(no subject)

[taratemima]

Paraphrased from some op-ed: "The only ones who grasp the Muslim extremist threat to the West are the fascists."

Yes, and they were pretty "clear-eyed" on the Jewish threat, the Communist threat, the Gypsy threat. They love to blame it all on the same 'decadence' that is supposed to distinguish 'us' from 'them'. Uh?

Screw this 'war of civilizations' crap. It's the war of the control freaks. How else can you explain the gerry-rigged match between bitter Arab secularist one-party members, Shi'ite guerrillas, and Wahabi preachers vs. armchair barbarian neo-conservatives, traditional Catholics who wished that they still controlled everything, and gun and canned goods hoarding Dominionists? But hey, they all hate mouthy and semi-educated women. I'm screwed.

The Clash thesis isn't just wrong. It's dangerous. A replication of Cold War theology, it obscures schisms and considers Religion, capital R, a synonym for ideology. It reduces actual lived religion to official doctrine, and it paints conflicts of many factions, splitting not just along religious lines but also along racial and political and historical fractures, as simple dichotomies, leaving the public with a knowledge gap as big as the hole at Ground Zero -- or the crater created by one American fascist's truck full of fertilizer in Oklahaoma City.

from Terrorist Plot Foiled. Media Yawns

(Oh, and you can find an interesting article on the whole Pope thing there)

I summarized it cartoonishly, but you have to wonder the different dividing lines of these groups. Off my head, I can think of religious vs. secular, pan-nationalist vs. nationalist, Christian-normative vs. Muslim-normative (basically, what religion do you assume 'the majority' would believe), ballot vs. bullet, nostalgia vs. progress, fear of people vs. belief in people, capitalist vs. mixed economy, mixed gender or one gender, elitist vs. populist, decentralized government vs. centralized government, more people than resources vs. more resources than people vs. equal amounts of people and resources. Maybe I could make it like an Illuminati game. "I'll raise your 'Screaming Neo-Con Columnist' with a Firebombing! How ya like me now?" "Bad publicity points, sucker!"

I have some clear solutions to this. For one, more people admitting that they may not know what is best for everybody would be nice. That aside from actual physical harm and harrassment, how other people live does not harm you. Another is that people who look like you and hate the same stuff as you do not always have your best interests at heart. Christians and Muslims giving up the idea that they are now God's favorite kids because they cribbed from the Hebrew Bible better might help. Unfortunately, cultural warriors would rather deep-throat Winchesters than even think that.


In other news, I am now required to request flextime. Not a tragedy of a high scale. I feel terribly lame about everything.