In a recent commentary in The New Yorker Daily Newsletter I receive on my iPhone Hendrick Hertzberg described the current drift of the Republican Party that was revealed in the storm created by Congressman Todd Adkin. “Even though, then as now, three-quarters of the public has believed that abortion should at least sometimes be legal, the Party line has moved steadily toward theocratic absolutism. The platform currently under construction in Tampa calls for total criminalization, including under circumstances of rape, incest, and lethal danger to the woman concerned. Until this week that was Paul Ryan’s position, too; now, post-Akin, he says he would accept a rape exception. This puts him on the same blotted page as Mitt Romney, who launched his political career claiming to be as pro-choice as Ted Kennedy. Extremism is the new moderation.”
(Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/08/akins-gift.html#ixzz255CVVQJN)
Subsequently I “googled” theocratic absolutism and found the following discussion; it is worth inspection because the concept applies to the US Army establishment: Theocratic absolutism has been around longer than theory, and its effects have been far more deadly.You do not need to believe in God to have a theocracy; some theocracies are atheist. A system based on theocratic absolutism has these characteristics:
In theocratic absolutism there are ‘sacred writings’, a scripture whose word is inerrant and may not be doubted, which has such absolute authority that it trumps all other authority. Everything, even the discoveries of science, must bejudged against what sacred scripture says, and if there is a contradiction, scripture wins. This sacred scripture might be the Bible, it might be the Q’uran, it might be the works of Karl Marx, it might be the ideology of the corporatist neo-consor it might be “words” of the “apostles” of the “New Apostolic Reformation“.
There are ‘Doctors of Theology’, theocratic absolutists, “apostles“, “prophets“, “think tank experts” who interpret the ‘sacred writings, the ‘holy book‘ or the current up-to-date-cutting-edge market data needed to make decisions in the fast paced volatile market of ever changing “real world conditions” and make pronouncements on what it all means – predictions. It might be Saint Augustine, it might be the ayatollahs, it might be Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – “Lenin” or it might be Milton Freidman.
There is a priesthood with special powers and privileges, there is close control of the news media through manipulativepress releases, frenetic condemnation of ideas not fitting neatly within the parameters of the accepted dogma and newinitiates are “sold on the product” fanatics.
The organization not described above but fits the requirements perfectly of theocratic absolutism is the US Army. Some may argue with the term theocracy when applied to the military and I will not spend time making the case in support of the military theocracy, but it is an apt metaphor for the phenomenal rigidity and incestuous hierarchy of the US ARMY. Indeed the sacred absolute writings are the arcane regulations that are the “word,” inerrant, etc. However such absolute authority can be discarded at will according to political expediency: case in point, the ludicrous manipulations of the embarrassing “don’t ask, don’t tell” regulation. What ever the state of the regulation(s), the obstinate hypocrisy is stunning, regardless of one’s political persuasion.
The priesthood with special powers is, of course, the command structure: which build in power and control as one climbs the ladder of officer promotions until the halls of omnipotence are attained in the General Officer corps. Those who aspire to such levels of absolute power are overtly omnivorous; eating everything in sight to fulfill their narrow vision of power, even when it is harmful to soldiers on the ground. In the next submission I will return to the case of the soldier who was denied recommended medical intervention by his command resulting in absolute disaster. A perfect example of the theocratic absolutism of the US Army.