[Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

[C. G. Estabrook]

You had no trouble believing McCain was going to do what he said he was going to 
do.  Why do you have trouble believing Obama?

Any campaign motive for lying is over. And Obama has been more consistent and 
indeed truthful.  So (as some Brit's would say) BOb's your uncle...  --CGE

Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Are you not getting a little ahead of the game with your 
> Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes? BOb is not yet there. --mkb
> On Dec 19, 2008, at 12:55 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> Read history critically.  Even comforting illusions should yield to 
>> facts.  The
>> world is everything that is the case; it does not depend on how we 
>> think about
>> it.  The maxim "One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a 
>> beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts," ascribed to various 
>> people, perhaps originates with La Rochefoucauld.
>>
>> Human are just those animals who take up the world in language, and 
>> all language is ironic -- it approaches its object asymptotically.  
>> But the naturalistic fallacy is in fact not a fallacy.  The fact/value 
>> distinction doesn't work.
>>
>> So a reference to "Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes" in SW Asia is as 
>> much a matter of fact as similar references to "Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon 
>> war crimes" in SE Asia or "Hitler-Goering-Himmler war crimes" in 
>> Russia, even though the first -- with only a million or so people dead 
>> -- has not yet reached the levels of destructiveness of the other two. 
>> --CGE
>>
>>
>> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>>>> A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a 
>>>> Potemkin
>>>> village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced to the 
>>>> fundamental article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.
>>> This not just true of liberals but also applies to progressives and 
>>> other leftists as well as those on the right. In point of fact, it 
>>> probably applies
>>> to everyone but you and me.  And frequently, I am not sure about thee.
>>> Moreover, the article of faith is not always religion; sometimes it 
>>> is class
>>> struggle and/or imperialism. None of us can empirically prove the 
>>> art5icles
>>> of faith that we assume as the bedrock of our worldviews without 
>>> engaging in
>>> a self-fulfilling prophesy in which we have to use the self-same 
>>> assumptions
>>> to define what is evidence and what is not, what comprises proof and 
>>> what
>>> does not, and when something is proven and when it is not.
>>>> Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes are 
>>>> not a result of religion but of the long-standing (and rational if 
>>>> vicious) US
>>>> policy of controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the
>>>> generation-long assault -- driven into religious institutions after the
>>>> suppression of its secular forms -- commits crimes of its own in a 
>>>> struggle
>>>> generally just, for reasons that are primarily political, not 
>>>> religious.
>>> References to the "Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes" are general, vague, 
>>> and ambiguous since you are not referring exclusively to personal war 
>>> crimes committed by those persons but to those committed by and under 
>>> their administrations by all those who may be acting on behalf of the 
>>> administrations or who in performing their duties with respect to 
>>> those administrations committed personal war crimes in the name of 
>>> some implied policy but for very personal reasons, which may be 
>>> religious.  Many individual actors working in and under an 
>>> administration and the auspices of its policies could very well "kill 
>>> a Commie for Christ" so to speak without any motivation apart from a 
>>> personal hatred or belief.
>>> Moreover, there is nothing to say that religions cannot be secular 
>>> (they just
>>> cannot be profane as opposed to sacred) and that the political cannot 
>>> become
>>> a religion in its own right. What distinguishes a political ideology 
>>> from a
>>> religious one, political policies and practices from religious 
>>> policies and
>>> practices, etc.?  You are employing a very narrow and traditional 
>>> distinction
>>> between the two; any narrower and political would be restricted to 
>>> partisan
>>> party politics as the notion has come to be used in the US as opposed to
>>> governmental.  Political is a much broader notion than you suggests; 
>>> we often
>>> talk of bureaucratic politics, academic politics, family politics, 
>>> electoral
>>> politics, legislative politics,  political correctness, etc.
>>> -----Original Message----- From: 
>>> peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
>>> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. 
>>> Estabrook Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 9:58 AM To: David Green Cc: 
>>> Peace
>>> Discuss Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism
>>> A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a 
>>> Potemkin village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced to 
>>> the fundamental article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.
>>> Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes are 
>>> not a result of religion but of the long-standing (and rational if 
>>> vicious) US
>>> policy of controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the
>>> generation-long assault -- driven into religious institutions after the
>>> suppression of its secular forms -- commits crimes of its own in a 
>>> struggle
>>> generally just, for reasons that are primarily political, not religious.
>>> --CGE
>>> David Green wrote:
>>>> "A serious conversation about faith and how it works, should have 
>>>> become one of the leading topics of our national conversation."
>>>> A serious conversation about not having serious conversations, and 
>>>> why they
>>>> don't work, should have become one of the leading topics of our 
>>>> national
>>>> conversation.
>>
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