This piece from Amfang is worth highlighting.
The Iranian Revolution was supposed to be a victory for the people. In 1979, millions rose up and toppled the Shah, a U.S.-backed monarch who ruled through secret police, torture, and oil profits. It was a mass revolt. Workers shut down industries. Students marched in the streets. Religious leaders called for resistance. Marxist guerrillas fought in the hills. For a brief moment, everyone stood on the same side. But not everyone had the same goal. The revolution was real, but it was not finished. And what came next should haunt us.
The left was there. It helped lead the struggle. The Tudeh Party, the Fedayeen, secular radicals and Marxists all believed that Khomeini was an ally. He hated the Shah. He spoke against imperialism. He had the people behind him. The left told itself it could ride the wave of religious rage and steer it toward socialism. But Khomeini had his own plans. The clerics moved quickly. They created militias. They took control of the narrative. They positioned themselves as the true voice of the people. And when the dust settled, they turned their guns inward. The revolution devoured the very people who sparked it.
Political parties were banned. Leftist organizers were hunted, jailed, and killed. The Tudeh Party, which had cheered Khomeini just months before, was declared treasonous. Its leaders were executed. Its rank and file disappeared.
Remember that the Christian right thinks that everyone who ever participated in an abortion is a murderer. Remember that eliminationist rhetoric is dirt common. Remember that the Nazis didn’t kill Jews or Roma first, they mass murdered the left first, then liquidated ethnicities they didn’t approve of.
The Social Gospel was fundamental to both FDR and Theodore Roosevelt’s power, but that movement is dead. There is no powerful Christian movement in America that the left can cut a deal with. Even the Roman Catholic Church, while it has substantial overlaps on anti-war and social justice issues, must be considered dangerous. Remember that the Supreme Court Justices who are validating Trump’s over-reach and dismantling the Constitution are almost all Catholic. In American Catholicism social justice is important, but it is secondary to social warfare concerns.
The left and the right (the real left, Democrats are not left wing in any meaningful way) are fundamentally in opposition. The Christian right and the left overlap in “we hate the current system” and practically nothing else. And religious fanatics are “fundamentally” OK with mass murder of those they see as against their religion’s principles.
Don’t play patty cake or make alliance with the religious right. They want you dead.
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Purple Library Guy
Well, yeah. Is there anyone currently saying otherwise?
StewartM
PLG
Well, yeah. Is there anyone currently saying otherwise?
This is a bit dated, but yeah, there was a considerable number of the feminist movement who allied with the Christian Righties in the 1980s, about pornography. I saw and heard it happen with local adult bookstores back in my college days. Sad to say that most of those ‘evil pornographers’ they wanted to shut down probably supported women’s rights in the workplace and access to reproductive care including abortion, while the Righties didn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_pornography
Now of course a lot of pornography is self-produced without the “evil pornographers” being involved at all and men do it just as much as women. What has happened is that the very Christian Right movement these feminists marched with is ascendant and because of that women (particularly poor women) are being hurt.
mago
Of course the Christian Right is toxic and scary. Any true lefty would work against the CR’s agendas. Unfortunately, although they’re a minority, they’re organized and we’re not. They also fit in with the mainstream conventional establishment, which is scary in and of itself. That movement is a real and viable danger.
Joan
Growing up as a queer kid in the American south I know this in my bones.
Mark Level
Yes, this is 100% common sense. The Christian Right indicts Rabbi Yeshua himself, via the wisdom he shared that “By their fruits shall ye know them.” (Lotta closeted fruits in the Christian community generally, also out self-hating gays like the Catholic Rightie, steroid aficionado, and Neocon Andrew Sullivan. “But he was right when he turned against the Iraq War!” after many months doesn’t cut it . . .
