Drafting God to fight your battles

Last Friday, David Domke, the director of the U of Washington's journalism program, came to speak in out rhetoric of campaigns and elections class about what he termed 'political fundamentalism' in the Bush administration. Domke just released a book called "God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the 'War on Terror' and the Echoing Press." He brought up a whole array of things that terrified me long ago, so long ago that the alarm bells had worn down to alarm hums. So I got alarmed all over again.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this administration, besides its violent unpredictability, racism and self-destructive tendencies, is its employment of religious symbols, metaphors and imagery to build a framework so Christian fundamentalists can believe that Bush is acting as God's divinely appointed agent on earth. This takes a number of forms, from subtly coded allusions to the outright claim that freedom is the almighty's gift to humanity.

As an atheist I find all this talk deeply threatening because I am aware that at various points in history, cynical political leaders vest themselves with this kind of messianic garbage, and whether or not they themselves believe that they are acting on a higher plane, their followers get more crazy and cease acting rationally. And a lot of times, people get killed, especially unbelievers.

So to summarize Domke, the Bush administration is different than other presidencies because it has shifted from the 'petitioner to God' position ("O lord, grant us the wisdom...") to the 'prophetic' position, speaking as God or in God's voice. Domke said that prophetic rhetoric is all right when it comes from religious organizations, but to use it for the dirty world of politics invariably corrupts both politics and religion. Hence, it is morally wrong and hazardous for Bush to sell Vengeful Jesus to us.

There was also a shift in the prism of worldview from 'triumphal' ("God bless America, yay!") to 'apocalyptic' (a fight of good vs. evil projected from the material to spiritual plane RIGHT NOW). So this religious fundamentalist worldview is joined to a strategic agenda, to the delight of all.

There is also an intolerance of dissent and a peculiar obsession with time, which was my favorite insight. The Bush administration projects a sense of almost histrionic immediacy to its situation. They are of the view that the End Times could happen any time, so what we do now positions ourselves before this ultimate judgment. He pointed out that Tom DeLay has a plaque in is House office that says "Today could be the Day," meaning the Day of Judgement.

Like I said, those old alarm bells went off all over again.

So with this in mind, I wrote a short essay for American History since 1940 class, which was supposed to be about how American propaganda films were used during World War II to generate a hegemonic sense of national unity. But the whole God complex-War on Terror thing seemed relevant, so I put it in. The beginning of the essay refers to the part in Casablanca where the drunk Nazis in Rick's bar starting singing and they try to drown out the voices of the non-Germans there. Here is what I wrote:

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When the Nazis struck up a song in Rick?s café, they were obvious about it, as their war was obvious. In turn, the ?free? patrons had to provide an oppositional song. Here, the conflict, like the war itself, was in front, accessible in plain view, for all to see. In contrast, today?s conflict is framed as hidden, almost esoteric, yet equally important to national identity, so messages encouraging unity often spring from similar nationalist foundations, but with greater varieties of messages available to the symbol-makers in the media. It is interesting to compare the overt messages about national unity and the constructions of an external threat from World War II and the present global War on Terror.

In times of conflict and threat, the public becomes more receptive to messages and images that signify unity and strength against the unknown danger. During the months following September 11 in the United States, the flag itself was made to represent this unity. A slogan implying ongoing mobilization, ?United we stand,? was associated with the flag displays and the wars that followed. This slogan meant almost the same thing as ?We are on the march!?

It was easier for people to receive and accept an understanding of their situation in World War II than today?s war. Then, Hollywood?s advantage was that World War II looked more like a ?classic? war with evil imperial armies and easily caricatured villains, like in Russian Rhapsody and Private Snafu. For those who crafted the messages about the Nazis and American unity, their task was rendered far easier by the media environment they lived in. Most people then could be expected to get their news from the same sources: a few newspapers, the radio, the movie reels. The plethora of entertainment services didn?t exist, so the pro-unity messages were transmitted through a much narrower band of services, and in turn the whole meta-narrative appeared simpler and more cohesive.

Today, on the other hand, we are fighting ?shadowy networks? of ?evil? people hidden among others that at least rhetorically we are not supposed to be fighting. Within our highly diversified media environment, every sort of generalized image and comic exaggeration has been presented about the cave-dwelling jihadis, but these images lie on a rhetorical spectrum where no one can say with certainty what the enemy looks like. Even conservatives vary widely: Toby Keith and Charles Krauthammer used their own contemptuous caricatures to build the image of the rarely spotted enemy. The images they build are vilified and the oppositional image, the upstanding exceptionalist Americans spreading freedom, springs almost naturally from the demonized fundamentalists. Then people are supposed to associate a deeper meaning with the moral contrast of this sketch of reality and offer their faith and obedience accordingly. If you still don?t get it, the President explains that ?the liberty we prize is not America?s gift to the world, it is God?s gift to humanity.? We just happen to have the hardware for installing liberty. While Americans quickly came to understand that World War II was a titanic struggle against evil, it was presented in a more matter-of-fact, less messianic fashion, while President Bush argues that the Almighty was a player in this war from the beginning, a darn good reason to Stand and Unite.

In an essay, ?War is a force that gives us meaning,? veteran war reporter Chris Hedges argues that conflict can be used to generate meaning because the war messages tell people how trivial their daily lives are, but now they are part of an essential, unifying project. ?War makes the world understandable, a black-and-white tableau of them and us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good; for human beings seek not only happiness but also meaning. And tragically, war is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning.?

It was not difficult to illustrate the idea that the Nazis were trying to drown everyone out, and this lent itself to a more grounded sort of rhetoric about why unity was important. Today, in contrast, the shadowy and shifting nature of the War on Terror rhetorically demands stronger medicine for the everyday mind, so to imbue it with meaning, they drafted God.

Posted by HongPong at September 27, 2004 12:05 PM
Listed under The White House .