Three thoughts collide. First, why Nader is so right and yet so wrong. Second, Kevin Phillips's discussion of W.'s ascendancy as leader of the American Radical Right. Third, this report on the manipulation of science recently posted by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Nader's announcement to run on Meet the Press was filled with all the right stuff, to a point. And that point is where he misses. His framework is consumer democracy within the nation state. But the central issue today goes beyond the influence of corporations in Washington and goes to the supra-national influence of global corporations on all governments, democratic or not, and the cloaking of machiavellian agendas in the cloth of market forces.

The religious right believes that secular, pluralistic democracy is an anathema, blaspheming the Word and hampering our ability in the apocalyptic war between Good and Evil. Born-again W. lards his speeches with biblical reference to a higher law and the coming Armageddon, heralded by the destruction of Babylon. His higher calling sweeps aside the inconveniences of laws of man and of national boundaries.

Science strives to describe what is, not what ought to be or will be or should have been. The UCS report illuminates a two-pronged attack by the current Administration. From one side come the machiavellian cynics, inconvenienced that facts might restrain their greed and usurping of power. From the other come the true believers offended that their Book is challenged by secular lies. As long as the machiavellians can forge their tools of aggression unimpeded, this unholy alliance will flourish.

And that's what Nader's message misses. The battlefield has changed. It has moved beyond materialist concerns of consumer rights against the corporate oligarchs. It is becoming again a war of ideas, where imposition of belief and the will of the faithful clashes with freedom of thought and the will of the people.

The curiosity is that the fundamentalists thrash so vehemently against each other. If the radical Jews and Christians conclude that Mohammed embraced their Book and thereby Saved his followers; if they all agree that they are preparing for the same event, be it the first coming of the Messiah, the return of Christ, or the coming of the Mahid; if they see that their visions are being besmirched by the same forces, then the global struggle between belief and reason will be truly joined.