The Cockroaches Are Out

They say whenever there is a disaster - floods, fires, weather events - that cause destruction on any scale, large or small, loathsome vermin like cockroaches come running out of their hiding places. They come out either to save their own miserable hides or to feast and profit on the misfortune of others. That's what cockroaches do - they lead their lives in the dirt and the filth and the darkness and rejoice when a catastrophe opens an opportunity for them.

We see this happening in lurid, depressing clarity in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake this past Tuesday. A major disaster in every possible aspect, the suffering and misery is truly epic in scale and can only get worse from this point forward. As with other recent disasters, such as the Indonesian tsunami several years ago or the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, the news outlets are overflowing with searing scenes of unimaginable horror, of countless bodies lying in the streets, and of the gravely injured, alone and unattended, waiting for medical assistance that most likely will not arrive in time. The outpouring of sympathy and aid from all corners of the world, from places as diverse as China and Iceland, is also monumental. But still, there are people in this world for whom this cataclysm is merely another chance for publicity and to advance their own agendas.

I am referring specifically to right-wing flab repository Rush Limbaugh and drooling, dementia-addled "man of God" Pat Robertson. Blowhard Limbaugh, the Fort Knox of Ignorance and Stupidity, used his radio program to twist the Haitian crisis into a harangue against the Obama administration for responding too promptly to the event (what a horrible thing to do!). There was also some idiocy which I don't understand involving our income tax being equivalent to foreign aid to Haiti. Excuse me? And to top it off some other blather which implied that the Haitian disaster was an almost tailor-made event for the Obama administration to somehow advance its own agenda. If all this sounds confusing and makes no sense, it's because everything Limbaugh has said regarding this event has been confusing and makes no sense. Just when you think he can't possibly say anything more ignorant and brainless than he already has, he goes and tops himself.

And then there's the desiccated, putty-faced, Howdy-Doody-with-Alzheimers dimwit Pat Robertson, who has come up with some kind of astonishing, mind-blowing drivel about the Haitians forming a pact with the Devil a long time ago to get them out from under French domination. He said directly that all the tribulations and difficulties that benighted nation - the poorest nation in the entire western hemisphere - is due to them agreeing to serve the Devil many years ago. Robertson and his ilk also look down on the Haitian people as being devil-worshipers and voodoo practitioners - which most Haitians are not - although this pseudo-Christian nonsense about a pact with the Devil sounds as much like ignorant, superstitious babbling as does sticking pins in dolls. This latest torrent of insensitive, grossly idiotic hatespeech should prove once and for all that Pat Robertson's brain has completely rotted out, and he needs to be put out of everyone's misery and given a needle to the vein.

They say that horrendous events bring out the best in people, that in every catastrophe which involves massive destruction and loss of life, there are a myriad of unknown, often anonymous acts of courage, selflessness and heroism. Unfortunately in our binary universe, the opposite is also true; disasters bring out the cowardice, hatefulness, evilness and stupidity of people. Anyone who has a shred of intelligence, or compassion for the suffering of innocent people will recognize immediately that Limbaugh and Robertson are shameless examples of the latter, and deserve to be denounced and condemned without mercy, in the strongest possible terms.