Guardian's Monbiot calls America a religion--excellent essay

It was REALLY hard to exerpt only a few paragraphs--please do follow the link and read the whole article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4721910,00.html

America is a religion
US leaders now see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons
George Monbiot
Tuesday July 29, 2003
The Guardian

<<Since the attacks on New York, this notion of America the divine has been extended and refined. In December 2001, Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of that city, delivered his last mayoral speech in St Paul's Chapel, close to the site of the shattered twin towers. "All that matters," he claimed, "is that you embrace America and understand its ideals and what it's all about. Abraham Lincoln used to say that the test of your Americanism was ... how much you believed in America. Because we're like a religion really. A secular religion." The chapel in which he spoke had been consecrated not just by God, but by the fact that George Washington had once prayed there. It was, he said, now "sacred ground to people who feel what America is all about". The United States of America no longer needs to call upon God; it is God, and those who go abroad to spread the light do so in the name of a celestial domain. The flag has become as sacred as the Bible; the name of the nation as holy as the name of God. The presidency is turning into a priesthood.

So those who question George Bush's foreign policy are no longer merely critics; they are blasphemers, or "anti-Americans". Those foreign states which seek to change this policy are wasting their time: you can negotiate with politicians; you cannot negotiate with priests. The US has a divine mission, as Bush suggested in January: "to defend ... the hopes of all mankind", and woe betide those who hope for something other than the American way of life.>>

Then I will surely be branded a heretic and apostate.

and you know what they used to do to that sort of person...

This idea has been around for awhile.

these days (and yet not much discussed in the public square). I'm not sure where the discussion should start--separation of church and state is now being fought out on the Senate floor but, important as it is to clarify that, it is not the whole problem.

It's also worth noting (without irony) that America is not the only country to believe itself exceptional, and considering how that belief is harming us. Most of the examples I can think of--of other countries thinking themselves "chosen" or special--have NOT ended well.

And, personally, I find "missionary zeal" offensive enough when it appears on my doorstep with leaflets. As an element of a country's foreign policy it is frightening.

Excellent piece. Good reason why we need a lame duck president.

I'm tired of living in the Shi'ite Baptist Fundamentalist States of America.