by VorJack
Both Daniel and I have had our fun with Pat Robertson, particularly over the horrendous things he said about Haiti. Robertson’s religious cluelessness can make him almost seem comical – at least if his cluelessness wasn’t so ugly. But Mark Hulsether over at Religion Dispatches wants to remind us that there are some more solid reasons why Robertson is a worrisome figure on the right. Here are his top five:
5) Robertson plays his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
During the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, Robertson helped fund “cities of refuge” in Guatemala (what were called “strategic hamlets” in Vietnam), and camps for Nicaraguan Contras. Though trivial in scale compared to the policies of Bush and Cheney, allies of Reagan, funded illegally through the Iran-Contra connection and related schemes, were carrying out sadistic massacres in parts of countries they considered to be too leftist.[...]
4) Robertson fuses with News Corp.
[...]
This story has two morals: The first is that Fox News and Robertson’s “news” deserve about the same degree of respect from journalists. Second, critics have raised questions about the legality of financial transactions related to Robertson’s business empire.[...]
3) Robertson becomes a leading presidential candidate.
In the 1988 presidential primaries, Robertson was the early Republican front-runner—a classic case dramatizing his centrality to the NCR and the NCR’s centrality to the Republican Party.[...]
2) Robertson publishes an anti-Semitic screed and neo-conservative allies yawn.
Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, recycled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and stated that George Bush Sr. was part of a conspiracy to institute “an occult-inspired world socialist dictatorship” (through his work with the United Nations in the first Gulf War). This caused few of Robertson’s neoconservative allies to break with him in any decisive way—although one former neocon, Michael Lind, denounced him in a major exposé in the New York Review of Books.
Hulsethe’s top pick is actually something that Robertson shares with many far right religious figures. Robertson seems to believe that political authority is only really legitimate when it accords with God’s will – or rather, Robertson’s interpretation of God’s will. Robertson sometimes seems to encourage and celebrate rebellion against the US government. Hulsethe describes one example, “In Robertson’s End of the Age (a book that restates his argument from The New World Order in the form of a novel), a heroic Christian general lies to the president and secedes from the United States with several nuclear bases.”
As Frank Shaeffer said, speaking about his father Francis’ book A Christian Manifesto, “… my father was practically calling for the overthrow of the United State government. If his words had come out of the mouth of anyone other than a white American it would have been called sedition. Instead, we were invited to the White House and I went swimming in Michael Ford’s pool.”
As a follow up to Pat’s comments….
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/voodooists-attacked-at-ceremony-323627.html
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Angry crowds in a seaside slum attacked a group of Voodoo practitioners Tuesday, pelting them with rocks and halting a ceremony meant to honor victims of last month’s deadly earthquake.
Voodooists gathered in Cite Soleil where thousands of quake survivors live in tents and depend on food aid. Praying and singing, the group was trying to conjure spirits to guide lost souls when a crowd of Evangelicals started shouting. Some threw rocks while others urinated on Voodoo symbols. When police left, the crowd destroyed the altars and Voodoo offerings of food and rum.
“We were here preparing for prayer when these others came and took over,” said Sante Joseph, an Evangelical worshipper in Cite Soleil, near the capital’s port, who joined the angry crowd in a concrete outdoor civic center.
…Religious tension has also increased: Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Mormons and other missionaries have flocked to Haiti in droves since the earthquake to feed the homeless, treat the injured and jockey for souls. Some Voodoo practitioners have said they’ve converted to Christianity for fear they will lose out on aid or a belief that the earthquake was a warning from God.
“Much of this has to do with the aid coming in,” said Max Beauvoir, a Voodoo priest and head of a Voodoo association. “Many missionaries oppose Voodoo. I hope this does not start a war of religions because many of our practitioners are being harassed now unlike any other time that I remember.”
…”There’s absolutely a heightened spiritual conflict between Christianity and Voodoo since the quake,” said Pastor Frank Amedia of the Miami-based Touch Heaven Ministries who has been distributing food in Haiti and proselytizing.
“We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I’m not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn’t want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”….
“We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I’m not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn’t want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”….
So they’d refuse to give food to somebody who may literally be starving to death, because they don’t believe in the same sky daddy?
Unfuckingbelievable
Let me be clear that we have not and do not judge the need of someone we can help by the measure of their faith. Not once have we qualified a single person prior to giving them what we had, nor is this a program standard for our assistance during the crisis mode of this mission.
Just another reason I love being an atheist.
Frank Schaeffer in his recent ´Point of Inquiry´ podcast interview said that the neocons (and I´m paraphrasing) , who were often not particularly religious, were happy to co-opt the evangelicals as useful idiots. He says that they subsequently have gone on to take control of the Republican party. All this reminds me of what Christopher Hitchens believes to be the greatest danger to civilisation ; ” what might happen when or if an apocalyptic weapon came into the hands of a messianic group or irrational regime”. Only he is usally referring to Iran or some such Islamic regime.
Not that I want to be alarmist or anything, but I believe that the U.S. does have a few said apocalyptic weapons lying around the place. Not to to mention the most powerful army the world has ever seen.
American christianity=christian right+christian left
Pat Robertson is just one leech of the said country. Worrisome also when this country, seemly good, chooses war, esp unreasonable wars by religions.
“The sins of the father.” (Beowulf)
“Robertson seems to believe that political authority is only really legitimate when it accords with God’s will – or rather, Robertson’s interpretation of God’s will.”
I really wish someone would come up with a good term to call then God in the Mirror effect.
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/12/07/the-god-in-the-mirror/
The God Delusion?
SPAG?
I certainly don’t want to let Robertson off the hook in any way, but as a Cold War era 97B, I feel I should mention that Central American armies have never needed any outside funding or influence to kill their own people. The reason for some of the atrocities is pretty murky, and discrimination against Native American groups is endemic. In one village, people were slaughtered because they resisted being resettled to make way for a dam. Probably more villagers were killed singly, or in small groups, than in all the large-scale massacres combined. That said, the American right-wing never protested these killings in any meaningful way.