Pope Francis: Economic Inequality “Is The Root Of Social Ills”

A couple of months ago, Pope Francis stunned many of his right-wing leaning flock when he came out strongly opposed to the economic inequality that has fractured many nations, including the Untied States. His admonition that “The world has become an idolator of this god called money,” could not have been a clearer denunciation of the chasm that separates the wealthy minority from the other 99% of society. Well, he’s done it again.

Pope Francis

In an official Vatican “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), The Pope went into even more detail about the greater harm of the greed and power associated with world markets and unfettered capitalism. I’ll let him tell it:

“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.”

“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.”

“In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.”

“In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market.”

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.”

“The economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded.”

“Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good. […] I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!. It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

As I have noted in the past, Fox News is the closest thing in U.S. media to a Vatican PR office, with a roster that is heavily weighted with Roman-Catholics. They include: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Father Morris. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News parent News Corp was himself inducted into the “Knights of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great” by Pope John Paul II. And if that isn’t enough, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Greg Burke, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years.

Pray for Fox News

It is interesting to note how divergent these parishioners are from the philosophy of their spiritual leader, but it isn’t new. In February of 2012, Juan Cole compiled a list of doctrinal variances between the church and the conservative hypocrites. In March of 2010, Glenn Beck outright begged his disciples to “run as fast as you can” from any church that uses the words “social justice” or “economic justice.” In other words, renounce any parish that practices the teachings of Jesus.

A few weeks ago Sarah Palin said the nastiest thing she could think of about Pope Francis. She called him a liberal. A couple of days later she had second thoughts and apologized to the Pontiff, who probably couldn’t have cared less. I wonder if she is rethinking her apology now.

The Stink Of Censorship: Reddit Politics Squelches Free Speech – Again

A couple of weeks ago I reported the sad tale of bitter feud brewing between the moderators of a politics forum on Reddit and the community they supposedly serve (See this article for background). The “mods” unilaterally implemented new rules that amounted to censorship by banning dozens of Internet sites, including some well known and respected sources for political news and analysis like Mother Jones and National Review (and News Corpse).

Reddit

In the intervening weeks they have slowly begun to unwind some of the bans. About 20 sites were freed from purgatory one week. The next week another four were paroled. On that event I posted an opinion piece (re-posted below) that criticized the mods for selecting four sites that were either overtly right-wing or affiliated with conservative media. The response from the Reddit/Politics community was overwhelmingly positive. Within a few hours the piece was one of the top three on the Politics main page.

However the response from the Reddit/Politics mods was decidedly more negative. First they tagged my article with an editorialized prefix. Later they simply removed it entirely from it’s high spot on the main page and made it inaccessible without having the specific URL. Finally, they deleted the entirety of what I had written and replaced it with the word “[removed]” and no further explanation.

Prior to the deletion of my post it had accumulated over a thousand “up-votes” from the community (73% positive), and more than 700 comments. Nevertheless, the mods saw fit to make the whole thing disappear, despite the clear approval and interest from readers. And to compound the problem, the mods have refused to respond to my inquiries. It is as if they regard this forum to be their own private playground where they can rule with a tyrannical authority.

I want to make clear that these acts of censorship are the work of the moderators of the Politics forum or “sub-Reddit.” The rest of the Reddit website is not responsible. However, the Reddit administrators ought to be concerned that a group of volunteers are behaving in a manner that is casting a disreputable pall on the site that is damaging to its credibility, its commitment to free speech, and its future success. Hopefully, someone in an official capacity will intervene to address the situation and impose the necessary changes in policy and personnel.

Contine reading

Fox News Guest Distorts Martin Luther King Quote To Attack ObamaCare

The naysayers at Fox News have been working overtime to cripple the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) by inventing controversies, spinning nightmares, and just outright lying. Then, when it seems that they have traversed a line that extinguishes all manner of decency, they manage to go a step further.

In yesterday’s episode of America’s Newsroom, host Bill Hemmer introduced a debate segment with a putrid old clip of Joe the Plumber (whose name is not Joe and is not a plumber) and the deliberately misrepresented remarks of then-candidate Obama talking about the benefits of growing the middle class. At the time, Fox News twisted his words into a socialist credo of redistribution of wealth when all he was saying was the same thing folks like Ronald Reagan said about a rising tide lifting all boats.

Fox News

The segment (video below) featured right-wing radio talker Mike Slater who took liberties with the words of Martin Luther King from his iconic essay, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In an effort to condemn the egalitarian aspirations of making health care accessible to all American citizens, Slater mangled King’s words saying…

“Here’s the bottom line. The ends do not justify the means. Martin Luther King, Jr. said ‘You cannot achieve a moral end — helping people — through an immoral means — taking from people.’ The left’s solution is always to take from people to help another group. That’s lazy.”

What anyone familiar with King’s famous essay will immediately recognize is that Slater’s butchered version of the quote where he references “helping people” and “taking from People” do not exist in the original. What King actually said was…

“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.”

King was reiterating his long held belief in nonviolence and the need to maintain that in the face of increasing hostility from bigots and misguided southern law enforcement officials. It certainly had nothing to do with Slater’s skewed characterization that it is somehow wrong for government policies to help people. Taken literally, Slater’s view would eliminate Social Security, public schools, fire departments, child nutrition programs, and more.

Slater’s intentional distortion is even more ironic when you know that King’s next line was “But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.” King might as well have been speaking directly to Slater who was using the moral ideas expressed by King for the immoral purpose of deception and advocacy of the sort of selfishness that King despised.

Unfortunately, Slater’s debate opponent, Leslie Marshall, was unprepared for Slater’s misquoting of King. She nevertheless responded earnestly saying “I think MLK would be rolling in his grave. If a child has cancer and they couldn’t get insurance, I don’t think that’s immoral, I think it’s quite the opposite to provide that.”

For the record, King was an advocate of health care access for all. In 1966 he told a conference in Chicago that “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Had Slater and Fox News made that quote available to their viewers they would have gone farther toward realizing the moral ends of which King spoke. But true to form, Fox was focused solely on advancing their own rightist agenda that only benefits the privileged.