The Pope, Socialism, and Capitalism
So this week (as of this column’s
posting date), Pope Francis will be arriving in the United States
for the first time, and he is scheduled to be the very first leader of the
Catholic Church invited to address Congress.
You would think that such a momentous occasion would be one that no
Congressman would dare skip out on. Any
career politician, even non-Christians, would want to be there, not necessarily
for what he has to say but just to be there when history was made. The Catholic Church has been around in one
form or another for centuries. It
pre-dates the United States multiple times over. And yet, the leader of Roman Catholicism has
never been to the floor of Congress before now.
And, no, President John Kennedy’s State of the Union speeches don’t
count. President Kennedy made it clear
when he said that, even though he was a Roman Catholic, he was not there to be
the Catholic leader of the country, nor was he there to represent the Catholic Church.
But apparently not everyone in Washington is excited over this historic
visit by the Holy Father of Catholicism to the High Holy Church of Corruption
and Entrenched Failure.
Congressman Paul Gosar from Arizona has
announced that he will probably be skipping out on the Pope’s address to
Congress. But it’s not because it’s the
leader of the Roman Catholic Church, or because it’s a religious leader of any
stripe. It’s not supposedly because of
any perceived violation of the Separation of Church and State in the First
Amendment; which the congressman’s peers refuse to acknowledge even exists,
thanks to their C-street masters.
No, it’s not because of “The Pope”, but because of this specific pope. It’s supposedly about Pope Francis and all
that this pope is supporting.
You see, Pope Francis has been spouting some really “crazy” ideas ever
since he took over from his now-retired-but-still-alive predecessor. He’s been speaking out against income
inequality. He’s been speaking out
against corporate greed and the obscene wealth foisted on business
leaders. He’s been talking about how the
Church has been living high on the hog while the masses have suffered in
poverty. And he’s been talking about
climate change.
In other words, the pope has been talking like an actual follower of
the New Testament, and not as a pretender walking around in the Apostle Peter’s
sandals. What a novel concept...
actually putting your money where your verses are!
Of course such thinking has been branded “communistic” or “socialistic”
or just plain “liberal”. Ironic, given
how conservatives cling to the Bible like it’s their personal bullet-proof
vest, and yet it’s just chock full of those “leftist” ideas.
And that is why Mister Gosar is planning on walking out on the Pope. "When the Pope
chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician,” he told a
theo-conservative website, “then he can expect to be
treated like one."
Funny thing is that the Congressman from Arizona is supposedly not just
a Christian, but a Roman Catholic. And I seem to recall a little passage from
the Book of Matthew on this particular subject.
“No one can serve two masters.
Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the
one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
(Matthew 6:24)
I guess the Congressman from Arizona has made it clear
which “master” he truly serves. And it’s
not with the one that the Pope represents.
But this allows me to expose a deep, dark, and dirty
secret between social justice and capitalism.
For the longest time, there has been this ongoing
adversarial relationship between helping others and with helping yourself. We’ve been framing it as a struggle between
capitalism and either socialism or communism, although conservatives really don’t
see the difference between the two. Then
again, they have a hard time telling the difference between atheism, Satanism,
Islam, and Mormonism, not to mention they still think that the whole universe
revolves not only around the Earth, but specifically around Wall Street. I’m not saying they have an ego problem
but... okay, I’m saying they have a serious ego problem.
But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just skip the
whole communism thing and just show this as being between capitalism and
socialism. What has been passed off as “communism”
has really been either socialism or oligarchism dressed up as “communism”. Real “communism” as it was envisioned by its
creators has been nothing more than just futuristic speculation. Go ahead and read “The Communist Manifesto”
if you don’t believe me. So let’s just
take that out of the equation and make this just between capitalism and
socialism.
This big struggle between capitalism and socialism has
been going on for generations now, and there doesn’t seem to be a prevailing
winner between the two trains of thought during all of that time. You get some group in power that gets greedy,
another faction says that’s not right, they lead a revolution, they get put in
charge, and then that group starts abusing their power, leading to the first faction
to gain favor again, and the whole thing goes on and on. They both claim to be concerned about the
plight of the masses, they both make grand promises if they are allowed to be
in charge, and they both end up failing miserably when it comes to following
through on those promises.
That’s because of this little truth that has been kept
from everyone...
The two factions – capitalism and socialism – actually
need each other.
Let’s get brutally honest here... the adversarial
relationship between the forces of capitalism and the forces of socialism has
been a co-dependent relationship for as long as there has been a society.
Look at Cuba, where
Pope Francis is visiting before coming to the United States. Here was a country that was first ruled by a
puppet for the sake of the wealthy. Some
group claiming to represent “the people” says “this isn’t right, there needs to
be change”. Fidel Castro and his brother
orchestrate a revolution, they take over, they become the power, and they
re-make Cuba into their images. But now,
well over fifty years later, it’s an image that is stagnant and slowly
dying. It’s trapped in the past. They need to open up the gates. They need capitalism coming in to breathe new
life into it.
