"Pope JP2 denounced social ills of unfettered capitalism"

[NAO]

Reading today I came across this statement:

"Pope John Paul II now denounces the social ills of unfettered capitalism with almost the same zeal as he mustered against communism."

from The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, (Oxford University Press, 2001) p.113.

Now THAT is something we have not heard in the corporate news broadcasts about the Pope's career. They severely downplayed his condemnation of the Iraq War, but they completely ignored his denouncement of unfettered capitalism (aka, The Magical Mystical Free Market Miracle).

This is worthy of some LTEs, as it constitutes a major, obviously partisan, omission in the coverage.

[RevCheesehead]

1. Hmm.. unfettered capitalism.....

I like it! Greed, wealth for the powerful at the expense of the poor, outsourcing jobs,.... Yup. Those are the good ol' values that JP embraced (privately). Despite his public words, you really need to know the secred DaVinci code to understand the true nature of the "compassionate conservative."

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. My god and you were expecting anything diffferent?

What the media needs is for all of us to STOP WATCHING

Tehy cannot afford to loose us, and in some markets we are truly the majority

[Malva Zebrina]

3. I am not sure what he wanted as far as an economic system goes

It was not communism, nor was it capitalism which as everyone knows has the annoying tendency to go amok , nor was it socialism as in the Liberation theology movement.

Apparently,if we are to believe he was citing the United States, unfettered capitalism allows women their rights to reporductive freedom and control over their reproductive system, for if it were, indeed, "fettered" capitalism, according to what the Pope would have approved of,as the opposite of "unfettered", women would surely be the victims of a religion claiming they have a right to another woman's uterus.

So, are we to think that unfettered capitalism is the purveyor of birth control pills and devices? Or is it "fettered" capitalism that is the desired because it most certainly would have it that women are to be controlled as far as their reproductive capacity and their sexual desires go.

It most certainly is very confusing--:-)

[Bridget Burke]

4. Not everything is about sex.

Some people are easily confused.

[Malva Zebrina]

10. It appears to be an obssession with many religions, doesn't it?

It is no secret that unprotected sex results many times in a pregnancy and many times it is an unwanted pregnancy. It is also no secret that birth control is forbidden by the Catholic religion and that they have been, amongst others, in the forfront of an attack on women and their right to determine for themself, their own reproductive health. This is a fact and by no means is to be considered Catholic bashing.

That and the prohibition, indeed, the outright attacks on homosexuals, are the two outstanding, and imo, immoral decrees coming from the Vatican. That is my opinion based on fact.

So, to mention that, is by no means concentrating on only sex--indeed, it seems to me that the Vatican is the one obssessed with sex.

and , for those who do get confused and cannot understand a complicated post, I agree, I should not have made the post so complicated nor have been so flippant.

so for those who did not get it or are confused by my somwhat facetious post:

Recently demised Pope says unfettered capitalism is not good.

Women living in unfettered capitalism, practice birth control and seek abortion for an unwanted pregnancy. State allows women to have this control over their own bodies. Homosexuals living in unfettered capitalism, love another of the same sex, and even, horrors, have sex with those they love.

Since he hated communism, and apparently also hated socialism, as in Liberation Theology, what is left to him as the perfect system?

Capitalism, but fettered or controlled. Considering the two sex related dogmas which are outstanding precepts, I wonder what the outcome for women and homosexuals would be in the chosen, more controlled capitalist system.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Perhaps that's because

JP-II criticized the ills of capitalist domination over society as effects to be palliated with edge-tinkering reforms, but he attacked socialist governments like the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (activley working to better the lot of the impoverished masses in the name of the Dios de los Pobres and which included no less than THREE CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN ITS CABINET) as a threat to be eliminated. Mind you that government was under sustained terrorist attack from the citadel of global capitalism at the time.

I was aware thanks to Catholic friends of verbiage in Encyclicals somewhat regretting the effects of unmodified capitalist exploitation; but there are statements and actions that speak a hell of a lot louder than some paragraphs otherhanding the bad effects of greed driven exploitation, buried fathoms deep in a telephone index sized Vatican policy whitepaper. For instance, the Pope travelling to Managua and rebuking a government minister (Father Ernesto Cardenal, to his face, in public no less, thusly: 'you must regularize your relations with Rome!') That's an action and some words that the whole world heard without need for the MSM's selective megaphone.

