Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, leader of the Mujahideen, friend of bin Laden, and later member of the Northern Alliance. Photo: Erwin Franzen
As the last Russian soldier crossed the Oxus River going back from Afghanistan into the Soviet Union in 1989, the Japanese-American philosopher at St. James’s University, Maryland and a CIA operative, Francis Fukuyama, came out with his iniquitous thesis on the “end of history”. However, although the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had collapsed, this thesis was soon refuted by history itself as the first Gulf War broke out in 1991.
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RENEGADE EYE
61 comments:
Sorry, but a bunch of Communist "internationalist" whining about "imperialism" is just too hypocritical, even for me....
*shakes head*
...it's almost as bad as having to listen to mr. ducky whine about evangelicals. ;)
What collapsed (...) was not socialism but its caricature, a totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy
Butcher of Vietnam for his brutal role in that disastrous war
Let me get it straight. Soviet Communism was a "caricature" of socialism and a "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy", but people who bravely fought against that "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy" in Vietnam were "butchers".
Make up your mind. If Soviet communism was evil, then people who fought against that evil (US Army in Vietnam, Cuban "gusanos" at Bay of Pigs, etc.) deserve praise.
But if you still reflexively bash people who fought against what you yourself now admit was "totalitarian", you effectively defend that "Stalinist bureaucracy".
That's nothing new. There's no such thing as an anti-Stalinist commie. They are all closet Stalinist, if not openly so. Stalinism is the only way socialism can be enacted in a way that it doesn't fall apart and have to be salvaged through NEP style capitalist reforms.
Religious extremism only exists in society because the Pakistani bourgeoisie has failed to complete any of the historical tasks of the national democratic revolution, including the separation of religion from the state and secularism.
BIOTB - Blame it on the bourgeoisie. The workers have no responsibilities, whatsoever... so much for historical "inevitabilities".
“Man's own social organization, which has hitherto confronted him as a process dictated by nature and history, now becomes a process resulting from his own voluntary action. The objective extraneous forces, which have hitherto dominated history, are now under the control of man himself. It is only from this point that man will himself makes his own history fully consciously, it is only from this point that the social causes he sets in motion will preponderantly and ever increasingly have the effects he wills. It is humanity's leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.” --Frederick Engels (1820-1895)
Thersites: I'm not sure if you know what imperialism entails? It's not a policy of capitalism, but an essential feature of it, in its advanced form.
Speedy G: BIOTB - Blame it on the bourgeoisie. The workers have no responsibilities, whatsoever... so much for historical "inevitabilities".
You need to respond to the whole sentence. It gives a reason for the accusation.
“Man's own social organization, which has hitherto confronted him as a process dictated by nature and history, now becomes a process resulting from his own voluntary action. The objective extraneous forces, which have hitherto dominated history, are now under the control of man himself. It is only from this point that man will himself makes his own history fully consciously, it is only from this point that the social causes he sets in motion will preponderantly and ever increasingly have the effects he wills. It is humanity's leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.” --Frederick Engels (1820-1895)
True.
Sonia: Let me get it straight. Soviet Communism was a "caricature" of socialism and a "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy", but people who bravely fought against that "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy" in Vietnam were "butchers".
Make up your mind. If Soviet communism was evil, then people who fought against that evil (US Army in Vietnam, Cuban "gusanos" at Bay of Pigs, etc.) deserve praise.
But if you still reflexively bash people who fought against what you yourself now admit was "totalitarian", you effectively defend that "Stalinist bureaucracy".
The war in Vietnam was several wars at once. It was a civil war, a war of national liberation, and a war between Stalinists.
Are you saying all anti-Vietnam war opponents, were Stalinist?
pagan: ?
Let me get it straight. Soviet Communism was a "caricature" of socialism and a "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy", but people who bravely fought against that "totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy" in Vietnam were "butchers".
------------------
Yup, you got it straight.
Isn't it slightly simplistically to blame Islamic Fundamentalism on the CIA?
