...when you belong to a religion that tells you to dismiss logic and reason in favor of faith and obedience, it’s not that big of a leap for worshipers to accept a difference kind of mythology. If the members of your church are spreading QAnon memes online, then maybe you weren’t doing that great of a job teaching them how to think for themselves.
That’s not specific to evangelicals, obviously. But many of the factors that make a church grow and thrive — a sense of shared purpose, a feeling of knowing something others don’t understand, a desire for knowledge in any form — are the same weapons being used by online conspiracists. If those pastors, who rightly reject QAnon and just want their members back, don’t understand the role Christianity played in convincing people to adopt comforting myths that defy common sense, they have no chance of “saving” the people who need to be rescued.
American exceptionalism is a death cult. That's why I say America must perish for the world to flourish.
There's going to be a religious war between at least two rival groups led by men proclaiming to be the Q.
i've been thinking lately about how hard it would be to pretend to be Q, slowly build up trust, then instigate infighting to destabilize the Q folks.
New Sunni/Shiite split but with who the true descendant of Q is.
It's 2077, the Church of Q's Q logo pops-up in front of me: "You look like a good Joe," it tells me. I look like I want to emote, but hold it in. Zuckerburg and Elon's Facelink network is watching. "I'm not interested in this ad," I say. The Q logo turns into a frowny-face. "Why not?" it asks.
"Because I'm not religious."
A fedora holographically appears, slowly coming down to be put on my head. In this moment, I'm euphoric.
Why stick with the same boring church when there's a hot new cult on the scene?
Some of these institutions have enough inertia to carry them into the future, but they can't keep up in the age of information warfare. These newer cults are designed to hijack your lizard brain in ways the old churches could only dream of.
Yea, I think it proves what some people are saying here. And in the article, it puts some blame on the pandemic, because there much less in person church now and more online searching. The church has a structural advantage because it has buildings, a history and mass of followers, and it has tax exempt status. It loses that advantage in these pandemic conditions. So now with an even playing field, it makes sense that the modern shit is more appealing than the ancient shit.
Probably none of them cuz their all gonna be dead, at least here’s to hoping. (Dear feds this is not a death threat I’m just saying that their all old I’m sure there’s way more import tips on this site.)
Bill Cooper is a patient zero of sorts for most of this shit.
Modern Evangelical Christianity sucks but Antitheism isn't good Praxis either. Just another brand of cultural chauvinism.
My worry is what comes next. I think we could be seeing some wild shit, that they'll talk about in 100 years time like we talk about anarchist bombings in the 1900s
What is this edge lord atheist phrasing on this article, Jesus, I thought LiveJournal was dead
when you belong to a religion that tells you to dismiss logic and reason in favor of faith and obedience
I really hate this type of thinking. QAnon people are not "dismissing logic and reason" any more than Liberals, democratic socialists, neoconservatives, etc. They are no more or less coherent than any other ideology in public consciousness.
They have a stronger awareness of the American deep state & intelligence community than Liberals & the most of the Left. They have a weaker awareness of the Trump family's entanglement in the deep state.
The public ambassador of socialism in the US spent the last week sharing a stage with high financiers & pedophiles. The world is contradictory. You're either a dialectical materialist or you choose to ignore contradictions to explain others.
QAnon is not uniquely "illogical." They're just dangerous.
Qanon is very likely a product of propagandists close to trump or the american regime.
I am well aware. And those propagandists are willing to provide their audience with a look behind the veil that other propagandists will not.
For example, more QAnon people are aware of Operation Gladio than any other mainstream political current. They just think these programs were meant to crush "patriots."
They are weaponizing what many of these people already believe in: that a cabal of intelligence community neocons exert a lot of influence in america.
That is what I'm saying... They're the only mainstream political current talking about it. That's why QAnon is extraordinarily popular, and will only continue to grow.
Otherwise they would be outraged that people like Assange is literally imprisoned by american neocons.
From what I've seen, they are upset about Assange. But they just believe that Trump is a messiah who is taking every correct step towards defeating the deep state. I don't know if you actually talk with QAnon supporters much. If you asked them "what about Assange?" they'd just say his silence is tactical. "If he freed Assange, the deep state would yada-yada-yada."
Nowadays it’s just shilling for trump and the republican party
It's shilling for Trump, and the components of the Republican Party that will bend to Trump's will.
QAnon provides people with a language & political project which identifies the deep state, and conspiracy of finance capital. Until another project can speak to the specifics of these conspiracies, QAnon will continue to fester.
Q accounts have been purged, so I cannot provide the tweets. But the primary current in Q lore is that Assange's arrest will be the moment that the deep state over-extends, and their game comes crashing down. They celebrate Assange's arrest because they believe he's a necessary martyr, or at least, a necessary event for Trump to take down the deep state.
His indictment is important and necessary. Discovery brings it all down. Assange is the Star Witness against the Deep State, just a few more pages of this screenplay before he gets to deliver his lines.
- Joe M (@StormIsUponUs), deleted twitter account with several hundred thousand followers.
There are a few voat threads which explain their lore better, but I'm at work right now, can't search much.
If QAnon was just repackaged neoconservatism, I would not be nearly as concerned as I am. Neoconservatism weighs down its political message with Liberalism, which is antithetical to reality & collapses under its own ideological contradictions much easier.
That can’t happen by construction, because it necessarily mean rejecting the american civil religion.
