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Marxism and radical Islamism represents a revolt of the intellectual and cultural elite against what they perceive as a disgustingly vulgar capitalist culture. Historically, the leadership of both these movements springs, not from the poor, but from the well-to-do classes of a society.

You can think of radical Islam as Marxism with Che Guevarra's beret replaced with a turban and the beard grown a little longer.

The strange implication of this is that the front line against terrorism isn't on some distant hillside in Central Asia, but in the battle of ideas in the capitals of the world. Osama Bin Laden simply has the guts and military skill, but the ideas he carries in his head are those of the cultural elites who may find in large numbers throughout the media, the culture industry and the academe.

Excerpt #1: "Whereas the old international was made up of the economically oppressed, the new one would be a grab bag of the culturally alienated, "the dispossessed and the marginalized": students, feminists, environmentalists, gays, aboriginals...".

Notice that these are typical of the constituancy the DemocRATS are proud to represent .

Excerpt #2: " ...And so it is that in the latest leftist potboiler, "Empire," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri depict the American-dominated global order as today's version of the bourgeoisie. Rising up against it is Derrida's "new international." Hardt and Negri identify Islamist terrorism as a spearhead of "the postmodern revolution" against "the new imperial order." Why? Because of "its refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony." "Empire" is currently flavor of the month among American postmodernists. It is almost eerily appropriate that the book should be the joint production of an actual terrorist, currently in jail, and a professor of literature at Duke, the university that led postmodernism's conquest of American academia.

What the terrorists have in common with our armchair nihilists is a belief in the primacy of the radical will, unrestrained by traditional moral teachings such as the requirements of prudence, fairness, and reason. The terrorists seek to put this belief into action...".

"Nihilism": (1)a: "A viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless. b: A doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.

A critical thinker will have the courage to admit the reason why professors like the one at Duke, have had a field day indoctrinating the students who come through their classrooms. The students were raised to be relativists like their parents. All of the "truths" a relativist holds to are subjective. Right and wrong are subject to the situation; "situation ethics".

"Relativism": (1)a: "A theory that knowledge is relative to to the limited nature of the mind and the conditions of knowing". b: "A view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them".

"The Rule of Law", upon which American government is based, is only one of the "Christian worldview" founding principles that is incompatible with the relativistic worldview.

Relativists are a threat to human liberties when they are able to obtain enough power and control.

This was a subject of the Sept. 29 thread posted by FReeper Hugh Akston. It is certainly worth the read. Great stuff, keep it coming.

I have always looked at Marxism as a religion...

It is this marxist-terrorist nexus speaking when bin Laden refers to the human beings killed at the World Trade Center as "soldiers of the existing order" and quotes Noam Chomsky on the number of Iraqui babies supposedly murdered by America.

Correct and excellent as the above analysis is, it misses the more direct though covert motivation and addiction of the marxist intelligensia. First, last and always their motive is power - power that they covet for themselves exclusively - power that they share with their clientele of the moment never except in theory. Theirs is an unqunchable, positive lust to dictate to everybody else how to live every aspect of their lives. To this end, in the century just ended alone, they have destroyed the lives of 73 million and show appetite for tens of millions more.

A masterpiece!! And from the Weekly Standard yet!

FYI

Derrida, meanwhile, reacted to the collapse of the Soviet Union by calling for a "new international." Whereas the old international was made up of the economically oppressed, the new one would be a grab bag of the culturally alienated, "the dispossessed and the marginalized": students, feminists, environmentalists, gays, aboriginals, all uniting to combat American-led globalization. Islamic fundamentalists were obvious candidates for inclusion.

And so it is that in the latest leftist potboiler, "Empire," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri depict the American-dominated global order as today's version of the bourgeoisie. Rising up against it is Derrida's "new international." Hardt and Negri identify Islamist terrorism as a spearhead of "the postmodern revolution" against "the new imperial order." Why? Because of "its refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony."

I've been thinking about this, I was wondering how and why radical Islam became "politically correct."

BUMP for later reading

Good analysis.

The Left has always valued "authenticity" and passion far more than it values human life, or even any specific political program.

I am reminded of that scene in Godfather 2 where the revolutionary jumps into the governor's car and detonates a bomb. Viewing this, Michael Corleone solemnly and knowingly intones that "people who are willing to die for their cause are impossible to defeat" or something similar. This, for the Left, has always been the conventional wisdom. Osama could not have avoided this message in recent lefty culture.

Both Marxism and Islam are collectivist ideologies, as was Naziism and Fascism. The subjugation of the interests of the individual to the will of the collective. The advantage that Islam has over Marxism is that it has a concept of an after-life and a deity. Something that is totally lacking in atheistic Marxism and proved to be one of it's weaknesses as it could not satisfy the spiritual needs of it's adherents. A very dangerous combination.

BTW, I am still an atheist, though an ex-marxist.

sartre said in the intro to fanon's book that the 3rd world had the right to attack the industrial world, so there you have it.

Bump.

I think this article is fundamentally wrong.

Islamists have not completely distorted the religion of Islam as we'd like to imagine (that would certainly make ourselves feel more PC and more armed to fight this threat), but are actually traditionalists in nature.

The assertion that Osama bin Laden primarily wants to bring America to its knees is false.

Osama writes and speaks from the same fundamental viewpoint as Mawdudi, Taymiyyah and ultimately Qutb. It is an internal, domestic struggle.

They want to first bring the Middle East under their control in order to establish a one world Ummah or Islamic state which is ruled by a "rightly-guided" Calipha (much like the Pope) with strict adherence to Sharia (Islamic law).

In order to achieve this vast plan of one world worshipping Allah, they feel the must first conquer the regimes of the Middle East that are apostates.

In this calculation, they see the West as the foremost supporter of these regimes. So in order to bring down the Middle Easter governments, the Islamists targeted the United States in an attempt to bring instability to these regimes.

Osama bin Laden calculated that the US was really a "paper tiger" in nature. He felt the US would violently lash back after 9-11 and create what Huntington would call "A Clash of Civilizations." He thought we would immediately invade Arab countries releasing a pandora's box and that, because our society is extremely casualty-averse (as seen currently in the war in Iraq), we'd fold after we had some losses. And after we folded in the Middle East, they could set up shop.

He calculated wrong.

The idea of socialism sparks some Islamists to action, but the gather their ideas more so from the Quran rather than the West.

The Quran squelches individualism and glorifies building a hudud (wall) around their society to keep everyone in as a collective body.

I would hardly attribute so much of their rational calculations as a result of postmodernism. That's letting them off the hook too easily.

Bump for an article that receives an interesting analysis here at Samizdata.net blog