Political compass for the21st century

[Eric the Green]

(10-27-2019, 07:10 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-24-2019, 05:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Whether God exists or not, and thus the basis for a theocracy, is a philosophical question, as well as what free market fundamentalists and communists may share in rationalist self-interest or materialism in general.

I redefined theocracy as a government focused on enforcing personal righteousness. This makes it possible to include extreme environmentalists who want us to starve ourselves to "save the planet". They are like traditional theocrats in all aspects save belief in a Sky Father. Some of them consider the Earth to be a literal deity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaianism
Certainly these extreme Greens don't blend well with the Purple Inclusivity meme or with Red Workers' Movement. According to Michael Crichton:
The religion of environmentalism is a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative religious beliefs. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. Facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them

Count me one of the Greens.

But on all surveys, I am found on the Left, and so are all Greens, and I am of course a Green, and am on the Left, not the Right, so it doesn't seem to fit your system. All counter-culturalists and inclusivists are green.

Sustainability is an absolute requirement if we are to survive. It's what the word means. It means survival into the future, not just today. We will indeed all starve unless ecology and economy become one and the same, because the Earth, our Divine Mother, is certainly our source of life and prosperity.

So while I don't think we need to starve ourselves to save the planet, and divinity is not restricted to the Earth, but is present in All, I do think we have fallen from grace through eating from the tree of knowledge. Reason and intellect alone, unrestrained and enthroned, is toxic. It is dangerous if used to destroy. Crichton has it right in portraying us, and science agrees with us. We have developed technology and industry, and its pollution does threaten us. We need salvation from our sinful ways indeed. These are indeed facts, which I often try to recount for the climate science deniers and others who refuse to admit the facts. It is a very practical "religion" that advises us to deal with the scientific facts and change our way of life, or we will face many catastrophes, which are well under way. We face them here in CA as we write.

"Sin" means mistake. We all make mistakes, so it's not a matter of moralistic judgement and eternal damnation, but of correcting our errors. Whether this sinful way means total doom is not clear to me, but certainly, the only thing we need to give up is to stop allowing a few CEOs to continue to despoil the planet for their own profit. That is the ONLY price of our "salvation" in this "religion." Changing our source of energy and regulating pollution is very doable, without any inconvenience at all except to those CEOs. Should we continue to burn fossil fuels and forests just so they can continue to be rich? I think that is too high a price to pay for failing to change our ways. And it's on the ballot. Voting for Trump and Republicans is to vote for catastrophe. Voting Democratic or Green is to vote for sustainability and for the Earth, which is the source of so much that we need and love, including our very lives. Without Nature, we not only starve, but we lose much of the value of life. There is no alternative to this planet.

Climate science denial and all its excuses and myths is certainly a candidate for being considered a theocratic religion. It's main justification is enabled by the free market philosophy and ideology, and deniers are also found among fundamentalist Christians who think only God can change the climate.

Quote:

Quote:The Israeli genocide against the Palestinians could not be more clear.  They regularly shoot and kill them just for demonstrating. They have invaded and bombed Gaza many times and blockade it in order to starve them to death. Thousands have died. They steal land and water in the West Bank and impose restrictions on them there. Netanyahu is just another thug like Putin. This is all common knowledge. I do not support Israel as long as it elects thugs like Bibi. They need to switch their direction back toward what it was before Bibi, and be willing to make peace and not assert their right to all of Palestine as Bibi does.

It would be the world's most incompetent genocide, if the group Israel allegedly wants to exterminate is still extant after 70 years. Gaza is now free from any Israeli settlers, Hamas has absolute power there. How does it use this power? Instead of focusing on its subjects' well-being, it prioritises endless resistance. If the conditions in Gaza and the West Bank were as atrocious as pro-Palestine activists want us to believe, the inhabitants would leave these places for another Arab country like Jordan.

After 70 years of "peace process", do we need another saeculum to say it has failed? The ideal outcome would be of course both Israelites and Palestinians starting to identify as global citizens. Secular citizens of Israel are certainly closer to this ideal than Hamas and Fatah thugs. BTW, Palestinian ethnic identity didn't exist before 1948, the people considered themselves just Arabs. It was invented to make it possible to claim that fighting against Israel is fighting for "national liberation". I think democracy is more important than ethnic self-determination. Israel gives its Arab citizens the right to vote, if all Arabs accepted Israeli citizenship back in 1948 these would never be any "Palestinian people".

Netanyahu is certainly a Nationalist, in general modern Judaism has moved into the Brown zone except for the theocratic Orthodox minority who actually believes in the God of the Torah. But its relatively benign variety of Brown compared to Fatah's or Syria's.

The peace process has failed because of Israel. Israel is a genocidal state. It has exterminated thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and stolen lands from the West Bank. Netanyahu is a thug no better than Erdogen, although I would not rate him so low as Assad or the Islamic State demons. On the scale of today's tyrants, Putin would be somewhere between the former two and the latter two.

Arabs who live in Israel face a lot of discrimination, and under Netanyahu democracy in Israel is threatened. Israel evicted the Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948 and has confiscated and demolished many of their homes on the West Bank since 1967. It is up to Israel to choose peace and self-determination for themselves and their neighbors, and to stop fighting against them. Hamas is not blameless either, but the harm they impose is miniscule compared to what the Israelis can and do inflict on Gaza. Hamas needs to come to terms with the reality, but it can't do that under the current regime.

Racism in Israel against Arabs:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isr...60871.html
Arab 2nd class citizenship in Israel:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre...-1.6878243

There are many Arab states. You can't demand that the Arabs be all part of one state. A two state solution would be best, because the Isrealis consider Israel to be a Jewish state. They can't allow Arabs to outvote them. If you want a one state solution, then you have to accept that it would be an Arab majority state.

Netanyahu is certainly a theocrat, because his basis for conquering and destroying Arab Palestine is found in the Bible. I've heard him say so.

You have a 5 category system, and that's fine if that's your concept. I just don't think it can be a circle, and there's not much inter-relation that I can see between the various sectors or their placements in your diagram, and there's no clear left vs. right paradigm in it. Many folks don't think that polarity is valid anymore, and that's probably a valid point; but I still do. Survey results on the political compass still show a predominant preference along what is actually the left-right spectrum (lower left vs. upper right on the political compass)