Bush led us on a righteous crusade, but most Americans now see through the smoke and mirrors. Now John McCain campaigns for more of the same.Ironically, the fundamentalist Muslims who headed the 9/11 attack probably enjoy seeing how the fundamentalist Christians in America exploited our fears. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, we allowed G. W. Bush to erode our rights in exchange for his claims to security. Meanwhile, in the name of national security, he grabbed power far beyond the limits of our own Constitution. Has our society begun to resemble that of our theocratic enemy?
The archdeacon of the theocon movement that began with Nixon and strengthened with Reagan, William Kristol is close friends with Bush and avid admirer of John McCain. Dubya now passes the theocon torch to McCain who has begun to use Christian faith as a political springboard to demagoguery. He skillfully meshes his heroic POW experience with a religious re-awakening.
McCain has learned from Dubya that using religion in a political campaign works miracles. When talking up his POW calamity, he melds the heroic event to his religious devotion. In speeches, he often blends religion with military heroism, the perfect persona in the popular Americana, a powerful sales pitch for votes. "We got to the point where we talked about the birth of Christ, and then sang 'Silent Night,' and I still remember looking at the faces of those guys – skinny, worn out – but most of them, a lot of them, had tears down their faces. And they weren't sorrow, they were happiness that for the first time in so many years we were able to worship together."
Take away the military-religious element from his identity, you take away an important part of his political base. Yet by campaigning down the same path as Bush, he loses all credibility. Many of Bush’s red states have turned black and blue as his supporters move on. The same will probably happen for McCain. Had W’s Iraq invasion proved successful, it might have bolstered an oil business agenda. At best, it was pipe-dreaming.
Even in extremely conservative areas like here in Orange County, California, the bumper stickers -- “Bush: Man of God” -- have disappeared. A long time ago my neighbors, razor blade in hand, were out scraping their car windows clean of neocon slogans. My neocon neighbors began to change their opinions about W around December of 2005 when the prices of oil began to climb. Economics seems to influence the moral priorities of some people faster than, say, the Pope, or even Pat Roberston or other such holy men. Now that Bush’s war time economy sags, it won’t help McCain to follow Bush’s old theocon position.
In almost all of his speeches, W blames his critics for his failures, claiming that criticism of his policy destabilizes Iraq. So we must all stop picking on him because W has often claimed that doing so “gives comfort to our adversaries.” Again, in his final State of the Union Address, W linked Saddam’s Iraq to al-Queda and confused the current civil war in Iraq with terrorism.
As time goes on, more and more Americans see how W’s policies are based on deliberate falsehoods. W seems to live in a “state of denial” as a recent book by this title asserts. Lacking originality, John McCain follows this beaten path of failure.
In order to gain more neocon support, McCain compromised on his previous position on torture. Like a good Babylonian whore, he sold out to support a failed president, Boston Globe. [1]
Only in the post-9/11 dread, when Americans stood dazed in blinding shock, did we tolerate a U.S. President who wields such excesses. In such an unusual era, some of us might find a sense of security from the theocratic W. His frequent claims to carry out God’s work can lullaby us into a false sense of protection. W says: [2]"I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."
Consider the quote: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” No, this is not from W who often claims to hold talks with God. The quote is from Adolph Hitler. I do not intend to draw any silly parallel between Hitler and W. The point: religious demagoguery has worked miracles for political leaders throughout history.
People have bestowed the title of "Babylonian Whore" upon most, if not all, the exploitative powers throughout history. It’s humorously tempting to apply this title to W and now also to McCain– especially considering their hollow plan to lead a powerful empire into a brutal war of endless occupation and against a falsely defined enemy. That’s the tricky thing about biblical metaphors; we can manipulate them to support almost any point of view.
In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John uses “the Whore of Babylon” as one of several allegorical figures of supreme evil. She occupies the same role as the Antichrist and the Beast of Revelation. In Revelation 17, she is "the great whore that sits upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have fornicated, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." I’ll offer one wild interpretation of these metaphors. The wine? How about the 115 billion barrels beneath the sands of Babylon (Iraq)? The kings of the earth? You get the idea.
Fundamentalists take biblical metaphors and apply them as if literal truth for their bizarre political goals. "God speaks through me," [3] says Bush as if listening to the voice from a burning bush.
Other neocon fundamentalists have earned fortunes by exploiting our spiritual anxieties. Pat Robertson earned millions of dollars through his broadcasting business and as 700 Hundred Club founder with an audience of one million viewers daily. More an entrepreneurial politician than Man-of-The-Book, he doesn’t qualify as a minister according to IRS codes. Oh, and did I mention Ted Haggard? He's the prosperous evangelical preacher and Bush White House adviser who asked a male prostitute for crystal meth.
Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins partnered as authors of a dozen novels that dramatize the End Days in our current times. These authors rank at the top of the heap of those who profit cleverly from the Apostle John’s psychedelic visions of the apocalypse. With millions of copies sold, their novels have made them multimillionaires.
Throughout history, people apply “Whore of Babylon” to the superpower of the day. For John, "Babylon" refers to Rome, a bloated empire out of favor with God, and doomed for failure. However, Neocons see America as God’s blessed land.
Neocons believe that the U.S. is morally pure. After all, it is the undisputed global power -- at least for the time being. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” says W about the rest of the world.
In the eyes of many Muslims on the streets in the Middle East, America has maintained favorable oil deals by supporting tyrannical regimes and corrupt royalty at the expense of the common Muslim’s oppression.
In the time of powerful Rome, John used "Babylon,” as the empire on a self-destructive path of greed and power. The downfall of Babylon was the precedent, and the persecuted Jews and Christians presumed then that Rome too would fall. The defeat of the Whore of Babylon can represent not just the fall of Rome, but of imperial power wherever it arises.
