A few have asked me why I haven't commented on Pat Robertson's outrageous call for the assassination of Venezuela's democratically elected leader, Hugo Chavez. Since so many other bloggers addressed this vile episode, I decided to focus on other matters.
Still, maybe it's time for me to offer a few observations.
"Strongman." This has long been the nomenclature of choice when American propagandists want to demonize an elected leader. In the 1950s, American newsreels referred to Mossedeq as Iran's "strongman." Editorialists used that term to describe Allende of Chile. I wasn't surprised to hear Robertson haul out that descriptor for Chavez.
Nevertheless, Christianity's most bloodthirsty broadcaster also called Chavez a "dictator." This, despite the fact that international observers oversaw Venezuela's election. They were not permitted to take a close look at the corrupt U.S. vote of 2004.
Changing his tune. Robertson now denies that he used the word "assassination." Apparently the recording of his voice, broadcast over the radio last night, was a trick of the devil.
Economic ruin. Robertson justified the call for assassination by claiming that Chavez had "ruined the economy" of his country. I hope he doesn't apply a similar logic to the domestic situation. Bush has inflicted catastrophe upon the United States economy, which stays afloat only because we borrow billions from Asians. Have we had even one day of true prosperity since W took office?
Muslim extremism? Robertson claimed that Chavez has made his nation "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." Are Muslim fanatics going all the way to Venezuela for training? The idea will strike even most conservatives as pretty laughable.
However, right-wing propagandists have been pushing a rather unbelievable yarn about Chavez funding Al Qaida. File that one alongside similar fables, such as the one about Saddam nuzzling up to Osama.
Actually, Pat likes dictators. He was perfectly happy to make business arrangements with the dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko. "Strongmen" are fine, if they can fatten Pat's pocket.
I'll end up with an observation that will probably piss off a good many readers:
Catholic-bashing. Mike Malloy of Air America used this disgraceful incident as the launch point for a blistering rant on the increasingly mad state of American faith. But as Malloy worked himself into a justified rage over Robertson, guess which brand of Christianity received his first and loudest denunciation?
Catholicism.
Here we encounter, once again, that peculiarly American form of bigotry. Whenever a Protestant behaves abominably, the outrage somehow always focuses on the RCs. Psycholgists call this phenomenon "transference": Baptists are us; Catholics are The Other. Evil must always be the handiwork of The Other.
This prejudice has been a fact of our national life since the heyday of the Know-Nothing party, which we may view as a precursor to fascism.
Yes, I'm well aware of the church's many sins -- PUH-leez do not attempt to edcuate me on this score -- and I'm certainly no fan of either the current Pope or his predecessor. Frankly, I'm no big fan of religion period.
On the other hand, I have a fair amount of Sicilian blood in me, as well as a small bit of Irish blood. I know very well that this country has directed an appalling amount of religious discrimination toward the Italians and the Irish. This form of political rabies can strike again -- will strike again if we do not continually guard against it. Even though I remain happily mired somewhere between agnosticism and Gnosticism, and even though I would never willingly attend church services of any sort, anti-Catholic bigotry still conveys a sting felt on a personal level. While that form of prejudice may not insult my own beliefs, it does insult my ancestors, who had to put up with a lot of underserved crap from the nativists.
(You don't like that attitude? Tough shit. I yam what I yam.)
So let's get this straight, Mr. Malloy: Pat Robertson is a Southern Baptist. He speaks for them, not for Rome. Just as evangelical protestants deserve no blame for the scandal of priestly pederasty, the Church of Rome deserves no blame for the Roberston scandal, or for the larger scandal of theocratic Dominionism.
Like it or not, the Catholic church still has both a strong liberal wing and a leadership which (even at its most reactionary) does not uncritically admire rapacious capitalism. Protestant fundamentalists are very different animals.
Of course, I'm well aware that the Roman church also has a far-right wing, which -- alas -- is growing in strength. One of the most obnoxious expressions of this rightist trend is the dangerous Opus Dei cult, which also seems to have targeted Chavez. So in that sense, Robertson and a faction of the Roman church may be considered partners in perfidy.
All forms of fundamentalism are equally evil: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu. (Do Buddhist fundamentalists exist? If they do, I'm sure I'll find them just as depressing.)
