Scary Assessment of Bush From Kevin Phillips--American Theocracy

[Dr Ron]

From The Democratic Daily:
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2345

Kevin Phillips on the American Theocracy

The New York Times reviews reviews American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips. A major question many critics of George Bush have is to what degree he actually believes the things he says. Phillips addresses this with regards to religion:

Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. He convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the president's policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other members of his administration may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public. Phillips's evidence for this disturbing claim is significant, but not conclusive.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. another review at salon.com

if you go to the review from the link on this page you can avoid the "day pass" adverts

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/17/review_of_american_t.html

[Ufomammut]

2. Christo-fascism

Anyone concerned with what's taking place needs to research the right wing movement's religious/apocalyptic worldview ...in a very disturbing way, it sheds light on some of the confusion as to potential motivations behind their geopolitical ideology, actions and policies.

Have you read Mark Crispin Miller's "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order?" Fantastic analysis even though the material is a few years old. His latest book, "Fooled Again," concerning election theft has practically been blacklisted. He has good references and an informed take on the whole evangelical/"Christian" reconstructionist angle. I forget the guy's name who has aptly termed their movement as "Christo-fascism." Look it up.

[Vexatious Ape]

3. And the bastards itching to push the button.

Bush having nuclear power is just as bad as Iran having nuclear power. Anyone who takes any religion seriously, believes in the concept of good vs. evil, and believes in an afterlife, is a threat to all mankind if he has the bomb. And Chucklenuts has the most bombs.

[Emit]

4. And it's not just Christian Evangelical end time believers

"All three major monotheistic religions have teachings regarding the end-times. The following chart reveals some of the similarities and differences in the eschatological prophecies of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity."



http://www.contenderministries.org/prophecy/eschatology.php

[Dr Ron]

5. Similar stories

It really is interesting that, despite all the wars fought over religion, the major religions frequently just retell the same stories in different manners.

A few years ago I recall reading someone predict that the major allignment world wide would be between the religious and secular world, with fundamentalists of all religions uniting on one side. Obviously this hasn't happened as the religious right sees what they call the Islamo Fascists as today's enemy. They are just different sides of the same coin, but these types of groups will always fight over trivial differneces in their stories.

[Emit]

6. Yes, interesting. On a related note

I posted this before on a related thread, Both the US & Iran Have Presidents Who Believe The 2nd Coming Is Imminent!, but thought you might be interested it in light of your topic of discussion:

~snip~

I did come across an interesting article a while back. Michael Ledeen and his wife, Barbara wrote it back in 1984. I can not provide a link, nor post the entire article (I obtained it through Lexis-Nexis.), which is sad because for those who are interested, it is an interesting read.

It is important, IMHO, because it sheds some light into Ledeen’s interests in what motivates people to take a stance – (as does his obsessive works on fascism.) I think he found just what motivates people – religiosity in fanatical forms. I also think this is interesting because I had read, too, that Barbara Ledeen was an editor for a magazine/group who has apparently been involved in advocating the archaeological exploration of the Temple, and, supposedly, for tearing it down and rebuilding. I read this in a report that was conducted on behalf of a group associated with LaRouche, however, and have not been able to verify this at all, so I won't even bother trying to find a link. But, I throw that out there because I'm really curious if Ledeen, for example, is a believer in this or if he's just pushing this religiosity in order to garner some favored outcome.

~snip~

A CASUAL OBSERVER might be excused for believing that nearly all of the recent violence in Israel has been part of the usual cycle of Arab-Israeli conflict. The observer would be wrong. Though some of the recent acts ... seem to be the work of extremist Israeli nationalists, much of the destructive intent is fueled by a mixture of nationalist politics, messianic longing, and the search for roots. In fact, some of the current extremism is a direct outgrowth of the ancient forecast of the Apocalypse.

