Pat Robertson suggests God smote Sharon

[chefmike]

A history lesson in Pat Robertson's hypocrisy and his support of terrorism

Pat Robertson can't seem to shut up. He calls for assassinating Hugo Chavez, spews off about God punishing Dover, PA, for voting down "ingelligent design", and back in the days following 9/11 voiced his agreement with Jerry Falwell that 9/11 was retribution from God for gays, pagans, abortion rights, the ACLU, Tinky Winky, and the rest of us immoral heathens.

Interesting, just where Robertson's morality and monetary support go. Try Liberia.


Which is the subject of today's column, and the basis for this humble question: What, pray tell, does the Good Lord make of Pat Robertson's gold-mining venture in Liberia with Charles Taylor, international pariah and one of the most ruthless, greedy and terror-producing heads of state in all of sub-Saharan Africa?

What? He didn't know?

Well it probably slipped Robertson's mind, busy as he is in getting people to send in those checks, money orders and love offerings to support his cause. How the reverend found time to hook up with Taylor, I'll never know.

But in May 1999, Robertson, through Freedom Gold Limited, an offshore company registered in the Cayman Islands but based at CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, signed an agreement with Taylor and key cabinet members allowing the for-profit Freedom Gold to explore and receive mining rights in southeastern Liberia, where gold is believed to be in the ground.
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The U.S.-educated but Libya- trained Taylor is a menace to all that's decent. Ironically, it was Christmas Eve 1989 -- (get that Mr. Robertson) -- when warlord Taylor and his band of rebels launched their bloody invasion of Liberia. They took on a despot in then-president and former sergeant Samuel Doe. But Taylor's crowd turned out to be no better. Twelve years later, with tens of thousands of Liberians slain, hundreds of thousands displaced throughout West Africa, a generation of young Liberian boys ruined by their conversion to child soldiers, women raped and mutilated, his country is in absolute ruins and is ostracized by the world community -- except for hustlers, mercenaries and the preacher/entrepreneur from Virginia Beach. Taylor presides over a near corpse.

Finding himself in the tightest of spots, Taylor the Intimidator weighed in this week on America's side in the fight against terrorism. But his real hope lies with deep-pocketed foreigners and their unquenchable thirst for a buck.

What a marriage. Can't you see it now? Robertson, fresh from his latest condemnation of sin, prediction of world collapse and visions of Liberian gold, sports his best "aw, shucks" smile, throws his arm around a grateful President Taylor -- who ought to be standing before a war crimes tribunal -- and coos: "C'mon, Charlie, what's a little human rights between friends?"


Liberia, under Taylor, drew UN and U.S. sanctions for support of terrorists.


The United Nations finally got its back up. Fed up with Taylor's complicity in helping rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone market diamonds to finance terror against their government, the U.N. Security Council slapped sanctions on Liberia: no international sale of diamonds; an embargo on foreign travel by senior Taylor officials. The United States has imposed economic sanctions, too.


What a peach, 'ol Taylor. Consider:


In late 1989, a civil war began, and in September 1990 Doe was ousted and killed by the forces of faction leader Yormie Johnson and members of the Gio tribe. As a condition for the end of the conflict, interim president Amos Sawyer resigned in 1994, handing power to the Council of State. Prominent warlord, Charles Taylor, was elected as President in 1997. Taylor's brutal regime targeted several leading opposition and political activists. In 1998, the government sought to assassinate child rights activist Kimmie Weeks for a report he had published on its involvement in the training of child soldiers. Taylor's autocratic and dysfunctional government led to a new rebellion in 1999. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the civil wars. The conflict intensified in mid-2003, when the fighting moved closer to Monrovia. As the power of the government shrank and with increasing international and American pressure for him to resign, President Charles Taylor accepted an asylum offer by Nigeria, but vowed: "God willing, I will be back."


Mabye we should prosecute Robertson for supporting terrorism and terrorist-supporting regimes.

[yourdaddy]

I won't bore you with the whitewater scandal.

[Felicia Katt]

ignoring the complete and total lack of relevance to the topic at hand...

Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and tried by the Senate in January 1999. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on both counts.
In late 1998, when Starr presented his case for impeachment of the president for his attempts to conceal the Lewinsky affair, he indicated that his office had no impeachable evidence in the Whitewater matters. Starr resigned in Oct., 1999, and was succeeded by Robert W. Ray, the senior litigation counsel in Starr's office. In Sept., 2000, Ray ended the Whitewater inquiry,releasing a report in September of 2000 that stated "This office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct." .

answer.com

Yourdaddy, you have the indignation down, but you need to work on the righteous part.

FK

[yourdaddy]

Felicia, it's the Book of Joel, not that dumb thing you put up.

[Felicia Katt]

I just read the Book of Joel, which is only three Chapters, and nowhere in it does it say "this land is mine" and there is nothing in it about not trading land for peace.

The verse I quoted has the actual terms Robertson used. So I don't think its dumb at all. But using the same Bible that says slavery is ok to claim that someone's stroke is Divine retribution doesn't seem too smart to me.

FK

[General124]

You mean the Christian Right got it wrong again?

/shakesheadinpity

[The American Nightmare]

Let's just clear this up:

Yourdaddy, do you agree with Pat, that Sharon's stroke was punishment from God?

[chefmike]

Onward Christian Soldiers!

Last week "An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, according to ChannelOklahoma.com.

Lonnie Latham was apparently arrested in an area of Oklahoma City "where the public has complained about male prostitutes flagging down cars" after he invited a plainclothes police officer to come back to his hotel room for oral sex.

In his defense, Latham said, "I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police." Well, sure. If by "pastoring to police" he meant "seeking hot man-on-man blowjob action."

And wouldn't you know it, Latham has previously "spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist Convention directive urging its 42,000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual 'if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle.'"

Looks like he'll have to work a bit harder at that whole "convincing yourself you're heterosexual" thing. See you next week!

www.democraticunderground.com

[chefmike]

Pat Robertson Sings The Blues

by Jonathan David Morris



I know a lot of dumb people who’ve said a lot of dumb things. In fact, I am one of those people. I’ve said that only-children tend to be spoiled in front of people who didn’t have brothers and sisters. I’ve made fun of people without college educations in front of people who it turned out never went to college. I regularly make a complete and total ass out of myself. I should probably find a way to get paid for it at this point; I do it so often, it’s like a part-time job. But for all the dumb things I’ve said in my lifetime, and for all the times I’ve been told by dear friends that they “can’t take [me] anywhere,” if nothing else, I can take solace in one thing: I’m not Pat Robertson. And as much as I’ll undoubtedly try, I will probably never say as many dumb things as he does.

Last week, when Israeli PM Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke and underwent hours upon hours of brain surgery, Pat Robertson used the occasion on his show, The 700 Club, to note that Sharon was probably being punished by God for giving land to Palestinians. Now, forget about where you stand on Middle East issues for a minute. That stuff is secondary here. Right off the bat, regardless of where you stand, what makes Robertson so sure Sharon’s stroke is punishment for anything? I mean, how old is this Sharon guy? Isn’t he pushing 80 already? People his age have strokes all the time. Dick Clark, for example. You mean to tell me Dick Clark’s stroke was punishment for something? Like what? Did he rock a little too hard at all those New Year’s Rockin’ Eves? I have several problems with Robertson’s analysis, but first and foremost among them is that he’d attempt to tie Sharon’s failing health to his personal views on foreign policy. Why does Sharon’s stroke have to be punishment? Why can’t it just be a stroke?

(I suppose if you want to get theological, the general decay of the human body is punishment for Adam and Eve eating those apples that one time. But: (1) that’s a low blow, because they were really yummy apples; and (2) I don’t get the feeling that’s what Robertson was getting at.)

My second major point of concern here is that Robertson’s comments seem to point to a disturbing overall trend. It seems like all anyone wants to do nowadays is blame God for everything that goes wrong. Take September 11th, for instance. A few days after it happened, Jerry Falwell suggested September 11th was brought on, at least in part, by America’s acceptance of feminists and gays. A similar such theory floated around this past summer, when, amongst other things (like global warming and George Bush), Hurricane Katrina was attributed to God being pissed off about New Orleans’ debauchery.