4 comments:
Buddhist fundamentalists? How about Aum Shinrikyo, ref. sarin on the Tokyo underground? But they syncretised Buddhism and Hinduism apparently. I knew a Buddhist who explained Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the notion that the Japanese had it coming to them. He used the word 'karma'. Nothing like a bit of 'eastern mysticism' for sugar-coating. Standard explanation from both Buddhism and Hinduism. Deep. About as 'deep' as Pat Robertson sounds.
Physical disability, meanwhile - explained as the result of past-life wrongdoing. No wonder the Nazis chose a Hindu symbol to put on their flag, and all those suicided Buddhists were found in Berlin in 1945. Factions of Buddhism can get just as unpleasant as right-wing factions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, etc. The ideology of reincarnation is deeply, deeply anti-liberatory.
For an example of fascist religious ecumenicalism (sic!), see the autobiography of ('Tibetan Buddhist') Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the nutcase President of Kalmykia, who is also President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation. His autobiography reads very much like 'Mein Kampf' but without the racism and nationalism (sic!!).
His home page is at:
http://kirsan.kalmykia.ru/engl/home1.htm
His mad autobiography is at:
http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=222
Mike Malloy bashes the Catholic Church, and Joseph Cannon is Sicilian and Irish. Those two facts have nothing to do with each other, do they?
The complaint also goes nowhere with me because I know quite well that Mike Malloy also often denounces Protestantism and for that matter Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, you name it. The denunciation is longstanding and continuous, not something that was provoked by Pat Robertson. This was just the latest stimulus to excite Malloy's anger at religions.
The important point about Pat Robertson is being missed by everyone.
Sure it's nutty. Sure it can be laughed down, or hand-wrung to death. Sure it can be disowned -- like the phony Swift Boat Veterans against Kerry, an "unfortunate bunch of crazies" that reap lots of press...and changes people's outlook in small but measurable ways.
But it creates a climate, one extremely desirable for Bush. Remember Robertson is just one of the many Bush stooges out there doing this same sort of thing. Pushing the envelope to give Bush more room for his destructive aims.
And how does it contribute to Bush? By making us that little bit more ready for seeng inconvenient political opponents taken down. Remember Paul Wellstone. JFK Jr. You may or may not agree, but these "accidents" were a little too convenient to the Bushes personally and politically to be taken at face value. All completely disownable, of course.
The same things happened in Nazi Germany: political murders, "accidental" at first -- then, as Hitler became bolder, open assassinations that sent a message.
Easy to say Robertson's a kook -- takes the pressure off Bush, and gets an even farther-right viewpoint out there. This becomes a "worm," a meme, and drives the discourse farther right.
It is exactly the sort of provocation Hitler and his administration used to create a climate in Germany that was ever more accepting and favorable to bigotry, speaking the unspeakable, political assassination...and eventually turning Europe into a charnel house.
Just one more of those useful lessons the Bush family learned from their old clients and business partners, the Nazis. The Big Lie was one, this is another.
Someone ought to do us all a service, and do a thorough, documented rundown on just how closely the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove use of political action and political speech hew to the Nazi line. Might be illuminating.
so robertson threatened chavez on TV. The question to be asked is "Why?" Robertson is a player, an operative, which is to say he works as part of a team. Whatever he does, he runs it by others first. So why would some faction in washington want to put out this particular message?
Here is a hypothesis: there are 2 factions in DC right now fighting over the course of action to take in Venezuela. One faction, which includes the Otto Reichs of the world, the old-time Latin fascists, wants to assassinate Chavez and/or run another coup, and they are manoeuvering to put this together.
Another faction, which has broader connections to oil and business interests, as well as the to the Rumsfeld and Cheney people, has begun to cut deals with Chavez and to accept that he is going to remain in power. They see another coup or other immediate violence as counter-productive. This faction is alarmed at the old-time right-wingers and wants to prevent any assassination attempt.
So ... the anti-assassination faction had robertson go on TV and say what he said. Now assassination as a covert operation has been rendered impossible, as plausible deniability has been stripped. And the assassins have been outmanouevered and isolated.
This is just a hypothesis, of course, although I am basing it partly on my right-wing Venezuelan contacts who have told me that the "party line" now is that Chavez will stay in place and it's time to cut deals.
If anyone has another idea as to why robertson did what he did, please post.
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