| Theory |
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Communists Against Religion -- Part 19 June6, 2006 by RedStar2000 |
Today being the "number of the beast" -- 06/06/06 -- what more appropriate than a fresh collection of attacks on superstition.
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To the extent that I've "discouraged" or "demoralized" people who are soft on superstition, I'm proud of my posts.
I would rather, of course, have "won them over"...but that is not always possible. Particularly in a country that is thoroughly polluted with toxic superstitions.
It is not the task of revolutionaries to "fight for" religious tolerance!
Anyone who wants to do that is perfectly free to do so...but will hopefully refrain from dragging Marx's name into that muck.
Probably a vain hope. *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on March 23, 2006
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Most likely an "erudite" reference to Bismarck's Kulturekampf against Catholicism in the 19th century Prussian Empire.
A rather "cute" play on words...with a distant echo of historical reality.
It was "part of the process" that gave birth to the more overtly secular Weimar Republic...a process that the superstitious (and their new friends!) doubtlessly find deeply disturbing.
In their eyes, I am undoubtedly a "Bismarxist". *laughs*
They, of course, are not any kind of Marxist at all!
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First posted at RevLeft on March 23, 2006
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Look you can't just treat Islam and Islamism as a unified political entity.
I don't think anyone is doing that.
Criticizing Islam as a religion calls upon the same understanding that we use when criticizing any religion. It is a medieval superstition...most closely resembling Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestant Evangelicalism. It is, perforce, sexist, homophobic, and anti-communist.
And, of course, wrong!
"Islamism" (or sometimes "Islamicism") is the political expression of Islam -- like Opus Dei or Focus on the Family...groups which directly seek greater political influence for Islam as "the righteous way to structure a society".
They are clerical fascists pure and simple!
If they had the chance, they would kill us and feel good about it afterwards. It's not a matter, in the long run, of the "arms of criticism" but rather the "criticism of arms".
"Islamophobia" is an invention of those who believe in "religious tolerance"...that there is something "self-evidently sacred" about religious beliefs which "cannot" legitimately be criticized. To be or even appear to be "intolerant" of Islam or Islamism or even any religion is to be a "bigot", a "racist", an imperialist "dupe", etc., etc., etc.
In recent years, the remnants of western Trotskyism have seized upon "Islamophobia" as an "organizing tool"...a "right turn" which they hope will win them influence among Muslim immigrants and guilt-ridden liberals. And perhaps even win them a few seats in parliament.
Their pathetic attempts to cover this maneuver with "Marxist" rhetoric remind me of Soviet rhetoric immediately after the Stalin-Hitler Pact. You know, Nazism is "not really as bad as we said it was". *laughs*
To be sure, a number of imperialist countries have found anti-Islamic rhetoric useful as a "justification" for their own imperial ambitions. Like all such "justifications", they are simply lying. The quisling regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq are Islamicist...and perfectly acceptable to the imperialist countries.
If one expresses opposition to those regimes, is one a "bigot"?
Well, no, it's "ok" to criticize them. But Islamicism in the "west" is "untouchable". To denounce it "divides the working class". *laughs*
As, one must infer, to denounce Christianity in the U.S. A bit of "respectful" opposition to right-wing Christians is acceptable, but any challenge to their core values is "going too far" and "ultra-leftist".
You know, Trotsky, for all his faults, did at least attempt to be a revolutionary. The people who invoke his name now strive with one another to see who can kiss superstitious ass with the most enthusiasm.
The SWP (UK) "leads the pack"...but it appears that all of them want to "join in the fun".
And it looks as if our American Maoists (the RCP) want to do likewise.
The "left jargon" word for this is tailism...only it's far worse than when that word was originally coined. It originally referred to "revolutionaries" that hoped to gain influence by simply endorsing whatever economic demands were momentarily popular among groups of workers.
Modern "tailism" simply tails superstition...and treats the complaints of mullahs, preachers, et.al., as "legitimate".
The logic of this "right turn" will, I think, reveal itself over the next few years. The Trotskyists will come out against abortion and birth control because those issues "divide the working class".
And they'll probably come out in favor of state subsidy for private religious schools...for the same reason.
