Saudi Arabia’s internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom’s doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.
One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader – amongst many – of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)
The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz’s subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse – and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export – by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.
It’s not that Carson is a very religious man that should concern us. Even his Biblical literalism is only troubling up to a point. The problem is this juvenile way of coming to strong conclusions and the lazy willingness to put his own pet theories ahead of the conclusions of the Scientific Community.
— Booman Tribune (via azspot)
Bobby Jindal’s tax plan is a perfect example of how the Republican Party is the party for the wealthy.
Do any of these candidates realize that when you decrease the opportunities for low and middle class Americans to grow economically, you increase societal instability and decrease economic prosperity for all?
Or that its fiscally insane to help those who do not need it on the backs of the economic driver of America (the middle class)? Tell me how that is fiscally responsible.
And side note, I am sure their personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, would be a huge fan of helping the rich. Obviously he spent most of his time helping them.
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death
