[lbo-talk] Time to Get Religion

boddi satva lbo.boddi at gmail.com
Mon Dec 4 20:18:42 PST 2006



>
> Passion and patronage are also what allowed Khomeinists to
> out-organize Iranian leftists, elected Hamas, and propelled Hizballah
> into the leadership position in Lebanon,

Ya don't think those 1400 years of religious teching had anything to do with it, do ya?

Jesus Christ! Get back to reality! Ayatollah Khomeini wasn't a cell leader. He was an established clergyman in the dominant church in Iran.

except that their political
> program -- populist and anti-imperialist -- radically differs from
> white American evangelicals' on economic and foreign policies.

Yeah, there's no imperialist tradition in Islam. Nah. Nothing like that.

Wow.

We (except perhaps organized labor, in which we do not have positions
> of power either) can't offer the same degree of politicized material
> social programs even if we try to emulate them in service to the
> masses. We can't help that.

Well, there's always, you know, science and truth and all that - but definitely, let's try to compete with religious people on the God thing - we'll do great

But I'd have to say that we, lacking in a new powerful world view
> since the loss of the myth of inevitable dialectical progress, do not
> have as much passion for social change as white evangelicals here and
> Islamists abroad. We are not unlike George Herbert Walker Bush: we
> lack "the vision thing."
>
> We can rectify _that_, can't we?

Let's see : "We want you to own the companies you work for and they want you to eat shit and die!"

or how about "We have science. They have nonsense."

No, when it comes to a mass movement obviously the people who appeal to people's superstitions are going to do well. But I would think that the people who have in mind a better economic program might also do well.

It's the economy, Yoshie!

Maybe socialists should start talking about prosperity again.

Hmmm.....

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