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archived: 4 - 10 Apr, 2004 Back Next April 8, 2004 UPDATE
STEVEN JONAS,
MD, MPH, MS, Introduction Organized religion and its exploitation is an obvious major feature of the Bush II Presidency, the one that I like to refer to as the “Georgite” regime. There is a view held in some quarters that this is simply cynical politics: that many Right-Wing Republican policies fit into and/or reflect the agenda of the Christian Right, which then forms the electoral center of the Bush Base. Certainly, many of the top Georgites appear to be anything but True Believers: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Perle. They all seem eminently secular. As for Karl Rove, who knows if he has any true beliefs, one way or another? But does that view apply to the top-dog Georgite, G.W. Bush himself? Is he simply a cynical politician, mouthing phrases to take advantage of a group of Right-Wing voters who just happen to hold, very strongly, to a particular brand of hellfire and brimstone old-fashioned Protestant theology? I don’t think so. I think that this George is a true believer, himself. And that makes him even more dangerous. In this column, you will find some evidence to support my position (and one or two other observations on political religion as well). On Bush and God If you think that Bush is just “playing his base” for votes, and doesn’t really believe the “God put him there stuff” that Gary Bauer shares with us (see the next item below), take a look at this (if you have not already seen it):
According to [Palestinian Prime Minister
Mahmoud] Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: 'God told me to strike
at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at
Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the
Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will
come and I will have to focus on them.'
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
On Independence Day, 2002, President Bush attended services at the West Ripley Baptist Church in Ripley, West Virginia. As is well known, the Southern Baptists are at the center of the Christian Right. Clearly demonstrating the level of his commitment to ecumenism, tolerance, understanding, and personal sensitivity, the church's Pastor, one Rev. Jack Miller, had the following to say in his invocation that day (Newsday, July 5, 2002): We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of multiculturalism. We have been forced to honor sexual deviance in the name of freedom of expression. We have exploited the system of education in the name of the lottery. We have toyed with the idea of helping end human life in the name of medical research. We have killed our unborn children in the name of choice. Now Pres. Bush is nominally a Methodist. That he chose to attend that particular Baptist congregation on that highly symbolic day is highly symbolic. Among other things, he was clearly demonstrating what his own commitment to ecumenism, tolerance, understanding, and personal sensitivity, and so on and so forth, really is. Further, in remarks subsequent to those of the Pastor, in which he took no exception to anything the latter had said, President Bush clearly set forth his own position on the matter of the appropriate relationship between church and state. Changing that relationship, as it is spelled out in the Constitution that is (again as is well known) the prime focus of the Christian Right. Commenting on the then recent Federal appeals court ruling that including the words "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance as recited in a public school violates the Constitutional separation of church and state, Bush said: "No authority of government can ever prevent an American from pledging allegiance to this one nation under God." (See also below.) Bush, whether by mis-direction or misunderstanding, did not deal with the question that that court addressed and the Supreme Court is now addressing: whether government, in the form of a public school authority, can force someone to recite the Pledge with the words "under God" in it. As documented at length in Westminster’s book, the Christian Right has as its ultimate goal the declaration of the United States to be what it would define as a "Christian Nation" (see esp. chap. 10 of that book; see also Katherine Yurica’s “The Despoiling of America,” www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism). To it, the words that Bush did utter were more music to the ears than even the most sacred of hymns could be. Forgetting about theology for the moment, and forgetting that there are many Christians in the United States who have an entirely different views on “morality” and what public policy concerning it should be, the Invocation by Pastor Ripley and the support given to its thoughts by Pres. Bush, present a clear picture of what the United States of America as a "Christian Nation" as the Christian Right would define the term would look like. George Bush obviously believes this stuff. He is not just “going along with it” to “appeal to his base.” He IS his base. Gary Bauer, one of the leading ideologues of the Christian Right has told us that “God was working to put into the White House a man whose life had been transformed by accepting Christ. . . . God put George Bush there for a time like this [post-9/11].'" And George Bush, doesn’t just say “thanks Gary,” when statements like this are made. He believes them himself (see also below). This is really scary stuff, and somehow, it has to become a major issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign, if Constitutional Democracy as we know it is to be preserved. On Certain Bush Appointments
About a year ago, Pres. Bush
appointed one Dr. W. David Hager to head the Reproductive Health Drugs
Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. This He is a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. He is the author of As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now. The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice. In a book that Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled Stress and the Woman's Body, he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. Ah yes, one might say, but he is entitled to his views. But one might also say that in a position such as the one to which he has been appointed, science is important. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family," Dr. Hager appears to have endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common birth control pill is an abortifacient. He has an ardent interest in revoking approval for mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) as a safe and early form of medical abortion.
