Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Vatican News presenting Pope Francis’ support for the UN Secretary General’s vision of a global future of sustainable local cooperatives which eliminate the unfairness of Capitalism.
Pope: cooperatives for clean energy against climate change
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Cooperatives – people-centred development
The aim of the annual celebration is to increase awareness about cooperatives. Being people-centred, not capital-centred, cooperatives distribute wealth in a fairer way. As farms, businesses, or other organizations which are owned and run jointly by members who share the profits or benefits, cooperatives are committed to the sustainable development of their communities, environmentally, socially as well as economically. They support community activities, local sourcing of supplies to benefit the local economy, and decision-making that considers the impact on their communities.
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In a message for the June 4 International Day of Cooperatives, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, focused on the role of cooperatives in addressing the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change and in forging a path towards an inclusive and equitable future for all.
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Read more: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-07/pope-francis-cooperatives-day-climate-renewable-energy-justice.html
Laudato Si‘, Pope Francis’ Climate Change Encyclical, also mentions the positive role of Cooperatives;
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112. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. Or when technology is directed primarily to resolving people’s concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering. Or indeed when the desire to create and contemplate beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who behold it. An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed, like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising up in stubborn resistance?
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179. In some places, cooperatives are being developed to exploit renewable sources of energy which ensure local self-sufficiency and even the sale of surplus energy. This simple example shows that, while the existing world order proves powerless to assume its responsibilities, local individuals and groups can make a real difference. They are able to instil a greater sense of responsibility, a strong sense of community, a readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land. They are also concerned about what they will eventually leave to their children and grandchildren. These values are deeply rooted in indigenous peoples. Because the enforcement of laws is at times inadequate due to corruption, public pressure has to be exerted in order to bring about decisive political action. Society, through non-governmental organizations and intermediate groups, must put pressure on governments to develop more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls. Unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment. Local legislation can be more effective, too, if agreements exist between neighbouring communities to support the same environmental policies.
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Read more: Laudato Si’
Pope Francis sadly does not explain why a system in which people work hard but other people receive the benefit is somehow fairer than a system in which people work hard and get to keep the benefit. Of course, if all the fruits of my efforts were redistributed, perhaps I would choose not to work so hard. There is no point trying to work and save up for stuff you want to buy, if you are not allowed to keep what you save.
Perhaps this is what Pope Francis means by “a non-consumerist model of life”.
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…I’m done…he can go to
Hunter-gatherers are our future. They will distribute no-wealth in a fairer way. On a positive side, they won’t need the Pope or a Secretary General.
It reminds me of an old Soviet joke: Why do bees have honey? – Because they have a queen. If they had a Secretary General ..
But didn’t they bring the megafauna to extinction ? And they had hierarchies and shamans.
Is this the same Catholic Church that protects and enables pedophiles? Helped Nazi murderers escape justice? Fights birth control in the poorest and most over populated countries in the world? Is this the guy who claims infallibility? Surrounds himself with much of the world’s art treasure and gold and talks about equitable distribution while 100% living off the labour of others? Fantastic! Let’s listen to him. No hypocrisy there!
that protects and enables pedophiles: Past tense, they are cleaning up their act.
Helped Nazi murderers escape justice: Not true.
Fights birth control in the poorest and most over populated countries in the world: Birth control has never reduced populations. Only wealth has ever done that.
Is this the guy who claims infallibility: Only when writing (argh, I forget the latin term for that type of paper), the rest of the time he does not.
It’s amazing how little you know about the Catholic Church. I guess it’s easier to hate that way.
Thank you. Not that the current incumbent is my favorite guy, but these articles always unleash a torrent of hatred aimed at the church. The church has its faults, but why don’t climate skeptics see that the same people who promote the climate “narrative” also promote hatred against the church?
Encyclical?
Past tense my arse. It will take years before they convince me they have gotten rid of the pedos, and it still won;t erase the pedos they have now who have not been turned iin.
The wartime pope may not have been a Nazi, and he may have had tremendous pressure from Mussolini, but bishops and cardinals certainly did help some Nazis escape after the war was over and they had no more pressure from Mussolini.
Birth control is just a tool, one of many which people use to reduce births. You may as well claim condoms have never reduced populations. The best intentions are pretty useless without tools.
Popes act as if everything they say and write, not just the papal bulls you probably refer to, are infallible. Falling back on doctrinal technicalities is a convenient cover of no significance when their practice and propaganda differ.
Birth control is just a tool, one of many which people use to reduce births. You may as well claim condoms have never reduced populations
reduce births and reduce population are two different things. Condoms are a form of birth control. And the entire class of birth control tools (doesn’t matter which individual tools you care to name) don’t reduce populations. never have. The only way that actually works to reduce populations is to increase wealth. (what? you thought the “most over populated countries in the world” don’t have any birth control? really? western countries have been distributing free birth control to those countries for decades and yet they’re still the most over populated countries in the world despite all that.)
