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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (204247)	9/28/2004 4:51:46 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572711

TP, Do you feel a draft? I sure do. It's coming from the hot air shooting out of Charlie Rangel's mouth: cnn.com Tenchusatsu

To: TigerPaw who wrote (204247)	9/28/2004 7:35:06 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572711

Bush's fundamentalism: the president as prophet By David Domke and Kevin Coe Special to The Times In his address to Republican Party delegates and the nation on Sept. 2, George W. Bush used the words "freedom" or "liberty," in some form, 34 times. This is a remarkable number, even for a president known for his ability to hammer home a message. Among these instances was this declaration: "I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man. I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world." Bush's fusion of a religious outlook with administration policy is a striking shift in modern presidential rhetoric. Presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have spoken as petitioners of God, seeking blessing and guidance; this president positions himself as a prophet, issuing declarations of divine desires for the nation and world. Put simply, Bush's language suggests that he speaks not to God, but for God. It is certainly the case that American political leaders long have emphasized religious symbols and language in their addresses. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, the Bush administration has done something very different: It has converged a religious fundamentalist worldview with a political agenda — a distinctly partisan one, wrapped in the mantle of national interest but crafted by and for those who share its outlook. It is a modern form of political fundamentalism — that is, the adaptation of a self-proclaimed conservative Christian rectitude, via strategic communications designed for a mass-media culture, into political policy. Bush's merger of politics and conservative faith culminates more than three decades of political engagement by U.S. religious conservatives. Ronald Reagan was the first president to be embraced by the religious right, but Bush's resonance with these voters is unprecedented. A June study by the Barna Group, a Christian polling organization, said 86 percent of self-described evangelicals plan to vote for Bush this November. The key to Bush's support among religious conservatives is his facility in speaking their language, particularly regarding freedom and liberty. An omnipresent consideration for Christian conservatives is the "Great Commission" biblical mandate, in the Book of Matthew: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." The felt responsibility to live out this command, both locally and globally, has become intertwined in the eyes of the religious right with support for the principles of political freedom and liberty. In particular, the individualized religious liberty present in the United States (particularly available historically for European-American Protestants, of course) is something that religious conservatives long to extend to other cultures and nations. One might expect, therefore, that Bush's political fundamentalism would be particularly apparent in his rhetoric about freedom and liberty. This is so. We analyzed presidential discourse about these values (often used interchangeably) in Inaugural and State of the Union addresses from Roosevelt in 1933 through Bush in 2004. For presidents other than Reagan or Bush, only four of 61 addresses (7 percent) contained claims linking the wishes of God with freedom or liberty. Such claims were present in five of 12 addresses (42 percent) by Reagan and Bush, including the latter's last two. Further, close examination of these instances reveals the shift from a posture of petitioner to that of prophet. Consider just one example: Roosevelt in 1941, in a famous address de-lineating four essential freedoms threatened by fascism and Nazism, said: "This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God." Contrast that with Bush's claim in 2003 that "Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." This is not a request for divine favor; it is a declaration of divine wishes. Such rhetoric, consistently emanating from this president and administration, has transformed Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" policy to "Either you are with us, or you are against God." To the great detriment of American democracy and the global public, the president's view looks and sounds remarkably similar to that of the terrorists we are fighting. David Domke is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He is the author of "God Willing?" (Pluto Press, 2004). Kevin Coe is a doctoral student in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. He received his master's degree from the UW in June. seattletimes.nwsource.com