Sure the CIA has used (and are using) the divisions within Islamic cultures to further U.S. interests, but they did not create the Wahabist ideology nor are they training the imams that are relying on their "flock's" ignorance to remain in power.
You could say the CIA are using preexisting divisions to their own ends, but I would expect nothing less from the objectivists that created the policies that drove their actions.
Islamicism is a new phenomenon, relatively speaking. It came into being with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the mandates that were provided to the various imperial powers after World War I. In Iran, one of the most progressive and educated countries, the first seeds were sown after the British and Russian colonial divide of the country was relinquished.
Of course, the first fanatical (literally) Islamo-fascist organization, The Muslim Brotherhood, was funded in its early years largely by the Nazis. It provided them with much of the anti-Semitic rhetoric they would later use against Israel -- you know, "The Jews created atheism," "the Jews created communism," "the Jews created feminism," and "the Jews created capitalism." All that nonsense.
Later, in an attempt to loosen Soviet hegemony in the region, as well as to combat leftist currents in the Middle East in general, the CIA helped fund these Islamic fundamentalist groups. They were anti-Western, anti-leftist, and anti-intellectual from the start. Islamicism is no friend of the Left, no matter how much it might be calling its own efforts against the major capitalist powers "anti-imperialist." Imperialism is frankly more progressive than Islamicism.
I think Lal Khan is talking about Islamism as we know it today, and its roots as a force of anti-communism.
Islam has a long tradition of staying out of politics.
As Ross pointed out, Islamism was used against the Soviet Union. It was surrounded by Afghan Islamists, the Iranian mullahs and the Pakistan dictatorship of Ayub Khan.
I think he's talking about modern islamism.
The Soviets funded Islamicists in Yemen and the horn of Africa. When the Soviets fell in '89, the Soviet funding dried up and the Islamicist threat revealed itself, no longer as a "workers" cause, but as "nobel people's revolutionaries". It's been oil money funding the restoration of the caliphate ever since. The LEFT's pro-Soviet Internationalist bloque STILL give the Islamicists a pass. They refuse to comprehend that they were merely being used the whole time...
"Modern Islamism" is an oxymoron. It's the same Islamism from 730 AD. Kill, conquer and dominate. There's nothing "modern" about it.
Who were funding the motherfuckers when they committed ethnic and cultural genocide in every country in the Middle East they conquered? Who funded them while they were wiping out the Egyptians. I'm talking about the REAL Egyptians, who were NOT fucking Arabs. All those countries in the Middle East were populated by non-Arab peoples and cultures. What happened to them? Strangely, after the Arabs conquered them, they seem to have disappeared from the world stage altogether.
Hey, I have an idea. Perhaps they all hitched a ride on the Halle-Bopp Comet!
I think that the legend of Vlad tells the tale. There were always those who "cooperated" with the Arabs, called them in as allies.
The Jews in Spain eventually paid for their perfidy.
It goes to show, perhaps it's best NOT to force your enemies to "convert". You give them a loyal ally in your enemy. Best make them pay tribute, instead. (Machiavelli, "The Prince")
Who were funding the motherfuckers when they committed ethnic and cultural genocide in every country in the Middle East they conquered? Who funded them while they were wiping out the Egyptians. I'm talking about the REAL Egyptians, who were NOT fucking Arabs. All those countries in the Middle East were populated by non-Arab peoples and cultures. What happened to them? Strangely, after the Arabs conquered them, they seem to have disappeared from the world stage altogether.
Yeah, just like the English, French, and Spanish committed virtual genocide and ethnic cleansing on the native populations in the Americas. I'm not really a sentimentalist. These are the brutalities of history that one must take for granted.
It's part of the reason why I don't believe there are any truly "indigenous" peoples in the world. In almost every case, people living somewhere are the descendants of populations who wiped out populations that had been living their previously. I frankly don't give a fuck about any "indigenous" perspectives. Usually it's all neo-Romanticized horseshit about primitive spirituality and noble indigenous peoples being more "in touch" or "connected to" nature.
