Weekly Links We Like to Link to: Haiti

Like everybody else, I am completely dumb-founded and just plain dumb (and quite numb) when it comes to news of such devastation literally rocking an already dumbfounding devastate land and people. There is no sense in this, and those that have tried to make sense of it (really? Global warming causes earthquakes, Danny Glover? Seriously, John Stossel? The Hatians are suffering because they don't have a Free Market society? And on top of it, you compare two earthquakes wherein one's epicenter was hundreds of miles from any populace? FU, John Stossel!) have been at best a distraction. Take (pleeeeeze?) Pat Robertson:

• A couple of wise Christian pastor/bloggers (Eugene Cho and David Swanson) have advocated saying nothing about this distraction.

• But then there's those like myself (I couldn't pass up an interview with Monsieur Robertson, now could I?) and Slactivist who have taken a more active stance.

From my Reading Sarah blog:

Pat Robertson: I'd like to tell them the other side, my side of the story that I just told the world. You see, I wasn't being racist or homophobic or zebraphobic...

Me: "Xenophobic."

PR: Or any of that other stuff. See, true story, I know these things because God himself told me about them.

Me: Audibly?

PR: Yes. Of course. He talks to me just as surely as you're talking to me right now.

Me: True story?

PR: True story. So, you see, when I make these damning alleged damns on people getting stricken by natural disasters, dying, losing their families and homes and jobs and entire towns -- when I say these things, I'm not being a hate-filled masochist like you think...

PR: Nor am I hating on the negroes and towl heads or all the Mexicans, or the homo-men-lovers and dykes...

Me: Ummm... You DO realize...?

PR: ...but rather, I am speaking for the mouth of god, who loves all people - even the Islamists. And even some of the baby-killers. But not all of them.

And Slacktivist's response:

I'm accustomed to Pat Robertson being an unholy fool, but his remarks following the Haitian earthquake were astonishing even for him. By attributing Haiti's suffering to a supposed "pact with the devil," he manages to break two commandments simultaneously -- both bearing false witness against his neighbor and taking the name of God in vain.

That sort of double word score is typical Robertson fare, until one appreciates how utterly and explicitly he takes sides here. By labeling the revolutionary enslaved people who founded the Haitian democracy as literally demonic, Robertson sides with slave owners and against democracy, liberty and human rights. He declares that he and his god are on the side of oppression and that liberation is the Devil's work.

• Somewhere in the middle stands author Don Miller with his response.

Back in the day, the comment Pat Robertson made today would have infuriated me...It was sadly irresponsible for him to make such a devastatingly shocking statement in the context of great hurt. Can you imagine giving the eulogy at a funeral and starting out by saying “before I tell you about God’s grace, let me make it clear that little Johnny deserved to die because he stole candy from a store.” There is something wrong with a person who would do this. These people are often, themselves, controlling. They are wired to build empires, and in order to build empires you have to get people to do what you say, and if you have God standing behind you threatening hurt and pain, you can motivate people.

• And then there's Voodoo Doll Pat Robertson.

But judge for yourself...

More importantly, here's some news from BBC:

Looting and disorder break out in Port-au-Prince (well, duh? Seems remniscent of NO, though. Whites "scavenging for necessities", yet blacks "looting"?)

And now that the UN presence has brought stability to the hospitals, doctors are emerging to care for the sick and the hospital situation is improving (though too late for far too many...).

(h/t to Jessy Tomas via Facebook for those.)

And a paper by Noam Chomsky perhaps helps to give perspective that others were missing before.

Post-script:

In addition to the famous NPR's blog The Devil Writes Pat Robertson a Letter, now we learn that the Devil has sued Pat Robertson for breach of contract. Proving once again, that NBC is so Devil.