Recent readings

American Theocracy The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Kevin Phillips, Penguin Group, New York 2006, 462 pp.

This is the latest in a series of books by a disillusioned man. Phillips was a solid Republican for many years: He was, at age 27, a principal strategist in Richard Nixon’s 1968 election to the presidency; the following year he served for 12 months as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. Following Ronald Reagan’s election, Phillips again became active in Republican party politics. The Wall Street Journal described him in 1982 as "the leading conservative electoral analyst–the man who invented the Sun Belt, named the New Right..."

For several years he has been a commentator on National Public Radio–I have always found his comments cogent and well-presented, even when I disagreed with some of them. (I haven’t heard him recently; it seems as if he is on a sabbatical.)

If "disillusioned" is too strong a word for his present state of mind as gleaned form his recent books, yet he clearly exhibits a strong aversion to the antics of those on the Republican Far Right and much concern about the future of our country if our major problems aren’t successfully addressed.

Following is an excerpt from a recent review of American Theocracy by The New York Times.

He identifies three broad and related trends —— none of them new to the Bush years but all of them, he believes, exacerbated by this administration's policies —— that together threaten the future of the United States and the world. One is the role of oil in defining and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt —— current and prospective —— that both the government and the American people have been heedlessly accumulating. If there is a single, if implicit, theme running through the three linked essays that form this book, it is the failure of leaders to look beyond their own and the country's immediate ambitions and desires so as to plan prudently for a darkening future.

The following selections from the book provide a broad perspective of his thoughts.

This book is dedicated to the millions of Republicans, present and lapsed, who have opposed the Bush dynasty and the disenlightenment in the 2000 and 2004 elections. (front flyleaf)

...the attack (on Iraq), while at bottom about access to oil and U.S. global supremacy, had other intentions. One was to fold oil objectives into the global war against terror. A second was to cement the U.S. dollar’s hegemonic role in global oil sales–and thus in the world economy. A third was to keep the invasion’s purpose broad enough to allow the biblically minded Christian right to see it...as a destruction of the new Babylon, on the road to Armageddon and redemption. (p. 69)

The deceit-cloaked invasion of Iraq in 2003 may never command a full or satisfactory explanation. Nevertheless, a near-final decision to invade seems to have been made in early 2001...Vice President Cheney, with his successive positions at the junction of the business and government pipelines connecting oil, national politics, and the Pentagon, must have played a pivotal role. Indeed, this triple expertise may explain the July 2000 decision to slate him as George W. Bush’s running mate. (p. 87)

Conversion on the part of adults–the deep personal experience of being "born again" in Christ–is...far more important in the United States (than in other countries), with its emphasis and personal experience, than elsewhere than elsewhere...George W. Bush’s own tale of coming to God struck a chord in the churchgoing United States that would have been impossible in less-observant Europe. Even in kindred Canada, supposedly no prime minister has ever claimed to be born again. (p. 106)

The president used the phrase "I believe" twelve times...and two of the references "were meant to justify his wars as holy. The first–‘I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century’–prompts a question: called by whom? The second helps answer that query: ‘I believe freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman.’" The man in the White House was becoming America’s preacher in chief. (p. 206)

It’s finally happened: Moving money around has surpassed making things as a share of the U.S. gross domestic product...the benign phrase "financial services" still dominates the discussion...the armchair detective can easily figure out that we are approaching a national transformation in economic vitality that past world powers allowed to their peril.

In official statistics the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector of the U.S. economy swelled to 20 percent of the gross domestic product in 2000, jumping ahead of manufacturing, which slipped to 14.5 percent (p.265)

Historically debt is constructive in emerging and adolescent nations but perilous in those beginning to age or contemplate retirement. Take, for example, Alexander Hamilton’s 1781 notion of a funded national debt as a fiscal boon–a "national blessing." For a new nation with commercial aspirations, it might well be. The Dutch in the early seventeenth century and the English in the 1690's had pioneered funded national debts and found them essential for borrowing at reasonable rates of interest during wartime. Many generations later, however, as their public debts bloated and their national trajectories turned downward, Dutchmen and Britons in turn staggered under their heritage of lending, borrowing, and cultivating reliance on finance and rentier cultures. (p. 271)

(Quoting Alan Greenspan): "Is it important for an economy to have manufacturing? There is a big dispute on this issue: What is important is that economies create value, and whether value is created by taking raw materials and fabricating them into something consumers want, or value is created by various services which consumers want, presumably should not make any difference so far as standards of living are concerned." (p. 306)

(He talks about the "rentier class"): The word "rentier"–(means) a person living off unearned income...Over the last four centuries...it was first Spain, then Holland and Great Britain, and now the United States that created the most notable rentier cultures. Each ultimately became vulnerable as a result. (p. 307)

History...tends to interrelate events, and events that necessarily have been discussed separately in this book show further signs of integration–oil and the debt-and-credit crunch; true-believing religion and the substitution of faith for science and national strategy. (p. 348)

(He expresses his disappointment): The Republican electoral, near and dear to me four decades ago...has become more like the exhausted, erring majorities of earlier failures: the militant southernized Democrats of the 1850's; the stock-market-dazzled and Elmer Gantry-ish GOP of the 1920's; and the imperials of the 1960's, with their Great Society social engineering, quagmire in Vietnam, and the New Economy skills expected to tame the business cycle. Now the Republicans are the miscreants. (p. 348)

But he is not without his detractors. The comments below are taken from an article "The Erring Republican Authority: Kevin Phillips is wrong about everything. Why is he taken so seriously?" by Jacob Weisberg posted on 3/29/06 on the Slate magazine website.

In the years since (his devotion to the Republican party), almost every aspect of (his thinking) has been turned around. Phillips long ago left behind both obscurity and conservatism, becoming one of our most ubiquitous political commentators and one of the most left-wing. His biennial books have become illogical, dizzying screeds. And his diagnoses, predictions, and advice to Democrats have been consistently, embarrassingly wrong...

Phillips’ argument is that oil dependency, Christian fundamentalism, and excessive debt are destroying the country. He is not wrong that these are dangers. But he wildly misunderstands, distorts and overstates all of them.

So, take your pick: Phillips, the wise man or Phillips, the writer of "illogical, dizzying screeds"?