Pat Robertson: God angrier at Chile than Haiti

[Dr.Phool]

It's not even March yet, and the Good Man O' God, Pat Robertson is lapping the field for asshole of the year honors.
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FEBRUARY 27, 2010 12:41PM
Robertson: “God Even Angrier with Chile than Haiti"



Citing what he described as the “the persecution of a great hero who rid their land of Godless communists” as a possible cause, prominent TV evangelist and amateur seismologist Pat Robertson today argued that the 8.8 magnitude of the earthquake that struck Chile early this morning should serve as a warning to the population that “God is even angrier with them than he is with the people of Haiti.”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it must have to do with Chile’s persecution and attempted prosecution of their great former leader, and a personal hero of mine, Augusto Pinochet – who, it should be noted, had never been convicted of a crime when the Lord called him home three years ago.” The popular host of ‘The 700 Club’ and longtime bingo circuit icon also added, “General Pinochet not only assisted the CIA in the overthrow of Chile’s Marxist government, but is widely credited with personally arranging the meetings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his countrymen with Jesus.”

General Pinochet, who spent the last eight years of his life fighting prosecution on human rights and other charges before succumbing to congestive heart failure in December 2006, could not be reached for comment, even by Robertson. The General–turned-Dictator has long been considered a transformative figure in the field of Crimes Against Humanity as a result of his landmark policy of ‘Forced Disappearance’, and was even honored in 1998 with the first-ever arrest warrant for a former head of state under the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’ by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is currently investigating former Bush Administration officials for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

For his part, Robertson, who reportedly lobbied then-President George W. Bush on behalf of former Liberian Dictator and accused Human Rights criminal Charles Taylor in exchange for lucrative gold mining contracts, says that he is “praying that the people of Chile will heed this warning, and never again blaspheme against God and international free-market commerce by nationalizing their most precious natural resources.”

http://open.salon.com/blog/the_desperate_blogger/2010/02/27/robertson_god_even_angrier_with_chile_than_haiti

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This moran is long overdue, for the guys in the white suits, with the big butterfly nets, to haul him off to a padded room.

[Enthusiast]

1. Hey Pat, it's a fucking earthquake. nt

[tsstranger]

31. Robertson

I wondered how long it would take this religio-crazy to crawl out of the Jesus gutter again.

[tigereye]

2. waits expectantly for God to hit Robertson with bolt of lightning

:patriot: :yoiks:

[Warpy]

7. The fact that he hasn't been reduced to a pair of smoking Guccis

long ere now is one of the things that has kept me staunchly atheist.

[tigereye]

28. ha ha! Good one.

[pundaint]

33. Amen! heh heh heh

[Turbineguy]

11. Cue in:

smoking piece of pork rind line.

God obviously does not want me to go to church.

[a la izquierda]

3. oh hell to the no!!

[LeftishBrit]

4. What a horrible, horrible, horrible man

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Are you sure this blogger didn;t just make this up?

Sounds like what Pat would say, but there aren't any news links to support this blog you posted.

[jkshaw]

14. I agree, Nelly. Among the tags on the link

are satire, snark, and political humor. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Robertson said something like that, but in this case, I suspect it's made up.

[monmouth]

6. He must say Hawaii was spared a tsunami because it was the

birthplace of our great President Obama. I mean, if he's going to be honest here that's the only logical explanation for Hawaii being spared, right? God knows what he's doing...LOL.

[NC_Nurse]

8. Wow, he's defending Pinochet? WTF? He definitely arranged a lot of people's

deaths, if THAT's what he means when he says "meetings with Jesus". He's crazy as hell, isn't he? Amazing.

[rockymountaindem]

9. My thoughts exactly n/t

[Enrique]

10. the parody is too subtle

there need to be some clues that it's a parody, otherwise it's not fair. People will think it's real and feel stupid.

[jkshaw]

16. I've learned to read the author's

tags at the link, on the lookout for satire, and they're there on this piece -- satire, snark, and political humor.

[Dr.Phool]

18. He fooled me at first.

The thing is, it just might be one of the saner things Robertson would say.

[Lautremont]

21. This is subtle?

“General Pinochet not only assisted the CIA in the overthrow of Chile’s Marxist government, but is widely credited with personally arranging the meetings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his countrymen with Jesus.”

Not even Pat would be that crazy. Everyone knows Allende was a Socialist, not a Marxist.

