The Face of New Atheism.

"Well it's a gloomy, rainy old day to be here in London, but it could be worse; I could be in Saudi Arabia where men are men, and women are cattle. Can I say that?" - Pat Condell

If you've used YouTube regularly over the years since its launch, you've probably come across anti-theistic lectures by New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. But in early 2007 a new anti-theist popped up and it could be argued that he makes Hitchens look like a devout Muslim, I am talking about Pat Condell of course. Since February 7th of 2007, Pat Condell has posted over fifty videos on YouTube and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. The videos consist of vicious monologues usually aimed against Christianity or Islam, but he has targeted Judaism and Scientology in the past also. Pat Condell is truly the voice of New Atheism on YouTube.
Condell has released a DVD through the website of Richard Dawkins, a fellow New Atheist who shares his love for nature and liberal values, the DVD consists of the monologues Pat posted on YouTube between February '07 and February '08. He's even selling his own memorabilia, which advocates his brand of Atheism, through his own website. Pat Condell, he who criticises Pat Robertson for using Evangelical Christianity to make millions of dollars by exploiting his audience, seems rather hypocritical in this sense. However, as Condell would argue, the rantings and ravings of a man such as Robertson are far more harmful and dishonest than Condell's. It is easy to point out that capitalism transcends the materialism of Atheism and can now be found in the idealism of Theism. But I am more concerned with the disturbing qualities of New Atheism, and how Pat Condell unfortunately actualises such qualities in his videos, than how capitalism penetrates everything known to man.

"Pat Condell is unique. Nobody can match his extraordinary blend of suavity and savagery. With his articulate intelligence he runs rings around the religious wingnuts that are the targets of his merciless humour. Thank goodness he's on our side." - Richard Dawkins

The values espoused by Pat Condell are definitely of a liberal origin and there seems to be a sort of "hippyish" quality to his delivery of such values. He once said that he believes "there is more spirituality in a single flower than in all the sanctimonious sky pilots who've ever lived". Condell's liberalism can be "detected" in his optimistic view of human nature, his opposition to authoritarianism as well as to the conservative view of human nature as fundamentally rotten, and his love of freedom. Which is probably why he has stated his reason for making his videos as "because I want to live in a free world, full of free people who can say whatever they want to say and be whoever they want to be one thousand percent of the time. And where no one is allowed to shut them up, because their crackpot religious beliefs have been offended." The love of freedom and liberty he espouses, may be shared by many libertarians, seem paradoxical when combined with a contempt for anyone who doesn't share such sentiments. Condell equates religion with evil, which he accuses a "misguided and arrogant liberal elite" of fragmenting British society by tolerating, the toleration of such an evil is clearly paradoxical.
This appears to be a common trend amongst New Atheists a devout love of Enlightenment values, an almost mystical view of nature, and a disdain for intolerance, which is paradoxical in itself. Interestingly most of them appear to have been "Flower Children" of the 60s that rebelled against conservative social norms, protested against Vietnam, marched for equal rights and led a sexual revolution into the 1970s. For instance, Christopher Hitchens went to Cuba in 1968 to plant coffee beans. Hitchens later criticised Noam Chomsky for "effectively explaining away Islamic Jihadism as a function of American policy mistakes" and sided with pure neoconservatives, such as Paul Wolfowitz, on the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Condell and Hitchens both make the mistake of explaining away the ugliness of religious extremism as innate to religious beliefs themselves. It is as if they have lived as rebels long enough to have lost an enemy to fight, having seen their revolution sold and their values demolished, they go in search of a new oppressor to rebel against and sustain their identity in doing so.

"So I really don't care about anything he [God] has got to say, and if he came down from heaven right now, in a big pair of hobnail boots, waving the book of Judges in my face, I'd simply tell him what I tell every other evangelising prick I meet: "No thanks. I'm not interested in your phony salvation. I'd prefer damnation. Now piss off, I've got some sinning to do." - Pat Condell

Most New Atheists ignore the socio-political and economic turmoil, which led to the intense emergence of such destructive belief systems as Islamic extremism, which has intensified over the last century. The same century in which the US expanded it's influence into the Middle East in order to gain access to oil and the state of Israel was "formed". There is a tendency in capitalism to enforce repressive social policies to sustain undemocratic economic policies. Religion can be used to justify repressive social policies, as seen in countries such as Saudi Arabia, which have crushed all political opposition, unions and labour movements. The Saudi bourgeoisie depend on the Wahhabi Islamic establishment to sustain their position of wealth, power and privilege. This compromise between the ruling dynasty and the religious establishment is the foundation of the Saudi Kingdom. All kinds of ideology are suppressed except for one, any form of dissidence is not tolerated and the population is kept under total control. In such a totalitarian environment there is predictability and security, for the elite, democracy lacks these things and is opposed by Western states because a democratic Saudi Arabia would threaten oil prices.

