Sunday, November 01, 2009
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Liza Field
Field is a teacher and conservationist in Wytheville.
"With false words they shall make merchandise of you." -- 2 Peter 2:3
A colleague recently asked me if, as "a Christian conservative," I thought Bob McDonnell's connection to Ralph Reed constituted a "conflict of interest."
"Well, I'm conservative and Christian," I said. "But probably not Reed's version of Christian conservative. I want us to protect God's creation. So now I'm an Earth-worshiping left-wing wacko."
"Oh come on," protested the Republican colleague, who knew my values, if not the current label for them.
"I'm all for Jesus and the free market," I admitted. "But maybe not everything should be market commodities. Like Jesus. And public office. And life. And what sustains it. Sell out these, and it's a conflict."
The colleague thought Reed's Jesus-sales ended with Jack Abramoff's indictment. Three years ago, we'd discussed Abramoff and Reed receiving several million in gambling dollars to protect tribal casino interests. Reed had used his unwitting agents, like James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" listeners (of which I'm one), to lobby for -- then against -- anti-gambling legislation.
There was also the e-Lottery deal -- its payments sent to Reed via the "Faith and Family Alliance" his colleague Tim Phillips created for these business activities.
"But his environmental sabotage creates the biggest conflict for me," I said. "Reed is the main reason Christian broadcasters like Chuck Colson preach against climate action and promote drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
When did "drill baby drill" become the call of Jesus?
After leaving the Christian Coalition he'd created for Pat Robertson, Reed opened a private, for-profit consulting firm, taking his powerful Christian contact list with him.
Robertson, Dobson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Rick Scarborough, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Richard Land and others: Reed had cultivated them as a reliable network to mobilize for public campaigns.
So why not for private campaigns? To neoconservatives, after all, free-market interests are government interests -- if government should exist at all.
Since Reed had gotten Christians working politically, why not also for big oil, coal, energy, timber, gaming, gambling, entertainment and communications clients? No one, including nonprofit Christian broadcasters, need question why certain corporate interests were now donating.
Meanwhile, the politics continue.
In the past decade, Reed's consulting firm, Century Strategies, has been promoting campaign clients like Bush 2000/2004, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Bob McDonnell, and numerous others, under the usual, vague "Faith and Values," "American Values," "Faith and Freedom" labels.
Reed aligns these political and corporate client interests (both usually urge off-shore oil drilling and oppose climate action), while sending Christian leaders minimal "information" alerts. "Environmentalists worship Earth Goddess!" "Obama-care will kill Granny!"
Thus wide, shallow, bizarre coalitions are forged of public/private/religious members who rarely know each other, or for whom they're actually lobbying.
Reed also coordinates messages with his friend Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform, National Rifle Association board member) and colleague Tim Phillips (the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity), plus media friends Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, whom many disgusted nonbelievers associate with "Christian values."
Figure in Reed's alliances with far-right legislators (and the last Bush administration), and you get a powerful array of interests.
Do they conflict? Since 2006, when news of these dealings cost Reed the Republican nomination for Georgia's lieutenant governor, journalists left and right have asked this, from The Wall Street Journal to various Christian magazines, from PBS's Bill Moyer to conservative strategist David Kuo (a former Reed staffer who now laments this merchandising of Christians).
To Norquist, Phillips and Reed, no conflict exists. They aren't elected officials or pastors. Their singular purpose is to coordinate strategy for the neoconservative and corporate interests that benefit each other.
What about their political clients? Well, neoconservative politicians see no difference between unrestrained free-market interests and good government. So why not form coalitions with corporations?
That leaves the third component of this bizarre trinity. Should Christians, whose "values" now have market implications, feel any conflict?
When "Focus on the Family Action" urged me to vote for God's candidate, Bob McDonnell, last week, they certainly saw no conflict between their promotions of McDonnell and Jesus, just as they see none between the interests of Big Oil and God.
Reinhold Niebuhr said, "politics in the name of God is of the devil." But when the political extreme that buys up Christians is itself for sale to corporate interests, we see the plainest conflict Jesus named -- one coalition serving two masters, God and money.
