Re: [A-List] Fw: Autobiographical Writing For Reality: It's A Da mn Good Thing For All Of Us

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 10:47:01 -0700 "Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>
writes:
>


>
> As for the Mormons, no amount of rhetoric, personal anecdotes or
> whatever
> will ever change or hide what they are and what they intend; they
> are a
> sick, twisted, phony, authoritarian, racist, sexist, homophobic,
> proto-fascist,predatory, deceitful, genocidal and very dangerous and
> well-connected (with the upper echelons of imperialism and reaction
> everywhere) cult.

The same can very well said for the Roman Catholic Church,
the Anglican Church, the mainline Protestant denominations,
and indeed most forms of organized religion, period.  In fact,
I would be hard put to think of an established religious sect
for which the things that you said about Mormonism would
not be applicable to it as well.  Off the top of my head,
the only exceptions that I can think of, are the Unitarians
and the Quakers.  Almost every other form of organized
religion, is afflicted to the core, with racism, sexism,
homophobia, authoritarianism, prot-fascist tendencies,
deceit,  and apologetics for genocide.  As you well
know, virtually every major Christian church (Catholics,
Anglicans or Episcopalians, and mainline Protestants
were involved in the operations of boarding schools
which were designed to systematically strip American
Indian children of their cultural heritages, and which
often subjected them to the most unspeakable forms
of abuse.

By your criteria, it would be virtually impossible for
Marxists to work with, or to attempt to organize
Catholics on behalf of progressive causes, since
after all your characterization of the Mormons is
almost equally applicable to the Catholic Church.
Marxists would have to cease supporting republicanism
in Ireland, and give up on organizing Latin American
Catholics to resist US imperialism.

In reality, Marxists, as materialists, know that although
religion is a very important part of the ideological
superstructure, it is just one factor, albeit an important
one in shaping people's political allegiences.  Working
class Mormons (or Catholics for that matter) might
well be influenced by their church to adopt reactionary
political stances, but other forces, such as their
experiences as workers, who constantly experience
the fact of exploitation by capital, might well  influence
their politics in a different and more progressive direction.

>The evidence is overwhelming, from their own
> writings and
> mouths and from those who have left them, and experiences with
> individual
> Mormons has nothing to do with the essence of Mormonism

And what would this "essence" be?  I think that we are
in danger here of falling into idealist errors.

>which is a
> matter
> for evidence and analysis rather than trips down memory lane of any
> individual--no matter what his/her supposed or self-declared
> "standing" in
> revolutionary circles.

But as I understand Hunterbear, he is offering up evidence
(albeit anecdotal) that many Mormons do in fact hold progressive
political views, regardless of the politics, that the Mormon hierarchy
might prefer their adherents to hold.  In the Catholic Church, the
hierarchy is firmly anti-choice in regards to abortion, opposed to
the ordination of female clergy, even opposed to artificial
contraception,
and yet, poll after poll, finds that the majority of American Catholics
repudiate all of these views, which the church hierachy insists are
part of the "essence" of Roman Catholicism.

Jim F.

>
> Remember the nazis, particularly the SA, had lumpen elements,
> working class
> elements etc who bought into and touted the supposed "socialism" in
> the
> title of the nazi party (NSDAP) and whose crude pseudo-socialist
> sympathies
> were used effectively to build the foundations of fascism after
> which they
> were purged to reveal the real face of fascism that built camps
> first for
> socialists and communists before building them for Jews and
> Roma/Sinti, Gays
> etc.
>
> Jim Craven
>
>


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