American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2007

An explosive examination of the coalition of forces that threatens the nation, from the bestselling author of American Dynasty

  In his two most recent bestselling books, American Dynasty and Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips established himself as a powerful critic of the political and economic forces that rule—and imperil—the United States, tracing the ever more alarming path of the emerging Republican majority’s rise to power. Now Phillips takes an uncompromising view of the current age of global overreach, fundamentalist religion, diminishing resources, and ballooning debt under the GOP majority. With an eye to the past and a searing vision of the future, Phillips confirms what too many Americans are still unwilling to admit about the depth of our misgovernment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Scientists repeatedly prove the limited amount of fossil-based fuels left in the world and emphasize the environmental effects of using them. Yet many Republicans ignore science in the name of God while promoting a debt-driven consumer society. Debt, radical religion and fuel have been individual sources of expansion and destruction for many nations throughout history. Utilizing these precedents, Phillips provides detailed and troubling criticism of the United States' excessive dependence on and promotion of these three factors. Phillips predicts these practices will significantly diminish the power of the United States in international politics. In navigating this sometimes complicated book, Scott Brick delivers an outstanding performance. His command of the text will leave listeners believing that he wrote the book. His intensity matches the author's urgency while his emphasis proves a great value in determining the important information. Nonfiction audiobooks of this breadth often become cumbersome and daunting with information overload. But Brick leads his listeners with the gift of a master performer who knows his audience. While extras such as a time line, bibliography or character glossary could only improve this audiobook, the clarity of the text through the efforts of the author and narrator make it well worth the listen.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This former Republican strategist has written several books on the relationship between wealth and politics in this country, including the New York Times best-sellers Politics of Rich and Poor (1990) and Wealth and Democracy (2002). Phillips' abiding theme is given a workout again in his new book, with his major thesis spelled out on the first page of the preface: three demons threaten the continued well-being of the U.S. These are our "reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies," a "milieu of radicalized (and much too influential) religion," and a "reliance on borrowed money" (domestic and international debt, that is). His stiff--no harsh--words are aimed primarily at the Republican Party for allowing these three trends to have gotten out of control, but Democrats, without offering clear and tangible alternatives, are not let off the hook. The author's investigation into these three problems is set in a historical context as he posits the undeniable fact that all previous world economic powers have ultimately failed in continued strength (each one, however, believing "they were unique and that God was on their side"). Phillips is eloquent, absorbing, and frightening, and this book will follow its predecessors onto the best-seller lists. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Consequences Of Rabid Republican Conservatism!, March 21, 2006

Author, advisor, and academic Kevin Phillips is a man of considerable intellect. In the late 1960s he penned a signal work ("The Emerging Republican Majority") that successfully prophesized the ways in which massive socioeconomic and demographic shifts in American society from a northern and industrial one to one more centered in what he euphemistically referred to as the "Sunbelt". In detailing this momentous transformation, Phillips made some then-startling prognostications how such a shift in population and potential electoral votes would presage the long-term shift to a more conservative and Republican-oriented political majority for generations to come. Of course, being a conservative Republican himself, he assumed that this development meant greater fiscal responsibility, more rationally-based international savoir-faire, and much greater social stability. Yet, as he admits in his latest volume, "American Theocracy", that is hardly what the record reflects having transpired in the intervening thirty five years.

Instead, in this calm, clear, and well articulated tour of the social, economic, and political territory with which he is so familiar, Phillips describes the contemporary topography of conservative republican rule as being an inhospitable and ungovernable landscape pocked by craters of ideological fervor, fiscal insanity, and unspeakable personal greed. In many ways, his well-articulated broadside against the political right is all the more damning because it is not only from a true believer, but also from an outstanding academic with a persuasive resume, a man who carefully documents and substantiates everything he cites, especially in this scathing look at exactly where it is that the 21st century's form of rabid Republican conservatism is leading us. Yet one does not find here so much a prosaic attack on the present Bush administration as it is a penetrating historical analysis of how we got to this point in terms of three frightening enduring social and political trends, phenomena neither invented nor originated by the present administration.

Phillips sees three interlocking tendencies as now reaching a critical point in defining and even threatening the future of the polity. First is the rise of the corruptive influence of oil on both domestic and foreign policy; second is the rise of an intolerant form of radical Christian doctrine into key areas of public life; and third, the incredibly irresponsible increase in the level of both public and private debt. Each of these trends threatens to undermine both the short-term and long term stability of the nation, and each in its own way is a key factor in the way that describes how it is that both the Executive branch and the Congress are becoming increasingly beholden to special interests and are increasingly undemocratic. In particular, the fashion in which President Bush and the Congress have used permanent tax cuts for the wealthy as a device to transfer responsibility for future debt away from the wealthy and toward those with less means and less political voice, while at the same time insanely increasing that public debt, defies both morality and logic. Moreover, Phillips finds that the ways in which these trends are unfolding makes us as individual citizens and as members of the larger collectivity substantially less likely and immensely less able to determine our own future in anything resembling a rational and progressive fashion.

