Burnt Orange Report

What is interesting is how all of my friends who have grown up in Latin America have been saying this for a long time now: Chavez needs a bullet between his eyes. Now, I don't think the US should do it--there are really good reasons to stay out of the killing heads-of-state business (namely, we don't want them killing ours). But SOMEBODY should take the guy out, and I'm sure we wouldn't feel too bad about a narcoterrorist sponsoring, Fidelista dictator getting high-speed lead poisoning.

That being said, I don't think it is a "Christian" thing to do. I'm reminded of Niemoeller talking about resistance to the Nazis, and he said he would join the resistance but would promptly ask for repentance when it was over. Politics and religion have different goals, this is why we have a separation of church and state. Right now, politically it would be best for Hugo Chavez to leave his country feet first. But the dictates of my faith teach that that would be wrong. Perhaps the policy should happen anyways, but nobody should call it Christian.

Actually, what is interesting is that Robertson's admittedly idiotic and homophobic comments warrant front-page news, but Cindy Sheehan's idiotic and anti-Semitic comments are virtually ignored.

Pat Robertson is a good reason to demand freedom FROM religion. What is reckless is not his saying these things but rather the Christian "community" in this country sitting by in silence as he says them. That same silence is what allowed the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

Bottom line with Pat Robertson is he reflects a madness in this country that believes we are "destined" to lead the world. It's the same madness that overook Nazi Germany. We were chosen by God. We are God's chosen people. We are the superior race. The superior nation. Now we have a president who openly states that God talks to him. The psychiatrists were silent about that. We have become a nation of silence. Afraid of being targeted and used as an example of what happens to people who oppose the king the way Judith Miller has been.

The real problem with Chavez is he controls 19% of our oil imports. That is the danger. Not his creating a "launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." Robertson himself alludes to the real problem when he adds "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

According to this AP story, Chavez controls 59% of our oil imports. No doubt the Bush Administration is preparing to tell Congress and the United Nations that Venezuela has biochemical and nuclear weapons.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB90SEBQCE.html

Guess Robertson's feeling as though his marriage is being threatened by a Venezuelan leader....

It's all those evil Venezuelan feminists! Burn them all at the stake along with the evil homosexuals! We are fighting God's war here!

And there are Democrats who think we should pander to these morons to get votes?

Question for Dobbs/Bushtail/Hyperbigot Patster and all the other "Christians" regarding their stated desire for the assassination of the elected President of Venezuela: who is the assassin one or more of them have apparently already hired to do the hit?

I also know people in Latin America who hate Chavez. Almost to a person, they are the same relatively wealthy Establishment (or hirelings thereof) who profited for years from a corrupt political system(s) that kept the majority in grinding poverty despite stupendous oil wealth. So it does not surprise me that that Chavez was finally elected and re-elected or that these "Christians" want him gone by "any means necessary" in order to restore their piggish priviledge, as long as they can claim pluasible deniability and keep their fumbling, folded hands "clean."

And make no mistake about it, as they are, we will be, the way we're headed.

"And make no mistake about it, as they are, we will be, the way we're headed."

You got it!

I don't know, I'm sure the peasants who live in constant fear of reprisal from brutal drug traffickers in bed with formerly "Marxist" rebels in Colombia don't like Chavez. Since Chavez has openly made his country a safe haven for their leaders and has provided them with his support.

Maybe Venezuelans who would like the radical notion of being able to say what they want about their leaders without fearing jail time. Or to vote in an election that wasn't rigged to reelect a dictator. Maybe Cubans who live in fear because they oppose their government peacefully, who know that the same government is strengthened by Chavez' money and military.

Maybe citizens of neighboring countries who look to the fact that he just purchased about 100,000 AK-47s and a whole bunch of planes, tanks and other weapons in preparation for God knows what.

Don't call me a bigot. If you read my post, you would notice that I said that it is not Christian, and for an actual bigot like Robertson to call for his assasination in the name of God is sinful. Furthermore, I think that if you only listen to the mainstream media, which seems obsessed with the idea that all Christians even all evangelicals are right wingers, or to the televangelists you will get a very flawed picture of Christianity. Check out Sojourners, Call to Renewal, Evangelicals for Social Action, Tony Campolo's work, Catholic Relief Services or any of the dozens of other politically progressive groups of a conservative faith. I think that you will find that none of these people, nor I, nor any truly thoughtful Christians believe that America is "God's chosen nation." Nor does God hate America. The fact of the matter is God does have a chosen nation--his Church, the body of Christ. The community of men and women all over the world who have come to believe in and rely upon the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of the Almighty God. We are commanded to be the change we want to see, to be an example of God's Kingdom.

Finally, why is it that when some boneheaded TV preacher gets up and calls Islam "a terrorist religion" or "evil" or whatever all of you jump on them and scream "RACIST" and start talking about how Islam is a religion of peace, but as soon as a commenter says that Christians are silly or stupid or evil or whatever, they get nothing but silence and occasional applause? Perhaps it is easier because you have been treated poorly by supposed Christians in the past, and for this I apologize. But to issue a blanket attack on the people of a certain faith is wrong and bigoted.

