WWJA?
***Warning: long semi-political rant with no real point ahead. ****
So wily old Pat Robertson put his foot in his mouth again. Personally, nothing makes me more pious than a religious leader going on TV to advocate the murder of a democratically elected head of state.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez may not be the poster boy for right-wing values, but he's been elected by a landslide in three separate elections, each of which has been certified by international observers. And I can assure Mr. Robertson that he is very much loved by his countrymen, even the wealthy ones who claim to hate him. Venezuela hasn't earned its nickname of "Chavezstan" for no reason. The people there might be poor, but the ones I met had a lot more political knowledge than most Americans, most of whom probably couldn't find Venezuela on a map.
Actually, Pat may have done us some good: now that we have all this international egg on our face, there's probably no chance in hell the CIA will "take out" Chavez. In the mid-1950s, the CIA "took out" Iran's president, who had been threatening to nationalize the country's oil industry. The Iranian people weren't too pleased, and they thanked us in 1979, when they exiled the Shah, invaded our embassy and took hundreds of ambassadors hostage.
Back in the 1980s, "The 700 Club" used to come on right after Saturday morning cartoons ended, and I always changed the channel. Maybe I missed the episode where God said it was OK to kill other people's presidents. When Ayatollah this-and-that or Sheikh Mohammed so-and-so goes on TV with the usual "Death to Bush" business, he's labeled a "terrorist." So can we call old Pat a terrorist now? Or are we still just calling him a senile old man?
By the way, WWJA stands for Who Would Jesus Assassinate. Anyone want a bracelet?
posted by Jamie @ 2:08 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
i think jesus should assassinate pat robertson for fouling his religion with his fake christianity. when i heard this on the radio, i turned to andrik and said, it's killing pretty unchristian? andrik noted that we don't judge pastors and preachers by their actions rather than their words. maybe we should. if we judged all christians by their actions, there would be a lot of bad christians practicing hate and apparently advocating murder.
What I don't understand about this is how he can claim that he never said that Chavez should be assassinated when he clearly did. From USA Today on 8/22, "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Later, he said that all he said is that we should "take him out" (which he did say as part of his speech) and that could mean any number of things, including kidnapping. My first question on this is, does that make it better? My second question is, based on his quote (on national TV) does he really think that people will believe that he didn't advocate assassination? I don't understand how you can come to that conclusion if you see the clips of the statements or read the transcripts.
Of course, this comes from the same man who said that feminism causes women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." That's wrong! Everyone knows that feminists are die-hard capitalists. That's why they buy "power suits".
The only regretable thing about this whole incident, from my point of view, is that Pat really is a leader for many Christians who believe what he says and think that he is helping them be better Christians. I think that's a shame. But, that's part of the reason why I don't really practice any organized religion. I have trouble looking to others who are just as flawed as I am to tell me how to be less flawed. That would be like me trying to tell someone that they have to avoid all chips and salsa at restaurants.
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