When I lived in New Orleans in the 80s I knew some wonderful peacenik Catholic priests and Nuns who opposed Reagan’s genocides (Guatemala most heavily against Indians, abetted by Israel, also the Salvadoran Death Squad gov’t. and of course the rapist-terrorist-crop burning Contras Reagan funded in Nicaragua post-revolution.) I did Planned Parenthood defense with other actual Lefties and had to laugh, bitterly, when I saw some nuns I knew slightly and had previously respected. Sometimes when we were demonstrating against Reagan’s wars and the “good, obedient” religious Lefties would sing “We are Peaceful, Angry People”, me and 2-3 Anarchist friends would sing over them, “We are Angry, Actual Revolutionaries” and instead of “We are Praying, Praying for . . .” we would replace “Fighting.”
Who ran some of the biggest Rat-Lines for Nazi War Criminals to places like Canada, the US, Chile, etc. etc.? The Catholic Church. See the 2 standing ovations for the Waffen-SS’s Yaroslav Hunka in the Canadian Parliament about 18 months ago. He “fought the Russians” 1939–43 by slaughtering poor & Jewish Ukrainians and Poles. The Church believed in the Nazi “Kinder Kuche Kirche” social order, the dirty godless Commies in Russia believed in economic justice (but didn’t implement it at all well) and we couldn’t have that!! Jesus secretly supported capitalism even when he overturned that Money-Changers table, right?
People on the Right sometimes know better than to welcome these hypocritical swine as well. I am not a Barry Goldwater fan on the whole, but when the GOoPers started pulling in Falwell’s “(A)Moral Majority” and the other snake-handlers, he clearly stated that people like this should not be allowed into any serious political role. Also, his statement that “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no Vice” stands up pretty well in my eyes, sometimes the Left-Right horseshoe applies in specific conditions. (But never let your skepticism or guard down with the Right “Libertarian” types.)
Khomeini said some excellent things at times, recently I came across some quotes that shocked me wherein he supported the heretical (& executed) Mansur al-Hallaj, who made the famous Shaqq, Ecstatic utterance of Ana-al-Haqq! “I am the Truth/ Real”, identifying directly with God/Dog and thereby a heretical outrage. I’d always heard that he was executed for this (it’s clear he sought martyrdom), but the YTube video here denies this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkRbIwCQ7Q0
I think Khomeini was serious and sincere, he just shared respect for the religiously zealous rather than the lukewarm, boozhie fakes. E.g. the Yeshua quote, “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth!” But I recall some decades ago, Harper’s ran a mid-sized piece on some of Khomeini’s religious rulings, which were just batshit insane, like when/how can you eat a donkey that has been executed for sodomy (the victim of some bestial-oriented rapist.)
Don’t expect any sense from people who debate the # of Angels that can dance on a pinhead, of course, nor those who declare “I believe it BECAUSE it is absurd!”
Interesting trivia fact about Khomeini, per McSweeney’s, in an article about a young man who Nelson Rockefeller set up as the Shah’s fixer when he was in Western Exile after the revolution. When he returned to Tehran from French exile, the article claimed that over 3 million people crammed in to see him, which the author claimed was the biggest combined human crowd ever known in history up to that time (& likely since).
Cant and dogma are to be rigorously refused. People who refuse to think critically tend to be dangerous at some point or another. Stupidity really can’t be fixed, and people who use religious doctrines to stupify themselves are dangerous to be around, even if they imagine themselves harmless.
different clue
Here is a little TikCringe video of a straight-faced reporter-type guy interviewing a loyal Christalibot about “gay” and stuff. Very funny and maybe contains a few general pointers on how to approach members of the Christalibot Layity in the field.
It is titled: ” Trump supporter says joe biden is forcing him to be gay ”
Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1mezced/trump_supporter_says_joe_biden_is_forcing_him_to/
Jan Wiklund
I readily admit that I don’t know enough about American society in general and the American culture war in particular. But how do you know that you are not overinterpreting the Christian worldview in the same way that some of them are obviously overinterpreting yours?