That's where the path they've chosen leads!
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First posted at RevLeft on March 23, 2006
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In general, the anti-religious faction on this board are inverting historical materialism: consciousness (backwards religious ideas) determines being to them, rather than the other way around.
Islamicism is a reflection of the material conditions in the Muslim world...to all intents and purposes, pre-capitalist. With the limited exception of Turkey and, perhaps briefly in Egypt under Nasser, there has been no 1789 in the Muslim world.
When Muslims emigrate to the "west", they bring their superstitious baggage with them. It's absurd to imagine that people's consciousness leaps centuries into the future when they get off an airplane.
Their kids and, even more, their grandkids may be indistinguishable from other modern people...but it doesn't happen "instantly".
To pretend that it "does" or "should" or that we should act as if it "had" is just dumb.
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...but I don't see anyone here suggesting that they want to see Islamic governments put into place.
It's not a matter of what "we want", it's what they want! If the Christian fascists in the U.S. press for the re-criminalization of homosexuality, guess who would enthusiastically support such a measure?
In fact, it would be pretty easy to work up a whole list of demands around which Christian Fascists and Muslim Fascists could unite "in good faith". I don't know if this sort of "Popular Front for God" could actually materialize...but I think it would be extraordinarily foolish to just "rule it out".
The modern face of fascism has little to do with brown shirts and nationalism "gone wild"...that stuff is all "too modern". What we see now is an emotional appeal to medieval superstition and all of its bloody horrors.
The goal is to punish the sinners!
Which, by the way, includes us!
On those increasingly rare occasions when bourgeois secular authorities, for motives of their own, seek to repress some superstitious practice, it is suggested on this board that we should scurry to the defense of our enemies.
I cannot find words to express my dismay at such a suicidal course.
All sorts of bizarre "reasons" have been offered on behalf of such a "strategy"...and have been endlessly refuted to no avail. I am of the opinion that it would be better if those who want to suck up to pre-capitalist superstitions would "go their own way" and just go ahead and do that.
Form a group called "Socialists for God" or something. Sign up all those "religious leftists" that they claim "exist". Maybe even infiltrate and "take over" a few churches and mosques.
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Additionally, Iran is very repressive (I certainly would not want to live there) and yet none of us (hopefully) would support a US attack on Iran even if it led to a more progressive secular state...
-- emphasis added.
The point is that such an attack would not "lead to a more progressive secular state". The U.S. would replace the existing reactionary mullahs with its own reactionary mullahs...as has been demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Only if U.S. imperialism fell victim to "unintended consequences" could anything "good" come from such an attack: a secular and patriotic revolution against the mullahs due to the failure of the mullahs to successfully defend Iran. The chances of that are small...but not zero.
U.S. imperialism is always reactionary.
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On principle we support self-determination. For similar reasons we do not support our Ruling class in repressing other groups of workers even if they have backwards ideas!
Oh? Once the forces of Third Reich had been driven back within Germany's "traditional" borders, the Allies should have ceased to advance...on the principle that Germans "have a right to be Nazis" if "that's what they want".
Likewise, working-class racists have a "right to organize" and we shall indignantly oppose any efforts by the bourgeois state apparatus to repress them.
And Christians "have a right" to torch abortion clinics, don't they?
One wonders. Did the SWP (U.S.) organize a defense committee for the German-American Bund c.1940 or so? *laughs*
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I always used to think of religious people (meaning people who believe in a certain "higher power") as counter-revolutionary, but through reading things and discussions I've had/followed, I had to change my opinion...but, as it seems, religion is not counterrevolutionary by definition. I would hereby like to admit my wrong in the subject and apologize to all religious revolutionaries.
Another recruit for "Socialists for God"...and one of the saddest posts I've ever seen on this board.
Unconditional surrender to reaction.
Well, that's how it goes...all too often in a period of reaction.
Meanwhile, here's a Maoist quote from another thread...
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In reality, the majority of the masses will not be able to throw off the bonds of religion until after the proletariat has state power. Religion springs up from this system, and if you refuse to work with those who have religious beliefs, than you are isolating yourself from the proletariat.