All well and good, but my point is, the Arabs have zero room to complain about the prospect of a few million Arabs being expelled from a tiny sliver of land which makes up a very small percent of an area they themselves conquered and whose prior native populations they genocided out of existence.
And they can expect zero sympathy from me if, and hopefully when, they get their long overdue comeuppance.
Thersites: The Soviets funded secular South Yemen.
There is modern Islamism, and it was used to surround the Soviet Union.
Did you read the post? It was anti-Islamist from the left.
Speedy G: ?. Spanish Jews had a few problems with Catholicism.
Pagan: Nonsense. Ancient history doesn't matter related to present nation -states.
Ross: I was at an art exhibit of indigenous art. The artist said he has trouble being accepted with his indigenous values. I thought give up your TV, computer, IPOD etc. Give up the roof over your head.
Ren-
Okay then playa-hata, what about modern history, like in Darfur, Kashmir, Nigeria, etc. Is that "relevant"? Seems to me like a case of the LESS things change, the more of the same old bullshit you see everyday.
And why should an artist be obliged to live a life of privation? What happened to appreciation of art for its own sake. I guess if I want to write the next Spider-Man flick no one should take it seriously unless I get myself bitten by a radioactive spider?
Here's a thought. Maybe, just maybe, the artist has a life experience he's drawing from.
Ross,
English, French, and Spanish committed virtual genocide and ethnic cleansing on the native populations in the Americas.
Actually, it was the American Revolutionaries who exterminated native Indian population in North America. All Indian tribes fought on the side of the English in the American Revolution.
And in Latin America, the Aztecs were also wiped out as result of a revolution. When Cortez arrived, he provoked a bloody Pol Potian revolution of all non-Aztec tribes against the Aztecs. 500 Spanish conquistadors were mere spectators of a bloodbath where Indians exterminated themselves. And the diseases that those conquistadors brought did the rest.
I'm not really a sentimentalist. These are the brutalities of history that one must take for granted.
I don`t take them for granted. Those brutalities are not inevitable. They are results of revolutions.
Sonia-
All Indian tribes fought on the side of the English in the American Revolution.
In other words, they bought the fucking ticket, didn't they? Fuck them and the horse we taught them to ride in on.
When Cortez arrived, he provoked a bloody Pol Potian revolution of all non-Aztec tribes against the Aztecs. 500 Spanish conquistadors were mere spectators of a bloodbath where Indians exterminated themselves.
If any group of people deserved not only to be subjected to revolution, but genocide as well, it would be the Aztec and Maya. Good on Cortez for making it happen. The fact that it was carried out by non-Aztec Indians is nothing more nor less than justice long delayed.
Actually, it was the American Revolutionaries who exterminated native Indian population in North America.
Bullsh*t! For nearly 200 years, the French supplied the Hurons and the Dutch/English supplied their mortal enemies the Iroquois w/weapons. The Iroquois crushed all the other tribes in Eastern North America (like the Delaware) long before the end of the French and Indian Wars of the 1750's. The British then rallied what remained of the Iroquis confederacy(less the Seneca) and lead them in a war against the American Revolutionaries. Sir William Johnson, His Majesty's Indian Rep in North America, had intermarried his illegitimate sons (Joseph & Molly Brandt) with the tribe's Dutch imposter King Hendrick's decendents and took control of the Mohawks/and the Iroquois confederacy. They ended up relocating from Pennsylvania/New York to Canada after the war. The Americans exterminated nobody during the Revolutionary War!
Sir William Johnson's faux-Indian family crest.
I read somewhere that all these pro-Taliban forces in northwestern Pakistan were busy tearing down all of these "decadent" advertisements from the West. The one billboard poster they allowed to stay up was Colonel Sanders from Kentucky Fried Chicken. The reason? Because "he had a properly Muslim beard." That's right, the one monument that Islamic fundamentalism leaves up to neoliberal capitalism.