This is precisely why the
Founders wrote the Wall of Separation into the Constitution. They knew,
from their experience with England and the experience of
their English forebears that stretched back to the time of the first
Pilgrim immigration fleeing religious persecution there that "religion in
government" doesn't mean that "religion," lower-case "r," as a concept say
of the existence of a supernatural being, is in government. They knew
that it meant precisely this: a particular Religion and Religious
ideology, with an uppercase “R,” is in control of the government, and the
force of the criminal law backs up its writ. From the New York Times: “One Crucial Issue in Pledge Case: What Does Under God Mean?,” March 22, 2004, by LINDA GREENHOUSE:
According to a form letter signed by
President Bush and sent to those who wrote the White House about the
federal appeals court decision in June 2002 that declared the pledge
unconstitutional, reciting the pledge is a way of proclaiming ‘our
reliance on God’ and of ‘humbly seeking the wisdom and blessing of divine
providence.’
[In presenting the government’s case before
the Supreme Court, the Georgites of course opposing the appellate court
decision ruling that “under God” could not stand in a pledge that is
required for recitation in a public school] Solicitor General Olson told
the justices that the appeals court misunderstood the pledge. The phrase
‘under God’ did not place the pledge in the category of religious
expressions that the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional, he said,
for example “state-sponsored prayers, religious rituals or ceremonies, or
the requirement of teaching or not teaching a religious doctrine.”
(It should be noted here that if Jefferson had meant “God,” he would have said “God.” The word in the declaration is, rather, “Creator,” one that as a practicing atheist I am perfectly happy with. For to me “Creator” means simply the laws of chemistry and physics that have operated the Universe since its formation and lead eventually to the processes of life and evolution.) Funny, but the next time the Solicitor General of the United States testifies before the Supreme Court on such an issue, I should think that he had better check with his boss on what the government’s position really is. And finally, here is the text of a Doonesbury strip that well expresses the Georgite theology (Newsday, March 14, 2004). Gary Trudeau's G.H.W. Bush figure (a Roman helmet) is talking with his G.W. Bush figure (an asterisk). HW: Son, do you know why I decided not to invade Iraq? W: Haven't a clue, Dad. HW: Really? I put it in my book. W: Books are Laura's thing. HW: Let me read you some excerpts... "An occupation of Iraq would have incurred incalculable human and political costs... There was no viable exit strategy... Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. W: I don't recall any of that, Dad. HW: But it was reported ion all the papers. W: I don't read the papers. HW (to himself): Another child left behind (to W): Nice to talk to you, son. W: Listen, Dad, you're either with or against me. Which sums up George Bush’s theology: the 5th century Manichean Heresy of the dualism between Good and Evil -- in modern dress! ________________
Dr. Steven Jonas
is a TPJ contributing author. He is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at
Stony Brook University (NY) and author of some twenty books. Dr. Jonas is
one of America's most perceptive Democratic political analysts. The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022 is available from Amazon under the name "Johnathan Westminster" (just click on the title). _____________________________________________ APRIL 6, 2004 UPDATE
CATHY MOORE (Ms. Junkie) This past weekend in the Research Triangle of North Carolina was a Progressive’s Paradise! Michael Moore spoke to a sold out crowd, Saturday night at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham. Dennis Kucinich appeared Sunday at the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham, and in Carrboro where he was honored by the mayor, who proclaimed April 4, 2004, “Dennis Kucinich Day”. Michael Moore Michael Moore’s topic was film-making, politics, and film-making and politics. He listed his rules for documentary film making. Number 1 was: Make a good film. Number 2 was: Use humor. He related how his crew would make a list of subjects that were not funny and then think of a way to treat the subject as comedy. Examples were the death penalty and police brutality. In a hilarious bit of Theatre of the Absurd, Moore portrayed the executions in Florida and Texas, as a colossal Bush sibling rivalry on a par with an NCAA competition, complete with a scoreboard and cheerleaders. Police brutality was addressed through an “African-American wallet exchange” to change standard black wallets for orange day-glow ones that police wouldn’t mistake for guns, as they had when they fired forty-seven bullets, killing an African-American man in NYC. Moore’s film clip showed him holding up a poster with a wallet pasted and