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BOOK REVIEW American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips Viking - March 2006
Reviewed by Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty I certainly hope that every American of voting age will read Kevin Phillips' newest book, "American Theocracy," but I suspect that is asking too much. Most of America's citizens, it seems, are too concerned with other interests than learning about what is going on in their country and how the current policies of their government may affect their future. This is not so much a criticism as simply an observation based on polls I've seen and "man (or woman!)-in-the-street" interviews I've heard on the national media. From that little evidence, I have surmised that not many ordinary people get concerned about the country's sociopolitical direction until it affects them personally. That being said, I want to highly recommend "American Theocracy." I have read many of Phillips' books before this, but I think this may be his most important one yet. The author, for those who are not familiar with him, is a former strategist for the Republican Party, the very party which is now in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. And this book is a devastating critique of contemporary Republicanism (the party, not the political theory!) and especially it is an indictment of the current Bush administration and its programs and policies. Phillips clearly summarizes the present problem with the Bush White House in his preface: "Since the elections of 2000 and especially of 2004, three pillars have become increasingly central: (1) the oil-national security complex, with its pervasive interests; (2) the religious right, with its doctrinal imperatives and massive electorate; and (3) the debt-dealing financial sector, which extends far beyond the old symbolism of Wall Street." I could not agree more, and I've been an acute observer of national and local politics for over half a century (B.A. in political science, 1960). Furthermore, as if to drive his point home, Phillips states later that the Bush family "...over multiple generations, has been tied to a politics that conjoined finance, national security, and oil. In recent decades, operating from the federal executive branch, the Bushes have added close ties to evangelical and fundamentalist power brokers of many persuasions." Again, later in the book, the author emphasizes that "More than any other U.S. political family, the Bushes exemplify the interaction of oil interests, the financial sector, the military-industrial complex, and the intelligence community." I have no quibble with the oil-interest argument on the part of George Bush. I never thought from the beginning of the current Iraq War that we were interested in protecting anything else but oil for the American market. Although I temporarily accepted Bush's claim regarding weapons of mass destruction as a reason to attack Iraq, this soon made no sense, and I rejected that, and later it was shown to be fictitious. Since Saddam Hussein had not presented an immediate threat to the United States, I could only conclude that we had made a preemptive strike on an independent country without justification. In other words, under the "just-war" theory, there was no objective justification for doing what we, in fact, did. The above refers only to Part One of Phillips' book which is titled "Oil and American Supremacy." This is only one leg of the problem which he discusses. Far more of a problem, in my view, is what he discusses in Part Two: "Too Many Preachers." The author says that "If anything, the United States of the early 2000s, for all that it lacked Britain's established church, was under George W. Bush in the grip of a considerably more powerful religiosity, constituency pressure, and biblical worldview." This is fearful stuff and demands attention. While Phillips probes into the web of the many characters who constitute the so-called "religious right" and appear to have influence over the Bush administration, one name especially popped out for me: the Reverend Tim LaHaye. He is involved with the "Left Behind" series of books which have become bestsellers in recent years and deal with the "end times" or Armageddon. I became familiar with LaHaye and his writings back in the distant 1960s or 70s, as I recall. Sometime during that period, Reverend LaHaye, who is a fundamentalist Christian minister, wrote and published a book about sexuality and, more specifically, about homosexuality, even before that topic became the controversial issue it is today. I remember thinking at the time, after reading his book, what a piece of pseudo-scientific "garbage" it was and that this guy would never make it into the major leagues of book publishing. Well, evidently, I was wrong. LaHaye's "Left Behind" series has reportedly sold tens of millions of copies. According to Phillips, "the surge of fundamentalist and evangelical religion in the United States, outlining the way a long tradition of radical and sectarian religion has taken an unprecedented political role under George W. Bush, as more and more Republicans think in apocalyptic terms and seek to shape domestic and foreign policy around religion." LaHaye is supposedly part of this "surge," as are Jerry Falwell and Pat Robinson and others. If, in fact, Bush is being advised or influenced by people such as this, then that might explain why President Bush appears to be so little concerned about what is happening "now" in the world and hasn't tried much to communicate with the American public at large. Part Three of the book, "Borrowed Prosperity," should be of interest to everyone, although it is also a retreat into the rather arcane subject-matter of economics and may be too dry to keep most people's attention. However, there is no doubt that current the public and private debt being incurred in America is a genuine threat to its future. The Bush administration is spending money like there's no tomorrow, and the average individual, according to Phillips, is spending more money than he or she makes in income. This situation has potential disaster written all over it. This is must reading for everyone. Everything Phillips says is worthy of immediate attention. 
Order at Amazon.com Order at Powell's Books |
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