In many ways, this book represents a kind of sequel to Phillips original tome in the sense that herein he once again provides for the reader the sort of broad structural perspective illustrating the ways in which social, economic, and political change profoundly impact the future for both society at large and individuals in private, personal existence. In so detailing the powerful fashion in which these three powerful trends relate to each other and how they combine to impact the nature of American society itself, how they tend to push the nation toward ever more limited and ever weaker versions of its former substantial self, he also offers the reader an opportunity to understand the true nature of forces around us that demand public action now. This is an unnerving snapshot of America at a fateful crossroad, at a point that even the dullest among us must begin to recognize the palpable dangers. With the publication of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book, we can no longer say no one has warned us. Enjoy!  

 

4.0 out of 5 stars The pot calling the kettle black, March 21, 2006

This is the kind of book that would have kept me up at night had I read it six or seven years ago. American Theocracy convincingly and chillingly compares the current situation in the U.S. to that during the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire, The British Empire, Hapsburg Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Scared yet?

Author Kevin Phillips comes up with a series of characteristics of what he called a "power already at its peak and starting to decline." The list includes a polarization of the society and widespread concern with cultural and economic decay; growing religious fervor and an increasingly close relationship between church and state; a rising commitment to faith over reason; growing government debt; and "hubris-driven national strategic and military overreach."

Jeez, open most days' newspaper and don't be surprised to find concrete examples of each of these points.

The point risks being lost amid all the white noise predicting doom and gloom of different sorts these days. No doubt most readers will find themselves a little more jaded to these sorts of prognostications than they would have been just a few years back.

But what separates Mr. Phillips from the pack (at least to some extent) is his curriculum vitae: he is the same Kevin Phillips who, as a Republican strategist in the 1960s, shattered the Democrat's "solid south" in his book The Emerging Republican Majority. Most political scientists credit the book with sowing the seeds that handed the Republicans the White House in every election since then that didn't feature a highly-intelligent southern governor on top of the Democratic ticket as a way to wrestle a few electoral votes away south of the Mason-Dixon line.

If Mr. Phillips can recognize the hubris in what he helped create, then maybe that's something we should take seriously.

The book comes a bit unraveled at the end, though, when Mr. Phillips unconvincingly argues that the disastrous war in Iraq was precipitated by the needs of several key Republican constituencies: energy producers looking for new oil and gas fields to develop, currency traders worried that OPEC might abandon the dollar and cause its collapse, and evangelical Christians who see events of the last generation in the Middle East as coming right from the Book of Revelation, hailing Armageddon. While he there some validity in his conclusions, Mr. Phillips is no doubt oversimplifying an astonishingly complex set of issues.

But his ultimate conclusion -- that Republican extremists currently pulling the strings of power in Washington are responsible for the country's energy vulnerability, over-stretched military, sky-high debt levels, and the indulgence of radical religion -- are a threat to the country as great as the one facing fifth-century Rome is rings true and is without a doubt bone chilling. Come to think of it, American Theocracy may yet keep me awake with worry tonight. 

 

5.0 out of 5 stars A trenchant analysis of three of the greatest problems facing America, March 21, 2006

In my opinion Kevin Phillips understands the real problems facing America better than any other Republican in America. He is also the kind of Republican who has increasingly been marginalized in the take over of the party by the far left. By no stretch of the imagination is he a liberal (though unquestionably a host of Republicans who haven't read the book will write a review here proclaiming him a liberal), but more of a classic, pre-Reagan conservative in the Russell Kirk, Peter Viereck mode. Despite being a leftist myself, I have long found Phillips to be one of the most acute analysts of the genuine-as opposed to trumped up-problems afflicting American life. In WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY he wrote eloquently of the problems of the undue influence of the wealthy in our democracy as well as the extraordinary and dramatic growth of economic inequality over the past two and a half decades.

AMERICAN THEOCRACY may be Phillips's most important book yet. I was ecstatic when I found a copy this past weekend at a bookstore that broke the moratorium and put their copies out a few days early (bookstores-especially the big chains-often get copies of books to be released on a Tuesday late the previous week, and occasionally they will inadvertently put copies out) and spent the weekend reading it. Phillips explicitly states that his goal is to deal with three of the most pressing problems in American life today, problems that surpass terrorism as a real threat. These three problems are referred to in the subtitle and are dealt with in serial order, though because the problems are intertwined the discussions spill over into one another. The first problem is our dependence on oil and the degree to which it has shaped and determined our national priorities and policies. Phillips thinks historically and understands that nothing takes place without a rich historical context. While many talking about oil and its place in contemporary society begin with the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in the 19th century, Phillips goes much further back, discussing the way that the discovery and mastery of new forms of energy has parallels in previous economically dominant nations. In particular, he writes of the ways that the mastering of water and wind by the Dutch led to their economic ascendance in 17th century Europe and exploiting coal led to the creation of the British Empire. But he also writes of how both nations eventually lost their international preeminence, a change that could very well have begun for the US right now, which became predominant in the previous century due to its exploitation of oil. Phillips writes at length of the development of America's involvement in oil both domestically and abroad. He writes eloquently of how our preoccupation with oil, despite the protests of virtually everyone in the Bush administration to the contrary, was one of the primary causes for our adventurism in Iraq, which has not only has some of the richest oil reserves in the world but has large reserves that have not yet begun to peak, which means that it is cheaper petroleum to harvest.