-- emphasis added.
In complete opposition to that outlook, I flatly assert that the proletariat will not attain state power until it has shattered the bonds of religion.
And, for that matter, the bonds of racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia...all the "old shit" that has held us back for so long.
Leninists of all varieties say "we can't do that" -- that they must do it "for us"...after we put them "in charge".
I say we can and will do it!
What do you say?
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First posted at RevLeft on March 24, 2006
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But I do believe we must stand up against the obvious racism of the Dutch cartoons.
They are not "Dutch" cartoons; they are cartoons printed by a right-wing and undoubtedly racist newspaper that's published in Denmark.
People from North Africa and the Middle East who've recently emigrated to Denmark are not threatened by cartoons.
Their danger is physical...being attacked by right-wing thugs, being refused employment, or being deported on some racist pretext.
Further, they could be as atheist as I am and still face the same dangers.
It is an "excess" of melatonin that is their "crime"...not whatever superstition they happen to adhere to.
"Standing up against cartoons" is...cartoonish.
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Not when they get off a plane, but when they are pushed into the modern workforce and the material conditions put their backwards ideas into conflict with reality.
And that process usually takes a generation or two.
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Did dialectic reasoning help you dream this one up?
Most amusing. But we've seen some African-American churches in coalitions with Christian Fascists on homophobic propositions...so why not the Muslim clergy?
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Catholicism is backwards and oppressive, so was the Know-Nothing nativist party just trying to uphold American secularism?
Know-Nothing Movement]
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As the Second International and the Weimar Republic and the American CP could tell you, nothing is more suicidal than siding with your domestic ruling class!
This is so incoherent that I don't know how to respond to it. The parties in the Second International used patriotic rhetoric to justify their position. I don't know what you mean by the reference to the Weimar Republic. And the American CP likewise used patriotic rhetoric during World War II -- "Communism is 20th Century Americanism".
None of the secular people on this board have suggested that we "should side with" U.S. imperialism "because it's progressive compared to Islam".
On the other hand, it appears that the pro-religion people on this board think we should "march with the Muslims" because Islam is "progressive" compared to U.S. imperialism.
That's simply wacko!
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...but relying on the machinery of state repression...
Have I or has anyone suggested that we organize on behalf of bourgeois laws to suppress reactionaries?
It's not as if they make a habit of that sort of thing, is it?
Once in a while they'll do it...and that's fine with me.
But asking them to do it is completely pointless.
When reactionaries quarrel, it's not our fight. Let them do to each other whatever they wish.
As always, our job is to tell people the truth...that it is a quarrel between reactionaries.
Fuck em both!
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First posted at RevLeft on March 25, 2006
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Analogy: rather than murder and abuse the indigenous tribes into "Western civilization" the progressives of the time should have cohabited with the indigenous tribes and criticized aspects of their traditions that advocated human sacrifice, sexism, homophobia, and tribalism while installing a sense of rationalism in their way of life.
This "strategy" was attempted by Christian missionaries in the 19th century; giving rise to thousands of "racist" cartoons in the 20th century...you know, missionaries and cannibals. *laughs*
Will people in the next century laugh over cartoons of Islamicists and Trotskyists?
Picture: Trot about to be beheaded by large angry Mullah.
Caption: "But comrade, you don't grasp the dialectic!"
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First posted at RevLeft on March 25, 2006
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I think if minutemen were protesting outside of Spanish mass at Catholic churches in Los Angeles and saying they were fighting Popish influence in the US, no one here would question protesting the minutemen even if our protest could be viewed as supporting catholics who are also violently opposed to abortion and homosexuality and so on.
I would question it; it's not our fight!
Protest U.S. and British imperialism in the Middle East? Absolutely!
Protest racist attacks on immigrants? Absolutely!
Defend Islam? No way!
Defend Catholicism? Out of the question!
Defend "freedom of religion"? Don't be ridiculous!
That's a bourgeois liberal "value" that revolutionaries should wipe their asses with!
Let the bourgeois liberals and the social democrats kiss all the superstitious ass they want to...and that's a lot! *laughs*
Revolutionaries should have nothing but contempt for that crap.