Religion is disgusting. Islam, Christianity, all of it. The only good politics is a secular, godless politics.
The Soviets funded secular South Yemen.
Indeed they did. And in the 70's, the South Yemeni's, backed by Egyptian Arab Nationalists and the USSR funded a civil war/coup d'etat against the "royalists" in North Yemen. They won... as the Saudi'a backed down and Yemen was unified under a "red" leaning banner. Once a "revolutionary", always a revolutionary.
And the USSR back Arab nationalism (read Islamism) to the HILT.
The only good politics is a secular, godless politics.
lol! The "secular humanist" religion of nno-religion is more tyrannical than Islam, Judaism, and Christianity combined.
The only good politics is a "limited" politics that leaves "charity" to the religious sects and avoids secular attempts at providing "social justice" like the plague!
At least the major religions of the world limit "tithing" for "relief of the poor" to 10% of income. The secular humanists have been known to FORCE people to pay beyond 100% of their income (the 60+ trillion $ national debt) to "politically directed charities".
Even the jizya tax on dhimmi's is less than what the greedy secularist b*stards demand!
Speedy,
The Americans exterminated nobody during the Revolutionary War!
My writing was sloppy. My point was that Native Americans weren't exterminated by the royalist, colonial governments of England, France or Spain, but by the revolutionary progressive and republican government of United States.
...and THAT is a gross mischaracterization of what actually happened. By the time the revolutionary war broke out, there were only ~500 Mahicans left. The Native Americans had genocided EACH OTHER. And the Hurons and the Iroquois were slaughtering each other and the tribes around them LONG before the white man, Spanish, French, Danish or English arrived in North America showed up with firearms. All we did was help them speed up the process.
from the Wiki link above on Sir William Johnson...
Johnson became closely associated with the Mohawks, the local Indians who were the easternmost nation of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. Although the Mohawks had once been formidable, by the time Johnson arrived, their population had collapsed to only 580.[15] The Mohawks saw in Johnson someone who could advocate their interests in the British imperial system. Sometime around 1742, they adopted him as an honorary sachem, or civil chief, and gave him the name Warraghiyagey, which he translated as "A Man who undertakes great Things".
580 Mohawks killed in a war is hardly a massacre, since the Mohawks likely killed a LOT more colonists (see Battle of Oriskany) than were killed themselves.
...maybe if we dump enough Kalishnakov's and ammo into the Middle East, the "Islamic problem" will take care of itself, just as the Native American problem took care of itself. The French, Dutch and British colonists were the "Taliban Warlords" of North America in the late 1600's/early 1700's. Only the fight was over the "fur" trade, much as the "Great Game" in central Asia was over the tea and poppy trades. I'll bet half the Taliban leaders today in Afghanistan/Pakistan have English ancestors. :)
btw - Give me an unlimited supply of weapons, and I'll move to Afghanistan and become a warlord. I can guarantee you that with ten years, I'll own the tribal territories between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
ps - Sail the British Fleet up the Chaobai River and threaten Beijing with destruction unless they buy my poppies, and I'll cut you in for 50% of the profits. ;)
And THAT, gentlemen, is merchanitilism at ITS best. Merchantilism is NOT laissez-faire capitalism.
lol! The "secular humanist" religion of nno-religion is more tyrannical than Islam, Judaism, and Christianity combined.
Stalinism and Maoism were certainly abhorrent ideologies and systems of governance. Though Stalinism did end up partially supporting the Russian Orthodox Church and Maoism used Confucian ideals to instill obedience.
But the reason why a secular, godless politics is better than a pious, religious politics is that, all things being the same, the phantoms of religion are all superstition. And there is no God. Anyone in the present day who thinks otherwise is an idiot.
Anyone in the present day who thinks otherwise is an idiot.
Your momma!
Prove there's no G_d, I dare you.
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of Absence.
Your certainty that G_d does NOT exists reveals the closed-minded idiot. ;)
, the phantoms of religion are all superstition.