And then how long before people there will see what
the United States – as the “great bastion of capitalism” – has to offer and
they start saying “this isn’t right, there needs to be change”? I’m sure there are plenty of people in
America willing to be the capitalistic Castro for the Cuban people, ready to
lead that country into a supposed new “direction” with promises of milk and
honey for everyone.
Sound familiar?
Look at our current U.S. President, Barack Obama. Despite the lies and fiction spread by the
conservatives and neo-conservatives, this supposed “Kenyan atheist Satanist socialist
communist” has done far more to help Wall Street and the elites of this country
far more than the GOP ever could! Eric
Holder, now-former Attorney General, categorically refused to prosecute any of
the career corporate criminals that were behind the Great Recession, in direct
violation of his department’s own policy on the matter! Under Obama, the Dow Jones doubled, Wall
Street bonuses and CEO pay went through the roof. Profits climbed while the masses struggled to
tread water. The big banks got bigger
and more powerful than ever. He even
found ways to write off millions of Americans that have been laid off and claim
that he “lowered unemployment” when he really simply abandoned those unemployed
masses and let them rot. That’s far from
being “socialist”!
Look at Obama’s “crown jewel”: the Affordable Care
Act, aka “Obamacare”. Despite the
orchestrated lies spread by K-Street lobbyists on the subject, I challenge any
conservative to find where the real “socialist” part of the ACA is. I know the “fiction” of the ACA would be
considered “socialistic”. But there is
no universal coverage. There is no
single-payer system. It’s not “Medicare-for-everyone”. Those are all fiction. The reality is that people are now being
forced to pay money to big corporate insurance companies regardless of whether
they could afford to. And the only “pain”
is that those big corporations can’t “refuse” coverage like they used to, and
they’re “forced” to accept all of that money.
Boo-hoo; would you like some cheese and caviar with your phony whine? And that’s far from “socialism”. That’s corporatism, plain and simple. And you conservatives and neo-conservatives
damn well know it!
But K-street and their conservative and
neo-conservative lackeys are still belting out the fiction like Rosanne Barr
singing the National Anthem over and over again. Why?
Because it give them power over the willfully ignorant; the ones that
choose to retard themselves.
Supporters of capitalism need socialism to serve as their boogeyman. To keep their willfully ignorant myrmidons
petrified that the “big bad socialists” will come marching in and take their hard-earned
money away from them, even when it is their own mechanizations that are truly
responsible for the plight of the masses.
And likewise, socialists need capitalism to serve as figureheads of
greed and lust and gluttony. They need
capitalists to be every bit as ruthless and Machiavellian as they can so the
socialists can show the evil that is being perpetrated and of the suffering of
the masses so they can then pretend to offer the solution.
You know how people over in Afghanistan seem to be
oblivious to which group is in power?
Doesn’t seem to matter if it’s the Taliban or the Russians or the
British or whomever. As long as they’re
left alone, they don’t really seem to care who is in charge. That’s because a lot of them have become so
cynical about those in charge that it doesn’t really matter to them anymore.
Ban music? They’ll
just hide the record players until the next batch decide that it’s okay. Ban alcohol?
Keep it next to the record player and share it only with friends until
it’s permitted again. They know the
truth. They know that the person in
charge today will be just like the person they replaced yesterday, and anything
that is banned now will be okay tomorrow when that person is replaced.
They’ve known what I’ve come to discover... that the battle between the
“haves and the have-nots” is staged. The
“plight of the masses” isn’t the cause. It’s
the prop. Ideas like “capitalism” and “socialism”
are just means to an end... which is always getting and keeping power. Despite the rhetoric, the results end up
being the same.
Now I know that some of you are ready to say “Well, that’s only because
we haven’t had a ‘true believer’ in charge like the kind of people that I
support”. Well you are more than
welcomed to continue to dream that beautiful, delusional dream of yours. In fact,
you are encouraged to keep on dreaming that beautiful, delusional dream,
because that’s the only way that your ‘true believer’ could ever make the kind
of changes you want. And I say that as
a libertarian! I know from experience that,
despite all the talk about people “hating government”, they sure change their
mind pretty quick when they’re the ones in charge or are the ones that need
government to do something for them.
So I wish Pope Francis well on his trip to America, and I hope he gives
a rousing address to Congress. They can certainly
use the change from the usual K-Street talking points they regurgitate for the
CSPAN cameras. And the Congressman from
Arizona is more than welcomed to show just which “master” he serves by staying
away from the Argentinian visitor from Italy.
I have no doubt that at some point later on he will ask for and get
forgiveness for his arrogance. That’s
just the way Catholics roll.
But I hope nobody expects there to be any sort of political sea change
because of the pontiff’s visit or because of what he has to say. The game will continue to go on, and the rest
of us will continue to suffer for the benefit of the few.
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