democrats and even certain leftists, like Chris Hitchens, for whom anti-theism was more of a priority than the practical realities of economics and material conditions, into supporting American imperialism. It has been amazingly successful, and even with the unmitigated disaster that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become, only the progressive left have actually started to question the underlying justification for the war, rather than the methods actually used. Most people in the US still believe that the US is somehow a guardian of liberal democracy and secularism, even though it in fact allies with Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient, and has been responsible for the establishment of numerous oppressive right-wing regimes for the sake of it's own regional interests. Including, most ironically I should note, the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. This should serve as enough of a demonstration of why this Clash of Civilizations is such utter bullshit.

Ultimately it's served as a pretext for a coalition of American political factions, to merely mobilize them as a tool for the American bourgeoisie, for the cause of promoting empire. This isn't about Bill Maher. Maher's just a tool, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Ultimately, this is about playing into the hands of the neoconservatives, whose interests lie in promoting western civilization and western democracy as something historically unique and special which must be preserved in order to triumph over evil. Leo Strauss wins.

This. So-called leftists who fall into this propaganda trap of labeling the region of the Middle East as the exclusive domain of religious crazies display to all that they don't know a damn thing about the modern history of the Middle East and South Asia.

[NGNM85]

you fucking bigot, how many Muslims do you even know IRL? Do you even know that the largest muslim nation on earth is not Saudi Arabia, but Indonesia? if Islam is so evil, and it's followers so deluded...why isn't Malaysia or Singapore making headlines every day with tales of extremist worshippers? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT MATERIALLY DEPRIVED IN MALAYSIA OR SINGAPORE, YOU FUCKING MORON!!!!

Ever wonder why, with the exception of an ideological driven state like Saudi Arabia, which also doubles as an oppressed monarchy, there is so little terrorism from Senegal, Singapore, Burkina Faso, Malaysia, etc.? in Senegal and Burkina Faso, it could be attributed to religious tolerance from the population. in South East Asia, they aren't so materially deprived.

hell, not even Iran carries out terrorist attacks. you're just a fucking bigot who has a problem against brown people. if Islam wasn't primarily practiced by people with brown skin, you probably wouldn't even care.

I'm well aware that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population on earth. US support of the Suharto regime and the annexation of East Timor are a pet issue of mine and was the subject of my thesis for International Relations.



You're either misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting what I said. I said the objective of Al-Qaeda is to conduct a 'holy war' against their perceived enemies, the 'infidels', to spread their fundamentalist version of Islam throughout the region, and establish a pan-national Islamic caliphate. You don't even have to take my word for it. Al-Qaeda published a document of their strategy for the next few decades. The core principles were as follows;
Provoke the United States into invading a Muslim country.
Incite local resistance to occupying forces.
Expand the conflict to neighboring countries and engage the US in a long war of attrition.
Convert Al Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against countries allied with the US until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened with the 2004 Madrid Train Biombings, but which did not have the same effect with the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
The U.S. economy will finally collapse under the strain of too many engagements in too many places, similarly to theSoviet war in Afghanistan, Arab regimes supported by the US will collapse, and a Wahabbi Caliphate will be installed across the region.
Al-Qaeda may be despicable, but for the most part they seem very sincere about what they say. They might be psychopathic religious extremists, but they're very honest and forthright about their intentions. This isn't bigoted, it isn't even a matter of opinion. I was essentially quoting Al-Qaeda's official mission statement.

Second, these claims of racism are really unfair and baseless. I don't give a damn about ethnicity, that is irrelevant, I care about peoples' actions, and their ideas. (Which inspire their actions.) You're statement about me picking on Islam is completely false. I'm talking about Islam because it happens to be the topic of conversation. I've really devoted an excessive amount of time to clarify that I find Christianity equally backward, primitive, and hateful, because it is. I would be more than pleased to discuss this at length.

[NGNM85]

Goddamnit, NGN. You're not an anarchist.

By what criteria do you make this determination?


When you talk about things that are 'better' you sound like you lack the historical perspective to value different societies.

Different social groups do things differently, some of these methods are better than others. This shouldn’t be controversial. I refuse to kowtow to politically-correct relativist nonsense.