labeled on one half and a gun pasted and labeled on the other half. He went up to NY’s finest and pointed to each one, clearly enunciating its name. You may wonder how he can pull it off without being crass or offensive. Michael’s authenticity, commitment and plain-spoken integrity create a moral authority that cannot be denied. When asked the difference between Al Franken and himself, and Ann Coulter and Bill O’Riley, he replied, Al’s and his books have foot-notes, Anne and Bill’s do not. In response to a question from the floor concerning Ralph Nader, he explained that he had disassociated himself from Nader in the 2000 campaign. Nader had originally promised not to campaign in swing states but in the last month he did. Moore quit the campaign and went to Florida to talk the Nader people about changing their tactics. They did not. He now totally supports the Democratic candidate. Although he believes we need a third party, and a fourth party, he believes this is not the time. The stakes are too high. Michael urged progressive Democrats to stop being whiney hand wringers, to be as organized, efficient and as hard working as Republicans, in order to stop Bush. He believes that we can do it; that during his recent 40 state book tour, he met lots of people who are anti-Bush’s policies. We need to convince them that Kerry makes a difference. Not only did he inform and entertain, he also pushed for action on our part. He suggested that instead of taking a weekend vacation to look at foliage, that people go do voter education in a swing state. Our son, James, and I, had already planned to take a week off immediately before the election and have made plans to work with Clean Water Action Campaign on a Kerry campaign in a swing state. E-mail me at MooreCathyL@msn.com, if you want more information about how to do this. Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich is continuing his campaign. He let us know that he does know math and that he realizes he won’t be the candidate, but he intends to go to the 16 remaining states to attempt to get delegates so that he can influence the Democratic platform. Number 1 on his agenda is Peace. He believes that it was wrong to go into Iraq, so there is no point in staying the course, when the course is wrong. He would seek UN involvement in peace-keeping, in drawing up a new constitution, and in ensuring there are free and fair Iraqi elections. He wants no more privatization of Iraqi wealth, as this is illegal under the Geneva Convention. He believes that the US should pay reparations to Iraq for the destruction our government has caused. Dennis endorses a universal single-payor not-for-profit health care system and explained how it could be implemented immediately. The US spends $1.6 trillion a year on the health care industry. That is 15% of the GNP. Kucinich claims that if all of it actually went for health care, instead of stock options, corporate salaries, profit margins, marketing, lobbying and advertising, we could provide 100% coverage for medical, dental, vision, mental health and long term care, and prescriptions for every person in America. He supports recognition that the world is interconnected and that there must be international cooperation. He supports a Department of Peace, where the focus is on non-violence as an organizing policy to challenge the attitude that war is inevitable. Dennis quoted Emerson: “Every jet of chaos is capable of being converted through intellect, to a force for order.” and Tennyson: “Come my friends, it is not too late to seek a better world....” He believes that the recent incident in Fajullah should be taken as a cautionary tale, not a cause to gear up even more. In response to a question about immigration, he replied that fear is driving our immigration policy. We have forgotten where we come from. He recited the poem written on the base of the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t cheesy when he did it. He was sincere. He told us, his grandfather came here from what was Croatia and Dennis himself was the oldest of seven children. His parents never owned a house and moved 21 times in his first 17 years (including twice living in a car) because landlords didn’t like renting to families with children. He believes that when the private sector fails the economy the public sector must step in to create jobs. He called for a new WPA approach. He called for affordable housing. Dennis stated that we have the resources to do all this and it’s a matter of choosing where we place them. He referred to a new relationship with the environment and mentioned reading, “The Great Work” by Thomas Berry for more information. The only question by which he was at all flummoxed was, “How do you maintain your commitment?” He paused and appeared confused. He really didn’t have an answer, except to say that it was just so much a part of him. It was truly inspiring to hear a Congressional representative and presidential candidate who is intelligent, informed, and visionary.
Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
