I’ve said it here before. The only governing principle in American social life is the principle of free contract. IN such a society, bargaining power is everything. Everything that goes on around from commercials on tv, to the cacophony from politicians in Washington to the personal grooming habits we each choose every day has to do with bargaining power, or our desire to enhance our bargaining power.

Hypocracy is the phenomina that proves this rule.

Since Bush has been president, according to a Krugman column last summer or as much as a year ago, since Bush has been president the median family income has gone down 5%, but the income of the top .05% of America has gone up 500%.

The Republican’s are all about advanceing the interest of a very small, very narrow group of people at the very top. As Warren Buffet has said, if their is a class war, my class is winning.

The Republican elite is run by people who come from the corporate aristocracy, the highest perhaps being George Schultz. Bushie had to interview with him before being selected as designated Republican front runner. The Republican party is run by corporate aristocrats who run their political movement like a corporation, with slick marketing and salesmanship campaigns.

Thanks to Leo Strauss, some of these billionares have have determined that they can enhance their power by fostering rightwing fundementalist Religious movements. Their are different foundations funding different religious movements for moving existing religions to the right. One is the Project of Religion in Democracy – which has a mission to subvert Mainline Protestant Groups, taking them over from within, and shifting them to the right. The Project of Religion in Democracy has a billionares on its board, some who aren’t mainline protestants, including at least one catholic.

Well educated billionares are willing to hold their noses and make common cause with anti-science fundementalists if it brings them added bargaining power.

In St. Louis the catholic bishop resigned from the board of a charatible originization for a children’s hospital, run by Bob Costas, because Sheryl Crow was going to perform at a fund raising event. See that, the Conservative Bishop, who so much as suggested that voting for Kerry was equivalent to commiting a grave, soul endangering sin, shunned Cheryl Crow in a good and generous cause because she’s on the wrong side of the stem cell issue. To point out the hypocracy here, Jesus made it a habit to sit down and break bread with tax collectors and alledged sinners as a form of outreach. So really the Arch Bishop of St. Louis in choosing to shun Sherly Crow really chose Politics over pastoral outreach, love and care. That’s hypocracy. That proves that the right wing religious movement is all about power and not about anything else.

The nice thing about the religious movement is they don’t want money, just power, so the Republican’s are willing to give them the most minute of portions in order to make huge economic gains. And look, its all working – bush has looted the treasurey and overlooked New Orleans, all the while.

In truth the Republicans are undermining the religious movements that they say they support. As people wake up to the reality they begin to abandon the religious movements. Christ himself said, when you pray, go to your room and close the door and pray by yourself.

The Republicans invest in Religion like they invest in warhawks in the military, its all about gaining added bargaining power that won’t impinge on their economic looting. And they just need enough votes to get elected, no more no less. They’ll throw senior citizens, the military and religious movements all under the bus if it comes down to that.

The resistance to global warming is nothing more than an attempt to help the rich make a few more dollars by putting off the day they’ll have to give up funds to increase the energy efficiency and decrease the pollutants that their companies spew out. Its all for a few dollars more.

My own parents, who aren’t religious, and really have only been ‘upper working class’ have always sided with the republicans, and it is hurting them terribly now. I have to tell them, painfully, that, even if they believe all the republican rhetoric about morals and patriotism, voting for them is just a luxery that they no longer can afford to have (my father lost much of his pension to craven Merryl Lych stock broker beginning in 1997 – all they really own now is their home) beyond that their comfort resides in Medicare and Social Security – they don’t realize that the Republican party is trying its damdest to get rid of that.

Harry Truman said if you want to live like a republican you better vote for a democrat. How true. If you don’t have, at least, hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, then Bush isn’t really your representative. The republican elite draws the line at hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth, anyone else, is the enemy or a tool. So if you vote for them you are undermining you own political interests. My Parents are slowly, every so slowly coming to this realization.

I am waiting for the politicians who comes forward and point out that everything in politics is about bargaining power, and if you are not backing a democrat, then there’s a 95% chance that you are undermining you own bargaining power and your own well being. You are in short, handing your bargaining power over to the very people that love to poache from you what ever you got left.

Bargaining power is everything, and all that rhetoric is just a smokescrean for what’s really going on. Rush Limbaugh and the like, they aren’t buying, they are selling. And their customers are all suckers.