Noam Chomsky would verbally flail your utterly ridiculous assumptions about religion and terrorism and how you think they do not relate to politics.

I’ve repeatedly say they absolutely relate to politics, and economics, but they also relate to ideology.


They are the deciding factor on social conditions, not just contributing factors. You're so turned around!

I reject this dubious attempt to reduce absolutely everything to economics, and nothing more.


The Crusades were territorial disputes, attempts at land grabs and what not. The ruling class in both the East and the West used religion as a tool to motivate the lower classes. Religion was a tool of motivation to initiate political desires.
The human rights violations in the East were and are still all due to material conditions created by the structure of society;capitalism, feudalism. Homosexuality was still condemned in enlightened western nations.

Homosexuality was condemned in the west because of religion, as it is, today. There are no secular arguments against gay rights, or abortion, for that matter.


Even if this is so. How do you think this proves your point? Hateful religious texts still doesn't explain why people abide by them? Their material conditions do!

It definitely helps, but the texts matter. I’m sorry, but to say that someone doesn’t hate homosexuals or oppress women because they’ve been taught to do so their whole life, and that this is the explicit will of their omnipotent creator who will punish them severely for disobedience, that it has absolutely nothing to do with it, is absurd. These are not natural inclinations. They are not random. These are very specific things.


Oh man, you're quoting Harris now. But he completely ignores the condition people are in. I am sure he doesn't feel the same way about gang thugs and their criminal activities because they aren't religiously motivated.

You’re mischaracterizing his position.


Oh man, get the fuck out of there. I remember being banned the first time I ever stepped into revleft with the same rhetoric.

I was talking about Al-Qaeda’s platform, which they have published. This is beyond dispute. It is not merely rhetoric, you can read it yourself.


I was an obnoxious pro-war "lefty" hawk that hocked this same tripe.

I’ve been against the war since before it started. I’m actually against war, in total.


My name was JudeObscure84. I said this exact same thing in a debate about the Iraq War and how these religious extremists were motivated by religion and not political motives.

Now, you’re making the opposite mistake by completely ignoring religion .


It was all pro-war crap that I got from Chris Hitchens, Harris and several other ridiculous liberals that wanted to see Mecca bombed to the ground.

Sam Harris has never said anything of the sort. Statements like this make me wonder how familiar you actually are with the subject matter. I would never support such an action, either. What I’m saying is that religion is fundamentally illogical, hateful, and backward, and is a stumbling block to human progress, so we need to step up and start confronting it. Chiefly, through education, and by what Harris describes as ‘conversational intolerance’, that we should end this bogus prohibition that says religion is exempt from the same critical analysis as everything else.


It was no different from the ramblings of Bernard Lewis to right wing nut jobs like David Horowitz!!

Horowitz is a rambling crank.


Now, it's official, trust me man. You will like publications like Dissent Magazine, Democratiya, and most of the writers from the Euston Manifesto. You obviously take Hitchens side in the Hitchens v Chomsky debate.

Actually, Hitchens was totally wrong. It’s unfortunate, he’s a smart guy, but his arguments were fundamentally bogus. Hitchens tends to be a bit batty when it comes to the Middle East.


Your stance and your outlook is very liberal, not anarchist nor leftist.

This is a non-statement.


You think you're being leftist with your insistence of repeating lovely liberal bourgeois idealistic rights that the ruling classes hypocritically impose only when they feel like it in the "superior" (sorry, "better") western nations, but in reality you're touting nothing but tired Cold War-ish liberal propaganda.

I idn’t say anything about better countries, I was talking about better modalities of social organization. You’re characterization of rights is equally flawed. Human rights are not ‘bourgeois’, or ‘idealistic.’ They represent the level of respect and dignity and decency that should be accorded for every living person simply because they are alive. The whole objection to the war, or to war in general, leftism, Anarchism, etc., are rooted in this belief in fundamental human rights. This is exactly where the opposition to the state comes from, from the belief that people deserve better.

[Adi Shankara]

Goddamnit, NGN. You're not an anarchist.




By what criteria do you make this determination?

you're a US style libertarian. for one, anarchists have a "live and let live" attitude. You advocate carpetbombing the shit out of the middle east to remove religion.