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First posted at RevLeft on March 26, 2006
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Would you say that Jews in the time of the Tsar should not have the right to go to synagogues unmolested, as this "defends religious freedom"?
"Synagogue attendance" was not the "Jewish problem" in Czarist Russia. The problem that Jews faced there was pogroms...large-scale murderous attacks on Jews organized by the Czarist government.
In fact, "Bloody Nicholas" was rather inclined to large-scale murderous attacks on all of his subjects. A list of his atrocities would be a post of substantial length.
Besides which, that was then; this is now. Nearly everyone was religious back then and the few who weren't still embraced "freedom of religion" as a "sacred human right".
In the "west", we revolutionaries ought to be beyond all that by now!
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First posted at RevLeft on March 26, 2005
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Crap. Every time I get some outrageous Redstar quote to put in my sig, he comes out with something even more outrageous.
Always glad to be appreciated; being "outrageous" means I'm doing my job. *laughs*
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However, I think the anger that Muslims exhibited was possibly because they correctly interpreted what the cartoons really stood for: not a satire of their religion, or even a critique of their religion, but something that is part of a campaign to dehumanize Muslims and middle-easterners and turn public opinion against them in order to justify actual physical violence against them (both domestically in the West with racism, and with wars in the Middle East).
This "interpretation" has been raised before...but with nothing to bolster its plausibility.
Peoples who have been subjected to imperialist depredations have much to "riot" over. But the "cartoon war" never specifically dealt with any of the real issues.
U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan? Israeli treatment of the Palestinians? Racism in Europe?
Not a word was said!
The Islamicists were, in their own words, protesting blasphemy!
It is "western intellectuals" who propose to tell us "what it really means". I suppose they simply can't imagine that people would kill over such an archaic value. Religion is "nice" and "tolerant"...and "only an isolated nutball" would want to kill somebody over a thing like "blasphemy", right?
How easily they forget the time when Christians had the power to do what the Islamicists are doing now. And they curiously ignore what the Christians are doing in our own time -- the "war on drugs" is a "morality war" in concept and a war against people of color in practice -- and what Christians want to do in the immediate future: criminalize abortion and homosexuality.
What is the source of this almost calculated "ignorance"? I submit it is the view that religion is "harmless" or even "a good thing" and that it "should be tolerated".
When in fact it is not harmless, not a good thing, and should no more be tolerated than serial killing!
Islamicism is really what religion is all about...and the Islamicists have their counterpart in every major religion.
What secularists in general and revolutionaries in particular need to grasp is that there can be no "compromise" between a modern civilized "world-view" and a view that invites us to "re-create the Middle Ages".
Islamicism is reactionary. So is Christian Fascism. So is Hindu fundamentalism. So is Tibetan Buddhism. So is ultra-orthodox Judaism.
It is necessary that we quit kidding ourselves about this stuff and pretending that it will "just go away".
It's not "going away" until it is defeated...until religious belief is regarded in the same light as we now regard cannibalism.
That's going to take a while...at least another century of bitter struggles.
The "cartoon war" was but a minor skirmish behind enemy lines.
Worse lies ahead.
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First posted at RevLeft on March 27, 2006
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AKA people's right to raise their children in their own religion.
That isn't especially, in and of itself, a democratic right; but think about the implications of trying to deny it in practice. Necessarily involves massive repressive machinery; punishing people for belonging to a religious minority, etc. Can't do it without denying all kinds of democratic rights.
And what "serious Marxist" gives a rat's ass about what happens to kids anyway...especially when "mosques might be demolished".
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Redstar's calling for the demolition of mosques by the National Front...
I did not "call on" the French National Front to do that...but if they did, that would be fine with me.
I don't believe in "freedom of religion".
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Religious war, pogroms, inquisitions, etc., have been going on for thousands of years. If they hurt religion, it woulda collapsed a long time ago.
Not in the absence of a credible secular alternative.
In principle, communists have such an alternative to offer.
Though, to be sure, we still have numbers of "communists" who instead persist in defending "freedom of religion"...except when it's really inconvenient or too embarrassing.
But they don't embarrass easily. *laughs*
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Then there are a lot of naive people...