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

25. How about these:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/ThisThreadIsSatire/117

Note: This is not directed at any particular individual, but rather intended as a blanket response to the MANY who didn't pick up that this was satire -- particularly those on sights other than DU where there are even tags... -- as well as this one: http://jonathanturley.org/2010/02/28/pat-robertson-earthquake-was-probably-gods-punishment-for-chiles-mistreatment-of-augusto-pinochet/)

"...prominent TV evangelist and amateur seismologist Pat Robertson"

"The popular host of ‘The 700 Club’ and longtime bingo circuit icon also added..."

"...credited with personally arranging the meetings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his countrymen with Jesus.”

"General Pinochet, who (... died ...) in December 2006, could not be reached for comment, even by Robertson."

"... and was even honored in 1998 with the first-ever arrest warrant for a former head of state under the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’"

[jemelanson]

12. Pat how very christian of you. You showcase the worst of the

christian religion for the world to see. I am sure that your hateful, vengeful god has a very special place in Hell waiting for you. Hope you get to take your place there soon.

There are a great many people in this world who showcase the best of the christian religion. They through there acts and speech show what is supposed to be the loving, forgiving theology taught by jesus. The rest are still hung up on the vengeful god of the ot. They are the preachers and teachers of HATE. They hate there fellow men, they especially hate women. They hate anyone who does not subscribe to their own flavor of religion. Being of a different religion especially one considered pagan (any religion that is not Jewish, Muslim, or Christian - see the dictionary that is the definition of pagan) is reason enough to kill, kidnap their children, outlaw their native language, destroy their cultural history and identity. So again I say; How very Christian of you Pat Robinson you are a disgrace as a human being.

[jemelanson]

13. Delete double post

[Syrinx]

15. I know it's hard to tell sometimes, but that blog post is a joke

[LeftishBrit]

40. Trouble is that it's virtually impossible to satirize Robertson..

as there is practically nothing more ridiculous or disgusting than the things he really has said.

I am glad he didn't say this - but he said things as bad about Haiti.

[tularetom]

17. The Onion could not have done a better job

That's excellent satire.

[GodlessBiker]

22. +1. All the more frightening.

[a la izquierda]

19. Well, I was had.

I'm sensitive on anything about Latin America. Sadly, I wouldn't have been surprised had Robertson said something like this. Considering he was friends with Efrain Rios Montt, the butcher of Guatemala...well, let's just say that Pinochet could have been Robertson's hero.

[Berry Cool]

20. The reason so many people believe Robertson really said this is not just due to author ineptness

in that he failed to go quite "over the top" enough to make it clear that this was a parody.

They also believe it because Robertson has become a self-parody.

We're so used to not being able to believe the ridiculous things he says that if we were told he was blaming the Martians' godlessness for storms on Mars, we would believe it.

[Lautremont]

23. It went plenty over the top.

Robertson gets called an "amateur seismologist" in the very first sentence. That's pretty hard-to-miss satire.

[TankLV]

24. Guess he just must LOVE Hawaii then for giving us OBAMA!!!

There you have it folks - Robertson says that God APPROVES of and BLESSES Obama!!!

[mudplanet]

26. I always suspected god loves nazi torturers

[libodem]

27. That's ignorant

As Michael Jackson used to say! Where does Satan weigh in on suffering, death and destruction? Is there anyone left on preacher TV who believes that "God is love"?

[Faygo Kid]

29. OK, it's a "joke." But it's not a good one.

I'm sick and tired of Pat Robertson and his ilk, and this isn't a good joke at all.

[Skittles]

30. someone needs to shut that babbling fool up

he is digusting and clearly demented

[pundaint]

32. Yesterday's biggest earthquake in the US was in the Oklahoma bible-thumping region. God get's it.

[IndianaGreen]

34. Somebody shoot that rabid dog before he does more harm!

[rosesaylavee]

35. I could have sworn this was the Onion ... and was thinking

wow, it took me two paragraphs to figure it out this time. Damn it, no. It's for real. What a crazy world this is.

[democracy1st]

36. Wow I wonder whats his take on MLK!

[ccinamon]

37. Vocal "christians" like him are one of the reasons I don't believe in God...

if there really was an all-powerful, all-knowing "god", he would not allow people like this to spout this crap and give "god" a bad name.

