This is what reality looks like

[WilliamGreen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF35a5E0uss

When you watch this I want you to remember something.

We all know that poverty, imperialism, and poor education create these kind of horrible actions.

Ideologies that kill other struggling people of a struggling region.

I think it's important to see though that this is what exploitation makes of people.

We as people need to be doing more.

Remember without getting the message out there when it comes our or our kids turn to face tough economic and political climates do we want them falling back on sectarian divides in all their forms or do we want them uniting around the conditions that truly created their oppression and poverty.

Something to think about.

[argeiphontes]

Poverty and exploitation are the cause of that? That's a tough sell from where I'm sitting.

[WilliamGreen]

Poverty and exploitation are the cause of that? That's a tough sell from where I'm sitting.


I wouldn't go as far to say it encompasses the whole situation.

But I think you see violence and people dividing along sectarian lines more so in poverty and unstable political climates.

They go hand in hand.

[WilliamGreen]

Are you a liberal by any chance?

How do you mean the word?

[Slavic]

Poverty and exploitation are the cause of that? That's a tough sell from where I'm sitting.

You can't deny that religious fundamentalism can and does arise amongst peoples most severely affected by poverty and exploitation.

[WilliamGreen]

You can't deny that religious fundamentalism can and does arise amongst peoples most severely affected by poverty and exploitation.

That is the point I am trying to make.

When people are in a bad situation they often flock to the ideas available to them in hopes of finding a way out or meaning in the situation.

Most commonly the ideas available are the ones deeply established like religion or historic struggles/divides.

My post was trying to make the point that we really need to help develop the ideas of the left and help them become more accessible.

From prisons to countries. It's time to move past the racial, ethnic, religious, etc. divides to address the actual causes and conditions. And I think in this respect the analysis of the left could play a big part.

As always though I don't think is a complete sum-up of the situation and if there are great additional points to be made let's get them out there so we all can learn :)

[argeiphontes]

You can't deny that religious fundamentalism can and does arise amongst peoples most severely affected by poverty and exploitation.

It's religious hatred pure and simple. The Sunni/Shia schism dates back hundreds of years, to arguments about the legitimate successor to the prophet. The ability to put up those road blocks has to do with chaos and the disintegration of central power in Iraq / ability to govern.

This is a real conundrum for deterministic historical materialists, ey? ;)

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

It's religious hatred pure and simple. The Sunni/Shia schism dates back hundreds of years, to arguments about the legitimate successor to the prophet. The ability to put up those road blocks has to do with chaos and the disintegration of central power in Iraq / ability to govern.

This is a real conundrum for deterministic historical materialists, ey? ;)

And yet, the Sunni and Shi'a - and other branches of Islam - were able to coexist perfectly peacefully in most of the region prior to the current period of aggravated imperialist predation. Historical materialism would have trouble explaining a disembodied, supra-class and immaterial Sunni-Shi'a Religious Hatred - but that exists only in the heads of orientalist idealists.

[Slavic]

It's religious hatred pure and simple. The Sunni/Shia schism dates back hundreds of years, to arguments about the legitimate successor to the prophet. The ability to put up those road blocks has to do with chaos and the disintegration of central power in Iraq / ability to govern.

This is a real conundrum for deterministic historical materialists, ey? ;)

True, the schism occurred over the legitimate successor to the prophet, but it does not stop there, it was also the successor to the reign of the Ummah. Who ever was named Caliph would have been extremely powerful since the Islamic Empire at the time was sprawling, militarily powerful, and in control of all trade routes from Asia to Europe and Africa.

The schism is much more political then religious and is comparable to the Catholic schism. Political jockying between the Hashim and Ummayad clans intensified and solidified the schism.

So what do we have, powerful political entities fighting over the succession of a state. What follows, thousands of deaths and said fighting dividing the common folk. I see exploitation in full effect here.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

The Shi'a-Sunni schism was more than a fight between two branches of the Quraysh clan - note that Ayesha had also tried to challenge Ali, but that did not result in a new branch of Islam. I think the contradictions between the Arab aristocracy and the mostly Persian bureaucracy of the caliphate are the key here - Ali being notably pro-Persian, while the other Caliphs treated the Persians as clients of the Arab aristocracy at best.

[argeiphontes]

Historical materialism would have trouble explaining a disembodied, supra-class and immaterial Sunni-Shi'a Religious Hatred - but that exists only in the heads of orientalist idealists.

None of this historical fighting explains why that guy but the bullet in the other guy. It must have been because of his beliefs.

edit: By the way, C.H., what gives you the right to pick an offensive username like that?

[WilliamGreen]

Slavic what a wonderful post :)

[WilliamGreen]

None of this historical fighting explains why that guy but the bullet in the other guy. It must have been because of his beliefs.

edit: By the way, C.H., what gives you the right to pick an offensive username like that?

It's most likely being chosen to demonstrate the absurbdity of criminalizing homosexuality.

