Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson (23 March 1930 - 8 June 2023) was a controversial American televangelist, preacher and businessman, well-known for this ultra conservative viewpoints and condemnations of feminists, homosexuality, abortion, pornography, atheism and other religions. Robertson hosted the religious TV show The 700 Club (1966-2023) on ABC for decades, right up until his death.
Robertson also made financial transactions with notorious dictators like Seko Seko Mobutu from Congo, Charles Taylor from Liberia and the cult leader Sun Myung Moon. He was additionally criticized for faith healing. Robertson was a good friend of televangelist Jerry Falwell.
During the 1988 US presidential elections, Robertson wanted to run as a candidate for the Republican Party, but eventually dropped out when other televangelists, like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker got caught up in scandals, harming him through association. It was also discovered that Robertson that he lied about his military service during the Korean War.
Zappa and Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson is criticized in Zappa's songs:
- Jesus Thinks You're A Jerk:
- "Robertson says that he's The One / Oh, he sure is, if Armageddon is your idea of family fun, and he's got some planned for you!
- "Now, what if Jimbo's slightly gay /Will Pat let Jimbo get away? (...) But keep that money rollin' in /'Cause Pat and naughty Jimbo can't get enough of it (let's dance!)"
- "What if Pat gets in the White House (..) the rights of 'certain people' disappear mysteriously?"
- When The Lie's So Big: "When the lie's so big as in Robertson's case (that sinister face behind all the Jesus hurrah) could result in the end to a worrisome trend in which every American not "born again" could be punished in cruel and unusual ways."
- Texas Medley: We might go to hell, but we'll have lots of company, Falwell and Pat and that weasel.
- A Few Moments With Brother A. West': "And I'm comin' here tonight because I want to share with him, just the same way we're going to give spirit power to the democratic freedom fighters down there, our brothers that wanna have the freedom to be able to have a man like Pat Robertson, to have a man like Mr. Dole, restore America!"
He was also targeted in Edmund Cohen's book The Mind of the Bible Believer, a book Zappa highly recommended.
When Zappa was in talks with the FOX network about having his own talk show, the deal was blown off after he insisted on having Daniel Schorr and Gerard Thomas Straub (who was fired from Robertson's The 700 Club and author of Salvation for Sale) as collaborators. [1] [2]
Frank Zappa about Pat Robertson
"I also suggested we could make the world better by going into media, which is exactly the reason why Falwell and Robertson have these colleges to train people to go into media. They're going to use the same thing to put their clones in place to keep the lid on stuff, and they're out there. There was a guy who graduated from Robertson's University who was working at Fox Television Network on the Joan Rivers Show. They're out there, they're already in place. These are like moles. You don't know that they came from that brainwash camp, but if you're talking about a Christian Lord, you're talking about doing the work of an imaginary deity that wants to keep people stupid. That's the job. So, these are people who ultimately, when they are in place, will keep "content" from managing to get into the airwaves." - Interview by Bob Marshall, 22 October 1988.
"Pat Robertson is a tremendous showman, but I also think that he qualifies as one of the most heinous individuals on the planet, just because of some of the things that he's saying. It's just so two-faced. (..) Well, let's say you subtract all the religious content from what Robertson says. Just from an ethical and moral standpoint, I believe that what he preaches is questionable. He's really a situational ethics kinda guy. He's a stinker. And Swaggart, to me is not quite as dangerous, but just as heinous. - - Frank Zappa in They're Doing the Interview of the Century, Part 1, Den Simms, Eric Buxton, Rob Samler, Society Pages, April 1990.
"There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party. That Republican National Party Convention last summer was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a Nuremberg rally. Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to win again." - Frank Zappa, Pulse Interview, August 1993.
References
- ↑ Deborah Cauldfield, Frank Zappa Zapped by "Late Show", Los Angeles Times, 12 June 1987.
- ↑ Channel X, Milwaukee Journal 21 June 1987.