The targets of the most spectacular incidents over the past months have been Muslim authorities and the area they control in Jerusalem, but for the most part the people who planned or participated in the attacks are the violent fringe of an informal movement that stretches from the United States to the Middle East, and encompasses millions of evangelical Christians as well as some Israeli Jews. This unlikely coalition rests upon a common belief that the Final Days are upon us. For the Christians, this means that the Second Coming of Christ is imminent; for the Jews, the Messiah is about to arrive. Both believe that the crucial spot for the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecies is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, because that is where the Temple of Solomon is to be rebuilt. According to the fundamentalist understanding of Christian prophecy, three great events are required for the Second Coming: Israel must be a Jewish nation; Jerusalem must be a Jewish city; and the Temple must be rebuilt. Today only the third condition remains to be met. Though most Jews believe that the building of the Temple will occur after the arrival of the Messiah, a growing number of deeply religious Jews believe that efforts to rebuild the Temple, and other steps for its proper functioning, should be made before the Messianic Age.

~snip~

On March 10, 1983, more than forty Jews suspected of planning to penetrate the Temple Mount were arrested in Jerusalem. ... Their legal fees--amounting to $50,000--were paid by wealthy Christian evangelicals from Texas. Less than a year later, only last January 27, Israeli security forces thwarted an assault on the Mount ... There is good reason to believe that the money for this group, the so-called Lifta Band, also came from Christian sources in America ... the suspects began to be cooperative only after an Israel officer had "scolded them for using a Bible published by a Christian group as their religious source." ... At the Temple Mount the religious passions of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religions intersect as at no other on earth. Not only is the Mount the site of Solomon's Temple, it is also where Abraham came to sacrifice his son Isaac; where Jesus taught, and threw the money-changers out of the Temple; from where Mohammed ascended through the seven Heavens into the presence of Allah... Except for a few years during the Crusades, the Temple Mount has been under Muslim control since the conquest of Jerusalem almost fourteen hundred years ago...

Political pragmatism, however, is unlikely to withstand the messianic passions that are directed at the Temple Mount... The Israeli courts have generally denied the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, but there are signs of change there, too. ... The driving force behind the Temple Mount movement, however, is the American evangelical community, some 45.5 million strong. The evangelicals met regularly with former Prime minister Menachem Begin over the years, reportedly urging him to rebuild the Temple, and they raced to Washington this spring to endorse the proposal to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, citing Biblical prophecies of the day in the near future when Jerusalem will become the capital of the world. ... The most visible link between the evangelicals and the drive to rebuild the Temple is found in the Jerusalem Temple Foundation in Los Angeles, the latest of several organizations (and the only such group in the United States) designed to put pressure on the Israeli government to limit the Waqf's control over the Temple Mount. The chairman and executive director of this ecumenical foundation are Terry Risenhoover and Douglas Krieger, two Christian evangelicals who have the means, the energy, and the network of friends necessary to catalyze a mass movement (Risenhoover is a multimillionaire, owner of a company called Alaska Land Leasing that is currently planning searches for oil in Judea and Samaria). ... ... Deloach's senior pastor at the Second Baptist Church in Houston (the switchboard operator answers calls by saying, "The amazing second"), H. Edwin Young, is likely to be the next president of the 13 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant body. Both pastors accompany groups to Israel and take them to the Temple Mount and to the Jewish yeshivahs training priests for the Temple. Deloach is candid about his objectives: "We will do whatever is right and politically expedient to make that Temple Mount free for all three religions." ...