I may, of course, be wrong. But I don’t think the claim about Catholic judges in the Supreme Court is a particularly convincing argument. It is too reminiscent of the claim about ‘the machinations of the Jews’. There are, I believe, 70 million Catholics in the United States, and they cannot possibly all think the same way about everything. And I would believe that the views of the SC Judges are informed more by their elite status than by anything else.
Mark Level
Jan Wiklund, you regularly make valuable observations about areas of the world I know little about here, so I will support your “I may, of course, be wrong” disclaimer, and state why Ian’s thesis is generally correct.
I meant to include a closing paragraph about how some ostensibly Leftie cults are as predatory sexually, financially, etc. as Right Wing Cults like the Catholic Church, so you gave me that opportunity to do so now. I will share my own “bias”, as a fully Recovered Catholic (I always giggle at people who call themselves “recovering Catholics” if I had ever been a junkie and then went straight for 20 years or more I would go with the more substantive “Recovered.” I recovered entirely from Catholicism my Freshman year in college at age 17, and never looked back.)
6 of the 9 Justices are Catholic-ID’ed, and this is NOT representative of the USA demographically, which is a huge problem in itself. Why should a minority be given a 2/3 unbeatable majority vote by Right Wing assholes in politics– some likely Protestant? (When I lived in Louisiana and co-workers would ask me about my religion, I would evade by blankly stating “I was raised Catholic.” Most of those ignoramuses would reply, “Oh, I’m not Catholic, I’m a Christian” as if Catholicism were at the same status as Scientology or Mormonism. Amy Coney Barrett belongs to a Catholic multiple births and adoptions cult which hopes to demographically dominate secular society, Brett Kavanaugh was okay with being an aspiring teen rapist with a buddy as nominally a “Catholic”– only the fact that he and his buddy were too blotto drunk to get the victim teen girls’ 2nd or 3rd layer of clothing off after swimming practice did the attempt fail. And the fact that he could have gone to a Priest to be “absolved” of rape had it succeeded may have factored in (certainly would have, if they’d succeeded.) Oh, and would the Priest have been a child (likely boy, possibly a girl) rapist is worth asking given, e.g., the San Diego, CA diocese being bankrupted by rape settlements in the early 2000s?
To take away women’s rights to the most basic bodily autonomy after 50 years for the sake of one minority wacko religion, and FORCE 11 year old rape victims to give birth because “Jesus” (who never said one word about gynecology or abortion per the era’s Scribes), or forcing adult women with an ectopic pregnancy to “give birth” to a dead fetus carried to term coz there is a one in 20 Billion chance of a Godly “miracle” surviving baby is just misogynist and sick almost beyond imagination. Oh, and women must remain subordinate in the Church, can never lead a mass because– they got no sacred Penis like the “Savior.”
So what should’ve been my closing Paragraph: “Mind-control cults are dangerous whether based on ‘religion’, politics, psuedo-science, spirit-channeling or any other insane delusion or means to CONTROL followers. Most seem to be Right Wing, as Conservative people are (generally speaking, not in all respects necessarily) more obedient to perceived authority and status, but are seen on the nominal Left at times as well. Think the stupid morons who donate to the Dem. Party imagining it is ‘left’ beyond mindless Virtue-signaling, when it supports all the Wars, runs NatSec/ spy CIA, ‘Veteran’ candidates coz killing and maiming people to impose Right Wing, corporate, US-ruled juntas worldwide is good for business and good for the 0.1%. And supports genocide in Gaza and elsewhere, and on and on, oh and openly steals primary elections twice from a slightly progressive faux “socialist” and in Court admits the Dimmie voters have NO legal status, the Corporate Dimmie Board can run primaries via ‘Calvinball’ rules made up on the fly, and the dumb suckers have no recourse to even a pretense of ‘democratic’ mechanisms. Voltaire’s ‘People who believe absurdities will commit atrocities’ continues to apply some centuries later. Don’t give your brain over to ‘washing’ and delusion, don’t obey Hucksters who are shearing you (if lucky) or prepping you for dinner. As Nancy Reagan said ‘Just say no’, you’ll likely be happier thinking for yourself than following the herd. Thank you for your attention to this matter.” (Had to slip that Trumpism in since it’s now so over-used.)