True, that! Even on this board. *sighs*
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If religion is the root cause of all this repression, then the removal of the Taleban by the US was progressive, the US should stay in Iraq to ensure that one religious group doesn't oppress or dominate another. This is the logic that Bush and Blair are trying to push forward.
While in fact they have installed "their own" Islamicists!
Bush and Blair are lying again.
Can that not be said?
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Is it pandering to Islam to be angry that guards in Guantánamo pissed on the Koran? No doubt Redstar thinks so.
What should be attacked about Guantánamo is torture...not pissing on the Koran.
Islamists seem uninterested in the atrocious treatment of their own followers...but rather emphasize the "blasphemous" treatment of their "holy book".
It's pretty clear what's important to them!
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If Arabs are turning to religion to express their anger it is partially because of the lack of a response from the secular left.
So shall we offer "comradely advice" to whatever there might be in the way of a "secular left" in the Muslim world?
Ok, my advice to them is a frontal attack on Islam!
Rip those bastards to shreds at every opportunity!
And don't get trapped in the swamp of "freedom of religion" like the stupid American "left".
We need freedom from religion!
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I don't think people should be locked up for mildly spanking their children; there is some point where a beating does become a crime.
Defend Freedom of Religion...and don't forget to beat your kids!
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It's necessary to point out that when they rail against "Islam" - or "Islamism", but usually they say Islam - they are really attacking millions of Muslim workers. And therefore, the entire working class. ("An injury to one is an injury to all.")
And millions of Muslim peasants. And very large numbers of Muslim petty-bourgeois. And substantial numbers of Muslim clerics. And a small but growing number of Muslim capitalists.
This spirited defense of Islam must encompass all classes as well.
Unless, possibly, he wishes to argue that Islam is "more proletarian" than Christianity or whatever.
In the Muslim world, I rather expect that workers are still very much a minority class.
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But the more oppressed will never join a "class unity" that does not address their oppression.
True. So it's up to us to decide what forms of oppression we wish to oppose and what forms we don't give a shit about.
I don't give a shit about the oppression of religion...in fact I'd be a lot harder on the bastards than that wuss Stalin was.
You, on the other hand, wish to "unite with the godsuckers" on what purports to be a "class basis"...which means that you must tolerate pretty much any damn thing they want to do.
Evidently, violence against children is one of the things you're willing to "go along with".
Spare the rod and spoil the child as the "Good Book" so helpfully reminds you.
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It's necessary to take a stand against every kind of oppression...
Except kids.
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In the U.S. where the primary group of immigrants who are under attack are Latino, we can not demand that Latino Catholics change their views on abortion before we fight back against racism in solidarity with them!
By and large, Hispanic peoples in North America do not frame their struggles in terms of "Catholic Right"...so it's not a major problem here.
But Catholicism clearly holds them back...so I would support Spanish-language propaganda against the Catholic Church and in favor of atheism.
And of course, it gives me enormous pleasure every time the Church loses another lawsuit to the victims of its endemic child-molesting.
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You are vacillating between Redstar's explicitly pro-fascist line...
Opposition to religion has now been "dialectically transformed" into "pro-fascism".
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For example, how many far-left groups in Europe put out newspapers in Arabic, Turkish, or whatever language is most often spoken by immigrants?
To do this requires fluency in those particular languages...something very rare among westerners.
In the U.S., most left groups at least try to publish some material in Spanish...and some do so with regularity and have been doing so for decades. I remember PL's newspaper was bi-lingual back in the 60s.
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Why do we tolerate Redstar, then?
Since he's "worse than any Mullah", right? *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on March 28, 2006
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Well why not ban all private religious schools while you're at it?
Good idea! There's no point in asking the modern bourgeoisie to do it...but if they did it, it would be an enormous step forward.
Shutting down the superstition factories would be an obvious early step in the revolutionary process.
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Why should only the rich be allowed to follow irrational customs and superstitions and avoid exposure to a secular environment?
The rich send their kids to first rate secular schools where, among other things, they are carefully instructed that religion is to be encouraged for the masses but ignored when rational rulers make policy decisions in their own class interests.
