Blindspots In The Religiously Conservative, American Christian Response To Afghanistan

 Rather than respond to the editorial view or opinion of a singular writer, I thought I would review a news story. And the Christian views of the surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban was a great story to review because of their interpretations of those events. What some might find in this article is that the interpretations of many religiously conservative American Christians are either distorted by America-centrism or ignorance or by ignorance of Afghanistan's past. And the ignorance is quite specific, ignorance is over who started and when did America's intervention into Afghanistan begin.

The views of American Christians about Afghanistan exhibit America-centrism when they state that the war started in 2001 and has been going on for only 20 years. America-centric views are also indicated when only America's cost of fighting the war are mentioned. In reality, Afghanistan has been in a state of civil strife or war since 1978 when a Communist Coup overthrew a Soviet Union friendly government and continued at least some of the social reforms stated by the former government. Those social reforms included women's rights. And those opposing the new government were Mujahideen, many of whom would join the Taliban. The Mujahideen opposed those social reforms. In addition, President Carter started to provide covert aid to the Mujahideen starting in July of 1979, 6 months before the Soviet Union invaded the nation. Reagan upped the ante considerably. So understand that the US backed what would later become the Taliban with their restrictive views of the role of women in society against a Soviet friendly government that promoted women's rights.

The article focused on here is one written by Ryan Foley for The Christian Post (click here for the article). Instead of reviewing the article here, this blogpost is depending on you to read the article yourself. The article consists of 5 short webpages and is a small compilation of reactions to the events in Afghanistan by some Christian leaders. Count in the story how many times those Christian leaders only expressed concern for fellow Christians or were totally unaware of the fact that those we supported in Afghanistan when Afghanistan was ruled by a Russian supported government became those we fought in Afghanistan. And what is a constant here is that the group we supported when Afghanistan was ruled by a Soviet approved government and the Taliban were fighting, in part, to oppose women's rights and freedom in society.

How About Gorbachev For Our Next President?

When we look at the life of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, what we see is a man who was the inverse of Ronald Reagan and many of today's Republicans. For while Gorbachev's tenure as leader of the Soviet Union started from an authoritarian beginning and proceeded to break with that authoritarianism, Reagan's presidency started started from a non-authoritarian beginning and went in the opposite direction and helped the US head toward the authoritarianism we see today.

Now it's not that Gorbachev's time as leader of the Soviet Union was without faults. But where he differs from many American politicians today is that he can recognize merits in dissent expressed by others. An example of that can be seen in his support for globalism and his appreciation for the criticisms of globalism.

 In his book The New Russia, he tells us about Putin's use of false narratives about his political opponents in order to use fear to coerce people into voting for him. And this is an important point because most of our major party candidates use similar false narratives about their campaign counterparts in order to coerce people into voting for them. Gorbachev rejects the use of such false narratives.

In addition, we should lookup the significance of both Glasnost and Peristroika, two programs Gorbachev brought to the Soviet Union. Glasnost, which means openness and Peristroika saw the decentralization of politics and the economy in the Soviet Union, allowed for the beginning of a short-lived freedom  in Russia. Both were short-lived because, as some have pointed out, the leaders who lent money to Russia following the breakup of the Soviet Union did so on the condition that Gorbachev had to step down because they wanted a leader who would put into place a neoliberal economic system. And while Gorbachev understood the need to decentralize the then Soviet Union's political and economic systems, he sees the dangers of neoliberalism. 

Here, we should note the positive correlation, one that is seemingly counterintuitive, between neoliberal economics with its demand for economic freedom with political authoritarianism. The correlation is there whether one wants to look at the coups during the 1970s in both Chilé and Argentina that produced military dictatorships both of which introduce neoliberal capitalism to their respective countries to Reagan's attacks on unions here. And whether it was through Obama's attempts to fast-track the the TPP, or Trump's efforts to eliminate regulations that protect the environment and workers' rights, we see different forms of authoritarianism growing where economic neoliberalism is supported. 

Unlike the current President of the US, Gorbachev understands the need for eliminating WMDs. He also recognizes the need for the world to address the growing environmental problems and crisis. He sees the need for Russia to increase citizen participation in its government and to utilize multiple political parties. He, unlike our current Republican Party, does not reduce their view of the world to that of commerce. Here, we should note the Manfred Max-Neef's criticisms of how economics is taught and practiced in the US. Max-Neef has said that while the roots of the word 'economics' points to a complex overview of all that is involved in the economy, today's approach reduces the subject of economics to the study of commerce.

Gorbachev has some faults. For example, while he correctly criticizes Stalin for his brutal authoritarianism, he seems to like Lenin. In reality, Lenin is a Stalin-lite while Stalin is a Lenin on steroids. But Gorbachev empathizes with Lenin's use of power since Gorbachev himself had to be a little heavy-handed in how he dealt with those in the Communist Party as he got his reforms through. In addition, there was his part in the Soviet Union's war on Afghanistan. And there was his initial support for Putin.

In short, Gorbachev is a complex man because the world with which he interacts is complex. Yes, he was a political leader who pushed across political and economic reforms, but his humanity is a driving force in the causes and ideas he supports. His humanity is what allows him to avoid looking at people as political or financial objects that are disposable. That quality alone puts him above most of America's politicians. And though The Constitution does prohibit Gorbachev from serving as the President of the United States, he becomes a model by which we should judge all politicians who are running not just for the Presidency, but for all public offices.

