pre class for Althusser Marx for 3/18/10 KING KRIG

Althusser and Marx were 2 very interesting articles because not only were they very different in some aspects but they were also the same. I think Marx was coming from a much more centralized area whereas Althusser was making a bit more broad strokes attempting to lay down the actual frameworks. I was particularly interested in how Althusser was very thorough with the ISAs and IRAs. I have ALWAYS enjoyed learning about this, even in shamas’ class haha. It is just interesting to me how one controls the other. When thinking about the Religious ISA you could very easily point to the middle east and here in the Midwest, in both places (radical Islam and Radical Christianity) are functioning first with ideology (their interpretations of the scriptures) and although they are not doing violence themselves they often inspire it. A good movie if you have time to check it out is called Jesus Camp, it is a wonderful documentary on how basically the evangelical Christians are creating children soldiers for the republican party. There was a part in the movie where the children go to a camp, hence the name, and a cardboard cut out of former president bush is brought in and they bless him and touch him and almost seem to worship him. Based on their ideas and complete detest of abortion it is not out of line to think that the church itself would not carry out a bombing, but it definitely could persuade some of its followers to do so. The same thing is happening with radical Islam, so I guess you could very easily say the more powerful of the two is definitely the ISA because an IRA can be stopped, an army or police force can be stopped, ideas are a little harder to put down. They linger in the imagination for much longer than a scar ever can. Well it is interesting at the same time because I am sure that Marx would say (at least I think since the whole communism thing happened) that bullets change countries much quicker than votes, but who knows…