At least Chavez isn't tossing nuns out of helicopters the way the US-installed dictatorship in Honduras was. Dictatorship under the guise of democracy is not democracy. Anywhere. Calling Chavez a dictator when he was elected and then re-elected, however, begs the question of whether he's a dictator. Sounds more like right-wing propaganda to me. We were told Saddam Hussein engaged in genocide against the Kurds. We were not told that we supplied the gas he used that we intended him to use on the Iranians or that our State Department simply ignored the situation. We just suddenly no longer had any diplomatic relations with the Kurds. They were on their own. We also have probably killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever dreamed of in the process of "liberating" them.

And of course part of the problem with Chavez is he has called the Bush Administration on the carpet over its harboring of an anti-Castro terrorist named Luis Posada Carriles who blew up a Cuban airliner and was sentenced to jail in Venezuela for his terrorist activities. He escaped with a little help from his friends as they say. The Bushes. Apparently the defintion of terrorist depends on who you've blown up. Or who you've tossed out of helicopters.

"The fact of the matter is God does have a chosen nation--his Church, the body of Christ."

Well I suppose that's true if you're Christian but some are not Christian. We are not a theocracy. Yet. But statements like that inadvertently pave the way to becoming one.

As for the Catholic Church I have little respect for a church that condemns homosexuals while protecting pedophile priests.

I don't think assassinations fall under WWJD.

BTW- don't forget our friend Jerry Falwell, who also blamed gay people and feminists for 9/11. I believe that he did this while a guest on Robertson's 700 Club program.

In fact, most of the media in Venezuela is controlled by the firmly established, corrupt economic elite that has always very brazenly, dishonestly and sometimes violently opposed Chavez, and most of them are still very much in business, who arrogantly see themselves as "entitled" to "running the store." As for "the peasants" they are almost all for Chavez, not because he is the best there could be (he is indeed a left wing demagogue who sometimes delivers for them), but because there has never been an honest, competent alternative.

Since a dictatorship ended in the early 1960's, Venezuela was ruled by corrupt, disconnected two party system riddled with cronyism (sound familiar?) that the vast majority of the electorate finally got fed up with. And say what you will about Chavez (who was jailed for an attempted overthrow of the government some time ago), the elections that ultimately brought him to power were free and fair. The elites who so vigorously opposed him were never able to present a competent, honest or even credible alternative. All they can give them (or us) is a whiff of madness in the air, courtesy of nut cases as Republican hyperbigot kingmakers the likes of Pat Robertson, who is merely their Norte Americano reflection.

Chavez is the kind of demogogue sketched to near perfection by Robert Penn Warren in "All the King's Men" in the person of Willie Stark, based on Louisiana Governor and Senator Huey Long. The utter arrogance and indifference on the part of the so called "respectable" elites that brings these guys to power exists in Venezuela as it did in the American State that most resembled (so far) a banana republic. And when Huey was offed at the point of a gun in the Louisiana State Capitol, things did not improve at all. Read the book and/or watch the multiple Oscar winning movie with Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge or wait for the new Sean Penn version due out this December.

(Can Sean match the matchless performance of Broderick? I doubt it. But then I didn't think Dustin Hoffman could do Willy Loman as well as Lee J. Cobb in "Death of a Salesman" and boy was I ever wrong about that. I do know that no one will do Sadie Burke like Mercedes McCambridge--she is the ultimate political operative. Fuck with her--literally or figuratively--at your mortal peril.)

Back to the real world, nothing will be accomplished by shooting Hugo except more of the same. The rich folks in Venezuela will have to try something truly novel, dare I say even Christian--start caring about the others for a change, for the good of all.

"If you seek his monument, look around."

Dobbs: "SOMEBODY should take the guy out, and I'm sure we wouldn't feel too bad about a narcoterrorist sponsoring, Fidelista dictator getting high-speed lead poisoning."

vs.

Dobbs: "To call for his assasination in the name of God is sinful."

ha ha. You've almost got the militant-McCarthyist-evangelical-Cold War Democrat thing down, but it's still a little rusty. Good luck with that. If all your Latin American friends think Chavez needs to be assasinated, you need to branch out a bit. Evidently, the majority of Venezuelans don't feel that way (twice). And have a listen to "Washington Bullets" by the Clash while you're at it:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/1028/lyr_complete_lyrics_10.html#Washington

I read the comments to the call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and I am aghast at the ignorance of what's happening. Today Venezuela is in the hands of a bunch of gangsters who call themselves bolivarian. When people call him a democratically elected president they show shortsightedness. Specially if you are liberal and continually criticize the US electoral process. Now imagine the problems multiplied by 10 and then all the electoral boards, all the courts, and even the supreme court of justice in the hands of republicans. The attorney general, republican (and super-partisan), the national assembly changing the electoral rules days and even hours before the elections, and, most of all, a systema called the electronic notebook which negates the secrecy of the vote. Plus, no auditing of any results because the system is "perfect."

Probably, in such a situation, you guys would get to the streets calling for the assassination of the president and all his cronies.

Or not? Just ask Jimi carter, whose shameful participation in the electoral fraud in last years recall election produced such a backlash that he hand no moral standing whatsoever to participate in any usefull way in the american elections. I guess he thought Venezuelans in exile were as ignorant and illiterate as some africans liveing in the US.

So, Chavez rigs two elections and enlists the help of Jimmy Carter to cover up the fraud? Riiii-ght...

http://www.cartercenter.org/doc1690.htm

And Africans living in the US are ignorant and illiterate. Awesome.