National Atheist Party Environmental Committee

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Stewart on November 22, 2011 at 5:06am

I'm skeptical even of atheists sometimes, I'm not sure I totally 'get it', the atheist community hasn't got a strong political stance for the reason that both Capitalists and Communists fall under the heading.  As a Leftist in general, I find the party platform underwhelming, on foreign policy there is no discussion of the Middle East and the Palestinian cause, post-Cold War Middle Europe, or China, not to mention a definite dearth on economic views.  If Ron Paul Libertarians can fit under the Atheist banner, sorry, no thanks, that sort of hyper-nationalism is indicative of white supremacist ideologies.  Able to give any insights into these issues as someone working in the Party?  If the whole of this party's views are based on Christopher Hitchens's views from GOD IS NOT GREAT in terms of politics, you will be alienating a lot of Leftist atheists who construe his contrarian attitudes as colonialist (he used to be Trotskyist before becoming a US citizen and getting on his whole Jeffersonian fetish).  I personally find Hitchens, being British, is somewhat naive about the nature of race relations in America, partly due to the fact his country was much more involved in class-warfare rather than race-warfare.  England did have some major racial tensions in the later half of the 20th century due to colonialism's end, but never a Jim Crow apartheid system that continues to poison the minds of all Americans nearly 50 years after it was supposedly abolished.  As such, he has a rightful pride in his own home town of Portsmouth's anti-Jim Crow stance in WWII, they once rioted and attacked racist white officers discriminating against black GIs when the US was based in England before D-Day was launched.  This perspective has prevented Hitch from ever experiencing the uniquely American experience of unlearning the political hegemony about race in our culture, as is the case when reading books like PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn or the writings of Noam Chomsky.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt Novak on November 22, 2011 at 9:11am

I agree with you that they do need a platform on Israel/Palestine, but this was NOT based on Hitch.  The platform was put up to a democratic vote by the couple hundred founding members and anyone they knew that would support a National Atheist Party.  So, the reason why it is a liberal platform is because that is what a majority of the atheists that voted wanted. Also, it was not a simple majority.  All of these issues that were voted on received a crap ton of support, so it made that platform even more important.  How I do agree with you about Hitch, as I say again, that was not too much in mind when determining the platform

• ▶ Reply