2. Anarchists NEVER say things like:


I think the way our society is structured is superior in many ways, specifically that it's more free and democratic.

or


However, even though it’s not hip to admit it, they do actually serve some legitimate functions and meet certain needs. This is why any legitimate Anarchist should be opposing right-wing efforts to dismantle Social Security

Anarchists are opposed to government institutions by principle; That's what makes them anarchist. you can't be in support of the government and be an anarchist at the same time. that's like having a god-fearing atheist. It's impossible.

And while I can't confirm it, I would believe you stand in the belief that religion should be outlawed.



How is any that anarchist in any way?

[Forward Union]

Boots did a pretty good job on that.

[Forward Union]

Anarchists are opposed to government institutions by principle; That's what makes them anarchist. you can't be in support of the government and be an anarchist at the same time. that's like having a god-fearing atheist. It's impossible.

I am an Anarchist and I support the Government National Health Service, because I realise that I don't live in a philosphical vaccume, and the alternative is private healthcare which is worse for working people. Im also well read enough to know that the NHS was a concession made reluctantly by the rich to the Workers Movement, and was won through our forfathers struggle.

Stop reducing everything to philosophical characatures. Anarchists are alowed to be strategic to.

[NGNM85]

you're a US style libertarian. for one, anarchists have a "live and let live" attitude. You advocate carpetbombing the shit out of the middle east to remove religion.

Not at all. I never said that. The best weapons against religion are education and by public debate. Once we change the rules and allow critical analysis of religion it will fall apart very quickly. This is why they've made it impossible to criticize religion for so long, because they know it can't stand up. The United States has amply demonstrated the folly of declaring war on an ideology.


2. Anarchists NEVER say things like:

I would think anyone would agree with that. It's really pretty inoccuous.


or

Anarchists are opposed to government institutions by principle; That's what makes them anarchist. you can't be in support of the government and be an anarchist at the same time. that's like having a god-fearing atheist. It's impossible.

There's a difference between supporting nationalized healthcare and supporting the government, or the notion of government. Actually, that was a pretty close paraphrase of Noam Chomsky;
“..the state is an illegitimate institution. But it does not follow from that that you should not support the state. Sometimes there is a more illegitimate institution which will take over if you do not support this illegitimate institution. So, if you’re concerned with the people, let’s be concrete, let’s take the United States. There is a state sector that does awful things, but it also happens to do some good things. As a result of…extensive popular struggle there is a minimal welfare system that provides support for poor mothers and children. That’s’ under attack in an attempt to minimize the state. Well, Anarchists can’t seem to understand that they are to support that. …meaning put more power into the hands of private tyrannies which are completely unaccountable…and purely totalitarian.
…If you care about the question of whether seven-year-old children have food to eat, you’ll support the state sector at this point, recognizing that in the long term it’s illegitimate.
..In fact, protecting the state sector today is a step towards abolishing the state because it maintains a public arena in which people can participate and organize, and affect policy, and so on, though in limited ways. If that’s’ removed we’d go back to a…dictatorship, or a private dictatorship, but that’s’ hardly a step towards liberation.”


And while I can't confirm it, I would believe you stand in the belief that religion should be outlawed.

No, I firmly believe that if we're going to have a government (And if we have to have religion.) there should be a clear deviding line between church and state. This is one of the more progressive features of the American government, contrary to say, England, where taxes automatically go to the Anglican church, regardless of whether or not you're a member.

[Adi Shankara]

Not at all. I never said that. The best weapons against religion are education and by public debate. Once we change the rules and allow critical analysis of religion it will fall apart very quickly. This is why they've made it impossible to criticize religion for so long, because they know it can't stand up. The United States has amply demonstrated the folly of declaring war on an ideology.

1.) who is "we" in this context,

2.) what sort of anarchist wants to create more rules, and:

3.) what makes strong atheism (that is, the positive affirmation that god doesn't exist) so superior to religion anyways? in the end, they're both faith based (seeing as either side can't disprove the other, and that atheists, as do the theists, don't know for 100% scientific certainty beyond word games and semantics, that god exists or not) Ideologies, of which neither are based in scientific fact.

[the last donut of the night]

No, I'm not. I didn't say the West is 'innately superior.' I said that Western society is more democratic, we have freedom of speech, secular government, women's rights, gay rights, etc. I also said nothing about capitalism, which I'm against. I'm also against the corporate communism that is actually practiced in the West.