Let's stay on topic, you can always pm if you need clarification from a user.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

None of this historical fighting explains why that guy but the bullet in the other guy. It must have been because of his beliefs.

What beliefs? Sunni or Shi'a Islam, the exact same beliefs that were held by a large number of people who never killed anyone of the opposite sect and had no intention to?

This isn't just lazy social analysis, it betrays a fundamentally racist and unscientific view of history - those Muslim devils are killing themselves due to centuries-old schisms in their devilish religion - if you follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, it would be best if some benevolent imperial power - there are quite a few candidates - were to occupy the Middle East and convert the natives to Christianity - one sect only, of course, we wouldn't want the savages to start killing themselves again.


edit: By the way, C.H., what gives you the right to pick an offensive username like that?

The ghost of comrade Stalin. Seriously, there is no chance of heterosexuality being made illegal, unlike homosexuality, which is illegal de facto and de jure in a number of states, often with the blessing of traitor-socialists.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

You've got to be kidding me. You think all of that follows from somebody saying that there is religious hatred between the sects? He doesn't believe that himself, he's trolling. He does this all the time, remember how he tried to imply that one guy was an anit-semite (http://www.revleft.com/vb/time-new-theory-t144224/index.html?p=2714632#post2714632) because he was against finance capital?

Well, if you genuinely haven't heard anti-semitic conspiracy nuts resurrecting the old reactionary distinction between "good, productive" industrial capital - or petit-bourgeois enterprise - and evil Jewish financial capitalism, congratulations on your cozy existence living under a rock. Hell, one of these people, "stormcloudsgathering", was mentioned in a recent thread. More generally, someone who only attacks finance capitalism, or only corporations, banks or businesses that are not "green" enough, and so on - these people are at best liberals, and have no business being unrestricted on RevLeft.

And yes, misrepresenting centuries of complex social relations in the Middle East as some sort of timeless "religious hatred" is racist, and it leads to idealist crusades against Muslim people as such, instead of addressing the fucking material conditions that result in sectarian violence.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

You've got to be kidding me, too. You expect me and/or other members of the board to fall for that emotional drivel, do you? If two people make the same argument, they must be doing it for the same reason, right? If anti-semites want Israel out of Palestine and I want Israel out of Palestine, then logically I'm an anti-semite, right?

I expect members of the board - perhaps not "market socialists" who seem to think that "ideologies" are bad, though - to realize that arguments don't exist in a vacuum. In fact, most seem to. Finance capital is stereotypically associated with particular ethnic groups in Europe and much of America. Therefore, it is very rare for someone who focuses on finance capital to not be an anti-semite in some form.

Likewise, certain forms of anti-Zionism are anti-semitic, even if they do not explicitly denigrate Jews. But there are also good communist reasons for being opposed to Zionism - there are no communist reasons for being opposed only to finance capital. Communists stand in opposition to all forms of capital. In any case - someone who is opposed to Zionism because of the treatment of Palestinians is probably not an anti-semite; someone who is opposed to Zionism due to the "historic borders" of Palestine probably is.


Not to mention that you're just deflecting. This guy was a liberal so it's OK to try to brand him as an anti-semite, huh? Religious hatred is somehow racist, huh? I'd ask you for a coherent argument as to why you think that, but coherent arguments aren't your M.O.

I have explained both, several times. If you genuinely think liberals can't be racists, and are usually not racists, though, I fear you're a lost cause. It's as if you think the only racists are people who wear "I HATE N*GGERS" T-shirts.


The problem is, is that I give you enough credit to not think that your horseshit is an innocent mistake. Based on your other bullshit non-sequiturs in the diamat thread, and your pattern in general, I figure you're a little smarter than to believe your own crap. You just get off on trolling. Maybe you are stupid enough to confuse winning an argument with being right, in which case I pity you.

Oh, you really shouldn't have brought up the DiaMat thread. Because anyone who is familiar with the subject - I would hope this would be most of the board! - can see how full of shit you were on that thread. I mean, CK also missed the point, but in that case you can see the causal connections - they got it from Rosa L., who got it from taking Slaughter, Banda and Healy too seriously, and those three gentlemen wrote nonsense because they needed to cover every possible U-turn of WRP politics. But your contribution was just incomprehensible.


You must hold me and the board in very low regard to think that we're going to fall for your ridiculous bullshit arguments. I hope other people keep calling you on it, though I guess people believe what they want to believe, which makes it look like you win. Good thing I'll never actually have to live in some collective society with you or your supporters. Fuck you if you think you can call me a racist.

Likewise, fuck you if you think the Lebanese civil war was fought over some ahistorical "religious hatred" by those backward Muslims (you would never say the same thing about Europe, would you? unless we're talking about Bosnia or Albania).

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Removed a page's worth of one-liners and flaming. If you want to call someone a liberal, please, PM them, and spare the rest of us your bullshit.

Moved to Discrimination.