Haggard, Bush, and the Unholy Alliance

It is very interesting to me what the corporate media is not discussing about Reverend Ted Haggard and the Bush Administration. Rev. Haggard has been accused to seeing a male prostitute over a period of three years, and of purchasing and using meth-amphetamines. He has admitted to the meth purchases. What is not being discussed is who Haggard really is, or his most favored status at the White House.

Back in May 2005, Jeff Sharlet wrote an investigative report for Harper's Magazine titled "Soldiers of Christ: Inside America's most powerful megachurch with Pastor Ted Haggard," which Harper's re-released on November 2, 2006. Haggard is the leader of one of the nation's largest "mega-churches," and has been trying to take over Colorado Springs as a "city of faith." That euphemism actually means to displace the population of Colorado Springs with his own followers, and then control it. Haggard is a large and loud voice in Colorado politics, and through his "ministry" a top general in Bush's evangelical political machine.

Haggard's links to Bush are bright and strong. As stated by Sharlet:

Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation's most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life's "free market" approach to the divine.

"New Life" hardly fits within most people's conceptualization of a "church." It is organized more like Homeland Security's definition of terrorist organizations. Sharlet characterized the physical complex and the organization thusly:

"Church" is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life's various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex's western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life's founder.

Something else important resides near Colorado Springs - the U.S. Air Force Academy - which has had more than its quota of issues about enforcing "Christianity" on its students (CNN, CBS, NPR).

I wrote Merging "Rights" In A Time of Fear> back in May of 2005. It was a rather far-ranging piece trying to pull the threads of Bush's "vision" into one cloth. I stated in part:

The merger we are experiencing is an overlapping set of neoconservative political ideologues, fundamentalist Christianity, and corporate hegemony. The power and influence moves on a mobius strip - virtually seamless, and seemingly unstoppable. National influence tied to corporate interests where international policy benefits big money, governments decimate the economies of other nations to "open doors" for "development," and Christian religious organizations prepare the ground for the genocide of indigenous peoples.

There has been a truly Unholy Alliance within the Bush Cabal. It is an alliance and a plot that reaches across the lines of politics to monied wealth, to corporations and into the heart of evangelical Christianity. It reminds me too closely of Hitler's Germany and the attempt to find a divine and sacred legitimation by Hitler. Bill Moyers offered a detailed analysis of the Abramoff debacle in his documentary "Capitol Crimes." He uncovered the web of deceit and profit linking the White House, the K-Street power play, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed and others. Now we have Haggard who was not an insignificant player in the White House or the evangelical movement.

As far as I know Haggard was not part of the "capital crimes" crew, but he served other roles for the "greater good." Certainly he carried water for the administration agenda - on the environment and homosexuality. You can bet he delivered the votes. However, he was also carefully positioned to infiltrate the military via the Air Force Academy where he had special rights and top level backing. "Onward Christian Soldiers" indeed.

It is fascinating and telling that this connection between Haggard and Bush is being kept quiet. As is the whole "temple" plan for Colorado Springs. It is just one more unraveling strand. One has to wonder at what point the people actually see that in the unraveling that "the emperor has no clothes."

Posted by rowan at November 4, 2006 9:46 AM | [eMail this article!] |