How do you define "the West", buddy? Everything west of the Greenwich line? Everybody that speaks an Indo-European language? Anybody that speaks English? One of your arguments' fallacies is that you've turned to the liberal notion of the West vs. East. There are no such things. I mean, you'll try to put these things into a pseudo-marxist veil, but I have a feeling that in the end your actual beliefs are much less progressive. Is the West to you a bunch of white, liberal college students and the east a bunch of anti-semitic and barbaric Muslim beasts of burden? I'm pretty sure the West isn't this beacon of light you're showing off about -- the so-called gay rights are usually a veneer and even most of the time they're nowhere to be found (like in my homeland, Brazil -- or is that not the West, since we're all brown there?).

You reek of chauvinism.

[NGNM85]

1.) who is "we" in this context,

"We" is myself and anyone else who share my priorities and goals. Namely, creating a more secular, more rational, more free and democratic society, culminating in Anarchism.


2.) what sort of anarchist wants to create more rules, and:

Anarchists don't believe in abolishing all rules, just that they shouldn't be followed blindly, and that they should be forced to meet a strict burden of proof.


3.) what makes strong atheism (that is, the positive affirmation that god doesn't exist) so superior to religion anyways? in the end, they're both faith based (seeing as either side can't disprove the other, and that atheists, as do the theists, don't know for 100% scientific certainty beyond word games and semantics, that god exists or not) Ideologies, of which neither are based in scientific fact.

First of all, you're mischaracterizing Atheism. I can't prove to absolute certainty that 'god' does not exist. That's not what Atheism is about. Honestly, I can't absolutely prove you exist, but I feel confident that you do based on my observations. However, I also can't prove unicorns don't exist. I'd have to survey the entire universe, according to M theory that includes 10 seperate dimensions, that's presupposing we don't exist in a multiverse, in which case I'd have my dance card full for at least a few trillion years. However, none of this makes the study of unicorns, or the contemplation of their nature a legitimate exercise. That isn't how science works, that isn't how reason works. There simply is no conclusive evidence of 'god.' This is why reason and religion are diametrically opposed, science requires you to look for the evidence, then develop a conclusion, religion just authoritatively states their answer, then struggles to interpret the world through this preconception. Moreover, at best, this is simply an argument for deism, not for the Abrahamic faiths or any other actual religion, they can be dismissed immediately.

[Adi Shankara]

How do you define "the West", buddy? Everything west of the Greenwich line? Everybody that speaks an Indo-European language?

yeah, that's right: didn't the oh-so democratic "West" have fascist dictatorship in Portugal and Spain up until the mid 70's? doesn't Belarus still have dictatorship?

NGNM85, you just have pure contempt for brown peoples. you don't want to be (rightfully so) labeled as a racist, so you instead attack the cultures of those brown peoples.

It doesn't take a complete genius to see what you're trying to do.

[Adi Shankara]

There simply is no conclusive evidence of 'god.' This is why reason and religion are diametrically opposed, science requires you to look for the evidence, then develop a conclusion, religion just authoritatively states their answer, then struggles to interpret the world through this preconception. Moreover, at best, this is simply an argument for deism, not for the Abrahamic faiths or any other actual religion, they can be dismissed immediately.

and how does that make strong atheism any more scientific than religion? you failed to explain that, besides throwing out a rather good attempt at a red herring.

[NGNM85]

How do you define "the West", buddy? Everything west of the Greenwich line? Everybody that speaks an Indo-European language? Anybody that speaks English? One of your arguments' fallacies is that you've turned to the liberal notion of the West vs. East. There are no such things. I mean, you'll try to put these things into a pseudo-marxist veil, but I have a feeling that in the end your actual beliefs are much less progressive. Is the West to you a bunch of white, liberal college students and the east a bunch of anti-semitic and barbaric Muslim beasts of burden? I'm pretty sure the West isn't this beacon of light you're showing off about -- the so-called gay rights are usually a veneer and even most of the time they're nowhere to be found (like in my homeland, Brazil -- or is that not the West, since we're all brown there?).

You reek of chauvinism.

