Are we becoming a theocracy? Kevin Phillips says yes.

[kwassa]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040100004.html

from the Washington Post

How the GOP Became God's Own Party
By Kevin Phillips
Sunday, April 2, 2006; Page B03

excerpt:

Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.

We have had small-scale theocracies in North America before -- in Puritan New England and later in Mormon Utah. Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets the conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.

(jump)

Since the election of 2000 and especially that of 2004, three pillars have become central: the oil-national security complex, with its pervasive interests; the religious right, with its doctrinal imperatives and massive electorate; and the debt-driven financial sector, which extends far beyond the old symbolism of Wall Street.

President Bush has promoted these alignments, interest groups and their underpinning values. His family, over multiple generations, has been linked to a politics that conjoined finance, national security and oil. In recent decades, the Bushes have added close ties to evangelical and fundamentalist power brokers of many persuasions.

Over a quarter-century of Bush presidencies and vice presidencies, the Republican Party has slowly become the vehicle of all three interests -- a fusion of petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex. The three are increasingly allied in commitment to Republican politics.

(much more in the column)

[sutz12]

1. Not really....

we are becoming a plutocracy that wears the robes of a theocracy. Frankly, I deplore both and would hate to live in either.

I don't hate America. I hate what those right wing nutcases are doing to it.

[ret5hd]

2. all theocracies are really plutocracies.

[greekspeak]

3. Its rhetorical but: theocratic plutocracy or plutocratic theocracy

I guess that it is the later, as you suggest. But the two blend so well that sometimes it is hard to see whether God or Money is number one. Those with money dress in holy garb and have successfully converted millions of Christians into footsoldiers for the ueber-rich

[unblock]

4. i wonder if there ever was a "sincere" theocracy

i would venture to guess that ALL theocracies have in fact been covers to effect some other form of controlling interest, wearing only the robes of a theocracy.

[cornermouse]

5. Militheocracy

[AX10]

6. Yes. This is the most disturbing part:

"Over a quarter-century of Bush presidencies and vice presidencies, the Republican Party has slowly become the vehicle of all three interests -- a fusion of petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex. The three are increasingly allied in commitment to Republican politics."

[adnelson60087]

7. It must really burn a long time Republican

like the author to see his party turning into the American Taliban Party in front of his very eyes. I wonder will we ever see the destruction of this unholy alliance, before they cause irrepairable damage both domestically and worldwide. It must hurt even more to see a guy like McCain sucking face with an irrational Religious Zealot like Falwell. My, how the mighty have fallen...the only bad is that we are all tied at the waist with these lunatics who are running our world, and taking us to hell with them.

[Dunvegan]

8. Glad to see this showing up in the WaPo.

That's a small but good happening.

[Igel]

9. Not hardly.

I compare the laws that probably had roots in religious practice and tradition when my father was a kid, when I was a kid, and now that I have a kid, and there are a couple on the books or proposed that favor religious establishments: vouchers and public funding for charitable activities. Then again, in 1980 the tax laws changed so that only substantial deductions were available, on the long 1040, and that really impacted non-profits for a while.

Most of the blue laws, abortion laws, alcohol restrictions from when I was a kid are gone (and I was in a state that would today be called 'solidly blue'). The religion in the public schools that my parents remember, bits of which I faintly recall from first or second grade (the possibility of teacher led prayers or a prayer over the intercom; Xmas carols as a required part of the music curriculum; official days off for Easter; easter egg hunts ...) is gone. If I went on a standard church retreat, I could have had time off from school; if a Jew took off for Rosh Hashanah, he'd be penalized. And my father could give examples of laws that reflected more religion-based conservative mores from his childhood. Except that most of them were established laws, and their rationale little discussed; and "proper, Christian, American, acceptable, respectable" all tended to be interchangeable among the kinds of people that made the laws. Now, if you want to reinstate them, or argue for a law based in morality or religion, you have to be explicit that it's religion: the rhetoric becomes more shrill as the point of view is less warmly accepted, or as they feel there's less room for them to compromise.

Now, my dad was kid under FDR: hardly a theocrat. I was a kid when MLK was talking about the religious motivation for civil rights for blacks and civil right legislation, and finding a rather wide response among many religious groups.

In some respects there's a bit more religion on display; it's no longer something that's assumed to hold in a community, with less powerful groups keeping a low profile. But religion's clearly been less powerful in nearly every community I've lived in (Baltimore County, N. Jersey, Newark DE, Oregon, Rochester NY, Houston TX) that it was a generation or two ago. This may not be true everywhere, but that's a fairly wide sampling.

[Maat]

10. I see truth in what each person has said here.

I graduated from high school in 1976 at 17-1/2. So, I entered adulthood during a period of relative freedom. Women had just been granted financial rights in California, such as the right to co-manage community property. Feminism was on the rise, and there was great encouragement to secure a college degree, and develop a career. "Roe v. Wade" had been decided, and reproductive rights abounded, at least where I was in California. We were all encouraged to plan our parenthood. The universities I attended were centers of progressive thought, and I saw no government sponsorship of religious symbols, or the symbols of one religious viewpoint. There had been several good court cases eliminating government sponsorship, or endorsement, of religion or religious symbols in public schools. I was NEVER confronted with a Ten Commandments display (I belong to faith these are not considered central). And now, I realize how far things have swung back to the right. I just feel cheated, as if that relative period of enlightenment should have continued, and that I shouldn't have to be dealing with my tax dollars going to 'faith-based initiatives.'

[unschooler]

11. I think, taking the long view of history, you are right. Still, it's

disconcerting to see the rising power of the religious right and their influence on the GOP. Growing up in a conservative evangelical church in the 1960's and 1970's, I did not perceive a connection between religion and party affiliation. Today, people in those kinds of churches (and there seem to be more of them than there were a few years ago) are told it's their duty to vote repulican.

[Igel]

12. It is disconcerting.

But while there's more of an attempt to impose the religion-derived laws on people that openly object to them, that attempt is usually hard fought, and frequently lost. If not in the legislatures, then in the courts. SCOTUS might allow some of the laws back in, but mostly that would be restoring the older status quo--maybe making illegal what was just viciously socially punished, maybe just reinstating a long abolished law.

There's much more rhetoric than passed legislation, IMHO. And we have a ways to go to restoring the FDR theocracy, and further to go to restore the one we had under Lincoln.

[unschooler]

13. More rhetoric than action is a sure sign the Reich Wing is being pandered

to be their friends in the plutocracy. However, so many of the Religious Reichers have been elected to Congress and state legislatures that I think the Bush types are in danger of losing control of them.

It's certainly true we don't have the level of state religion in the sense of enforced local custom that we had in the 1940's or earlier.