'Democracy is not boxed in. Democracy doesn't live in limits. Democracy, as the president says, is God's gift to the world. Liberty does not come from America. Liberty is a naturally endowed right that comes from the Creator, according to our own Declaration of Independence," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer this week.
Oh dear, this sounds ominous. Saint George, speaking through the prophet Ari, is, it appears, intent on furthering God's will. When you hear "God" invoked in this way, the bombs are usually being primed. Certainly, when Islamic fundamentalists resort to telling us about God rewarding violence, most normal people recoil and despair of such fanaticism.
None the less, especially since such flagrantly heretical Christian leaders as the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury are opposed to attempts at delivering "God's gift to the world" through bombs, the prophet Ari should be heard. His remarks show how, in the US, talk about an attack on Iraq now focuses, not on whether it will happen, but on its afterlife.
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel screened the prophet Ari telling us about democracy being God's gift to the world.
Mind you, it avoided the follow-up sentence about liberty not coming from America. The prophet, in saying as much, was obviously making a very fine theological point not best suited to a dynamic news bulletin or current affairs programme.
He might also, of course, have confused some of the less theologically sophisticated among Fox viewers. An attack on Iraq is now being sold as a "war of liberation". If liberty does not come from the attacker, the less pious - those unfortunates unable or unwilling to hear God's plan - could be confused. Public-spirited Fox certainly doesn't want that to happen .
After all, Saint Rupert, a renowned theological adept, fully backs an attack. He believes the price of oil will be one of its main benefits. "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy . . . would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country," he recently told the Australian news magazine, The Bulletin.
In an earlier sermon in Fortune magazine, Saint Rupert stressed a similar theme. "I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us," he said. "But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else." So that's alright then.
Of course, an attack on Iraq is not about oil. It's heresy even to think that. Cheaper oil boosting the world's economy is merely a byproduct of delivering God's gift to the world. It's a kind of extra grace or indulgence for furthering God's will.
But there's also that egregious "we" ("until 'we' get Iraq behind us"). Who are the "we"? In his sermon to The Bulletin, Saint Rupert reiterated his faith and his collective pronoun. "We can't back down now," he said. "I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly, and I think he is going to go with it . . . I think Tony [Blair\] is being extraordinarily courageous. It's not easy to do that living in a party largely composed of people who have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist."
Ah, now that troubling "we" is clear. Blessed are the warmongers for they and their corporate supporters shall inherit most of the spoils of oil. Repent, pacifist demons, repent. Embrace the new theology revealed by George, Ari and Rupert.
Roy Greenslade, a former editor of Britain's Daily Mirror, cannot be counted among the sanctified "we". He, poor soul, finds it remarkable that all of Saint Rupert's 175 editors worldwide back an attack on Iraq. Obviously, Greenslade and his ilk do not understand the thoroughly sanctifying effects of trickle-down grace.
Some of these evil, damned creatures have even whispered calumnies about the astonishing degree of editorial oneness among all of the papers owned by Saint Rupert. They can't even understand that God's gift to the world is being revealed through the sacred scriptures and sermons of the Murdoch media.
It's worse it gets. The Murdoch media and other right-wing outlets are constantly selling the impending attack on Iraq as a war of liberation. Brit Hume, the bullish presenter of Fox TV's Special Report, this week focused on post-bombed, "liberated" Iraq. He asked the former US Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross: "Should we, for reasons of disciplining the French, exclude them?" There's that "we" again, showing how a media mogul and another of his minions act as an arm of the Bush administration. Yet such monumental arrogance ("disciplining" the French by excluding them!) passes as serious analysis on Fox TV. Hume's bluster then moved on to report on how children were "being hassled by anti-war teachers in Maine".
Democracy is, I'm afraid, indeed boxed in. Even allowing that George Bush is president of the US on less than half the vote (which is hardly the greatest advertisement for democracy), when Fox is on the box, "democracy" means the voice of Big Business. Still, at least the Book of Revelations is explained: "God's" message is the prospect of $20 a barrel for oil.
So, even God is now a corporate executive - General Manager (Universe) or some equally idiotic title. "Liberation theology" is now, it seems, a form of ultra-right rant. Corporate America, aiming to expand its management of the world, has even emulated Islamic fundamentalism by hijacking God. Jesus wept . . . with bloody good reason.