The particular neckbeardy, fedora wearing, Sam Harris listening trend of atheism was a pretty clear reaction to the evangelical psychosis of the Bush administration.
Other geriatrics here can attest that the character of Christianity at the time was way different than it is now. These days, the fascists are more "culturally Christian" and avoid overt bible apologism. But back in the day, these people were constantly on TV spewing young earth creationism and other shit, and they were largely taken seriously. It's hard to believe now how much time was spent "debating" evolution back then. The atheist backlash at least affected discourse aesthetically for some time, making these views laughable, which deplatformed a lot of evangelicals or made them hide their power levels on TV.
Some argue that this brand of atheism justifies imperialism. It does so really only in theory. There really is no material basis for atheists in the US to justify an invasion anywhere in the world. The truth is that Christianity is still a far more powerful force for imperialism. Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq. I don't see any president saying anytime soon that the US needs to secularize a country through force.
If fundamentalist and political religiosity were defeated, then belligerent atheism would dissolve, but the reverse is not true.
Overall, it really does seem like people over emphasize this group of internet no-lifers because of the cultural cringe they manifested.
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I remember the tea-party being a few years before Occupy spun up. Wasn't tea party, like when it first started and was actually somewhat grass roots, like 08-09? And Occupy was 11?
I'm reading the Wiki article on it right now and honestly most if this stuff I had no idea. I didn't really have anything like coherent politics prior to Occupy, so I had no idea what was happening or who the players were or how anything worked.
Eugh. Remember all the Ron Paul "Revolution" with "evol" highlighted to be "love"?
Again, I had no really coherent politics back then except Republicans bad, bush bad, Iraq war bad, Obama good, voting good (I had never heard the word "electoralism"), non-violence good. I don't recall having any real idea what Libertarianism in the American sense was, just that there were a lot of very enthusiastic white bros in their 20s who seemed to think that Ron Paul was going to save the world is a very messianic, religious mania kind of way.
It's so weird to think about. In some ways it wasn't very long ago, but in other ways it was like five epochs ago. Nothing made sense at the time, but in hindsight and with a little bit of theory it all makes a lot of sense. And honestly it all runs together. I remember sleeping under a bench outside city hall during Occupy, lots of yelling at cops, lots of trying to scrounge up outdoor cooking gear and various supplies. I remember the news hammering on and on and on about "what are their demands?!?!", which I recognize now was probably workshopped to discredit Occupy, since the demands were pretty simple. Cops beating people up in NYC while we all watched on the news. Lots of speeches. Lots of pointless marching that accomplished nothing except giving people sunburn and heat exhaustion.
The city decided that we were all in danger due to the extreme cold (We'd been at it for a few months at that point, since the original OWS camps started in NYC), so we had to be removed from our little protest camp for our own good. The same city now routinely clears homeless camps by sending in city workers supported by about a hundred cops with assault rifles, destroys all their stuff, and throws them out in to the streets knowing that there's no where for htem to go.
2011: Destroy Citibank!
2021: This Pride float proudly sponsored by Citibank
I stopped going to pride because I accidentally ended up marching with the BLM contingent and could see the hate dripping off the faces of white PMCs in the crowd, but the FBI recruiting booth and the Target themed pride merch were also major factors.
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I think I went to maybe one or two local things before I started to get a bad vibe from it. And honestly I'm not even sure about that, I might be conflating memories from some other protest with things I saw on the news. Memory is tricky at the best of times and mine has never been especially reliable.
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