canopy
Amfang has a real beauty of a website
different clue
@Jan Wiklund,
. . . ” There are, I believe, 70 million Catholics in the United States, and they cannot possibly all think the same way about everything. ” You are correct. They can’t and they don’t. The American Catholic Community runs the gamut from the Maryknoll Sisters to the Salvadoran Death Squad apologists who excused with faint tut-tuts the Salvadoran death squads who raped and killed them. American Catholics run the gamut from Dorothy Day to Opus Dei.
As to . . . ” And I would believe that the views of the SC Judges are informed more by their elite status than by anything else.” . . . that is true for some SC Judges and not others. It may be true for Clarence Thomas who is also motivated by his obscurely personal race-based bitterness. It may be true for that reliable upper-class warrior John Roberts. But some of the others . . . Alito, Kavanaugh, Barett . . . they were specifically vetted and guided into the judicial system by Leonard Leo and his Opus Dei-iform Federalist Society and they are very much Catholic Reactionism motivated, most especially Alito.
Here is a wiki about Leonard Leo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Leo
Here is an article about the Federalist Society and its long-running conspiracy to infiltrate and subvert the American Judiciary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society
Catholicism aside, a European Intellectual, especially a Scandinavian one, is ill-equipped to understand some of the deepest tar pits of American Talibangelical Christalibanianity. The ill-equipped European Intellectual might begin by studying
the New Apostolic Reformation, Seven Mountains Dominionism, Biblical Inerrancy Literalism, etc.
I suspect that very few Canadian understand the darkest tar pits of American militant Christalibangelicalism either. One who did was author Margaret Atwood.
She wrote a novel about it called The Handmaid’s Tale.
Stormcrow
I wish I was surprised that you found it necessary to write this.
But an astonishing proportion of the US population, including many many lefties, seem unable to recognize an existential threat when they see one. For substantiation, I offer the outcome of the US 2024 Presidential election. So, yeah, you had to write this. I just hope the people who really need to read this, actually do so.
Feral Finster
Because everyone knows that all members of the Christian Right are identikit NPCs identical to Khomeni in all relevant particulars.
Conservatives, BTW, come up with similar hysterical pronouncements about anyone to the left of Pinochet.
Ian Welsh
All members doesn’t matter. We’ve already seen what the group does when they get into power. Defunding planned parenthood, mass deportations, ending Roe vs. Wade, masked Gestapo thugs seizing people without showing a badge or warrant, supporting genocide, etc, etc…
bruce wilder
It takes some doing to make some demagogue or fanatic appealing . . . or at least look like a long-shot bet worth taking.
It doesn’t happen much when integrity and competence are on offer as a viable alternative, are volunteering to govern in the general interest.
Jan Wiklund
Ian, American thugs have behaved this way for decades, except that they have done it abroad. But they are trained to do it, and they obey command. So why should they have to be Catholics to continue obeying orders?
I don’t get it. I am married to a Catholic myself, and she is not the least fanatic about that. But, of course, she is Spanish, not American. Perhaps it’s different there. But in that case it has to do with being American, not being Catholic. And then it is probably shared with the militant atheists Frans De Waal wrote about (The Bonobo and the Atheist, 2014), another bunch that is comparatively absent in Europe.
To me, to read this post chills me a little; it’s like reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or something from the Know-Nothings. All organizations guard their interests, and mainly their incomes. But secret conspiracies, no. They always leak out.
The US is heading for an intra-elite struggle, possibly about life or death. There are too many with elite expectations, says Peter Turchin, and there are too few post for them to fill. And there are too many disappointed people generally. The participants in the struggle will arm themselvesw with what they have, and it is not a given fact what will fit them best.
