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CounterPunch
December
14, 2002
Bush
and the Neo-Con Pharisees
by KURT NIMMO
Yesterday afternoon I rode my bicycle to work.
Thankfully I live in a place where the sun shines in December
and there's little snow and the temperature is endurable through
most of the winter. I live a mile from the university so the
bike ride is doable. On the way there I passed what I call Church
Row -- a stretch of Christian churches. As I pedaled past I began
to think about Christianity, which no longer is Christianity
as first envisioned, but long ago mutated into something I call
Christism, or political theology.
Christianity died with the disciples
of Jesus. It was replaced by Christism as preached by Saul of
Tarsus, otherwise known as Saint Paul, a former tentmaker and
a zealous nationalist and likely a Pharisee. >From the theological
writings of Saint Paul flowed the formulistic and largely intransigent
doctrines of Christism -- and eventually the authoritarianism
of the Catholic church, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the bloody
wars of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, and innumerable
persecutions, purges, heresy-huntings, witch burnings, and the
mass murder of infidels and heathens (including not only Muslims
and Jews, but also uncounted millions of indigenous people) conducted
unswervingly in the name of Christ, tribunals of penance, self-immolation,
flagellation, et cetera, that leave a bloody swath right up to
the present day, right up to the supine doorstep of Christism.
George W. Bush, the unelected president,
swears by this defective version of Christianity. Dubya credits
the Reverend Billy Graham with his sudden conversion to latter
day Christism while vacationing at the Bush compound in Maine.
Soon thereafter he began attending the Methodist Church of Midland,
Texas, and also became an enthusiastic participant of James Dobson's
Focus on the Family (Dobson, along with other self-righteous
Pharisees and Sadduccees such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell,
Charles Colson, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, and Phylis Schlafly,
to name but a few, are determined to transform America into a
Christism theocracy).
Like Moses, Bush wants to lead his people
to a land of milk and honey -- or so he says. "During the
more than half century of my life," said a pious Bush during
the election he would ultimately steal with the help of fellow
Christer and right wing extremist, Supreme Court justice Antonin
Scalia, "we have seen an unprecedented decay in our American
culture, a decay that has eroded the foundations of our collective
values and moral standards of conduct... The changing culture
blurred the sharp contrast between right and wrong and created
a new standard of conduct: 'If it feels good, do it.' and 'If
you've got a problem, blame somebody else'." Of course,
"moral standards of conduct" only applies to vassals,
not to Bush or the felons and rogues he appoints to do the bidding
of the imperium (i.e., John Poindexter, Elliot Abrams, Otto Reich,
Richard Armitage, John Negroponte, and other Iran-Contra recycled
Reagan riffraff responsible for untold death and misery).
But the neo-biblical aspect of the Bush
administration really shines when you scratch beneath the surface
and observe the rot festering at the core -- the neo-con Likudites,
the unabashed Zionists who work tirelessly as drum majors for
the Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon and his government. These
are primarily American Jews with double allegiance -- Paul Dundes
Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary, Department of Defense; Richard Perle,
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy;
Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice President.
In fact, the idea of killing Saddam Hussein
and inflicting depredation on the Iraqi people is not a Bush
idea (it can be argued Bush has no original ideas of his own)
-- the current scheme was a roughcast devised by Likudite Richard
Perle. In 1996, Perle (and Douglas Feith) wrote "A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which he
presented to then Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu. The plan called
for not only eliminating Hussein and installing a Hashemite monarchy
in Baghdad, but also for trashing the Oslo Accords, Israeli occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza, and overthrowing or destabilizing
the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Perle's
master plan for Likud regional dominance (otherwise known as
"Greater Israel") was crafted for the Jerusalem and
Washington, <D.C.-based> Institute for Advanced Strategic
and Political Studies (IASPS). IASPS is out front these days
explaining for the media and the befuddled American public why
the US should spend $200 or so billion to kill Hussein and occupy
Iraq. These explanations never include mention of Likud, Sharon,
or Israel.
Add to this war-loving and empire-building
stew the flaky Christers known as the "religious right"
and you have a recipe designed to plunge America into an era
of religious strife, terrorism, and unholy war. Lately Christism's
most vocal and high-profile true believers have unloaded splenetically
(and, some would argue, strategically) in the direction of Islam,
the Quran, and the prophet Mohammed. Pat Robertson: Mohammed
was an "absolute wild-eyed fanatic. He was a robber and
a brigand." (Fox News) Jerry Falwell: "Jesus set the
example for love, as did Moses. I think Mohammed set an opposite
example... I think Mohammed was a terrorist." (CBS) Franklin
Graham: "It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings
[on 911], it wasn't Lutherans. It was an attack on this country
by people of the Islamic faith." (NBC) So much for brotherly
love -- but then Christism is not about brotherly or any other
kind of love; it's about missionary work and converting as many
infidels, atheists, savages, pagans, and Jews as possible before
the Rapture. In fact, many born-again Christers sincerely believe
converting the Jews to Christism will be the eschatological event
that will climax the history of the world. After all, the Jewish
God gave the Torah to his people, not the goyim, and so long
as the Jewish people exist it is a constant reminder that Christers
are interlopers, even trespassers, in the covenant. Jews are
not interested in salvation: for them obedience to the Torah
is everything, which irks Christers and makes them all the more
determined to convert every last Jew in Israel. The Palestinians,
Islamic fundamentalism, the politics of oil -- all of these come
in second to the Christism mandate to convert the Jews over so
the Rapture can be realized. Christism is all about itself --
at the expense of everything else, including a few billion humans
who are doing fine without Christism, thank you very much.
Obviously, the Likudites and fundamentalist
Christers need to be expelled from Washington and the White House
proper if sanity is to return -- and all-consuming war to be
avoided. Yet, as my bicycle ride down Church Row demonstrates,
Christism is not going anywhere -- it is part and parcel of the
American psychological and sociological makeup. Of course, not
all Christers are rabid chicken hawks bent on killing another
500,000 or so Iraqis, or are most of them crazed with the desire
to convert every last Jew in Israel to Christism. Nonetheless,
it seems natural to many Americans for the president to be religious
(if he were an atheist or even avowedly secular they would be
horrified). This is a problem, especially when religious faith
is used as a wedge by special interests and those who do their
bidding at our expense. Americans need to realize -- as the founders
did over 200 years ago -- there is good reason for a separation
between church and state. Allowing Zionists and Christers to
dictate and drive foreign policy will ultimately result in disaster
-- and thousands, possibly millions of unnecessary deaths.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent online
gallery. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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