Religion can be used to distract and fragment people with debates regarding the teaching of evolution in schools, abortion and gay rights. Such issues are meaningless to the average CEO who is more concerned with health, education, economic issues and wages. While the masses are distracted by arguments over evolution and creationism, the ultrarich can crush labour unions, slash wages to increase profits and construct a political system which is only beneficial to themselves. As seen in America over the last 30 years, the Christian Right have "crusaded" against gay rights and abortion, while wages for most of Americans have either stagnated or decreased and working hours have increased. Social benefits have plummeted and any attempt by politicians to increase such benefits through government spending is dismissed as "socialism". Which is why the people of France live 3 to 5 years longer than the average American, because universal healthcare is mutually exclusive with socialism apparently. The New Atheists fail to notice that religion is merely the shadow of the enemy and not the substance of that enemy. The worse aspects of religion should be criticised as a function of capitalism and not as an independent phenomenon.

United $tates of Fear.

"Government is the shadow of business over society." - John Dewey

After the fall of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, America began searching for a new enemy to "fight". Why? Because America is a polyarchy - a polyarchy is a system in which the elite is divided into a couple of political groups which are essentially of the same ideology - and as a polyarchy, the elite retains power by keeping the masses fragmented, indoctrinated and distracted. One way to distract and fragment the masses is to create a constant state of fear that is only ended (temporarily) by a false victory, such a state requires an enemy and that's where men like Saddam Hussein come into the picture. Now the US has the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide a false victory, just as Saddam did, and is demonising that state through the media, though in a more subtle manner than the way they demonised Iraq. Which seems to be one of the early stages prior to an actual invasion, at least if we look at history.

The work of Leo Strauss is often referred to as one of the shaping forces behind neoconservatism. Traditionally, the role of intellectuals has been to pander to the state and justify their actions. Strauss taught his students that the prosperous liberal society of the 1950s contained the seeds of it's own destruction. He strongly believed that Western liberalism leads to nihilism. To him liberalism was a development that took everything admirable about human beings and made us into herd animals satisfied with the dangerous life in which nothing is true and everything is permitted.

Strauss believed that the liberal notion of freedom would lead individuals to challenge everything, all established values and moral truths, and ultimately society would be torn apart as the shared values maintaining society are destroyed by self-interested individuals. Strauss proposed that there was a way politicians could avoid the corrosive forces of liberalism, by asserting powerful myths and necessary illusions that everyone could believe in. One being the myth of the Judeo-Christian God and the other being the myth that America has a unique role to play in the world, to defend the good from the evil. Strauss advocated that the elite must promote these myths in public, even though they might not believe in them privately.

“The country was founded on the principle, that James Madison explained in the Constitutional Convention, that the primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains to a remarkable extent.” - Noam Chomsky

The way neocons are looking to create a sense of purpose and maintain a moral framework, for Americans and to counteract nihilism, has an existential weight to it. The method of creating such purpose is to be constantly fighting the "good fight" against a "pure evil", even if that enemy is not real and has been constructed by the American government, which would give the neocon's myths of Christianity and America (as the only moral force left in the world) justification as foundations to stand on. But it is the constant meaningless fighting that is meant to sustain such justifications.

Which is why in the 1970s men like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney did their up most to create a much more severe view of the Soviet Union (that was simply untrue). In 1991 after the collapse of communism, Dick Cheney expressed concern that Iraq, Iran and North Korea might obtain nuclear weapons and become a threat to national security. 12 years later, George W Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of a "Axis of Evil" prior to orchestrating the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to Noam Chomsky, North Korea was added to the "Axis of Evil" with the intention of avoiding the "War on Terror" becoming the "War on Islam", as some Christian fundamentalists wanted it to become, with the end being the end of the world as we know it. The reasons why Iran and Iraq were added to the "Axis" are more complex.