I never said it was perfect, just better than virtually all the existing alternatives. No, I'm talking about 'the West' as it is commonly understood in conversation; the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. As for the rest, you're just talking out of your ass. This bears no similarity to anything I've said. You're seeing what you want to see.

[NGNM85]

yeah, that's right: didn't the oh-so democratic "West" have fascist dictatorship in Portugal and Spain up until the mid 70's? doesn't Belarus still have dictatorship?

Portugal/Spain are a rare exception, and Belarus is not a part of what’s considered the ‘Western world.”


NGNM85, you just have pure contempt for brown peoples. you don't want to be (rightfully so) labeled as a racist, so you instead attack the cultures of those brown peoples.

It doesn't take a complete genius to see what you're trying to do.

You just state this authoritatively. It’s the same thing with Bill Maher, you just scream “Racism!” louder, and louder. That is not an argument. I have made it abundantly clear I am deeply opposed to racism, especially because anyone who knows anything about biology knows race is a meaningless distinction.


and how does that make strong atheism any more scientific than religion? you failed to explain that, besides throwing out a rather good attempt at a red herring.

There is no strong or soft Atheism. There simply is no conclusive evidence of god. Again, religion state authoritatively there absolutely is a god, more than that, they tell us fanciful stories about exactly what he’s like and exactly what he wants, and what he doesn’t want us to do in bed, etc. I’m making a judgment based on evidence, moreover, in the event I were to find definitive evidence to the contrary, I would change my mind, while truly religious people could be confronted with absolute scientific proof that there is no god, (If such proof could be obtained.) and they still wouldn’t believe it, because religion isn’t based on reason.

[Adi Shankara]

I would change my mind, while truly religious people could be confronted with absolute scientific proof that there is no god, (If such proof could be obtained.) and they still wouldn’t believe it, because religion isn’t based on reason.

You just state this authoritatively. It’s the same thing with Bill Maher. That is not an argument. :rolleyes::tt2::p (seriously, you are such a fucking hypocrite)




Portugal/Spain are a rare exception, and Belarus is not a part of what’s considered the ‘Western world.”

and what criteria have you discovered that would disclude Belarus from the Western world? also, what about Italy? for many years their governments weren't exactly paragons of democracy.

[The Ben G]

I think Boots Riley is in my top 5 favorite rappers now.

[RadioRaheem84]

NGN how are Spain and Portugal exceptions? Secondly why do you think that progress is somehow linear? You don't think your presciously undefined west cannot desend into fascism again? My god are you a liberal!

[Robocommie]

NGN how are Spain and Portugal exceptions?

Cause they don't fit the scheme, of course, so they don't count.


and what criteria have you discovered that would disclude Belarus from the Western world?

lol Slavs. "They" are from the Orient. "They" don't share "our" values. That's the very essence of the Clash of Civilizations scheme.

[Franz Fanonipants]

NGN how are Spain and Portugal exceptions?

Dude where's your racial theory at? Don't you know those swarthy Mediterraneans are essentially a step up from apes, and incapable of self-rule?

this is all, of course, very LOGICAL.

[Robocommie]

this is all, of course, very LOGICAL.

Hah, so was phrenology.

This is the problem with science geeks trying to use cold empirical rationality in regards to the fuzzy social sciences. Shit don't work, man.

[Adi Shankara]

Hah, so was phrenology.

This is the problem with science geeks trying to use cold empirical rationality in regards to the fuzzy social sciences. Shit don't work, man.

That was Franz' post, not mine :p

[DaringMehring]

If you want to hate Maher, look no further than here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czu87N2avr4&feature=related

[Adi Shankara]

If you want to hate Maher, look no further than here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czu87N2avr4&feature=related

This made me rage so hard:mad:

[bailey_187]

Thomas Sankara, do you feel that the values demonstrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were better, worse or the same as those in "the West"?

[bailey_187]

My god are you a liberal!

tbh, you, Sankara and Robo are the biggest liberals in this thread right now.

[Adi Shankara]

Thomas Sankara, do you feel that the values demonstrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were better, worse or the same as those in "the West"?

exactly the same. yes they were done in different ways, but they all had the same end-game result: death, poverty, and destruction.

the values of the west worked slower in their destruction, but people still died under colonialism, people STILL die under colonialism...just because they happen at different speeds or more concentrated doesn't mean that one is worse than the other. they're both awful.

