Teaser
I wish I had a longer copy of this exchange, from Sept 4 1985 Nightline, a Reverend vs. Reverend smackdown (quoted in the Cockburn book linked below):
[Jerry] FALWELL: If there is a Soviet-Cuban takeover in South Africa —
[Jesse] JACKSON: Stop right there. Standards of health, education and nutrition are higher in Cuba than anywhere on the Latin American continent, Reverend Falwell. If the average South African black were to wake up in Cuba, he would think he had gone to heaven.
FALWELL: What about Ethiopia, Reverend Jackson?
JACKSON: Well, what about Ethiopia, Reverend Falwell? Let’s talk about conditions in Ethiopia when the U.S. supported Haile Selassie there. Let’s talk about Uganda after your friends in Israel had installed Idi Amin. Let’s talk about Zaire, shall we, Reverend Falwell?
FALWELL: Who does Bishop Tutu represent?
JACKSON: Who do you represent?
I don’t know if Falwell ever went there or not, but he always played Sun City — and his act, like Dick Cheney’s, William F. Buckley’s, et al.‘s, was to paint Red anyone who opposed the Apartheid government.
Just another reason Hitchens is right to say, “If you gave Falwell an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox.” (Hanx Jillian in comments!):
Update: Courtesy of J— in comments, this bit from Time:
Brisk and confident, treated more like a ranking diplomat than a preacher, Jerry Falwell concluded an inspection tour of South Africa by spending not only six hours with Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha but an hour with State President P.W. Botha. Upon his return to the U.S. last week, Falwell denounced the drive in Congress for economic sanctions against South Africa and urged “reinvestment� instead of divestment. Falwell opposes apartheid, but professed faith that Botha will dismantle the system eventually, if only everyone is patient. The alternative, he said, is either a more draconian white regime or a Soviet-aligned revolution. Falwell also insisted that nonwhite South Africans agree with him. Referring to one who does not, Nobel- Prizewinning Bishop Desmond Tutu, Falwell said, “I think he’s a phony, period, as far as representing the black people of South Africa.�
WTF is Ralph FUCKING Reed doing on the teevee again? Damnit.
I live in the place that brought the world Newt and Ralph,and I thought after that smarmy little prick got trounced in the GOP primaries I wouldn’t have to look at him again for a long long time. Fuck.
Not that there weren’t communists in the ANC. But so what? Smearing Tutu as a commie gave the whole game away. Reagan’s goons and publicists like f Falwell simply prefered the Apartheid government, period, to any democratic movement in South Africa.
HTML,how much of this support for apartheid has to do with gold and diamonds do you think?
Pat Robertson has diamond mine interests in Africa,he can’t be the only one. I bet that goes back decades. I REALLY wish some forensic accountants would pick apart the finanacial dealings of Falwell,Robertson,Dobson,Parsley,Luce,and the other big megachurchers in this country.
I bet it has a lot to do with that crowd. Even Robertson as recently as a few years ago screamed about the toppling of Charles Taylor’s regime in Liberia, the gold industry of which Robertson had heavily invested in.
My guess is that their heirarchy of bias goes like this: Racism and sympathy with white supremacists > money and loot > anti-communist paranoia.
From Time, 9/2/85
Wow, it only took like what, 30 seconds before Ralph Reed trotted out the old war horse of “elevating public discourse”? Unbelievable.
I REALLY wish some forensic accountants would pick apart the finanacial dealings of Falwell,Robertson,Dobson,Parsley,Luce,and the other big megachurchers in this country.
Falwell’s outfit pulled out of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, some time ago, and refused to release its financial records. In 2005, they were finishing up construction of a 23 acre church complex in Lynchburg, VA – a town of approx. 60,000 people. I’m sure that was a great comfort to the poor in the area.
Dobson does release financial info. When I looked at it in 2005, they had something like $95M in assets and showed some eye-opening ROI. As much as I dislike Dobson’s little empire and what it stands for, I get the feeling their finances are above board, for the most part. Too bad they can’t find more Christ-like avenues to use that wealth for…
How come Ralph Reed isn’t in prison?
He had a lot for which to repent. Reed took money from Abramoff’s American Indian casino clients through a variety of conduits and manipulated Christian groups to act as fronts to oppose gambling competition for the tribes. He helped Abramoff oppose legislation to extend protections to women and children employed by sweatshops in the Northern Mariana Islands, despite the fact that our government had reported that the employers forced employees to enter the sex-tourism trade. When these immigrant workers inevitably became pregnant, they were forced to have abortions.
