Rapture Politics

Henry Giroux is a "critical pedagogue" of some repute - he considers issues of education with an awareness of the flows of power and the existence of injustice. Today, in the Toronto Star, he examines a topic on which I have written many times, that being the Reversal of America, specifically pertaining to that nation having already become a Christian theocracy.

Further evidence of an American theocracy is reflected in commentary by a host of powerful politicians, judges and religious leaders. They include Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose pronouncements against the separation of church and state are well known; former attorney general John Ashcroft, who held regular prayer meetings and covered up the bare-breasted statue of justice; and Tom DeLay, the House Majority leader, who once claimed that, "Our entire system is built on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it fell apart when we started denying God. If you stand up today and acknowledge God, they will try to destroy you... My mission is to bring us back to the Constitution and to Absolute Truth that has been manipulated and destroyed by a liberal world view."

The interesting, and sometimes frightening, aspect of reversals is their seemingly paradoxical and counter-intuitive effects. Giroux quotes Barbara Ehrenreich who observes, "Policies of pre-emptive war and the upward redistribution of wealth are inversions of the Judeo-Christian ethic." Think about the effects of that observation. Truly frightening!