[Adi Shankara]

tbh, you, Sankara and Robo are the biggest liberals in this thread right now.

a chauvinist Paultard-style libertarian/racist calling me a "liberal"...I think I'll take that as a compliment.

[bailey_187]

a chauvinist Paultard-style libertarian/racist calling me a "liberal"...I think I'll take that as a compliment.

Please justify calling me each one of those labels.

[bailey_187]

exactly the same. yes they were done in different ways, but they all had the same end-game result: death, poverty, and destruction.

the values of the west worked slower in their destruction, but people still died under colonialism, people STILL die under colonialism...just because they happen at different speeds or more concentrated doesn't mean that one is worse than the other. they're both awful.

So why do you scream at the top of your lungs about Mike Eleye/Kasama/RCP supposed support for Pol Pot? Surely it is just the same thing as saying "Obama's ok, he just working in a bad situation" (i support neither Pol Pot nor Obama btw, before you had another label to your string of rediculous insults)

[Sir Comradical]

I love how 'liberal' is an epithet.

[Robocommie]

tbh, you, Sankara and Robo are the biggest liberals in this thread right now.

Bailey, as I told you before, I don't think you understand what's going on in this thread. Your empty snipes about Saudi Arabia, and now the Khmer Rouge, show that pretty well. You seem to think this is about believing that no government or state can ever be wrong. It's not.

[Adi Shankara]

So why do you scream at the top of your lungs about Mike Eleye/Kasama/RCP supposed support for Pol Pot?

because I oppose them? duh! that's a no brainer there.

[Robocommie]

I love how 'liberal' is an epithet.

It's not something I normally do, because progressive left-liberals aren't so bad, they simply still have faith in capitalism. However, there's certain ways of looking at things that are inconsistent with anti-colonialism, ignorant prejudices and chauvinistic stereotypes that are more commonly found among centrists and left-liberals that is being demonstrated here, and that shit's just completely unacceptable for a revolutionary.

The left cannot abide someone who would willfully throw a spanner into post-colonialism and play along with the imperialist narrative.

[bailey_187]

Bailey, as I told you before, I don't think you understand what's going on in this thread. Your empty snipes about Saudi Arabia, and now the Khmer Rouge, show that pretty well. You seem to think this is about believing that no government or state can ever be wrong. It's not.

What exactly is the argument then?

The argument is that the oppressive 'values' and 'culture' of Saudi Arbaia are not worse than the oppresive 'values' and 'culture' that exist in the USA, right?

Then we get smug remarks about "well, you know, America is allies with the Saudis and funded the Taliban" oh clap clap clap clap. As if anyone here doesnt know that. That argument only makes sense if anyone here actually supported America, or saw America as a becon of light in the world. No one does.

[bailey_187]

because I oppose them? duh! that's a no brainer there.

But they are not better nor worse to any other oppressive country according to you? So why the special attention? Do you hate Cambodians?

[bailey_187]

It's not something I normally do, because progressive left-liberals aren't so bad, they simply still have faith in capitalism. However, there's certain ways of looking at things that are inconsistent with anti-colonialism, ignorant prejudices and chauvinistic stereotypes that are more commonly found among centrists and left-liberals that is being demonstrated here, and that shit's just completely unacceptable for a revolutionary.

The left cannot abide someone who would willfully throw a spanner into post-colonialism and play along with the imperialist narrative.

This version of anti-imperialism is a farce.

The aim of Anti-Imperialism for Fanon was "Third World starting a new history of Man, a history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s crimes"

This infantile opposition to some ideas and 'values' of European origin, which are really universal as Europeans are no different anyone else, these ideas and values are 'European' by Geographical luck only, and trying to label upholding them as racist, is a psuedo-anti-imperialism.

"All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission which fell to them, which consisted of bringing their whole weight to bear violently upon these elements, of modifying their arrangement and their nature, of changing them and, finally, of bringing the problem of mankind to an infinitely higher plane." - Franz Fanon

What Fanon is saying is that the ideas of the Enlightnment are great, however, Europeans did not allow them to adopted throughout the world.