Because the world's largest oil reserves are in the Middle East, and because premillenial fundamentalists harbor a host of beliefs about the fate of the world and the role that New Babylon (i.e., Iraq) and Israel will play in the end times drama, this part of the book often branches over into the many connections the area has with the aspirations and hopes of many in the Religious Right. But I was ecstatic in reading the book to see Phillips deal not only with the premillenial crowd, which is for the most part the only part of the Religious Right that most mainstream Americans are familiar, but with Christian Reconstructionists or Domionists. Christian Reconstructionists are generally not premillenialists, i.e., they do not believe in the kind of scenario mapped out by Hal Lindsey in his THE LATE-GREAT PLANET EARTH (repeatedly updated due to repeated failures of any of the events he prophesies to take place), where Jesus will return, remove all the Christians from earth, leaving nonbelievers to struggle with a host of trials and tribulations. Christian Reconstructionists believe it is the duty of Christians to strive for the founding of the Kingdom of God on earth. Although even many fundamentalists have never heard of these guys, they have exerted far more influence than many would suspect. Because they have been so far under the radar (mainly because they know that even many within the Religious Right would find their beliefs repulsive), their influence, which is considerable, has gone largely undetected. There are both extreme and somewhat more moderate Reconstructionists. The more extreme, for instance, don't merely believe that homosexuals, for instance, should be killed, but debate what the Biblically approved method of execution should be (stoning or burning are two widely approved methods). Reconstructionists hope gradually to establish a Christian Theocracy, where the Bible (and for some reason these guys are especially oriented towards Old Testament law) establishes the basis for society. The more extreme wings of this movement envision a society in which women are not allowed to work but stay home with their children (don't want children? well, too bad), gays and even heretics (i.e., nonbelievers) are candidates for stoning or burning, and we live in a nation as fundamentalist as any imagined by even the most passionate ayatollah. Milder forms of Reconstructionism sees America as being founded as a Christian nation (all on the Religious Right seem to have a completely bizarre view of the founding fathers, especially Madison) in which Christian law should dominate. Presidential candidate Sam Brownback is of this ilk.

Christian Reconstructionism is, of course, utterly unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans and it is impossible to imagine it ever gaining any of its most cherished goals. But I've been concerned that they have influenced so much American policy behind the scenes. All that needs to be done to overwhelm their efforts is to expose them to the light of day. Phillips goes a long ways towards doing this. I have read extensively about the Religious Right and politics (I was raised a fundamentalist and am a licensed Baptist minister, though I did not go into the ministry after attending seminary and divinity school) and found Phillips discussions to be well informed and balanced. I think he does a fine job of showing that the Religious Right is not a monolithic movement but a coalition of movements, many with their own agendas and concerns. He does not believe that America is in fact in danger of becoming a theocracy, but he does feel that religious influence has become extreme and unacceptable. I have to add that I do think the title of the book is a bit misleading, since he doesn't think America either is or can become a theocracy. The subtitle is a far better pointer to the book's content.

The third problem he addresses is that of our culture of debt. This does not refer merely to the deficit, but the degree to which debt penetrates virtually every aspect of our society in general and government in particular. Phillips's shows in detail the host of ways that this indebtedness threatens the national security and could endanger the most crucial social programs that the aging segment of society depends upon.

I think that between this book and his previous WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY Phillips has dealt very successfully with four of the five major problems in America today, though I think Phillips curiously fails to note the fifth. The four problems he deals with are the three in this book-the influence of oil on our national policy, the growing influence of right wing religion on national priorities, and our growing culture of debt-and the main one in WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY, the growing economic inequality in the country (I would argue that on a practical level this is the major problem). The fifth is the massively bloated military-industrial sector. When over half of all government spending goes to the military, especially when there are no other military superpowers in the world, you have a long-term recipe for economic and political disaster. I hope that Americans begin to take note of the warnings found in these books. For the most part America seems to me a distracted nation, focusing on lesser problems or pseudo problems. Meanwhile, the problems that are beginning to undermine our nation and our democracy are largely ignored. This is a brilliant discussion of three of the threats facing our nation and I urge everyone who loves America to read it as quickly as possible and then hand it on to friends.