And where are all the other "mouth-pieces" of god to counter act this vile cretin....all you hear from them: **crickets**

[Judi Lynn]

38. Pat Robertson loudly supported a mass-murdering monster in Guatemala.

September 17 / 18, 2005

Demeaner of the Faith
Rev. Pat Robertson and Gen. Rios Montt
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

While Pat Robertson's recent remarks on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club that the United States should "take out" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez certainly caught the media spotlight, the statement by the evangelical minister was only the latest episode in a long and troubled story. Since the 1970s Robertson has loyally served hawkish U.S. foreign policy objectives in Latin America and played a particularly pernicious role in the region. Christian organizations nation wide would do well to heed the history and to rigorously challenge Robertson on his record.

~snip~
......When Rios Montt took power in a military coup d'etat in March of 1982, Robertson immediately flew to Guatemala, meeting with the incoming president a scant five days after he came to power. Later, Robertson aired an interview with Rios Montt on "The 700 Club" and extolled the new military government.

Robertson's visit came at a particularly sensitive time. Guatemala's dirt poor indigenous peoples, who made up half the country's population, were suffering greatly at the hands of the U.S. funded military. The armed forces had taken over Indian lands that seemed fertile for cattle exporting or a promising site to drill for oil. Those Indians who dared to resist were massacred. Rios Montt, a staunch anti-Communist supported by U.S. president Reagan, was determined to wipe out the Marxist URNG, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union rebels. However, according to Amnesty International, thousands of people with no connection to the armed struggle were killed by the regime. Not surprisingly, many Indians turned to armed resistance. To deal with the ever worsening situation, Rios Montt proposed a so called "guns and beans" campaign. Rios Montt explained the plan very succinctly: "If you are with us, we'll feed you, if not, we'll kill you." For Robertson, however, Rios Montt's extermination policy was of little account. Astonishingly, the televangelist wrote "I found to be a man of humilityimpeccable personal integrity, and a deep faith in Jesus Christ."

One reason that Rios Montt may have appealed to Robertson was the dictator's dislike of Catholic priests. In the 1980s, they had become an obstacle to the expansion of evangelical Protestantism. Working within indigenous communities, Catholic priests had been driven out or murdered. Protestant sects, on the other hand, allied to the Guatemalan military. They preached individual conversion, the importance of obedience to military and political authority, the merits of capitalism, and the value of inequality. Rios Montt's own Church of the Word went so far as to define priests and nuns as the enemy. According to Walter LaFeber, a historian of Central America, three priests were killed within a thirty-six month period in just one province. With the Catholic Church out of the way, Rios Montt conducted a scorched earth policy. His forces massacred as many as 15,000 Indians. Whole villages were leveled and the army set up "Civilian Self-Defense Patrols" which forced 900,000 villagers to "voluntarily" aid police in tracking down suspects. Rios Montt created "model" villages, similar to concentration camps, which housed Indian refugees. However, when 40,000 survivors sought safety in Mexico, Guatemalan helicopters machine gunned the camps. Rios Montt justified the genocidal policy by claiming that the Indians were suspected of cooperating with the URNG, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union, or "might" cooperate in future. Amnesty International noted that extra judicial killings carried out the by the military "were done in terrible ways: people of all ages were not only shot to death, they were burned alive, hacked to death, disemboweled, drowned, beheaded. Small children were smashed against rocks or bayoneted to death."

Far from denouncing such practices, Robertson rushed to defend Rios Montt. "Little by little the miracle began to unfold," he wrote of the regime. "The country was stabilized. Democratic processes, never a reality in Guatemala, began to be put into place." Robertson also praised Rios Montt for eliminating death squads, despite recent estimates that tens of thousands were killed by death squads in the second half of 1982 and throughout 1983. Most damning of all, even as Rios Montt was carrying out the extermination of the Mayan population, Robertson held a fundraising telethon for the Guatemalan military. The televangelist urged donations for International Love Lift, Rios Montt's relief program linked to Gospel Outreach, the dictator's U.S. church. Meanwhile, Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network reportedly sponsored a campaign to provide money as well as agricultural and medical technicians to aid in the design of Rios Montt's first model villages. Rios Montt was ultimately overthrown in another military coup d'etat in August 1983.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff09172005.html

[Rebubula]

39. Unreced...

...for falling for the hook.


The story itself was pretty clever...but too subtle to be good satire.