The ideals and 'values' of the French Revolution were infinetly better than any i know of in the time of the Revolution. However, these ideals were not allowed to extend to Haiti etc, even when black slaves in Haiti were singing French Revolutionary songs. Thats the point.

[RadioRaheem84]

tbh, you, Sankara and Robo are the biggest liberals in this thread right now.

How so?


I fail to see the appeal of anti-theism/new atheism of the likes that Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins spew and how it's somehow a leftist's duty to spread it like gospel.


What exactly is the argument then?

The argument is that the oppressive 'values' and 'culture' of Saudi Arbaia are not worse than the oppresive 'values' and 'culture' that exist in the USA, right?

Then we get smug remarks about "well, you know, America is allies with the Saudis and funded the Taliban" oh clap clap clap clap. As if anyone here doesnt know that. That argument only makes sense if anyone here actually supported America, or saw America as a becon of light in the world. No one does.

Then you have no argument since it's part of the "west". Sheesh, the USSR was considered the evil "east" and I thought of it as the lesser of two evils in the Cold War.

[Robocommie]

What exactly is the argument then?

The argument is that the oppressive 'values' and 'culture' of Saudi Arbaia are not worse than the oppresive 'values' and 'culture' that exist in the USA, right?

Then we get smug remarks about "well, you know, America is allies with the Saudis and funded the Taliban" oh clap clap clap clap. As if anyone here doesnt know that. That argument only makes sense if anyone here actually supported America, or saw America as a becon of light in the world. No one does.

This isn't about Saudi Arabia or any specific nation, including the United States, this is what I'm talking about when I said you don't know what's being argued here. What was being promoted by NGNM from the beginning was his claim that it's just a "truism" - a self evident fact, no less, that Western culture and values are just outright better than the culture and values of the Middle East, of Islamic majority countries and cultures.

What I've been arguing all along is that it's complete bullshit to talk about "our" values and "their" values because there is no such fucking thing - it's a complete myth to talk about Us vs Them as if "we" are somehow so united in agreement on values, and as if "they" are somehow so united in opposing them. People have cited Saudi Arabia as an example of how "backwards" Islamic majority countries are, holding it up as an example of how Islamic or Arabic culture is worse than ours because it's more repressive, less secular, and bullshit like that. People who say shit like this completely ignore the political distinctions in the Middle East, like the fact that Saudi Arabia is a repressive, absolutist monarchy, and that it's own state-imposed version of Islam is not at all universal and in fact is frequently criticized within Islam.

In short, what's being done here Bailey, is the robbing of complexity of Arabic and Islamic-majority societies, reducing them to stereotypes of suicide bombers and wife-beaters and holding up the shining example of western culture as superior, because in the west we have secular democracy, unlike those awful, awful Muslims.

Which is bullshit. It's bullshit because these values aren't universal, either here, or over there. It's reducing both regions of the world into facile caricatures.

So bailey, before you make comments about "smug remarks" and whether or not anyone is holding up America as a "becon" maybe you better actually read the thread more closely. Because I have said all of this before. In particular I made mention of Saudi Arabia, which is precisely why I know you haven't been reading my posts, and if you have, then you haven't been comprehending it.

[Robocommie]

This infantile opposition to some ideas and 'values' of European origin, which are really universal as Europeans are no different anyone else, these ideas and values are 'European' by Geographical luck only, and trying to label upholding them as racist, is a psuedo-anti-imperialism.

I'd suggest you go and find someone who actually holds this opinion and tell him then. You won't find him in this thread.

The funny thing is bailey, you're actually arguing WITH me at this point, more than you are AGAINST me. Copy and paste my comment about how you don't know what's going on here.

[RadioRaheem84]

This version of anti-imperialism is a farce.

The aim of Anti-Imperialism for Fanon was "Third World starting a new history of Man, a history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s crimes"

This infantile opposition to some ideas and 'values' of European origin, which are really universal as Europeans are no different anyone else, these ideas and values are 'European' by Geographical luck only, and trying to label upholding them as racist, is a psuedo-anti-imperialism.

"All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission which fell to them, which consisted of bringing their whole weight to bear violently upon these elements, of modifying their arrangement and their nature, of changing them and, finally, of bringing the problem of mankind to an infinitely higher plane." - Franz Fanon

What Fanon is saying is that the ideas of the Enlightnment are great, however, Europeans did not allow them to adopted throughout the world.

