Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Matthew 7:1-3
Pat Robertson: Haiti 'Cursed' By 'Pact To The Devil'
Huffington Post | Danny Shea First Posted: 01-13-10 02:45 PM | Updated: 01-14-10 01:11 AM
Televangelist Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been "cursed" by a "pact to the devil."
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."
Robertson said that "ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other" and he contrasted Haiti with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic.
"That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic," he said. "Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."
Never letting one to get useless facts in the way of good rhetoric, Robertson’s statements conveniently ignore the fact that, like that 80 percent of Haitians identify themselves as Roman Catholics, with Protestants representing a distant second place with 16 percent. But, you know, voodoo is spooky, and even if one person practicing it means that the whole country has gotta go. God had some Old Testament wrathin’ to do, apparently.
Later that evening, Raymond Joseph, Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., began his appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show by shaming Robertson and pointing out that Haiti's freedom led to freedom across Latin America. And they weren't they only beneficiaries from those historic events. "The U.S. was able to gain the Louisianna Territory for $15 million," Joseph added. "That's three cents an acre. That's 13 states west of the Mississippi that the Haitian slaves' revolt in Haiti provided America."
WATCH:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/pat-robertson-haiti-curse_n_422099.html
Interesting:
Haitian descendants are supposed to pay for the alleged "sins" of their ancestors - but the descendant's of slave owing families are completely innocent...
With all due respect, materialism is the "Devil". The soul identifying itself with matter becomes the earthbound ego, singly in need of acquiring things to give it purpose.
Give everything you covet away, free yourself to follow Me, said Jesus. Walk away from your family, your friends and follow Me he said.
The Devil is in possession of men like you, for you have placed judgment ahead of mercy, and offer up damnation rather then Love.
Comment from The Huffington Post
Back in 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his 700 Club's daily cable operation to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees. The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot more than ferry relief supplies.
An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp. And who do you think was the principal executive and sole shareholder of the mining company? You guessed it, Pat Robertson himself.
Robertson had landed the mining concession from his longtime friend Mobutu Sese Seko, then the dictator of Zaire. Investigators concluded that Operation Blessing "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements ..."
After the investigation began, Robertson placated state regulators by personally reimbursing his own charity $400,000 and by agreeing to tighten its bookkeeping methods. Separating Operation Blessing from Robertson's many politically oriented endeavors is not that easy, however. The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity's largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. It received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004. Robertson uses that Christian network for some markedly unchristian purposes. A few years back, he repeatedly defended Charles Taylor, the former brutal dictator of Liberia who is under indictment by a UN tribunal for war crimes. As with Mobutu in the Congo, Robertson had a personal stake in the matter: He had millions invested in a Liberian gold mine, thanks to Taylor, according to press reports.
http://ww4report.com/node/1050
Robertson recently ignited a media firestorm when he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez during a broadcast of The 700 Club. He has also blamed the 9/11 attacks on America's tolerance of abortion and homosexuality and declared the Supreme Court a greater threat to the United States than Al Qaeda. Robertson assiduously cultivates his celebrity with remarks like these, casting himself as a divisive bigot to his foes and a righteous prophet to his allies in Christian right circles. But there is much more to Robertson than the headline-grabbing hothead he plays on TV.
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."
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."
Robertson's scheming hasn't abated one bit. He is accused of violating his ministry's tax-exempt, nonprofit status by using it to market a diet shake he licensed this August to the health chain General Nutrition Corp. (Robertson continues to advertise the shake on his personal website.) He has withstood criticism from fellow evangelicals for investing $520,000 in a racehorse named Mr. Pat, violating biblical admonitions against gambling. He was even accused of "Jim Crow-style racial discrimination" by black employees who successfully sued his Christian Coalition in 2001 for forcing them enter its offices through a back door and eat in a segregated area (Robertson has since resigned).
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/blumenthal
Haitian Revolution
Main article: Haitian Revolution
Jean Jacques Dessalines, leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti.
The French Revolution contributed to social upheavals in Saint-Domingue and the French and West Indies. Most important was the revolution of the slaves in Saint-Domingue, starting on the northern plains in 1791. In 1792 the French government sent three commissioners with troops to try to reestablish control. They began to build an alliance with gens de couleur, who were looking for their rights. In 1793, France and Great Britain went to war, and British troops invaded Saint-Domingue. The execution of Louis XVI heightened tensions in the colony. To build an alliance with the gens de couleur and slaves, the French commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel abolished slavery in the colony. Six months later, the National Convention led by the Jacobins endorsed abolition and extended it to all of the French colonies.[11]
Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave and leader in the slave revolt who rose in importance as a military commander because of his many skills, achieved peace in Saint-Domingue after years of war against both external invaders and internal dissension. He had established a disciplined, flexible army and drove out both the Spaniards and the British invaders who threatened the colony. He restored stability and prosperity by daring measures, including inviting the return of planters and insisting that freed men work on plantations to renew revenues for the island. He also renewed trading ties with Great Britain and the United States. The United States played a duplicitous role, supplying both the French and the rebels.[12]
Independence
The French government changed and the legislature began to rethink its decisions on slavery in the colonies. After Toussaint L'ouverture created a separatist constitution, Napoleon Bonaparte sent an expedition of 20,000 men under the command of his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to retake the island. Leclerc's mission was to oust L'ouverture and restore slavery. The French achieved some victories, but within a few months, yellow fever had killed most of the French soldiers.[13] Leclerc invited Toussaint L'ouverture to a parley, kidnapped him and sent him to France, where he was imprisoned at Fort de Joux. He died there in 1803 of exposure and tuberculosis[10] or malnutrition and pneumonia. In its attempt to retake the colony, France had lost more than 50,000 soldiers, including 18 generals.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti
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