You absolutely can synthesize both, you just need to frame the deep state & the globalists (Jews) as a disease infecting the American nation. It's a tried-and-tested strategy for when the contradictions of capitalism become too great. It's just fascism lol
Logic doesn’t matter here. Isn’t that obvious?
It matters insofar as it can continue to describe reality. Ideas of "freedom", "liberty", etc. can not describe reality when capitalism is in decay. "The American nation is sick & dying because a cabal of Globalists are attacking us from the inside" can continue to describe reality through the decay of capitalism because it is simply rebranding the reality of finance capitalism.
Yes, neocon orthodoxy is the terminal expression of american fascism: the fascism that genocided an entire civilization and enslaved black people for the entire world.
No. It is not. It's settler-colonialist, imperialist, and Liberal. Fascism is not just when white people do genocide lol
What do you think Fascism means?
You're denying history, and pretending that Fascism was not a product of the contradictions of imperialism.
You're trying to claim that Fascism existed prior to the 20th century, which is wrong. No historian or theoretician would make that claim.
What both your parties have been doing all over the planet for decades: wars, coups and sanction that murder millions.
Yeah, that is not Fascism. That is Settler-Colonialism & Liberalism. I do not know why you're trying to white-wash Liberalism.
I'd recommend you learn what words mean before using them. This essay by J Sakai, author of Settlers, does a good job elaborating. [1]
The white Left here is behind in understanding fascism. When they're not using the word loosely and rhetorically to mean any repression at all (like the frequent assertions that cutting welfare is "fascism"! i mean, give us a break!), they're still reciting their favorite formula that the fascists are only the "pawns of the ruling class". No, that was Nazism in Germany, maybe, though even there that's not a useful way of looking at it. But definitely not here, not in that old way.
The main problem hasn't been fascism in the old sense – it's been neo colonialism and bourgeois democracy! The bourgeoisie didn't need any fascism at all to put Leonard Peltier away in maximum security for life or Mumia on death row. They hunted down the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement like it was deer hunting season, while white America went shopping at the mall – all without needing fascism. And the steady waterfall of patriarchal violence against women, of rapes and torture and killings and very effective terrorism on a mass scale, should remind us that the multitude of reactionary men have "equal opportunity " under "democracy ", too. They don't need fascism – yet.
And yes, Liberalism & Fascism are both ideologies of the bourgeoisie. The ruling class use both depending on the stage of capitalism. Material conditions trump ideas. Liberalism is capable of managing the imperial core during capitalist prosperity for the Empire. Fascism is needed to manage the imperial core during the decay of capitalism. Outside the imperial core, it's just Imperialism & Colonialism. The bourgeoisie do not dress their exploits of the Global South in ideology.
Liberals in countries in Latin America aren’t going on Holy Wars of genocide against an entire region of the planet. They aren’t imprisoning the most people on the planet and at the highest rate. They didn’t drop two nukes on civilians and said it was “justified."
Liberals in the Global South collaborate with Liberals in the imperial core. The puppet regime that the US installed following the invasion of Iraq was Liberal.
The puppet regimes throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia - particularly those who have gone through a decolonial phase then fell victim to neocolonialism - will use Liberalism as an ideological tool if that can manage the contradictions of capitalism within the country.
You are beyond fucking stupid. You really want to retcon the definition of "Fascism" to mean "when Capitalism does bad things."
Did I say every single person operating in within a Liberal Democracy in the Global South collaborates with the imperial core? No. Also, when has Lula described himself as a Liberal or espoused the idealism of Liberalism? I have listened to him countless times, and have not ever heard that. Leading a workers' party in a Liberal Democracy does not make someone a Liberal.
The definition of Fascism that I'm using - an ideological tool used to bring the tools that the Empire uses on the colonized into the imperial core - is the product of theorists in the colonized world.
Communism, Liberalism, and Fascism are not the totality of ideological thought in the world. That is at the root of the disagreement we are having.
Lula & Evo both seem to be the product of workers' & indigenous struggle in their countries. I'm not an expert on those cultures, so I cannot begin to outlet their ideological roots. But I have not seen either espouse Liberalism or identify as a Liberal. The only reason I could see someone call them a Liberal is because they won power in a Liberal Democracy.
You're trying to flatten the world into "Fascist", "Liberal", and "Communist." That is insanity lmao.
And that's the origin of this thread. The American project is rooted in Settler-Colonialism and Liberalism. Fascism became prevalent during the economic crisis in the 1910's & 1930's. Fascism is once again becoming a powerful trend in America. Liberalism, Settler-Colonialism, and Fascism have all been capable of carrying out the crimes of American Empire.
Ignoring the fact that Evo & Lula are not Liberals.
Just admit you're talking about shit you do not know, and move on. It ain't hard. Happens here all the time.
"Awareness" was not the correct word.
Rather, they have a willingness to discuss the American deep state as a real, political actor that must be addressed. Many Americans are aware of the deep state, and QAnon has become extremely popular by virtue of being the only voice in this arena. Liberals & the Left have refused to touch this issue because they are afraid that the "conspiracy" label will alienate them from the people.
I'm hopeful that the Epstein case, the Democratic Primary, and the rise of QAnon will wake the Left up to this issue.
The Left only exists in public consciousness through its representatives in the Democratic Party, so yeah, demsoc/socdem types. Those members of the Left only ever describe these issue in the abstract, never the specific. Describing the specifics would destroy their ill-conceived efforts to "infiltrate" the Democratic Party.
