10-13-06, 8:44 a.m.

To many commentators, the greatest danger that the Bushites pose to America is that they will create a theocracy. (Kevin Phillips' book, AMERICAN THEOCRACY, is one of the major statements that comes to mind.)

In my analysis of the nature of the forces that have coalesced into the creation of this regime, there are three major components: an insatiable and unscrupulous element of American capitalism (see 'The Predator State,' posted earlier this week); a power-lusting imperialist clique oriented toward imposing their domination on the planet; and a particular strain of narrow-minded, conflict-oriented Christianity.

And as I've written here on several occasions, I regarded the last of those three to be peripheral to the true guiding spirit of our ruling group. These Bushites are about power and dominance first, about greed second, and the religious aspect seemed to me largely phony and manipulative.

The manipulativeness consists --first of all-- of selling the people of the Christian right on the leaders' false image of righteousness. That's the central purpose of the con.

The second strategy of the con brings in another element: distorting morality in a manner long practiced by evil rulers, and in particular well ingrained in the cultural patterns of the Jim Crow South, to provide cover for the ruler's true, evil way. The Bushites use (somewhat phony) hot-button 'moral' issues to distract the attention of people who care about morality to areas peripheral to the ruler's genuine concerns. This allows the real work of evil to be carried out in the open, but invisible to the conned, who have been manipulated into looking elsewhere for the signs of 'the Good'-- areas like gay marriage and Terry Shiavo. (I describe this distortion of morality in the piece 'How Ruling Powers Distort Morality So that it Does Not Restrain Them,' which can be found at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=31.)

The importance, for the Bushite's political strategy, of fooling the religious right is a clue to the reason this group is in this triumverate of evil forces in the first place: of the several components of the coalition of dark forces brought together to create this regime, it is only the religious right --and, spreading out from there, the traditionalists generally-- that can deliver a substantial number of votes.

The greedy capitalists do not need to be fooled, because they're actually fattening themselves off the booty of the regime's corruption. The imperialists do not need to be fooled, because they are getting to strut and swagger and abuse people around the world through their wielding of this nation's power. But neither of those two groups is numerous; both are small, corrupt elites. And America is not --yet-- a country that can be ruled from horseback or by the sword wielded in the name of the sovereign. Public support has remained not just useful, but necessary.

The Bushites need votes. Hence, the inclusion of the religious right.

Now comes a book that apparently confirms this interpretation of the place of the religious element in the regime: as a mark to be conned, not as a driving force. The book is entitled TEMPTING FAITH, and it's written by a conservative Christian who worked within the Bush White House, David Kuo.

According to a brief presentation about this book that aired this Wednesday (October 11) on COUNTDOWN, Kuo describes how the evangelical Christians have simply been used by the Bushites. While adopting postures of pious devotion to the values and concerns of the evangelicals, according to this book, the Bushites have privately spoken of these people with contempt and derision. Behind their backs, Karl Rove has apparently called the leaders of this religious faction --the people whose support they need and cultivate-- 'nuts.'

Apparently feeling betrayed by the 'mocking [of] millions of faithful Christians' by this pervasively dishonest Bushite regime, Kuo has come forward with this book-- published now, just a few weeks before the 2006 elections.

It is hard to know how much of the apparently richly fleshed out picture of this betrayal will be able to get through the hear-no- evil filters that many of these faithful Bush supporters have erected around their consciousness. But just possibly, the revelations from this conservative Christian Bush insider will be even more powerful than those of Woodward's STATE OF DENIAL.

Perhaps, in tandem with the recent disclosures of the apparent indifference of the GOP House leadership to the sexual predations of one of its members on the youthful pages in their employ, this will help to awaken some of our traditionalist countrymen to the immense fraud that has been perpetrated against them.

-Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.

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