Since the Islamic Revolution, every US President has found conflict with the Iranian government; because in 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded the American backed Shah as dictator. This is evident in the fact that America insists on finding conflict with Iran because of Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism and horrendous human rights record. However, America possesses more nuclear weapons than most other countries in the world, and the only place in America that Iran could hit with a nuclear bomb is Alaska. So, what do the Americans have to fear in Iran? It's true that Iran has a bad record in regards to human rights, most notably gay rights, but Saudi Arabia (America's favourite Middle Eastern dictatorship) has a far worse record, particularly in regards to women's rights. And as for sponsoring terrorism, America nurtured Islamic extremism in the Middle East to rid the region of "disobedient" Arab nationalists, socialists and secularists whose policies were threatening oil prices.

The American government funded the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, which was when Osama bin Laden met his future mentor Ayman al-Zawahiri. The President of Pakistan, at the time, Muhammed Zia ul-Haq also received US backing, billions of dollars worth of backing to be exact, because of his love of supply-side economics - such as deregulation and privatisation - and disdain for communism. Despite the fact that Zia ul-Haq used a process of "Islamization" which set the ideological foundations for the rise of groups, such as the Taliban, which continue to plague the region today. In fact, General Zia ul-Haq retained full support, not many Americans know that the early jihadist manuals and books were printed courtesy of the University of Nebraska. It wasn't until 9/11 that the Americans began to "oppose" problems like terrorism and "Islamic extremism", when those problems no longer benefited them. Pretty much all of these issues, could be resolved if the Americans looked in the mirror and spoke about what they see without illusions. So, we could conclude that the real reason that US politicians find fault with the Iranian government is because that government does not take orders from Washington.

This was the same reason the US invaded Iraq in 2003 - not because Saddam Hussein was a real threat but because he refused to follow orders any longer - Saddam was indeed a brutal dictator and, until he invaded Kuwait, another US backed Arab state, he had the support of the US and the UK. Which is probably why in the 1980s no one talked much of Saddam's crimes which included gassing the Kurds of Iraq and killing masses of Shi'ite Muslims, not to mention his use of weapons of mass destruction against Iran during the war between the two states. But all of his crimes were brought up in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. We could also look at the fact that the American public has been kept in a state of fear for well over a century. This fear can quickly become hate which is the reason behind the genocide against Native Americans, who were feared by many and eventually hated too prior to the genocide.

This state of fear continued throughout the 20th Century and was aimed against communism, and once communism was gone the American state of fear turned on men like Saddam Hussein who were no longer accepting orders from Washington. The US could gain nothing, politically, from keeping a tyrant like Saddam Hussein around any longer and used him to take out two birds with one stone. By replacing the "Red Enemy" with Saddam, the US could justify furthering it's expansion of power in the Middle East; which as we all know has been blessed/cursed with certain resources, the most important of which is oil.

If the invasion of Iraq was really about removing an evil dictator, the US should have invaded Iraq in the early 80s but instead they supported him to avoid the spread of communism to the Middle East and to damage the Khomeini regime. The previous support of Saddam Hussein was a method of dominating the Middle East, and once he had out lived his value to them he had to go. Whereas the authoritarian members of Saudi Royality have maintained their positions by following the bid and call of US Presidents, for them supporting Islamic conservatism and fundamentalism is a way of suppressing all political opposition within their own country.

"The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people." - Noam Chomsky

In the US, during the rise of neoconservatism and Christian fundamentalism over the last 30 years, wages have decreased rapidly and civil liberties have been trampled under the Presidents of Bush and Reagan. So while Republicans and Democrats have argued over gay rights and abortion, their financiers have been abusing human rights to ensure high profits. Just look at the level of health care received in America, the people held captive in Guantanamo Bay receive a higher standard of treatment than in the "Land of the Free", the Republicans have opposed universal health care because apparently it is mutually exclusive with socialism.

Socialism is a dirty word in America, because the free market is held in such high regard by the American tax payers, they are willing to drop $700 billion into the laps of the biggest crooks in 80 years. Much like the bankers, the insurance companies have run rampant, letting the poor die because they're too "risky" to save, whilst making fat campaign contributions to politicians who oppose universal health care and advocate private tyrannies as a substitute. Fear is the goal of elitist propaganda, and propaganda is to consumer democracy what the bludgeon is to totalitarianism.