kevin phillips on diane rehm's show 11am est

fyi - www.wamu.org

calling DimWit a national embarrassment and a mental lightweight.

The audio file is available for download on the show's Web site at www.npr.org.

NYT review of "American Theocracy"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/books/17book.html
March 17, 2006
Books of The Times | 'American Theocracy'
Tying Religion and Politics to an Impending U.S. Decline

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

Kevin Phillips, a former Republican strategist who helped design that party's Southern strategy, made his name with his 1969 book, "The Emerging Republican Majority," which predicted the coming ascendancy of the G.O.P. In the decades since, Mr. Phillips has become a populist social critic, and his last two major books — "Wealth and Democracy" (2002) and "American Dynasty" (2004) — were furious jeremiads against the financial excesses of the 1990's and what he portrayed as the Bush family's "blatant business cronyism," with ties to big oil, big corporations and the military-industrial complex.

His latest book, "American Theocracy," the concluding volume of this "trilogy of indictments," ranges far beyond the subject suggested by its title — an examination of the religious right and its influence on the current administration — to anatomize a host of economic, political, military and social developments that Mr. Phillips sees as troubling indices of the United States' coming decline. The book not only reiterates observations made in "Wealth and Democracy" and "American Dynasty," but also reworks some of the arguments made by the historian Paul Kennedy in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," dealing with the role that economic factors play in the fortunes of great powers and the dangers empires face in becoming financially and militarily overextended.

All in all, "American Theocracy" is a more reasoned (and therefore more sobering) book than "American Dynasty," substituting copious illustrations and detailed if sometimes partisan analysis for angry, conspiratorial rants. But if Mr. Phillips does an artful job of pulling together a lot of electoral data and historical insights to buttress his polemical points, he also demonstrates a tendency to extrapolate — sometimes profligately — from the specific to the general, from the particular to the collective, especially when making his prognostications of impending decline.

As he's done in so many of his earlier books, Mr. Phillips draws a lot of detailed analogies in these pages, using demographics, economic statistics and broader cultural trends to map macropatterns throughout history. In analyzing the fates of Rome, Hapsburg Spain, the Dutch Republic, Britain and the United States, he comes up with five symptoms of "a power already at its peak and starting to decline": 1) "widespread public concern over cultural and economic decay," along with social polarization and a widening gap between rich and poor; 2) "growing religious fervor" manifested in a close state-church relationship and escalating missionary zeal; 3) "a rising commitment to faith as opposed to reason and a corollary downplaying of science"; 4) "considerable popular anticipation of a millennial time frame" and 5) "hubris-driven national strategic and military overreach" in pursuit of "abstract international missions that the nation can no longer afford, economically or politically." Added to these symptoms, he writes, is a sixth one, almost too obvious to state: high debt, which can become "crippling in its own right."

more...

That first one was great. She sounded like a real DUer.

eliminates the need to worry about the deficit or the environment. :rofl: Funny bet really truly sad.

His tour schedule from http://www.americantheocracy.net/tour.html :

New York, NY
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble / Upper West Side,
2289 Broadway (@82nd St)
New York, NY 10024
212-362-8835

Boston, MA
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
7:30 PM
Harvard Bookstore,
@ First Parish Church Parlor Room
3 Church St
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-661-1424

Philadelphia, PA
Thursday, March 23, 2006
8:00 PM
Philadelphia Free Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-567-4341

Washington DC
Friday, March 24, 2006
7:00 PM
Politics &Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20008
202-363-7663 direct

Washington DC
Saturday, March 25, 2006
2:00 PM
Borders / Baileys Crossroads
5871 Crossroads Center Way
Baileys Crossroads, VA 22041
703-998-0404

Chicago, IL
Monday, March 27, 2006
7:00 PM
Borders / Michigan Ave
830 N Michigan
Chicago, IL 60611
312-573-0564 store

Chicago, IL
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
7:00 PM
Bookstall,
811 Elm St
Winnetka, IL 60093
847-446-8880

Milwaukee, WI
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
7:00 PM
Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop/Downer Ave
2559 N Downer Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53211
414-332-1181

Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, March 30, 2006
7:30 PM
Barnes &Noble/Edina
3225 W 69th St
Edina, MN 55435
952-920-0633 store

Cleveland, OH
Friday, March 31, 2006
7:00 PM
Joseph-Beth Booksellers,
Legacy Village
24519 Cedar Rd
Lyndhurst, OH 44124
216-912-1981

San Jose, CA
Monday, April 03, 2006
7:30 PM
Barnes &Noble,
3600 Stevens Creek Blvd
San Jose, CA 95117
408-984-3495

San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
12:30-1:30 PM
Staceys,
581 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-896-1606

Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
7:30 PM
Cody's/First Congregational Church,
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-845-3696

Los Angeles, CA
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
7:00 PM
Los Angeles Public Library
630 West 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
213-228-7268

San Diego, CA
Thursday, April 06, 2006
7:00 PM
University of California/San Diego,
Neurosciences Institute
10640 John Jay Hopkins Dr
San Diego, CA 92121
858-964-1062

Portland, OR
Friday, April 07, 2006
7:30 PM
Powell's Books
1005 West Burnside
Portland, OR
503-228-4651

Seattle, WA
Sunday, April 09, 2006
7:30 PM
American Voices at Town Hall
1119 8th Av
Seattle WA
206-632-2419

Denver, CO
Monday, April 10, 2006
7:30 PM
Tattered Cover/Cherry Creek
2955 East 1st Av
Denver, CO 80206
303-322-7727

Cincinnati, OH
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
7:00 PM
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
2692 Madison Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45208
513-396-8960

Atlanta, GA
Thursday, April 20, 2006
7:00 PM
Georgia Center for the Book,
DeKalb County Public Library
215 Sycamore St
Decatur, GA 30030
404-370-8450

Sarasota, FL
Saturday, April 22, 2006
(Time TBA)
Forum 2006

Louisville, KY
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
(Time TBA)
Bellarmine University