~snip~

Some of the members of these committees, yeshivahs, and groups are simply interested in the historical or scientific aspects of the Temple Mount. But many--and their number is growing--are working for a Jewish presence on the Mount, and eventually the rebuilding of the Temple. Some of these people are highly orthodox, and firmly believe that the Messiah will soon arrive. Others are primarily Israeli nationalists, who view Muslim control of the Temple Mount as an insult to the Zionist Dream. But in the end the religious and nationalistic themes are hard to distinguish from each other, and the effect is the same: Waqf control over the Temple Mount is being challenged. ...BY FAR the most dynamic of the challengers is the Israeli section of the Jerusalem Temple Foundation, headed by Stanley Goldfoot, a South African Jew who came to Israel in the '30s and fought in the Stern Gang during the postwar period. A passionate nationalist, a highly skilled rhetorician, and a man of demonstrated activism, Goldfoot believes that the Temple Mount belongs to Israel, and to Israel alone. ... Goldfoot sees the Christians as logical allies, for he believes that "Christian fundamentalists are the real modern-day Zionists"; in Goldfoot's view, it is the christians above all who realize that "we are coming to a crucial period in earth's history, and they want to help fulfill prophecy and thus hasten the coming of the Messiah." ...It is thus not so surprising that those who planned to sabotage the Temple Mount in January carried Christian versions of the Old Testament, for the Temple Mount movement is based on a messianic vision that, at least in its first stages, is common to both Jewish and Christian religions. To be sure, there is a basic disagreement, but it is one that will only be resolved in the Final Days. As one Jewish leader put it to us last summer in Jerusalem, "They believe that once the Temple is built, Jesus will come again. We expect the Messiah to come for the first time. Let's build the Temple, and see what he looks like."

~snip~

Historically, messianic movements tend to be strongest in periods of intense internal turmoil and external threat. Both of these elements are present in contemporary Israel, and the Israelis' anxieties are largely shared by the American "Christian Zionists." All we know about the Temple Mount suggests that it will grow in interest and become a source of conflict, with international consequences that are hard to predict. Up until the arrests of the twenty-five extremists, the Israeli government either ignored the Temple Mount movement or attempted to co-opt it, but neither approach was successful. It remains to be seen whether the arrests will dampen the ardor of the zealots. With the redemption of mankind and the fulfillment of prophecy at stake, arrests are transformed into temporary setbacks, extremism becomes righteous action, and political considerations pale into such insignificance that even conservative Christians and radical Jewish nationalists can become allies.

Source Citation: Ledeen, Michael, and Barbara Ledeen. "The Temple Mount plot: what do Christian and Jewish fundamentalists have in common?." The New Republic 190 (June 18, 1984): 20(4).

[AX10]

7. Fundamentalists of ALL religions are really....

on the same side when "push comes to shove". All Fanatics seek to force their autocratic will on the rest of the free world.

[newswolf56]

8. Phillips gets it backward. To survive in the impending apocalyptic...

economy -- that is, the economy of ever-worsening shortages that inevitably follows Peak Oil -- capitalism of necessity must move from economics to politics and evolve a supportive system of government.

In truth, capitalism began doing that nearly a century ago in response to the mini-apocalypses -- that is, the reduction of profits -- threatened by the Russian Revolution and the New Deal: thus fascism (the logical outgrowth of capitalism) and ultimately Nazism (innately fascist capitalism in more extreme form).

The connection between capitalism, fascism and religion is well known to anyone who has studied the history of fascist Spain. Its connections in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany are less well known, largely because of deliberately dumbed-down education that has helped U.S. corporations hide the extent to which they financed Hitler and Mussolini; the same dumbing-down has enabled Christianity (in all its forms) to be mostly successful in suppressing its shameful history of hand-in-glove cooperation with the Reich:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,405922,00.html

Even so, fascism and Nazism were ultimately secular, lacking both the opiate-of-the-masses function and the punitive psychological terrorism -- so omnipotent it reaches beyond the grave -- characteristic of Abrahamic religion. Thus the boardroom appeal of Abrahamic dogma -- which can be manipulated to enslave not only body but soul and psyche as well -- as the ultimate means of social control: and thus also theocracy -- the ultimate form of fascism: the lockstep/goosestep of the storm trooper applied to the spiritual realm: "Onward Christian Soldiers" (and in its Islamic form, Allahu Akbar min kulli shay.)

Here are six disturbing links that, like the post-Katrina debacle itself, show us the unspeakably terrible theocratic shape of the future:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Bible.htm

http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2005/12/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1651333,00.html

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/DirectoryRiseOfDominionismInAmerica.html

http://www.theocracywatch.org/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1398055,00.html

But Bush is merely a tool, a symbol, the exclamation point that ends a long sentence of gradually but methodically increasing oppression: note in this context the ever-more-bottomless bank accounts with which the corporations support the theocrats. But before you can impose theocracy you have to render the population stupid -- Czarist Russian stupid, the modern equivalent of no-schools-at-all stupid. Hence the methodical dumbing-down of American education and the corporate takeover of U.S. media: a process that began, not coincidentally, almost immediately after World War II.

