Thoughts On Pat Robertson & Rush Limbaugh

Thoughts On Pat Robertson & Rush Limbaugh
M.D. Wright
1.14.10

***EDITOR'S NOTE: In lieu of the catastrophe that struck our brothers and sisters in Haiti, there has been an outpouring of care and support, but along with that, there have been a few isolated incidents where pure soulless idiots managed to climb upon their soapboxes and spew bigotry and hatred.

Where to begin? This whole thing came completely out of left field. It's not that earthquakes in this part of the hemisphere are all that unheard of, but the news was surreal. I had been in Brooklyn most of the day interviewing and I began seeing people say "Pray for Haiti". Personally, I read things like that and think, "Well, Haiti NEEDS prayer and help anyway, because it's been in bad shape for many years as it is" and didn't think anything of it.

Until every other status that came through on my phone said the same thing.

I heard the magnitude of the earthquake was 7.0 or thereabouts and there were aftershocks. In a city like Los Angeles or San Francisco, with state-of-the-art, designed-specifically-for-earthquakes infrastructures, they can dodge such a quake with relatively minimal damage. Even the Loma Prieta quake caused considerable damage.

To think of that and be well-versed in Haiti's history and infrastructure (did several reports in high school and both college stints in the late 90s and this decade -- Haiti has always been fascinating to me beyond its rough history), you knew this could not end well. Many huts and complete villages consisting of shanty houses and already sparse electricity, running water or (in some cases) food, it was just a depressing thought before I even turned on a TV.

THEN I DID IT.

And I happen to hear Pat Robertson's gibberish. He always says these same things whenever a poor, impoverished country that he PERCEIVES doesn't uphold Christian standards (as if the United States does?) has a natural disaster strike those countries. He did it after the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean a few years back, and then today he opens his mouth again about Haiti.

And of course, opportunist Rush Limbaugh took it as a roundabout way to take shots at President Obama (deserved or not, this isn't the time), which he makes a daily routine of doing. I don't understand what makes whatever angle and agenda they're pushing so important that they must make such idiotic statements at this time. It's irrelevant at best and completely soulless at worst.

Personally, being a Christian, I can UNDERSTAND Robertson's sentiment, but he has no proof that this took place. Until people heard what President Duvalier was doing back in the day (consulting Voodoo priests and claiming before his ouster that he had made a pact with the devil -- who even knows if it's true? Duvalier viewed countries like the US with distrust as it was). As far as Bangalesh and the other countries that were affected by the Tsunami, Robertson only says these things because that is a mostly Buddhist and Muslim region. Expected from him?

View here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34851509#34851509

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