The ordinary people who send their kids to religious schools are motivated by faith...and make considerable financial sacrifices to "ensure" that their kids are fully indoctrinated with the "correct superstition".
There is also the fact that public education in America's "inner cities" is essentially being flushed down the toilet...so even some secular parents will send their kids to a religious school just so the kids will learn how to read.
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As far as symbols of oppression: banning them from the top of society is meaningless to the daily reality of the working class.
No...it has an impact though that impact may be delayed.
The especially pious will see any secular decision as an "attack on religion"...that's the way their "mind set" works.
But most people are not "especially pious"...and after a while, they get used to the new arrangements.
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...it does more to push Arabs away from secularism and toward religion...
This assertion is constantly made...without any justification that I can see whatsoever.
How is it known that secular repression of religion "drives people deeper into religion"?
Where are all the worshipers of Zeus and Isis these days? They certainly got thoroughly "repressed" by Christian authorities.
In fact, where are the North African Christians? As late as 600CE or thereabouts, all of North Africa was fervently Christian...and now you'd have a damn hard time finding even one!
The fact is, repression works! A sustained campaign to completely secularize a modern society could probably wipe out religion as a significant factor in a century.
Horrors! *laughs*
In pre-modern societies, it might take two centuries.
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May I ask why not?
Because "freedom of religion" is an old bourgeois value that is no longer relevant to a modern secular society...which we expect communism will be.
It would be like defending "freedom of cannibalism" or "freedom to own slaves".
What we need is freedom from religion...and we need it desperately!
Revelation has been exposed as a completely invalid source of information about the real world. To act "as if" it were "true" is suicidal!
See the numerous and ever-growing number of threads in the Religion Subforum that demonstrate the stupidity, cruelty, and reactionary "values" of religious superstitions.
It's a dismal list...and gets longer every day.
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First posted at RevLeft on March 28, 2006
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Well it's getting a little confused in the to-and-fro, but Redstar and his defenders have given me the impression that they would support a FN government, state-led campaign against religion.
Can we get real here...just for the time being?
Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National is not going to win a majority in the French parliament at any time in the foreseeable future and is not going to "form a government". They have won a few local elections and have shown what they would be like "in power"...to the point where even a bourgeois mediocrity like Chirac walloped Le Pen with more than 80% of the vote.
So the whole "example" is profoundly irrelevant.
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It seems to me that this argument sees a positive content to FN fire bombings of Synagogues and Mosques.
Well, if Jews and Muslims started burning down Christian cathedrals in retaliation, that might help things along.
And if those burnings can be plausibly linked to the FN, it wouldn't bother me at all if FN offices were torched and known members of the FN beaten up or killed.
Anything that will help stir up popular opposition to superstition has got to help us!
What's so hard to understand about that? So bourgeois liberals and social-democrats preach "religious tolerance"...so what! So they deny the self-evident fact that all religions lust to destroy their competitors in the godracket...what's that got to do with revolutionaries?
We're "supposed" to "pick a side"?
So we'll have "crescent reds" on one side and "holy cross reds" on the other??? *laughs*
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I draw the line at making positive demands on the bourgeois state...
A point that I likewise made...probably more than once.
The difference is that I refuse to "defend freedom of religion"...or any other bourgeois "right", for that matter. If the bourgeoisie decide to repress some religion or some right-wing political group...I laugh!
And when they attack our side, I don't bother with bourgeois platitudes about "freedom of speech" or "freedom of assembly" or "freedom of the press".
The bourgeoisie should be attacked as despots who deserve to be overthrown!
That's all a communist needs to say...let the defenders of bourgeois despotism blather about "human rights". It's their job!
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First posted at RevLeft on March 30, 2006
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No, I think it is your open intolerance of the superstitious themselves, not the superstition, that makes you a bigot.
"Hate the sin but love the sinner", eh? *laughs*
Nope. Those bedazzled by reactionary superstitions will turn out to be our enemies 99.999% of the time...the exceptions will be as rare as the proverbial summertime snowfall.
