I can’t get over the audacity and the hypocrisy of what Bush said to an exclsuive dinner event: “Some people call you the elite; I call you my base”. For al the talk of anti-elitism and “common Americanism”, this exposes the underbelly and the heart of this cultural strategy to build a “base” that includes not only those elite (in fact, an agenda DETERMINED by them) but also those to whom they seek to drain every resource from under their noses and from their lives, and into the coffers of those in the “base” at the very top, and make them glad and proud to do it. It fits so eerily the picture painted by A People’s History of the United States, which identified time again throughout history how the ruling classes erect social and cultural “buffers” between themselves and the struggles of the majority, and use them to enlist even those on the lower rungs by convincing them that they will benefit.

I have never seen the deception taken to such an extreme. ‘Course, I only have a view of the last 25 years, since my Seminary days. But the strategy seems to be to simply repeat phrases, introduce threats, and talk about “common sense”, and then apply energy to masking the actual implemtation of those “promises”, which are often the very opposite of the “mythology” they represent.

Gone is the idea within the Church that moneyed interests will seek to build up an ideology around it, and enlist the support of the Churches. They simply hear and adopt. They trust Bush to use “common sense” and implement a “Clear Skies” policy, while he does just the opposite, and all of this is easily accessible from the actual facts about what measures are taken (or in this case, removed) and the actual lowering of standards; and their deepest supporters actually adopt the idea that to help the coroprations pollute us and endanger our health is to make more money available to those polluters so they can “pass those savings on to us”, and that the real dangersous abuses will be avoided by “smart companies” with “common sense” because “the market” will keep them in line.

What a mass deception. What a prime example of being dragged into darkness, and led astray by wolves in sheep’s clothing.