Today's Amy Goodman informative show on Pat Robertson: Link & Snips

[Democrats_win]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/24/1343225#transcript


Chris Hedges comments on Pat Robertson:

“I think that what makes this particularly dangerous is that it's not just a very radical rightwing agenda, but a kind of sanctification of violence, a belief that violence – and this is the language that they use -- can be used to defeat the forces of Satan. And believe me, people like Pat Robertson don't see boundaries. Satan's influence for people like Robertson or Falwell is as pervasive, in some ways more so, within American society, just as it is without, so that when I hear them call for the assassination of a head of state in Latin America, when I see him embrace people like Charles Taylor (Liberia's deposed dictator), those running the death squads in El Salvador, the Contras, Rios Montt, I think we have to understand that this ideology is one that is also going to come into play within our own country. And the notion that somehow it's going to be limited, this kind of call for violence is going to be limited to simply those who he perceives as a raid against that’s outside our own borders as naive. What we are talking about is a movement, a very, very increasingly powerful movement that endorses violence as a way to create what they term the Christian society or the Christian nation. And that endorsement of violence, while they’re certainly very clever and careful, is one that is not going to be limited to non-Americans.”

“You know, I have not memorized Pat Robertson quotes, but I went and collected a few. But let me just read one that goes back to 1981, where he said the Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people, but the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. This sets the tone for essentially a politically charged movement that seeks to dismantle our open society.”

“Well, I think it's important to understand the ideology that comes into play with these kinds of statements. Robertson, along with most of the radical Christian right, endorses violence as a kind of curative for the satanic movement, secular humanism, liberalism, Islam, whatever it is that they see outside the gate. So the final aesthetic of their movement, in many ways, is violence. This is what the whole “End Time” series is about. So if you go back and look at his statements, he repeatedly sees incredibly destructive and violent acts as the hand of God....

“He often makes predictions. He, of course, claims that God speaks to him for the new year, and he has in the past claimed to have, through God's power, harnessed the destructive might of hurricanes, such as Hurricane Gloria in 1985, where he claimed that through his relationship with God, he steered the hurricane away from his company's Virginia Beach headquarters....”

[wli]

1. very, very poignant n/t