1-30-08, 9:27 am

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the war on America by Chris Hedges, Vintage Books.

For the past few decades, one of the major vehicles for extreme right ideas within US politics has been the Christian fundamentalist movement.

All too often mocked and patronised by those who really ought to know better, its lightning growth is shocking to say the least and as Chris Hedges's book notes, the brown-shirted born agains now stand to start conquering the highest echelons of state power.

Already, some 45 per cent of US citizens believe that the world really was created in six days and 'intelligent design' - the new buzzword for old-fashioned creationism - is taught in schools and universities up and down the country.

The greatest selling author in the land which gave us Mark Twain and Jack London is today some berk peddling lurid accounts of rapture and Armageddon.

Legislation around same-sex marriage has been dismantled, gay lifestyles demonised and abstinence promoted as the only safe and godly path.

Women had better watch out too. Led by a bunch of crazed patriarchs, its not surprising that they see a woman's destiny as one of submission to the holy trinity of family, church and state.

And single mothers? Heaven forbid! Or should that be forbids? Hedges argues that, just like the fascist movements of the 1930s, fundamentalism has powerful allies in government circles and big business who are only too happy to bankroll its ongoing battle for the US.

Establishing links with those that they privately hate, the Christian right has also entered into an unholy alliance with zionists and conservative Catholics in a display of political jujitsu that earlier critics wouldn't have thought possible.

One of Hedges's book's greatest strengths is that it tries to understand why so many US citizens might find fundamentalism attractive.

Deindustrialisation, spiralling poverty and a society organised solely around the needs of out-of-control consumerism are all quite rightly seen as contributory factors, recalling Marx's dictum that, like it or not, religion often functions as the heart of a heartless world.

Of course, this begs the question of what can be done? Taking the movement seriously is an obvious start, but, after pointing out the dangers of what's happening, Hedges falls well short of suggesting any remedy.

This is all the more surprising, because, in many ways, he's an ideal candidate to start taking on the Christian right. A passionate believer himself, he's theologically adept at exposing the literalist abuse and corruption of biblical text.

Proud that his clergyman father opposed the Vietnam war, spoke up for civil rights in a fairly hostile all-white area and was a very early defender of lesbian and gay freedom, it's clear that he's very much part of the progressive community.

Why, then, no real attempt to develop a plan of action? His contention that the evangelical community could well be central to stopping the fundamentalists in their tracks is both weak and unsubstantiated, while his scathing attacks on liberals, although occasionally fair, appear to borrow more from the rhetoric of the enemy camp than Hedges might be prepared to admit.

Any unity with those to the left of the democrats seems to be off the agenda as well – socialists and communists apparently sharing with the Christian right an addiction to messianic utopian ideals that ultimately lead to totalitarianism.

Hardly the broadest of alliances to say the least, the value of Hedges's book is that it's more a wake-up call than a programme for change.

From Morning Star