What Makes Socialists Like Me Mad

What makes many of us Socialists mad is one word, Russia--that is the old Soviet Union Russia. Why? Though Russia never modeled the type of government and society that Socialists like me espouse, it has destroyed our credibility. Russia is our historical straw man. It existed and it failed. But it never represented what many of us believe in though other Socialists still look to it as an example.

So when a Socialist like me suggests that we need an alternative to our current system, the standard reply that comes back is that Socialism has always failed. Really? That really depends on one's definition of Socialism. But before we get into that, we should look at the horse our nation is betting on.

The performance of our nation's horse has been win, place, and show for centuries. So why change? We should change because it is a myth that we have done so well. For example, how did we do when the America's indigenous people were being ethnically cleansed from the land? And how did we do when Blacks were enslaved  for centuries by America's aristocracy? And how did we do when Blacks suffered under the first Jim Crow? And how are we doing as America is suffering under its second Jim Crow? And how did we do when we could not marry the person of our choice because of their gender?

Or how did we do when we sent our sons and daughters to fight in the 50-plus wars and interventions that followed WWII? And how did we do when our troops fought in the wars and interventions before WWII? And how are we doing as millions of homes were foreclosed on since 2007? And how are we doing while many jobs have been outsourced overseas or workers have been replaced by technology? And how are we doing as the global supply for workers has increased causing the pay for many workers to decrease? And how are we doing with our food and air being poisoned and with our environment being changing for the worse? 

Or how will we do now that the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable? And how will we do as we continue to have serious conflicts after proliferation has become fact? And how will we do as we incite new conflicts by always trying to extend our economic and political control? And how will we do when the seas rise and the climate displays more extreme weather because we were not willing to change?

See, if we answered all of the "how did we do" and "how are we doing" questions with fine, realize that that is because of the group we were in. It went fine for us, but for a growing number of people, including an ever increasing number of neighbors, things either did or are not going well.  And time has prevented us from knowing how to answer the "how will we do"questions. So the claim that our current system has not only taken into account our intellectual and moral frailties, but has also taken full advantage of them depends on which group we belong to and what time it is. 

A world driven by self-interest and relying on competition to advance is not a world that is either self-sustaining or survivable. And if we let history be our guide, we will realize that our group, the one whose provision has moved us to think that our current system is working, will not be king of the world forever. What goes up, must come down. And so it won't be long until we are in a group whose suffering will lead us to say that the current system is not working.

It's simply insane to believe that anyone can create a system that can accommodate the naked self-interest by every participant and make everybody a winner. That is especially true when we have the weapons that could annihilate human life on this earth and when our waste is gradually but inevitably and drastically choking our environment.

And so I believe that some kind of flexible Socialism is the system that offers us the best chance at living a decent life now and a manageable life in the future. It does so because Socialism extends democracy and as democracy is extended, then power is distributed. As power is distributed, the sinfulness of gifted people can be better restrained. And as we rely more on sharing rather than hoarding, we can reduce, but not eliminate, our conflicts and make life better for more people by exemplifying values to live by. For just as an economy that relies on self-interest changes the values of its participants, so can a system that disperses political power and an economy that distributes wealth more evenly, not necessarily equally, change the values of its participants.

Some who read this will mistakenly believe that I am picturing a utopia. They are wrong because all I am seeing is an improved world, not a perfect world. For as long as we build upon an economic system that is driven by self-interest, we will eventually become self-destructive. So we need to change. But even if we can modify our economic system so that it does not rely solely on self-interest, there will still be more self-interest around than we will know what to do with. As Socialism distributes power, it can limit the effects of self-interest so that fewer people are hurt by those who are ruled by greed.

So why does Russia make us mad? It is because as we describe how we can change things and make life better, our antagonists will point to Russia and say that what we are proposing has already been tried. Such a charge is based on ignorance as those making the charge look at Russia as the definition of Socialism. Socialists, like Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemberg, protested against the centralized control of the country exercised by Lenin. Kautsky criticized it because as certain Socialists exercised more control, others were silenced (click here). Luxemberg called Lenin's and Trotsky's model of Socialism a bourgeois dictatorship. We should also note that she called Kautsky's model a bourgeois democracy (click here). But regardless, they knew that what Lenin wanted to do was wrong. 

We need a Socialism that demands democracy and that it starts at the workplace. That means that businesses must be governed by democratic practices rather than in an authoritarian way as exercised by managers.  Then we also need to elect government officials who will represent people rather than big business. To elect such people, we will have to abandon all candidates from our two major parties. Then we watch our new government as it works to represent us in controlling the runaway power of certain elites from the private sector. It is only under such representatives that government should exercise control over business.

The above paragraph shows how Socialism can start here. But if it does, we cannot just sit back and expect things to fall into place. We have to monitor and keep watch so that the new political parties with power do not imitate the old parties. We will have to be forever vigilant. That is because such a Socialism rests on the self-rule of a society. And such must always be on the lookout for those who would hijack it, like what Lenin and those who followed him did to the Russian Revolution.