GWB's administration is ideological in a creepy way, but it is a coalition of interests that overlap.
Christian Right / Christian Zionism:
Christian Right dualism, merged with generic Christian apocalypticism, and Christian Zionist End Times apocalyptic demands for defending Jersusalem against the forces of the antichrist. Great combo. Matt Rothschild at the Progressive calls it Messianic Militarism.
http://www.progressive.org/feb03/comm0203.html http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2003/0312apocalypse.php http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/Zionism/coalition.html http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v17n2/v17n2/css/v17n2_13.htm
Neoconservatives:
The Neoconservatives channel for Machiavelli waltzing to a tune by (Leo) Strauss. It's the PNAC gallery.
http://www.fpif.org/papers/02right/index.html http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15935 http://www.publiceye.org/conservative/neocons/neocon.html
Business Internationalists Corporate interests. Same old, same old. Making the globe safe for rapcious extraction of money, labor, and natural resources. Strong libertarian influences in some cases.
Plus the subtext of racism in U.S. foreign policy: http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v17n1/v17n1.htm
Chip Berlet Senior Analyst Political Research Associates Webmaster http://www.publiceye.org
-----Original Message----- From: Jeet Heer [mailto:jeet at sturdynet.com] Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 9:32 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] what is new in GWB adminstration?
Hi all, I was struck by a passage in a mesage sent by Doug (pasted below) where Colin Powell is said to be upset by the ideological nature of the Bush administration. This got me thinking about a problem I've been trying to sort out in my head: is the current Bush administration radically different from other presidencies? Or does GWB just represent a continuity of longstanding trends, going back to at least Reagan if not much earlier (either FDR/Truman or even Theodore Roosevelt's imperialism of spectacle)? Leaving aside issue of competence, some would agrue that GWB is simply a cruder version of longstanding American imperialism. And it does seem that many of the elements of GWB's reign replicate stuff we've seen under Reagan. On the other hand, why does GWB seem much scarier than any other recent US leader?
Here is the passage I was thinking about:
Powell's mentor from the National War College, Harlan Ullman on Powell's discomfort with the Bush team: "This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell's ever had to work for. Not only is it very ideological, but they have a vision. And I think Powell is inherently uncomfortable with grand visions like that ... There's an ideological core to Bush, and I think it's hard for Powell to penetrate that."