• "God invented war so Americans could learn geography" -- Mark Twain.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Pope Condemns Pharaonic Oppressions of NeoLiberal Capitalism



Predictably, the neoliberal propaganda machine (aka “Hillary Press”) has distorted the Pope's recent remarks, bending them to their own nefarious and partisan purposes. Since the address is published in Spanish and Italian only, this will set the record straight for those with a waning interest in objectivity.

It is true, the Pope denounced walls built of fear and needless to say a U.S. audience would interpret this as referring to the border with Mexico and hence as an indirect attack on Trump. 

But what the Pope actually denounced was the “divinization of money” which was an “existential whip” which, as in Ancient Egypt, enslaves and exhausts without mercy (un látigo existencial que, como en el Egipto del Antiguo Testamento, esclaviza, roba la libertad, azota sin misericordia). You know, like usurious college loans perhaps?

So how does money rule? It rules with the lash of fear, economic violence and military oppression. (Con el látigo del miedo, de la inequidad, de la violencia económica, social, cultural y militar que engendra más y más violencia en una espiral descendente que parece no acabar jamás). It is from that primary violence, the Pope said,  that religious and narco- terrorism are derived. 

All tyranny, he says, operates by exploiting fears. Those who, despite massacres, plunder, injustice and oppression, still hold on to some rights are tempted by the false security of walls; walls which enclose some and exclude others.

The Pope certainly denounced xenophobia and indifference to the refugees fleeing the (US induced) disaster in Syria, but his premise was the tyranny of Mammon and its consequent “globalization of indifference” which did not put economy at the service of the people, which did not promote peace and justice and which did not defend Mother Earth. (As in continuous military incursions around the world, mass incarceration of petty offenders, sub-subsistence jobs, inadequate health care, penurious retirement,  ecocide,  fracking, coal tar extracting and palm oil deforestation.)

What is really choice is that at the outset, the Pope cited Quadressimo Anno the 1933 encyclical in which then Pope Pius XI denounced the economic dictatorship of international capital ("dictadura económica mundial que él llamó «imperialismo internacional del dinero». ) In fact Pius XI was also very vigorous in his denunciation of the “idols of Liberalism.” by which he meant exactly the economic policies pursued by Hillary and Obama and all American administrations since Reagan.

Of course the slop and slosh that passes for journalism in England and the U.S. would attempt to trivialize the Pope’s statements, rendering them harmless to the evil the corporate press supports (global capitalism sub nom. “free trade”) while abusing the Pope's remarks as a foil for their own enemies.

The Church has always denounced liberal economics. It has always insisted that people have a right economic security from the state as a precondition to personal growth and freedom.

"Toda la doctrina social de la Iglesia y el magisterio de mis antecesores se rebelan contra el ídolo-dinero que reina en lugar de servir, tiraniza y aterroriza a la humanidad."
If anything, his remarks were directed against Hillary and the arms-peddlers, money lenders, war-mongers and earth-destroyers she serves and supports

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