The ideals and 'values' of the French Revolution were infinetly better than any i know of in the time of the Revolution. However, these ideals were not allowed to extend to Haiti etc, even when black slaves in Haiti were singing French Revolutionary songs. Thats the point.


But it's not like the West has upheld them either to their fullest in the West too. In fact they've been upheld very hypocritically. No in here is denying that that the Enlightenment wasn't important, but Communism and Anarchism represent those values taken to their logical extent and the third world exhibited the impulse to carry them out the most during the Cold War (and the west during the late nineteenth/early twentieth), but were brought down by the West itself. So it's not like these ideals should be viewed as trademarked and copyrighted by the West. It should show you how valuable these ideals are to the West when they knocked down Haitians singing French revolutionary songs or scoffed at Ho Chi Minh when he wanted to base the New Constitution on the American one.

Maybe you guys should be thinking about upholding the ideals of the Enlightenment, not where they came from.

[Franz Fanonipants]

What Fanon is saying is that the ideas of the Enlightnment are great, however, Europeans did not allow them to adopted throughout the world.

The Europeans also p. much didn't adopt them themselves.

But then again, you're essentially on our side. I don't see Enlightenment European culture as the pinnacle of world civilization, but acknowledge the good in Enlightenment thought. At the same time, though, comrade, you are forgiving NGN his insistence that instead of Europeans denying the rest of the world the benefits of enlightenment-era thought that the rest of the benighted world actually actively turned its back on the gifts of Europe.

I mean, you've got to see that, right? He insists that the demagogues, honor-killers, suicide bombers, and etc. are all raving anti-rationalists because of their belief structure and can never fully benefit from the white man's posture because they choose religion. Now, combine that with your understanding of how colonial administration and infrastructure essentially denied the colonized a chance to actually benefit from liberal economics or political structure. Now, of course, I don't mean to rob the colonized their agency, but there are real, structural reasons why reactionary religion appeals to people in the Muslim world, and all of those structural reasons have everything to do with the underdevelopment done by colonial administration and its modern iterations.

If you have sense enough to understand Fanon, you should be able to understand why I've labeled NGN a racist for most of the thread.

[bailey_187]

I fail to see the appeal of anti-theism/new atheism of the likes that Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins spew and how it's somehow a leftist's duty to spread it like gospel.

No where have i mentioned these names. (Although i did enjoy The God Delusion and God Is Not Great, but thats beside the point)



Then you have no argument since it's part of the "west". Sheesh, the USSR was considered the evil "east" and I thought of it as the lesser of two evils in the Cold War.

My point was, saying how America funds the Saudi's does not take away from the argument that the dominant (by this i mean Ruling Class) 'values' of America are better than those of the Saudis.

[bailey_187]

What I've been arguing all along is that it's complete bullshit to talk about "our" values and "their" values because there is no such fucking thing - it's a complete myth to talk about Us vs Them as if "we" are somehow so united in agreement on values, and as if "they" are somehow so united in opposing them.

Indeed, no ethnicity has a monopoly on any 'values'. So why when a certain 'value' that exists in the 'West' that is not so dominant in other areas of the world, is it racist to call that 'value' better?



People have cited Saudi Arabia as an example of how "backwards" Islamic majority countries are, holding it up as an example of how Islamic or Arabic culture is worse than ours because it's more repressive, less secular, and bullshit like that. People who say shit like this completely ignore the political distinctions in the Middle East, like the fact that Saudi Arabia is a repressive, absolutist monarchy, and that it's own state-imposed version of Islam is not at all universal and in fact is frequently criticized within Islam.

So you wouldnt say the dominant culture of Saudi Arabia's ruling class is more backwards than the dominant culture of the USA's ruling class, just...different?

[Franz Fanonipants]

So you wouldnt say the dominant culture of Saudi Arabia's ruling class is more backwards than the dominant culture of the USA's ruling class, just...different?

I'd say that Saudi Arabia's ruling class is pretty much exactly the same as America's ruling class. After all, they're basically the colonial bourgeoisie (as identified by Fanon).

And arguing otherwise is basically silly.