on the relationship between religious Fundamentalism and capitalism, a summary of connections vital to understanding the relationship between the corporate oligarchy, the Republicans (who in many cases are the oligarchs and in every case represent them), and Christianity -- especially (today and in America) the Fundamentalist Protestant brand of Christianity that has become Dominionist: the people I call "JesuNazi stormtroopers" and "Ku Klux Khristians" for their intent to impose theocracy on the United States.
First -- historically speaking -- it is necessary to recognize that modern capitalism is a specifically Christian economic ideology, the byproduct of historical forces arising directly from the resumption of Roman Empire-level trade during the Renaissance, a thousand years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the subsequent descent into barbarism economically sundered Europe from the rest of the world. The profit motive is probably as old as humankind, but not until the advent of Christianity did it find true religious support, particularly in the Genesis mandate to conquer, subdue and exploit the world and everyone in it -- interpreted of course in terms of the New Testament mandate to convert the world to Christianity. (For which see especially Max Weber and Marx himself: useful Googles include "christian oppression" and "origins of capitalism".)
Next it is necessary to visit the American South, where even now Fundamentalist Christianity is the ideological whip by which the workers are flogged into ever greater submission to "god's select": the bosses and the plutocrats who own the land, factories and businesses. Here we see that Marx's analysis of religion as the "opiate" of the masses is merely the uppermost layer of a deep and terrible miasma of oppression: the enthusiasms and hysterias of Fundamentalism provide emotional relief to the oppressed, just as the frightening hell-fire exhortations of the preachers serve the ruling-class objectives of ensuring the workers are constantly in terror (whether of postmorten hell or premortem punishment) and -- above all -- are denied any possibility of raised consciousness and thus prevented from any sort of productive collective action -- especially unionization. Indeed the only "collective" action allowed is that of the church: in the case of males, "the Saturday Night Men's Bible Study Class" aka the Ku Klux Klan (which is also the death squad that enforces corporate will).
The Fundamentalist preachers in the South -- and many of the mainstream Christian ministers and priests too -- are thus like fascist political officers: denouncing anything and everything even remotely progressive as "of the devil": thereby maintaining the iron-handed tyranny of the oligarchs.
Only one part of the South ever truly broke out of these dread shackles: Appalachia. There -- largely because not even Fundamentalism was strong enough to dilute the Scots/Irish history of the "rising" -- the organizers of the mine workers' unions (later John L. Lewis and the UMW) literally silenced the preachers at gunpoint, occasionally (very rarely) even converting them to the union cause. (Starter Googles: "harlan county strikes", "coal creek war", "matewan".)
It is something of an aside, but the film
Matewan is largely true, especially in its portrait of the role of Fundamentalism: "The older preacher, played by Sayles himself, represents the entrenched way of thinking. He spews the company line, equating the devil with socialism and communism, and thereby, the union." (I disagree vehemently with the author's analysis that capitalism is less exploitive than feudalism, and the film's suggestion there has somehow magically arisen in the white South a "newer" pro-union Fundamentalism is complete falsehood -- Hollywood propaganda -- but that is beside the point; the writer's characterizations of the film and its characters are accurate.) For the essay from which this quote is taken -- an economics paper -- go to:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/filmcourse_files/matewanb.htm Back to the main topic, thus too the probable "real" reason for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: the fact that in his final speeches he dared link racial oppression and economic oppression. (Not surprisingly, blacks today are by far the most unionized ethnic group in the South -- elsewhere else in the U.S. too: no doubt yet another reason for bourgeois white animosity.)
As to the motives of the Bush family, it is precisely the world of Matewan to which the forces of global capitalism now seek to reduce us all: outsourcing, downsizing, pension-looting, forcible reduction of wages, methodical destruction of the social safety net, skyrocketing prices -- every one of these (seemingly separate) trends and events is part of a greater scheme of oppression: the means by which the plutocrats increase their wealth, consolidate their power and ensure we will never again share either, whether by the peaceful, Constitutional means of the New Deal, the equally peaceful methods of democratic socialism, or the violent, last-resort methods of the Russian, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions.
Bottom line, Abrahamic Fundamentalism (whether Judaic, Christian or Islamic) mandates absolute obedience to leaders, "god's select," and theocracy gives the Fundamentalist leadership absolute control. Thus the Bush Administration's support of Fundamentalism in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, the escape of bin Laden, the imposition of theocracy on Iran and its re-imposition on Afghanistan) and Dominionism in America. (Google "christian dominionism" and scroll thoroughly, especially the Yurica Report entries.) Thus too the Bush Administration (whether nationally or in Florida) as the ultimate expression of global capitalist intent: reducing the entire planetary workforce to the desperate, terrified, savagely exploited wage-slavery status of Third World workers -- with Fundamentalism to ensure everyone's absolute obedience to the Big Boss (whether he is called foreman, manager or god).
And now finally your question about the Bushes: I believe that (like other boardroom-level capitalists), none of the Bushes believe in anything beyond money. Jeb is merely the more convincing actor -- a bit better than George at the public pretense required of a "good Christian man," especially in the South -- but no less an absolute enemy of liberty than any other plutocrat: his capitalist values (which for the maintenance of profits demand ever-increasing exploitation of humans) allow him no other option.
(I hope this helps; I probably need not say it is offered with genuine respect for your question.)
Edit: more precision in first paragraph, bad spacing in the last.
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