TRA Director Hill defends Pat Robertson's racist '1804 Haitian pact with Satan' rants

TRA Director Hill defends Pat Robertson's racist '1804 Haitian pact with Satan' rants;
equivocates Clinton Haiti remarks with Robertson Haiti rants


Radio evangelist and Tennessee Regulatory Authority Director Kenneth C. Hill
The Matthew Hill Show 01/14/2010 - Guest host
http://www.irnusaradio.com/our-programs/matthew-hill-show

Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey's newly confirmed TRA Director Hill recently utilized his appearance on his older son's (Tennessee State Rep. Matthew Hill) "The Matthew Hill Show" pod cast to defend televangelist Pat Robertson's racist '1804 Haitian pact with Satan' rants with "editorialized" comments by the Sydney Morning Herald pertaining to the recent Haiti earthquakes attributed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Click on the "The Matthew Hill Show" pod cast link above to listen to TRA Director Hill's Haiti comments!

No surprise here that the Northeast Tennessee radio evangelist and TRA Director Hill did not even bother to quote the Clinton (or like wise, the Obama) Haiti earthquake comments in the full context as found on U.S. government web sites:



Sydney Morning Herald: Quake adds to the depth of Haiti's human misery (cited by Hill)
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/quake-adds-to-the-depth-of-haitis-human-misery-20100114-ma0c.html?skin=text-only
Date: January 15 2010

"HISTORY has been cruel to Haiti. After a slave rebellion, it became the first post-colonial, black-led independent nation in 1804, but has had little to celebrate ever since. Best known for poverty, instability, dictators and voodoo, Haiti's curse struck again on Wednesday when the worst earthquake in its history devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince. At least 100,000 of the city's 2 million people are feared dead. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: ''It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to haunt Haiti and the Haitian people. It is so tragic.''

Actually, the U.S. Secretary of State web site quotes Clinton as stating "daunt" within the actual quote not used by Hilll and not "haunt" (see below) and her use of "biblical" is in reference to the scale of the Haitian earthquake disaster...

TRA Director Hill goes on during the pod cast to read through the entire Sydney Morning Herald article (even to the point of his criticizing that the SMH had injected other editorial comment), before equivocating the editorial comments attributed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the CNN reported "Haitians pac with Satan" comment by television evangelist Pat Robertson.

Compare with the actual Haiti earthquake comments in context as found on official U.S. government web sites:

Remarks on The Situation in Haiti
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135144.htm
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Honolulu, Hawaii
January 13, 2010

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, you know, John, it is Biblical, the tragedy that continues to daunt Haiti and the Haitian people. It is so tragic. They had the four hurricanes last year. We had a good plan. We were just feeling positive about how we could implement that plan. It was US, UN, international. We had donors lined up. We had private businesses beginning to make investments. There was so much hope about Haiti’s future, hope that had not been present for years. And along comes Mother Nature and just flattens it.

So I remain committed, as I know the President, our Administration, the American people do. And we’re going to give the people of Haiti the support they need as they go through yet another catastrophe.

(more at hyperlink)

Remarks by the President on Rescue Efforts in Haiti
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-rescue-efforts-haiti
Diplomatic Reception Room
January 13, 2010 10:20 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. This morning I want to extend to the people of Haiti the deep condolences and unwavering support of the American people following yesterday's terrible earthquake.

We are just now beginning to learn the extent of the devastation, but the reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes, and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching. Indeed, for a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the many Haitian Americans around our country who do not yet know the fate of their families and loved ones back home.

(more at hyperlink)

And read the CNN response to the Pat Robertson lies about a '1804 Haiti pac with Satan':

Pat Robertson says Haiti paying for 'pact to the devil'
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html
January 13, 2010 6:58 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a "pact to the devil" brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti.

Robertson, the host of the "700 Club," blamed the tragedy on something that "happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it."

The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "

Native Haitians defeated French colonists in 1804 and declared independence.

"You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other." Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States. Soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 and wreaking unprecedented devastation on New Orleans, Louisiana, Robertson weighed in with his own theory.

"We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America," Robertson said on his September 12, 2005, broadcast of "700 Club."

"I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he used the term that those who do this, 'the land will vomit you out.' ... But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?"

(more at hyperlink)

Haiti legend cited by Pat Robertson a 'fabrication,' scholar says
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/14/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html
By Matt Smith, CNN
January 14, 2010 7:49 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- Televangelist Pat Robertson wasn't blaming Haiti's catastrophic earthquake on "God's wrath," but was talking about a "widely discussed" legend that a Satanic pact aided its founding slave revolt, a spokesman said.

But the suggestion that Haiti's historic woes stem from a deal with the devil comes from a 19th-century "fabrication" meant to discredit its slave rebellion and Vodou religion, a Caribbean scholar said Thursday.

"This is a longstanding trope of anti-Haitian venom," Kate Ramsey, a researcher at the University of Miami, told CNN.

Robertson invoked the tale on his syndicated program, "The 700 Club," on Wednesday to suggest the poverty-stricken country's long history of natural disasters and political turmoil stemmed from a deal with the devil made by the leaders of its 1791 revolution against French rule.

"They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story," Robertson said. "And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "

The revolt succeeded, "but ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other," the 79-year-old Christian Coalition founder and onetime Republican presidential candidate said.

The legend of a Haitian deal with the devil dates back to the decades following its independence in 1804, Ramsey said. It began with a Roman Catholic campaign against Vodou, the Afro-Haitian religion widely practiced in Haiti, and spread as anti-slavery movements gained ground in the Caribbean, Europe and America, she said.

"They did become mobilized to discredit what was called the first black republic by outsiders, especially in the context of debates over abolition in the Caribbean and elsewhere," Ramsey told CNN.

...

European colonists in the Caribbean and the Americas believed that the Haitian slaves "could not have possibly pulled this off themselves" and must have had outside help, Ramsey said. Evangelical Christians have evoked the Haiti legend more recently and elaborated on it, "but it's drawing on a much longer history," she said.

"It's utterly a fabrication, and it's an extremely offensive one," she added.

Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, has faced a string of natural disasters in the past two decades and been wracked by political chaos for much of its history.

(more at hyperlink)

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