The bottom line is that only Abrahamic theocracy -- whether Christian or Islamic it matters not -- can guarantee to make the world of worsening shortages safe for capitalism.

And -- given the tyrannical powers of technology and the everlasting omnipotence thereby granted the state -- the result will be a New Dark Age, unimaginably worse than the last such horror and lasting not a thousand years but until the very end of human time.

Quite simply we are doomed. Even if there were the will to resist -- which in the obscenely pampered, SUV-dependent, grotesquely obese America of today there clearly is not -- the abolition of the draft 34 years ago has permanently robbed our nation of the requisite knowledge and training (which robbery was precisely its purpose). History proves unequivocally that once one is so oppressed, liberation comes only from without -- and capitalism is already seeing to it there are no more liberators left alive on the planet.

[Dr Ron]

9. The problem is not capitalism but the perversion of capitalism

While Republicans use rhetoric of supporting capitalism and freedom, their policies are in opposition to both.

Use of governement to transfer wealth to the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy is not capitalism. While (so far) less extreme, the Republican tilt towards authoritariansim has far more in common with both fascism and communism than with capitalism.

[newswolf56]

13. That capitalism is derived from the core principles of Christianity...

was demonstrated a century ago by Max Weber. Fascism is merely capitalism -- that is, the elevation of infinite greed into a virtue -- carried to logical extreme. Nazism is the next step beyond that. Theocracy -- which brings capitalism home to its Christian origins -- merely completes the circle.

With all due respect, when you write that "the Republican tilt toward authoritarianism has far more in common with both fascism and communism," you demonstrate your unfamiliarity with fascism (the logical extension of the Fundamentalist Christian {and thus capitalistic} concept of ubermenschen/untermenschen) and Marxism -- acknowledgment of the historical truth of class-struggle and radical measures (thus far all savagely defeated by capitalist subversion, whether in the former Soviet Union or the former New Deal) to alleviate the suffering of the oppressed masses. Stalinism departed far from Marxism -- the Russians were in fact ensnared by their own history -- but fascism (and thus ultimately modern theocracy) are unquestionably the outgrowths of capitalism, and as both the German and U.S. examples show, may be imposed even on nations with lengthy democratic traditions. (Some of the cities of the Hanseatic League had representative democracy even before Magna Carta.)

That hoary old shibboleth "capitalism is just an economic system" is merely another part of the deliberate obfuscation that hides not only the truth of class struggle but the truth that to survive -- especially in an economy of increasing scarcity -- capitalism must impose a slave state, and theocracy is obviously the most efficient means for so doing. The public's abysmal ignorance of Marx and Marxist analysis -- not only now more relevant than ever but in fact the only effective antidote to what is being done to us -- is the final nail in the coffin of American liberty.

[Cleita]

10. If they indeed are true believers, then someone should

impress them with the fact that one of the Ten Commandments is about not lying or bearing false witness.

If there was some way to stop them from lying and skewering the facts, I think we would see a whole new day in America.

If every time one of them is caught lying, how about making them spend twenty-four hours in their underwear tied to a cross regardless of the weather?

[Dr Ron]

11. True Believers

I assume you are writing a bit tongue in cheek here if you have ever known any true believers.

True believers are experts at finding ways to justify their actions regardless of how much they contradict their religious teachings.

[Cleita]

12. I am. In my younger days I got perverse pleasure in

getting religious nuts to prove their dogmatic view of their faith to me. Many years of Catholic school and Bible and theology classes in college and a really good memory, gave me a pretty good knowledge of Christianity plus what I dug up on my own that the church didn't want its faithful to know about. I have since grown up and feel sorry for my victims now, but back then it was such a fine game.

If I had been face to face with any one of those WH neo-cons back then, and if they tried to get me over to their side like being pro-life, I would immediately make them justify the lying to me first because it's not Christian.

[yasmina27]

14. I can't wait to read this book! n/t