...and what are the phantoms of "Constitutions", harbingers of "inalienable rights"?
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
Advice to Ross... do you really think you could possible prevail in an argument on the subject of nihilism with a Nietzschean?
If there's one thing you can depend upon, Ross, it's that your faith in logic will likely soon sink you like a stone.
;+
Ross, that was a pretty arrogant thing to say coming from someone who represents an ideology that views as sacrosanct, as sacred cannon, the words of Karl Marx, who in the final analysis was just another fallible human being at best. You would no more go against or even question one of your major articles of Marxist faith than a devout Catholic would dry hump an icon of the Blessed Virgin in front of the Pontiff.
Ross: "And there is no God. Anyone in the present day who thinks otherwise is an idiot."
That is not Marxism, but a personal opinion. This is what Marx said:
Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
I dislike the "New Atheists," not out of disagreement, for their arrogance.
My position is that religious views change, with material conditions. The 1905 Revolution was led by clergy, the 1917 by Bolsheviks.
Pagan: It's funny how visitors to this blog, think you're the reasonable conservative. Your evolving completely over the edge. I expect your Facebook days will be few.
Speedy G: Arab nationalism is not Islamism. That doesn't mean its a workable idea.
Hopefully you'll debate Ross at another blog, with rules for debate.
Sonia: I don`t take them for granted. Those brutalities are not inevitable. They are results of revolutions.
Except for the revolution part, it's correct. Nothing is that simple.
Ross: Historically anarchists have been more anti-clerical than Marxists.
Perhaps. But not in the early years of the Russian Revolution. There was a popular atheist movement, called "The Militant Godless" (безбожнисти) that operated independently of the Bolshevik party. Many of the Bolsheviks thought the Militant Godless went a bit too far.
But I mean, the Bolsheviks did turn a number of churches into lumber yards, blew others up, and turned the rest into "Museums of Atheism." They would dig up the bodies of Orthodox Saints (which were not supposed to decay like normal) and showed them to be withered or completely skeletal. These were some good times.
But I mean, the Bolsheviks did turn a number of churches into lumber yards, blew others up, and turned the rest into "Museums of Atheism." They would dig up the bodies of Orthodox Saints (which were not supposed to decay like normal) and showed them to be withered or completely skeletal. These were some good times.
A perfect example of why no decent person trusts communists.
Well it helped demonstrate that many of the things they had believed on faith were purely delusional, just like the belief in a resurrection or the parting of the seas is delusional.
Ross,
Stalinism did end up partially supporting the Russian Orthodox Church
Not unless by "supporting" you mean completely taking over the church hierarchy (from the Patriarch of Moscow all the way down to the village priest) by installing NKVD agents at all levels, infiltrating their ranks with informers and using it as yet another Communist propaganda mouthpiece. Under Stalin, the Russian Orthodox Church was simply another branch of the Soviet propaganda ministry, and probably the most effective one.
Ren,
Except for the revolution part, it's correct. Nothing is that simple.
Revolutions are to politics what earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and tsunamis are to nature. They might be inevitable, but they are hardly good news.
And the biggest folly of you Marxists is believing that you can somehow tame, control and lead those political earthquakes and tsunamis.
You can't. You can only become their next victims, like Trotsky did.
they had believed on faith were purely delusional...
...like a belief in "revolutions"?
...like a belief in the "evils of capitalism?"
lol!
...on the roots of madness in Marxism.
...of course most of it originates in the myth of the administrators of the commons. Else their wouldn't be so much aversion to "invisible hands" directing the economies of the world. Merchantilism and totalitarianism become a "necessity".
Don't trust the people to do what they want to do. They must to be told what to do, for the good of all... before they "consume" everything and create a resource famine. Stop Gaia's rape!