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I would not consider you a bigot if you held those in contempt that hold reactionary or even conservative viewpoints as a result of their religion, but although belief in the supernatural may be irrational, it is not a guarantee that such a person would not also hold socially and economically progressive, or even revolutionary, viewpoints.
History offers no "perfect guarantees"...but some things are so close to certain as makes no measurable difference.
Here's a student (about to depart) at "King's College" in New York City...
"My roommate says there will be free-market capitalism in heaven."
Christian college takes root in the Empire State Building
The most you can reasonably expect in our times is that someone who is superstitious may hold a "progressive" view on a particular single issue.
Muslim fundamentalists seeking to forcibly drive out the U.S. imperialists from Iraq, for example.
Such "historical accidents" will be increasingly rare with the passing of time, in my opinion. That is, with every passing year, religion becomes, of necessity, more and more objectively reactionary.
How could it be otherwise? It is more and more "out of date" and "intellectually obsolete" with every passing year. What else could it be but more and more reactionary?
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Though you don't care to admit it, history has shown that some sects can in fact be progressive and revolutionary, even if have always been in the minority historically.
Yes, you can root out some occasions when the rise of the bourgeoisie cloaked itself in the garments of the Protestant Reformation...which was certainly revolutionary for those times.
But, in the "old" capitalist countries, that's no longer relevant. There are no modern "religious communists" and, in my view, there cannot be such a thing.
Why pretend otherwise?
A small number of religious people are still interested in reformism, of course...but why should we give a rat's ass about that?
Reformism is just as obsolete in the "old" capitalist countries as religion is.
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Although you may make a distinction between religious individuals and sects when forced to through debate, effectively you lump Quakers, Liberation Theology adherents, and Unitarians in with Pentecostals, Southern Baptists and Right-Wing Catholics. You all hold them in contempt as "godsuckers". At best it's fundamentally unfair and prejudicial. At worst it's pure bigotry.
Yeah, it's all shit and the people who "push it" are all no damn good!
There's no legitimate excuse for that crap anymore...and the people who nevertheless get involved in it are hustlers, dummies, or people who have simply not yet thought the matter over.
The third category is by far the largest, to be sure. But they won't be persuaded to abandon superstition by any approach that suggests "respect for religion"...any more than we persuade someone that racism is a totally reactionary idea by displaying "respect for racial identity".
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When I actually started working with left-wing religious folks is when I started to moderate my beliefs about the religious, if not religion itself.
No surprise there. The usual consequence of "working with" reactionaries is that the "lefty" moves to the right.
He says to himself, "hey, they're not as bad as I thought they were."
Old story.
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First off, whether you consider me to be a reformist or not, I do openly oppose religion and superstition, but if the only substantive difference between myself and someone else involved in struggle is a belief in the supernatural, then let's agree to disagree and get on with the work of building a social movement, whether that end in reform or revolution.
I'm not stopping you; go right ahead and "work with" the religious all you like for whatever reforms you think worthy.
For revolutionaries, your efforts are simply irrelevant. We are uninterested in abstract "social movements"...except insofar as one of them may demonstrate some revolutionary potential.
When millions of angry people fill the streets, you'll get our attention. *laughs*
quote:
But in the meantime, we have left-wing religious people willing to struggle with us against the right-wing and against other conservative and reactionary forces. Some are even willing to engage in patently revolutionary activity with people who openly oppose religion as a social and institutional force.
Don't forget their agenda: they have a racket to save and if pretending to be "left" or even "revolutionary" will "help save it", some of them are willing to do that.
They're not there to "help us" but to hold us back! We may as well unite with "progressive CIA agents". *laughs*
quote:
Unless you want to be an ultrasectarian revolutionary who's more concerned with being correct than actually building a movement and winning anything.
You know there's something to be said for "being correct" if one can actually manage to pull that off.
Being "correct" means we don't get suckered.
That doesn't mean we "automatically win", but it helps quite a bit not to beat ourselves!
There are a lot of historical defeats of revolutionary risings due, at least in part, to the inability to recognize real enemies and deal with them appropriately.
It would be interesting to have the testimony here of some old Stalinists from Poland or East Germany...to see what "tolerance of religion" ended up doing for them.
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First posted at RevLeft on April 13, 2006
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