Reed never once said that it was wrong to take the casino money and use Christian groups as fronts. And he refused to acknowledge that it was widely known what was happening in the Marianas—ABC’s “20/20â€? did an expose in the 1998—years before he took on the lobbying work.
P.S. I still have to enter all my info each time I make a comment. Is this happening to anyone else? (First it was with MSIE, so I started using Firefox for S,N! Now, my new Firefox does not save anything, as well.)
Strange, thunderdontgetya. It works normally for me.
It has to do with your cookies. Mine are homemade mint chocolate chip, while yours must be some sort of store brand oreo. Sorry..
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Stogoe said,
May 20, 2007 at 18:54
It has to do with your cookies. Mine are homemade mint chocolate chip, while yours must be some sort of store brand oreo. Sorry..
That’s no fair!
P.S. Every year at work, people put up lists for their daughters’ girl scout cookies. I feel compelled (the power of Christ compels me!!) to support each and every one of them. So I still have plenty of boxes of Do Si Dos, even six months later.
P.S.S. Here’s something in tools for new Firefox: “Remember what I enter in forms and the search bar”. Heck, I’ll check that and give it a go.
When I want an accurate representation of how the current state of affairs are in South Africa, I always defer to white men from America…
ifthethunderdontgetya
I’ve had no problems using Firefox 2.0.0.3
AkaDad, that is the version I’m using. And Sadly, So! I just had to re-enter name, email, and urhell.
I cut and pasted them over from FDL. Which brings up another interesting detail, I am only having this problem with Sadly, No!.
Test!
~
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© | Homepage | 05.20.07 – 1:54 pm | #
As you can see, even with Haloscum at the big Blue Satan, no problems.
Sounds to me you have somehow ended up blocking local cookies from sadlyno.com. There is a list of sites blocking cookies and popups somwhere down in there. Find it and your problem should be solved…
mikey
It’s like a treasure hunt!!
My guess is that their heirarchy of bias goes like this: Racism and sympathy with white supremacists > money and loot > anti-communist paranoia.
I think you give them too much credit when you put any ideology, even a hateful and nasty one, over their own self-serving greed. I would set up the hierarchy like this:
Money/loot/power > racism/misogyny > anti-communist paranoia/afraid of dirty fucking hippies
I’m not sure if flat out hubris sits on the chart outside of the money/power slot for the rest of them, but it’s definitely on the top for GWB: I suspect he would rather go broke than ever, ever admit he was mistaken about anything.
I dunno, Dorothy. Bush is the weak link in their little gang of thugs. He’s the guy the rest of them worry about. Confront him with the real possibility of facing actual consequences and he’s gonna roll over like a trained beagle. He’ll throw anybody, hell EVERYBODY under the bus before he’d let anything bad happen to him…
mikey
Pat Robertson has diamond mine interests in Africa,he can’t be the only one. I bet that goes back decades.
As I understand it, Falwell ended up taking the Moonie millions to prop up his “Liberty” “University” because Robertson & Billy Graham’s son fought like rabid wolverines to keep him out of their Zaire-to-Liberia-to-Paraguay diamond & gold looting fields. The Wall Street Journal spoke with genuine admiration of the way Robertson had blindsided Falwell (who was the ‘name’ rightwing reverend under Reagan) by bailing out Franklin Graham, who spent his first 40 or so “young & irresponsible” years expensively ruining every business opportunity he was handed on a platter, much like a certain rightwing political figurehead. Since the elder Graham and the elder Bush were long-time allies, Robertson’s decision to cut Franklin in on his African operations enabled Pat to out-maneuver Jerry once Saint Ronnie’s minions were replaced by the smoother, more ‘civilized’ Bush-droids. For all his billions, Reverend Moon & his people just don’t have the whitebread suburban credibility that even relatively modest newcomers like Dobson & Haggard share, much less the sainted-before-death Dr. Billy, which is why Falwell wasn’t very visible in Beltway politics for the last decade or so.
I know this all sounds like a bad Mafia miniseries, but that’s just what Republican politics is like these days.
Ah, Jerry Falwell. May he queef in peace.
hitchens
when he’s good he’s great.
when he’s bad he’s a fucking idiot.
c’est la guerre.
Credit where credit is due. Thanks, Hitch (you drunken SOB).