Ian Welsh
Jan,
There are many lovely people with horrible ideologies. Happens all the time. The Catholic church, as an institution, has a long history of supporting right wing awful and cracking down on the actual left. This isn’t even remotely in question. You do not make overall political alliance with these people.
There are elements in Christianity, including Catholicism which could be considered left wing, but they are not dominant in America. If you can find the remnants, then sure, make political buddies with them. As noted, FDR did.
This is much the same as saying “America is evil”, which is true. It doesn’t mean all Americans are evil, but whether they are or not is irrelevant from a political point of view: that some aren’t doesn’t change the fact that America is evil and that American leaders can be reliably expected to do evil things with rare exceptions, and ordinary Americans do little that is effective to stop them. Being allied to America is usually a bad idea, whatever benefits the devil may offer.
TLDR: I’m sure your wife is a wonderful person. Irrelevant to the question of whether it’s a good idea to be political allies with the religious right.
Alan Yang
I am not an expert, but there is something important to remember; Saddam invaded Iran in Sept 22-1980, conversely, the Iranian revolution was only over by February 1979. Although repression did start mid-1980 (oppression then closing of universities) you can imagine the powerful galvanizing effect of the war; it always arouses many people’s suspicion and group protection instincts, and during that time any dissent, which could be perceived as weakening the regime or revolution, or as a front for Western Saboteurs, would not be tolerated. Furthermore, during this time of war, the Basiji was established, as those parents sent their young boys to die at the front., any remaining children and family will be radicalized to adhere to the revolutions. Another important factor. Is the brutality and cruelty of the Shah’s regime, (the Savak I believe), which inculcating a culture of brutality, is easily transmitted to any following regime or revoltion. These should be considered as strong aggravating factors that have Khomeini and his acolytes both motivation and license to act with maximum violence and repression at any potential enemy.
If the Shah was not as brutal (but still horribly corrupt and incompetent), and there was no Iran/ Iraq war or any major violence, the Ayatollah and his acolytes might not have had license to engage in brutality; indeed some of them might have found the use of broad scale violence distasteful.
DMC
Directly adjacent/overlapping the NAR and 7 Mountains Dominionism is Christian Reconstructionism, the most extreme of them all, originating with the Calvinist theologian Rousas J. Rushdoony. They want a more extreme version of Calvin’s dictatorship of Geneva, featuring burning heretics, expulsion of non- Xtians, execution for a variety of currently non-capital crimes, rule by unelected “prophets”, it just goes on and on. More than a few plutocrats(hello Charlie Koch!) are backing them for a favored position after the revolution but there is the question of who is ultimately playing who.
Feral Finster
-Ian: the list of sins you provides doesn’t mean they’re coming after you. How much does Planned Parenthood need to be funded to prove that someone doesn’t hate you?
It just shows that their agenda and yours are not compatible.
As I said, conservatives love to use similar logic to assure us a vote for Harris or whatever = GuLag.
Ian Welsh
Yes. We should be political buddies with people who want women oppressed, want to end abortion, support Trump’s destruction of the constitution and civil liberties (Catholics are better on this than the evangelicals), and so on.
Our agendas ARE incompatible, and that’s why you don’t make buddies with them.
You certainly prove the point that I did need to write this article.
ibaien
while it’s a somewhat facile point to make that “people who desire power and oppose your set of values are not good allies”, ‘decent americans’ are still going to have to find common ground with some plurality if they want to make any kind of meaningful long-term changes in the direction of our public policy. like it or not this means working with folks who could be uncharitably identified as neofascist theocrats. this article presupposes that the only other option would be leftist cadres liquidating all the various flavors of christian nationalists mentioned above, and alas for that 1) there are no cadres and 2) the other side has way more guns. so, prisoners dilemma here and the only play is meet in the middle. the time for serious organizing and counter-programming was somewhere around 1980.