Now, I’m not saying these things aren’t possible. Nor am I saying God does not, or cannot, have a hand in the daily affairs of man. He’s God. He can do whatever He wants. That includes judging us for things He doesn’t like. But you know how professional athletes always thank God whenever they win a championship, but they never blame Him when they lose? Well, this is the same thing, except for exactly the opposite. I’m sure Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say plenty of rational, sensitive things from time to time. But the only time they ever say anything worth quoting is when they attribute horrific events to the very God they’ve devoted their lives to promoting. As noted Christian spokesmen, do they honestly think this is helping Him? Is this their idea of a membership drive—“Sign up and you get to revel in terrible tragedies”? Whatever happened to giving out free t-shirts? Or toasters? Hell, I would take a free pen.

I’m not a biblical scholar. I’m sure people who know more than me, or people who think they know more than me, are going to read this column and write to me with all kinds of quotes and bible verses verifying Falwell and Robertson’s remarks. That’s great. I look forward to it. Reader feedback is like a narcotic to me, so go ahead, bring it on—feed my addiction. All I know is, based on my personal reading of Christian scriptures, there was a reason why God went to the trouble of letting His own son—His own flesh and blood, for Christ’s sake—be killed. And that was because He wanted to shed His vengeful, punishment-minded Old Testament image. I mean, think about it. The story of Jesus is like the greatest PR makeover ever told. God isn’t the God of fire and brimstone anymore. Or at least He isn’t supposed to be. He’s the God of compassion now, the God who turns the other cheek. Didn’t these knuckleheads see The Passion? What does God have to do—walk on water just to get through to these people?

If I were God—which I’m not, but if I were—I would be pretty annoyed that Falwell and Robertson keep blaming me for everything. I would probably start unleashing all sorts of crazy stuff on the world just for spite. I’m talking never-before-seen catastrophes here. Things that would make what I did to Egypt with those ten plagues look like another fun episode of Romper Room. I would bring back Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show and give her a lifetime contract, and let her live till 402. I would turn black people into white people and white people into black people, just to shake things up. I would pee on whole cities and not wash my hands, so that whenever the Hand of God worked through your life, it would be the hand that I used to pee and didn’t wash afterwards. And I would turn cherries into little blood capsules, so that Coca Cola had to reprint its Cherry Coke labels and change the name to Coke Blood.

I might even give a whole bunch of WMDs to terrorists. Why not? I’m going to get blamed for everything anyway. I might as well have fun with it.

Look, I’m not trying to speak for God here. Pat Robertson does enough of that as it is. Nor am I saying I’m against finger pointing. I’m all for it. In fact, I’m a regular finger-pointerer. I just find it interesting how guys like Falwell and Robertson keep pointing their fingers at God.

If the last couple of years have taught me anything, it’s that people will scratch and claw at thin air whenever they’re nervous and need an explanation for something. Some would probably say this is why human beings believe in God to begin with. As someone who believes in God, I don’t agree with that. But I do think that’s why guys like Pat Robertson continue to get away with blaming God for everything that goes wrong. I also believe that’s why so many people still think Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, and why so many people still think Hurricane Katrina was a government conspiracy. If you say something over and over again, people will believe it. Even that last sentence. It’s a lie, but you probably think it’s true because you’ve heard before.

Last week, thirteen men became trapped in a West Virginia coal mine, and the relatives were told that they had been rescued, only to learn a few hours later that, in fact, twelve of the thirteen had died. This caused one crying woman to call out, “Our family is dead because they lied to us.” Obviously, this statement is absurd. Her false belief that the miners were rescued isn’t what killed them. An explosion and carbon monoxide did. But that woman was grieving. It’s totally understandable that, under the circumstances, she would say something that doesn’t make any sense. I just wonder how Pat Robertson would choose to console her. Those families spent half the night singing hymns and thanking God for a miracle. Was this gut-wrenching turn of events a punishment they somehow deserved?



The opinions expressed in this column represent those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or philosophy of TheRealityCheck.org.

[Felicia Katt]

Considering that they believe the mine disaster was caused by lightning, which is God's traditional modus operandi, and Sharon's stroke was caused by an overtaxed circulatory system and blood clots, which do not seem to be a weapon listed in God's Biblical rap sheet, I think Robertson misdirected his blame.

FK