BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]

Cecil Rhodes was a racist piece of shit

I can’t think of a single Rhode Scholar who isn’t a complete neolib ghoul carrying on Rhodes legacy of barbarism and exploitation. Not exactly a group of people i envy or would want to be a part of

It seriously took you 17 days to come up with this banger

Quick what year is it??? Is it 2006 again? It feels like the worst time travel experiment ever

>religion, all religion, is bad actually

No clue. I thought this kind of dumb reductive nu atheist “religion is the cause of all evil” had kind of died out when they morphed into acolytes of the Jungian fascism of Peterson

Its not that complicated. Saying Judaism is genocidal is just like saying Islam is a religion of war. Its rascist.

I mean, you just did it again.

that got me too! Libs are masters at unintentionally doubling down on rascist ideas

The main problem i have with this entire train of thought is that it’s completely untethered from anything material and is therefore fundamentally wrong no matter what conclusions you’re trying to draw. Well actually my main problem is that you’re using this thinking to make (whether intentional or not) an anti-semtic conclusion which makes it way worse. But I’m going to focus on the first thing, because that’s where i think where you’re making a common mistake and stumbling into antisemitism.

Religion is a part of culture. Culture is an outgrowth of the base of society/system. The system itself is driven by material reality. Culture can work to reinforce and strengthen the system, in fact that’s the main point of it, but it doesn’t dictate the actions of the system. Colonialism, imperialism, genocide aren’t caused by religion, anymore than they could be caused by a movie or a song.

This relationship is also why religions are malleable. Religions change and peoples relationship to them changes because they are in a subservient relationship to material drivers. The easiest thing to look at is the period of religious upheaval in Christianity coinciding with the emergence of capitalism (Protestant Reformation, 30 years War, English Civil War, development of Calvanism, etc.) - and the need for theology to either adapt to be compatible or become discarded.

The kind logic you’re using is predicated on idealism the belief that ideas are the primary driver behind reality and actions. That applied to religion is the MO of nu athiest pseudointellectuals like Golden Girls fortune heir Sam Harris. He’s known for making your exact same arguement but in an Islamophobic way - the target being Muslims and not Jews.

It’s hard to understand how you don’t get that saying Judaism is genocidal is incredibly antisemitic. But a lot of people repeated Harris’s bullshit and claimed they weren’t Islamophobic by hiding behind one hadith or another as proof that Muslims are evil. Some may not have understood. Harris may not have even really understand how rascist he is because is exceptionally stupid. So you might not mean it. If you don’t want people to call you antisemitic you need to do a little self-criticism and examine what you really think and want to say here.

Welcome to the reddit nu atheist pile on. I was not expecting antisemitic Sam Harris to be a thing, but here it is

Religious people aren’t inherently genocidal. Their religion is.

is this nuance?

I will say though, this is a great Sam Harris impression. Antisemitic Sam Harris is actually an interesting bit

you’re mischaracterizing my nuanced views!!!

Straight up Sam Harris grade bullshit except directed at Judaism. All his beliefs just the opposite target lol

Yeah there’s a big difference between believing im secularism and wanting the liberation of people from religious oppression and hating religious people, as well as blaming religion (or bronze age morality) for things caused by modern colonialism and imperialism.

You don’t have to be athiest to espouse cringe ass nu athiest thought. #1 the idealist delusion that religion and thought dictates actions and reality and not the other way around.

The genocide is not caused by religion or “bronze age morality” any more than genicide is caused by individual rascist thoughts or beliefs. Isreal is a settler-colonial project and an extension of US imperialism. That’s what is driving the genocide, not bronze age morality.

This pure idealist Sam Harris-style Islamophobia logic turned toward Judaism. You’re wrong for the same reason he’s wrong about Islam.

what happens when you put bronze age morals in practice

Is this 2006? I thought Nu Atheism was over lol. You must be the last holdout for that cringe ass, warmed over racist bullshit

I understand why you see things that way because you’re a liberal and not a Marxist. Reform makes sense if you come at these problems from the perspective of liberalism. The problem is that the it really isn’t an issue of systems feeding into each other - it is the system- liberal democracy and who controls and why it exists in the first place that’s the issue.

You bring up good questions about why liberal democracy looks different in Europe than the US. There are a lot of reasons for that, but what matters is that liberal democracy performs exactly the same function in Europe as it does in the US. It doesn’t matter if theres one party or twelve, ranked choice or first past the post. I’m not argueing that one or the other isn’t better, i just don’t think it matters whether the system of bourgeois rule is slightly better or not.

Okay, i can see the logic there. I also agree that its not about individual leaders having personal faults so much as the current political paradigm. I also agree that there would be a voter base for a progressive party. There’s cerainly popular support for every proposed progressive policy in the US. Just M4A we know was widely popular across the country. Theres also been demonstrated that there’s a grassroots donor base for a progressive party as we saw in Bernie’s campaigns.

The real question that i think you should try to answer is given that there’s broad support for these policies, and there’s both a voter and donor base - Why does it not exist?

Liberals look at this question and blame the people. They blames voters. They blame the voting system and the two party stranglehold. Then they advocate for ranked choice and third parties.

Marxists consider the material basis of the system first and surmise that it doesn’t exist because it wouldn’t serve the interest ruling class. That liberal democracy is not democracy for the majority of people- the working class - but a democracy for the ruling class and both parties exist to serve their interests. This is why we can’t get M4A - the most broadly supported policy proposal in the country. It doesn’t matter that most people want it because it does not serve the interests of the ruling class.

the other party should be Progressives

I’m curious who you consider to be a progressive in US politics.

And i do mean curious genuinely. I’m a communist so I don’t have a very high opinion of what counts as “progressive” in the US. I do think there wouod be a voter base for what could be called a Progressive Party in the US but i don’t see any leadership. Most espousing “progressive” positions would turn their backs on them the minute they could actually come true, or whenever they have to put their money where thier mouth is. Kamala Harris and the entire progressives caucus cime to mind.

I’d like to hear your opinion on possible leadership though. And i won’t attack it as we both know I’ll disagree before hand lol - I’m just genuinely curious how a non-communist views it

“Young people say the world is ending. Here’s why it’s actually just a Vibepocslypse caused by those millenials on their Tiktok” - opion writer failchild in make work job making millions while the world burns

That’s why we don’t have down votes on hexbear. If you disagree you’ve got to post.

Everyone arguing with you is anti-zionist. We want Isreal as it exists to end. If you care about the injustice and genocide of that fascist settler-colonial state, then I don’t get why you want to die on the hill of an antisemitic position