Ripples from 9/11 or is Nazism on the rise?

Normally I have a mild aversion to Country music, mostly because it seems to forward an anti-education, fairytale view of the world which encourages and celebrates ignorance and the wish to be ignorant. Beyond this it seems that a good deal of the Country songs I've heard, play on emotions such as greed, fear, and pride with a "do it and let the consequences be damned" sort of attitude. This approach seems to be especially appealing to those of a more conservative bent for some reason. I think it is because these songs support the theory that people in the US deserve to consume more resources, than people in the not-so-promised lands. Most popular Country music is merely a reincarnation of Manifest Destiny distilled into "music". My dealings with Country music are fairly limited however, so I am sure that there is a fair amount which does not fall into this category. Some sort-of-country music I even like; The Cowboy Junkies for instance are a bit country-ish, but a bit less gung-ho about running off from home at 17 to get married to the hot-headed abusive guy with an old ford pickup truck, tight jeans, cowboy hat, and no future.

The other day I was surprised, and sad to hear something quite a bit worse however. A little research lead to the title, Holy War by Brooks and Dunn. Let me quote the lyrics:

Some say a holy war is comin'
Gonna be the end of mortal man
There's a TV preacher sayin'
Armageddon is at hand
Sayin' the Jews, the Gays, the Junkies
The Politicians and Infidels
Have conjured up the devil
Upon the gates of hell


I turn on the TV
Lord I can't believe my eyes
Oh Terror walks the streets
While a million mothers cry
Christians pray to Jesus
Lord help us if you can
Send Gabriel and his legions
To defend his promised land


All it's prophets lead
While the blind sheep they follow
The path to damnation with no future no tomorrow
Justice she may be blind
Tall and proud she marches on
Judgment day is coming
God himself wrote that in stone


They say a holy war is comin'
Gonna be the end of mortal man
There's a TV preacher sayin'
Armageddon is at hand
They said fire rained down from Heaven
On the towers of Babylon
Oh the innocent the sinners
They all died as one


Now victory will be mine
All feeble and good say
But in the end and in its own way
Righteousness will have it's way


Being from Idaho, I've seen a few skin-heads and the like from time to time (they thought they were really snazzy spray painting swastikas on the high school, or shouting racial slurs in college), so when I first heard this I thought 'good grief, being a hate mongering idiot has been popularized on a national scale'. I think this might have been hasty however. While the rest of album seems to be true-blue red-blooded defend freedom etc, this song seems laced with a heavy dose of cynicism. I can't help but think that the lines about prophets leading and blind sheep following are awfully Nietzsche like, and apply as easily to any right-wing Christian group as they do to Osama and friends. It seems to me that a Holy War is pretty much here, and our commander and chief prophet is leading a lot of blind sheep on a path to damnation. Apparently 833+ Americans (people from the USA, not the rest of the Americas) have been killed, and 4704+ wounded. This means that we have gotten about 1/3 as many people killed getting revenge for 9-11 as died in 9-11 (and a lot more wounded). Besides this, apparently somewhere between 9,000 and 11,000 Iraq civilians have died. I ask those who are mathematically inclided to tell me... Who is the terrorist here? Or are we still working under the assumption that 1 "American" = 8 brown-skinned foreigners. I had hopped that we got rid of that, but maybe it has lived on in conservative right wing Christian politics, and it's mouthpiece to the masses, Country music.