If Pat Robertson is going to show a disdain of "Hitler-like proportion" for Chavez, he might want to focus his anger on Chavez's opposition in Venezuela, not on him. After all, it is the former two-time president of the nation who recently said Chavez "should die like a dog" and that "when Chavez falls we must shut down the National Assembly (Congress) and the Supreme Court." And it is the Party he represents that strives to maintain at any cost the privileged position they hold in a nation where 85 percent of the land is owned by a very wealthy 5 percent of the population, where unemployment is believed to be significantly high (above 35 percent?), and where the percentages of the "poor" and "extremely poor" in 2003 reached 75 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
Considering the situation in Venezuela and the desire of Chavez to do something real about it, no matter how bellicose and political imprudent Chavez can be, comparing him to Hitler and the Nazis Party, as Robertson did in his news release today is absurd; it is particularly disgusting when he does so by equating Dietrich Bonhoeffer's involvement in a failed assassination attempt of Hitler that cost him his life with the assassination of Chavez that he is suggesting. Using the reputation of a theologian as rational a thinker and as sensitive as Dietrich Bonhoeffer to give merit to doing so shows either a lack of knowledge of what Bonhoeffer really believed or a contempt for the truth.
In a mental review of what kind of people can best defend us all against the kind and degree of "evil" characterized by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the following to a few friends at Christmas time in 1942 about "moral fanatics" . . . . . "The fanatic thinks that his single-minded principles qualify him to do battle with the powers of evil; but like the bull he rushes at the red cloak instead of at the person who is holding it; he exhausts himself and is beaten. He gets entangled in non-essentials and falls into the trap set by cleverer people." I think that no better definition of Pat Robertson can be found.
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