The Heretic
Btw… Read Joe Bageant-‘ Deer Hunting with Jesus’ , and Thomas Frank, ‘What’s the matter with Kansas’ (disregard Vance’s self- hating book). This nasty poisonous Nettles of Talibanical Christianity has its roots from decades of neglect and abuse of the working class. The contempt for these ‘Deplorables’ as per Hillary ‘Hitlerry’ Clinton, embodied in the Sneering class of the Woke Elites and the PMC, has done much to aggravate the situation…. (Introducing Trans familiarization (idealogical indoctrination for their point of view) and they are not completely wrong in some school districts), was one of the many ‘bricks that broke the Camel’s back’, causing allowing more malevolent creatures to come and take its place.
A true left wing movement, that does not especially cultural leftism (beyond bully prevention, which some of the Wahhabism Christians would accept), but focuses on the real substantial grievances that they have, and must be able to appeal to rank and file police and military personnel, can still succeed for now.
However, there is not much time. If the great orange leader, via proxies, provokes a war where American soldiers die, then the group protection tribal instincts will emerge, and ICE will be completely unconstrained to deal with any ‘un-American’ influences.
Zohran Mamdhani needs some prominent and still respected Wasp and J__ endorsements to keep him safe. He also needs to Always be in the presence of a large number of people…. Just in case
The Heretic
In retrospect, Iran showed great wisdom in not whacking any American bombers….
Feral Finster
“Our agendas ARE incompatible, and that’s why you don’t make buddies with them.”
That’s not the same as “they want to kill us ZOMG!” which was the original claim.
Ian Welsh
Eliminationist rhetoric is common from the right. They get fully in power and yeah, they’ll purge the actual left. Right now they’re sending people to prison, not always even American prisons, and some of them are dying, others are being beaten and raped. And women ARE dying because of the abortion bans.
They are also the premier supporters of Gaza’s genocide. If you think that what they do overseas isn’t something they’d do at home if they could, you’re whistling past the graveyard. Possibly yours.
Planter of Trees
The antagonism of religious hardliners to the left is well understood, but ultimately they are hostile to any who are not “of the body.” I’m reminded of an incisive observation from a couple of years back, by an atheistic nationalist:
“…I realized that this is a malignant movement that very consciously invades your dissident organizations with the sole intent in mind to D&C [the organizations] and to convert their material radicalism into spiritual radicalism…. They legitimately despise you first for turning your back on their religion, and second for making your own ideology sound attractive enough that you could potentially turn more people against them. They want to erase you from society, violently if they have to, and with [globalists] as their allies if they have to.”
(slightly edited for clarity and pertinency)
John9
I like to call these people cult Christians who are morally dead and deeply ignorant. On an individual basis it is hard to tell how deeply damaged they are because like any psychopath they have learned to conceal their broken nature with a veneer of American nice….especially the Southern and Midwest ones. They are cult Christians because they give primacy to and take refuge in the most violent excesses of the Old Testament. Their churches are social clubs that replace all the former civic organizations that once gave a type of unity to American society. American is an atomized, alienated, broken society and our overlords want it this way. The Christian right is a malign artifact of the class war that the oligarchy has mostly won in America.
Forecasting intelligence
Surely the real risk is the islamist Right in the western world which the modern Left are in alliance with.
Why don’t you talk about the risk posed by the Islamists in the West? The Christian Right is in long-term decline, even Trump ignores them without consequence.
Feral Finster
We hear the same insistence from the right that the left are out to get them, along with the same sorts of examples.
Everyone claims to be only acting in self-defense.
Ian Welsh
Who cares? The left isn’t in any danger of taking charge, let alone the left that is eliminationist.
The right, on the other hand, is close. “They both say it so they’re both wrong” isn’t an argument.
Scott Stiefel
Christopath wingnuts have been organized, well-funded, heavily armed, and extremely loud for far longer than any rudimentary leftist movements in America. Who thinks that any revolutionary outburst in America would be spearheaded by leftists in the first place? This is like having to tell people to not touch a red-hot stove.