Big Lies

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-25-2017, 03:42 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: So, are saying that they're actions aren't/weren't religiously motivated? I disagree, Abu Ackba (Praise be to God) is an obvious example of a religious expression/motive that's directly associated with Islam to me. Hint: Every Islamic terrorist attack that we have witnessed as a country has been committed by someone related to a Muslim who came here as a refugee/immigrant during the Clinton years who received some sort of clearance to come over here and live with us or by a Muslim who immigrated to/ or visited Europe and then came over here for a short term visit from some place in Europe or by a Muslim who came over here for a short term visit/ as a cleared immigrant directly from an Islamic country. That's a reality. A reality that many blues like you don't seem able to acknowledge or accept or openly state and view as being truthful and as being relevant to the rest of the American population. I'm not sure it's good idea for blues to embrace Muslims as they've been doing politically considering they're positioning themselves to be the ones who are blamed in the future for terrorist attacks.

It isn't simple.  Another perspective.  I've often talked of the 'arrow of progress', from autocratic, religious, military Agricultural Age cultures to democratic, secular economic Industrial Age cultures.  Democracy, human rights and equality are the primary philosophical goals in the transition of a given culture.  As technology takes the workforce off the land into more modern pursuits, cultures are forced to change.  This process of change is ugly, featuring war, revolution, migrations off the land and other grave problems.  For the Anglo Americans, this involved the series of S&H crises including the English Civil War, American Revolution, American Civil War and the Great Depression.  Societies don't change values lightly and easily.  Stalin and Mao marked ugly blotches in Asian progress.

It's the Middle East's turn.  They are not going to hang on to autocratic dictatorial government indefinitely.  Getting out of the pattern, though, is going to require ugly upheaval.  I don't think we can present them with an easy short cut.  All we can do is present one set of solutions.

Their headache, though, is that they have been schrod by the West, have been victims of colonial imperialism and Marxism.  Neither philosophy has been kind to them.  Bush 43 invaded Iraq expecting to be welcomed as a liberator.  He was, for several weeks, which is as long as it took to wear out his welcome.  At any rate, the West has redrawn the borders of the Middle Eastern countries with intent to divide tribes and religious affiliations, to make it hard for the locals to organize united countries.  They were after the oil, and are still after the oil.  Through the colonial imperialist people, while preaching the best and noblest values of democracy, equality and human rights, we were showing them the worst of colonial imperialism, economic oppression, and tyranny through puppets bought by oil money.

And the Marxists didn't show them any better.  Putin looking to keep his military bases, backing Assad's government sponsored terror, is typical enough of how the Soviet Union would cared far more for their own interests than the interests of the local people.

Which is one aspect of why the transition from the Agricultural to Industrial patterns has been so slow and misguided in the region.  Both major Western philosophies for how to transition out of tyranny have been thoroughly discredited.  The history of the region has shown how corrupt and evil the west can be.  If the more rural elements of the US are up in arms about progressive government here, how much worse have the rural elements of the Middle East been treated?

And if Jefferson and Marx are discredited as showing the path of progress, what's left?  How can they embrace progress when the two major Western paths towards progress have abused them so thoroughly as to be totally discredited?

They're stuck with religion.  They want for good reason to rebel agains a poor governmental and economic situation, but lacking secular values that seem acceptable they are stuck embracing their Agricultural Age past.

Yes, religion is part of it.  No, Agricultural Age religion isn't going to help them.  The Koran doesn't teach the checks and balances that hold an autocratic government in check.  They are raising autocratic tyrants to replace their autocratic tyrants.  It took Anglo-American civilization centuries of crisis wars to shake the old Agricultural Age transition, but you could at least see the progress in any given crisis.  If they cling to Agricultural Age autocratic religious tradition for their moral center, they will quite often get nowhere.  This is especially true as their prophet and his immediate heirs began the expansion of their new civilization with a time of military conquest associated with a rejection and demonization of other cultures.

So, yes, the Middle East is thoroughly messed up.  Yes, their old and flawed religious values are important to them.  No, the Koran doesn't teach how to transition to a culture more appropriate to modern technology.  No, given modern technology there aren't going to be enough jobs working the land for them to simply revert to their pre oil borders, economy and cultures.

Thus, I see the base problems as secular, not religious.  Thus, the answer is not hate and prejudice directed at an old system of religion.  Yes, the region is very very troubled and nigh on the entire region practices Islam, but directing one's focus on the religion does not begin to be adequate.

But, sigh, a lot of people don't have my perspective.  A simple justification for causing hurt is enough.  They hurt us.  We have to fight back.  Grab the simplest and most obvious factor that justifies hate and violence and obsess on it.

I don't see it as that simple.  Not at all.