I usually try to avoid calling people who's political views and ideologies differ from me "evil". As much as I despise how President Bush runs our nation, I don't think you will ever hear me call the man "evil". Misguided? Yes. Delusion? Most likely. However, I try don't know if he's a horrible person. Maybe he's just completely ignorant and really thinks he's doing what's best for America. Who am I to say if a person is evil or if they are a sociopath? While I may refuse to call President Bush, Dick Cheney, and even Rush Limbaugh awful human beings, I have no problem calling Pat Robertson evil. Pat Robertson is a wicked human being. It's sad that many people are ignorant to the evil things that Robertson has done. It's even sadder that many who do know of the evil things he's done believe that he is a "great man of God". It's disgusting that his endorsement of Rudy Giuliani is considered to be huge for Rudy. I do not want to make this post repetitive, since I've seen some posts here talking about how ironic it is that "Mr. 9/11" himself would accept support from a man who blamed 9/11 on gays, secularists, and abortionists. That is very ironic, but there is so much more to good ol' Pat then that. Let's just put the Rudy/Robertson 9/11 irony aside for just a couple of minutes...
I hope that America fully awakens to the evil things Pat's done; supporting tyrants (Charles Taylor), deceiving people by claiming to be a faith healer, claiming to leg press 2000 pounds to sell a protein shake, bashing gays, while laughing all the way to the bank. I just would like to dive into these things for a couple of minutes.
I think that the large majority of people here get the fact that Pat Robertson is a wicked human beings. So for your sake and mine I'm going to try and be very brief on each point. I figured I'd just state some facts about the things Pat's done and been apart of, and leave it at that. People really should hammer Rudy for accepting this man's support. Pat's support should be bad for Rudy, but it will be the opposite.
- In 1986 Pat attempted to cure AIDs patients, through the power of god. Surprisingly, Pat never told anyone the final fate of those that he attempted to cure.
- He claimed that during a visit to China, he spoke to a crowd in English and the crowd miraculously heard his sermon in whatever Chinese dialect they spoke. Shockingly, there has never been footage or audio available of this event.
- One of Pat's former associaties, Gerry Straub, described a failed "faith healing" attempt by Robertson in his book "Salvation For Sale". The event occurred at the close of a taping of the 700 Club.
He (Robertson) stopped when he reached a man sitting in a wheelchair. The elderly man looked as if he were moments away from death's door. Emaciated and jaundiced, his head and hands shook constantly. I felt sick just looking at him. Someone pushing his whelchair whispered to Pat about the man's condition and that he wanted to see the show in person before he died. The man hadn't walked in months.
Pat laid hands on him as everyone prayed for a healing... At Pat's urging the man man stood up. The people cheered as the man took a couple of shaky, small steps. While everyone applauded God, I feared the man might fall. The next day we showed the nation the miracle (on the 700 Club).
I simply wanted to know if the old man in the wheelchair was permanently healed by God or if he temporarily thought that he was healed. A few weeks later I had an assistant track down the man's family in order to see if the cure had lasted. He had died 10 days after his visit to (the 700 Club taping). We reported his "healing" but not his death.
Shraub also said that during his two and a half years with Pat, he never witnessed a real healing.
- Pat supported war criminal Charles Taylor. Taylor had also harbored members of Al Qaeda responsible for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania). He pulled a huge con job on his 700 Audience as well. They thought that they were giving him money to help victims of genocide, but instead the money went towards Pat's diamond operations.
He made an unholy alliance with the US televangelist Pat Robertson using the preacher's Operation Blessing planes - which were supposed to be sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda - to haul diamond-mining equipment. And when he was accused by the United Nations of being a gunrunner and a diamond smuggler he addressed a mass prayer meeting (having got himself designated a Baptist lay preacher) clothed from head to foot in white - and prostrated himself on the ground to pray for forgiveness, while simultaneously denying the charges.- The Independent
Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
After a lengthy investigation, Virginia's Office of Consumer Affairs determined that Robertson "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications." Yet when the office called for legal action against Robertson in 1999, Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, a Republican, intervened with his own report, agreeing that Robertson had made deceptive appeals but overruling the recommendation for his prosecution. Two years earlier, while Virginia's investigation was gathering steam, Robertson donated $35,000 to Earley's campaign--Earley's largest contribution. With Earley's report came a sense of vindication. "From the very beginning," Robertson claimed, "we were trying to provide help and assistance to those who were facing disease and death in the war-torn, chaotic nation of Zaire."
(Earley is now president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, an evangelical social-work organization founded by born-again, former Nixon dirty-trickster Charles Colson. PFM has accepted White House faith-based-initiative money and is currently engaged in hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana. Earley remains a close ally of Robertson.)
Absolved of his sins, Robertson dug his heels back in African soil. In 1999 he signed an $8 million agreement with Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor that guaranteed Robertson's Freedom Gold Ltd.--an offshore company registered to the same address as his Christian Broadcasting Network--mining rights in Liberia, and gave Taylor a 10 percent stake in the company. When the United States intervened in Liberia in 2003, forcing Taylor and the Al Qaeda operatives he was harboring to flee, Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country."- The Nation
- The Christian Coalition was sued by black employees who claimed that they were forced to Christian Coatlition headquarters through a back door, and eat in a segregated area.
"The matter has been resolved amicably," George Doumar, a Washington lawyer who represented the employees, said Friday. Doumar said he was precluded from making any further comment.
The settlement comes three weeks after founder Pat Robertson resigned from the grassroots religious lobby, saying he was getting out of politics to concentrate on his Virginia Beach-based broadcast ministry and Christian university.
The suit was filed in February by 10 black women who worked in the coalition's data-entry and remittance departments, opening mail, tabulating donations, and entering them into a computer database.
They alleged that they were subjected to "Jim Crow-style racial discrimination," including being told to use the back door because executive director Roberta Combs did not want "important people" seeing them in the reception area.
They also said they were forced to use a segregated break room, were excluded from the coalition Christmas party and events related to President Bush's inauguration, and were denied health-care coverage and overtime pay.
In July, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled that the employees had shown they were likely to prevail in the case and issued an injunction ordering the coalition not to retaliate against them.- Philadelphia Inquirer
That's all. There so much more that can I could post if I had the energy, but I guess I'd probably bore everyone anyone. I figured I'd just post a couple of things that people might not be aware of. It's sad that this monster has so much influence in American politics. I posted a couple specific instances of the crazy/evil things Pat's done, but if I wanted to really really get into it and had the time to do so, I probably could have given hundreds of various instances. Pat Robertson is a phony, evil religious businessman. Hopefully that is clear to everyone. I know that 99.9% of the people here know the truth about Pat Robertson; it's a shame that many Republicans are not aware of this.
Blumenthal, Max. "Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash." The Nation. 7 Sept. 2005. <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/blumenthal>.
"Christian Group Settles Discrimination Suit." The Philadelphia Inquirer 30 Dec. 2001.
Randi, James. The Faith Healers. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1987.
Straub, Gerard. Salvation for Sale. Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986.
Valley, Paul. "The Saturday Profile: Africa's Monster; Charles Taylor." The Independent 1 Apr. 2006.