*spits*
Sonia: The Russian Orthodox Church has always loyally and obsequiously served whatever power was at hand. It was loyal to the Mongols and the various Khanate successors. It was a centerpiece of Tsarist ideology, an imperial lackey. And this was so even after Peter the Great got rid of the Patriarchate and replaced it by a government-run "council" running out of St. Petersburg. The Church, even after all the damage it took early on, happily followed the Soviet state. It has always been an accessory to anything and anyone who has had secular power, unlike Roman Catholicism, which challenged the independence of secular governments.
Sonia: Stalin gave the church something to support; Great Russian nationalism.
You're absolutely wrong about the nature of revolution. It's not like a tsunami, it's a process. It builds over decades. You even once called the Revolution a coup. That comes from focusing only on insurrection.
Ross: I doubt the Russian Orthodox Church cared much for permanent revolution. Stalin's nationalism was welcomed by the rightists.
Anarchists focused on the church, in the Spanish Civil War.
Speedy G: You're projecting. You even talk about politics in religious language.
Pagan: ?
Ross,
The Church, even after all the damage it took early on, happily followed the Soviet state.
"Happily" just doesn't sound right. Nobody did anything "happily" in the Soviet Union. "Under treat of death" is so much more accurate...
Ren,
revolution. It's not like a tsunami, it's a process. It builds over decades.
Well, a volcano builds over many years as well. You are missing my point. I am not arguing about a revolution's longevity. I am arguing whether it's a good or a bad thing. I am arguing that people should try to prevent it. Marx called a revolution a "locomotive of history". That was an insanely callous thing to say. An "abomination of history" would be more like it.
Sonia, its one thing for you to complain about the American Revolution, or the Russian Revolution, but you even bitched about Meso-American tribes revolt against the Aztecs, one of the most violent, bloodiest regimes in history. With that, you lost whatever legitimate right you might have had to be taken seriously.
I'm projecting???
You need to look in the mirror, you Marxist Savanarola!
Pagan,
you even bitched about Meso-American tribes revolt against the Aztecs, one of the most violent, bloodiest regimes in history.
I'm not the only one who "bitches" about it. Even today, in Mexico, the Tlaxcalan tribe is reviled by other native Mexicans, because they led the anti-Aztec revolt and were Cortez's closest allies.
And why would the Tlaxcalans be reviled if, as you say correctly, the Aztecs were "one of the most violent, bloodiest regimes in history" ? Because as result of that Tlaxcalan-led revolution in 1519-1521, the native population of Mexico dropped from around 20 millions to less than 2 millions. Of course, most of that was because of European diseases, but epidemics are always far worse during times of war and revolution than during peacetime.
you lost whatever legitimate right you might have had to be taken seriously
If I ever tried to be taken seriously, I would start by putting on some clothes.
And if "being taken seriously" requires to just repeat widely-accepted historical lies and follow the middle-of-the-road, centrist, liberal, vanilla bullshit, you can count me out.
Sonia-
Seeing your family and loved ones led up to the top of a pyramid and watching while their still-beating hearts are ripped from their chests and displayed to the crowd below, and watching helplessly while their heads are severed and tossed down the bloody pyramid steps while some Priest-who like all his people are only a prehistoric genetic step or two from their baboon origins-recites a prayer to Kukulcan, might tend to put one in a revolutionary frame of mind, if anything would.
The Spanish performed one good deed for the world, for once in their long and generally sorry history. I think I'll give them a pass here. If anything, Cortez should be lauded, maybe even beatified. His is a story to be emulated, not disparaged.
As for how the present day Indians feel about the tribe that rebelled, what can you say? It's easy for them to feel some kind of nostalgia for their Aztec ancestors. It's a point of cultural pride in their heritage. They didn't have to live under those conditions, so its easy for them to romanticize it.
Be that as it may, the Aztecs, like the Maya, were blood thirsty savage barbarians and brutal thugs. The world was made a little better the day their sick culture and civilization was destroyed.
Vibva la Revolucion!
It's hard to keep track of how many worthless non sequiturs Speedy G leaves across the thread
haha
...said Oedipus, the lame self-blinded man on the road to Colonus with his daughter Antigone.
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