Would that JP-II had travelled to some Philippine sweatshop towing the government's Interior Minister behind him with a nun's grip on his wrist, and acquainted himself and the media of the world with the conditions of the laborers there. What a gesture it would have been if the Pontiff had lifted some textile worker from her seat on the bench and did her 12 hours of labor for pennies in her place, and had then commanded the Interior Minister to wash her feet! Maybe if he had, JP-II would be remembered as an enemy by the media complex here in the Serene Republic of InCorporatia, but at least there would some substance to the claim that he was evenhanded in his moral criticisms of both the leading worldly materialist philosophies.

He was not evenhanded in his attacks on materialist philosophies: the MSM may not be exactly correct in their representation of his position, but since he was far more active and vocal in condemning socialism, you can understand their mistake.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. He certainly did.

Read what he said to the Phillipine sugar barons:

"..."Injustice reigns when, within the same society, some groups hold most of the wealth and power, while large strata of the population cannot decently provide for the livelihood of their families, even through long hours of back-breaking labor in factories or in the fields. Injustice reigns when the laws of economic growth and ever greater profit determine social relations, leaving in poverty and destitution those who have only the work of their hands to offer."

"Being aware of such situations, the church will not hesitate to take up the cause of the poor, and to become the voice of those who are not listened to when they speak up, not to demand charity, but to ask for justice. . . Because the land is a gift of God for the benefit of all, it is not admissible to use this gift in such a manner that the benefits it produces serve only a limited number of people, while the others -- the vast majority -- are excluded from the benefits which the land yields."

"The landowners and the planters should therefore not let themselves be guided in the first place by the economic laws of growth and gain, nor by the demands of competition or the selfish accumulation of goods, but by the demands of justice and by the moral imperative of contributing to a decent standard of living and to working conditions which make it possible for the workers and for the rural society to live a life that is truly human and to see all their fundamental rights respected...."

Pope John Paul II, "To the People of the Sugar Plantations," Bacolod, Negros, Republic of the Philippines, 1981


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=275x2841 (Thanks, DemBones DemBones!)

:)

[kenny blankenship]

8. Certainly sounds like what I said

JP-II, regretting some ill effects of capitalist exploitation to be palliated with edge tinkering reforms. It's nice, but it's rather an old sweet song that everyone knows how to sing, or hum, but without the feeling that impelled the original author and without a deep understanding of what the lyrics actually mean. There is no question voiced or implied there of the landowners' right to own the lands that they own (nor an investigation of how they came to such position of dominance in the first place) but simply a (quite ignorable and negotiable) demand for them to share the wealth. I think this is a safe axiom to start with: concentrated wealth and power does not share wealth except in temporary displays meant to abate the threat of revolution; the way for those victimized by plantation slaveocracy is always to attack the causes, (not the effects) of their impoverishment: and that is the primary concentration of property, and the monopoly of political power which always results from that concentration. The spoils are always divided according to ownership.

In the Nicaraguan example, the Pope was threatening a priest with expulsion simply for being part of the Sandinista government: Catholicism and the Revolution which handed out to the poor the lands of the Somoza elite, apparently could not co-exist. In the Philippine example, JP-II was speaking of the feudal sugar barons as individual members of the Church who ought to throw a few more crumbs to the people. They could not own the land and live like kings while the people who labored for them starved to death--this he says is unjust. But that statement does not exclude a situation in which the planters enjoy essentially the same power and opulence, if the poor also have just enough to survive. So in other words, please tinker around the edges of your plantation society. The relationship of planter to cane cutter is essentially just, it seems, it merely requires from the planter a little more Christian charity. The nature and legitimacy of the political regime the planters represent was not threatened or chastised as tending to be or to produce evil itself. All the wealthy have to do to satisfy such a weak standard for social justice, is to act like they give half a damn, and then they can carry on.

If JP-II had said on the other hand, "the land is a gift of God for all", and then continued in that vein with "therefore the CHurch is not satisfied until ALL OWN the land," then he would have been raising more than just a familiar, tepidly reformist tune. There you have the contrast: ELimination for the Sandinistas on the left hand, but on the right hand a call for ignorable, erodable, revocable, non-structural reform for the Philippine feudal baronies. As I said, this is not the same level of activism or condemnation at all.

[Cuban_Liberal]

7. kick n/t

[kenny blankenship]

9. Kick (nt)