The Dusty Dog

The Corruption of Politics and Religion in America

How The GOP Became God's Own Party is an amazingly astute article in the Washington Post. In so many ways, it describes a country, the United States of America, to be one that has gone off the deep end to garner support for an agenda that otherwise would have no basis for religion. Specifically, I am speaking of American values that are corrupted by corporate money, obsessions with violence and war, and complete disregard for the environment. But, what I don't see in this article, for obvious reasons, I suppose, is a connection that many left-leaning individuals are viewing as a country going the way of the fascists, like those who ran much of Europe during the middle of the 20th Century. Specifically, as defined in Old American Century, and their 14 Points of Fascism, is Item 8 - Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. As I was saying, we are a country speeding horrifically fast towards a point of no return over the deep end. We, as a nation, have gone totally bonkers.

The Washington Post article describes in amazing detail how the religious right, in their immoral connections to corporate interests, have sold their followers up the river. And for what, I cannot fathom. In that most of the neocons' agendas are antithetical to religious values, why the hell have so many God-fearin' Americans bought into the garbage coming from the White Wash, I mean House? I don't get it. But, then again, I don't buy into Christian fundamentalism. I don't buy into any religious fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism, by its very nature, is anti-progress, anti-science, anti-common sense. It serves to alienate populations, place religion against religion, and come full circle around to exactly what is often preached as sinful. That being murder, violence and war. Fundamentalist leaders go around with blinders on, deliberately dumbing down their constituents, and effectively rationalizing the dumbing down of themselves, mostly to make money. If not, then why the connections between religious dogma and corporate money at the expense of the environment, health and welfare of the peoples of the world, and educational opportunities to advance those objectives?

Religion does not belong in government for so many reasons, much of which has been articulated above. I also wrote about it in an article called Pledge Deemed Unconstitutional in September 2005. And of course, for the reasons articulated in the Post article. I truly believe that the reason that dubya's ratings are bottoming out is because people, even religious people, are realizing that they've been used. And, abused. And, made to be fools. It's a hard thing to admit, but God bless those who do. It's a hard thing to admit that you were wrong; that the mistakes you've made have cost tens of thousands of lives. But, there is hope. I continue to hope. I am waiting for the pendulum to swing back to the center, and the left of center. For it is the left of the center that healthful societal values are positioned.

Healthful societal values do not constitute anything related to gay marriage, homo/heterosexuality, or abortion. Healthful societal values are devoid of those wedge issues that have nothing to do with how most Americans live their lives. How we live our lives is based on our own choices, but obviously within the sideboards of good sense, like respect for other human beings, holding dear the fragile environment and protecting it for all we can. It's about saving our one and only home - Planet Earth. It's about keeping our citizens healthy, providing equal access to food and education and housing and health care. Why is this such a hard concept for fundamentally brainwashed religiously hell-bent individuals to understand? What is it about these basic human rights that go so counter to their religious thinking? Nothing, and that's the point. They've been manipulated by the fascists running the country, who have demonized the left in order to advance their own selfish monetary and corporate gains. It's so simple, really.

Below are a few excerpts from the Washington Post article:

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. On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the Southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the Southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860.

Besides providing critical support for invading Iraq -- widely anathematized by preachers as a second Babylon -- the Republican coalition has also seeded half a dozen controversies in the realm of science. These include Bible-based disbelief in Darwinian theories of evolution, dismissal of global warming, disagreement with geological explanations of fossil-fuel depletion, religious rejection of global population planning, derogation of women's rights and opposition to stem cell research. This suggests that U.S. society and politics may again be heading for a defining controversy such as the Scopes trial of 1925. That embarrassment chastened fundamentalism for a generation, but the outcome of the eventual 21st century test is hardly assured.

These developments have warped the Republican Party and its electoral coalition, muted Democratic voices and become a gathering threat to America's future. No leading world power in modern memory has become a captive of the sort of biblical inerrancy that dismisses modern knowledge and science. The last parallel was in the early 17th century, when the papacy, with the agreement of inquisitional Spain, disciplined the astronomer Galileo for saying that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of our solar system.

posted by Dusty Dog at 4/02/2006