Yeah something to do with infallibility when it comes to faith and God.
The term is “Ex Cathedra”, From the Chair, meaning from Peter’s Chair, or in his official role as head of the Hierarchy.
Some reality on the RC Church:
Operation Gladio, a book by Paul L. Williams, The Unholy Alliance between THE VATICAN, THE CIA, and THE MAFIA.
Bottom line: since WWII the Vatican has laundered Mafia & CIA dirty cash, for a minimum 15% cut.
381 pages total, including 290 pages of text, 53 pages of notes 36 pages of index.
JD.
Co-ops of this nature have been tried many times. Very popular in the 60’s. All failed. Communism simply does not work, whether on a large national scale or a local scale.
Co-ops and those who idealize them, don’t understand the first thing about growing wealth, the pie so to speak, so that everyone has a chance at a piece of it.
To them the money supply and wealth are stagnant and need to be dolled out equally and profit (growth) is an evil, greedy thing. What they don’t understand is that without profit there is not productivity, no innovation, no invention and worst of all, no initiative.
With co-op eventually everyone goes hungry and grows hungrier until the fighting breaks out. The strongest will then take authoritarian control and decide who lives and who dies. It is as simple as human nature. survival of the fittest which is a very bleak way to live.
The monastic societies of the Middle Ages did accumulate a lot of wealth. Not much of it trickled down to the people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries#Complaints
Agreed, but I’ve been thinking about Communism and it’s popularity in spite of ugly and total failure in every single attempt at creating the Utopia.
I’ve concluded that it fails because it cannot overpower human nature. It requires that humans work and strive for the “greater good”, which in a modern, complex and highly populated society does not exist. Most of us will work til we drop for our children. Maybe a little less for our siblings By the time get to our next door neighbour it’s an equal swap arrangement until stops returning tools or earns a bit of an upgrade by becoming a friend. At the level of a large city a general self protective caution sets in and at the country scale, nationalism must be sold as it has little real value, especially when government entities routinely reward those who contribute least and tax effort and enterprise.
So Socialism is inherently coersive, with ever greater top down pressure to the wriggling asperations and laziness of humans. The inevitable, inexorable increase in coersion results in full blown top down Communism and a 1 party state which winds up serving the political elite, who seldom acquire their position by anypractical merit other than political acumen. It is unnatural and anti- human and we need to teach that in school.
Maybe we should send the profs to re-education camps first.
No, just send them to a commune and have them learn from first-hand experience how communes are short lived.
Just read von Mises – socialism eliminates information needed for economic planning, thus making efficient economy and accumulation of wealth impossible.
The concept of socialism is acceptable at the familial level and degrades at each extension outward into chaos. Neighborhood—problematic. Town—interesting, but I wouldn’t want to live there. State—doomed to failure. National Socialism—there’s a word for that.
+1848!!!
If you refrain from consuming all of your income. Then take those savings and use them to build a business, you are a capitalist.
You can also use your savings to invest in someone else’s business.
Socialists tend to think that the money investors invest just fell off the turnip truck, and these guys were lucky enough to be the first to grab it.
Bill, didn’t we just try this again in Seattle?
Only took a couple weeks for the “warlord” to try and take over
Cooperatives are like religion.
I have no problem with people who want to set up a ‘cooperative’ or any business that wants to operate that way. Just don’t make me join your religion (or cooperative)
Yeah. Religion like in the Plymouth Colony
They almost starved to death before Bradford ended the socialism and the freeloaders had to earn their keep.
“The Plymouth Company, which consisted of 70 investors, had an agreement with the settlers of the Plymouth Colony, the pilgrims, promising to finance their trip to North America and in return the settlers would repay the company…”
The colonists of Plymouth were expected to pay for their passage to the New World by giving much of their earnings back to the company.
Governor Bradford assumed the debt to the Plymouth Co personally, and this allowed the colonists to work independently for their families, as they would have back in England. It was not socialism, but debt for the passage.
It’s called indentured servitude.
Originally the colonists all worked in common, and starved. It was only after they got individual plots of land to work that things turned around.
Like the Direct Tax system we live in today.
Paulina: good point.
The problem of indentured servitude was broken when we separate the debt from the means for repaying it.
If I get a suit at the haberdashers, and buy it on credit, I owe them $1,000. I can either be committed to work off that $1,000 at the haberdasher’s, or I can go work elsewhere, come up with the $1,000 in my own way, and pay off the debt.
Indentured Servitude: you owe a debt to someone and they control how you pay it off; plain ol’ capitalism: you owe a debt to someone, and you go figure out how to pay it off as you see fit, or incur bad/no credit if you don’t.
You might not be that productive in the jobs they have for you at the Haberdasher’s. You might be three times as productive doing something else. So, the Haberdasher gets his or her money all the same, but you have been free to decide how to earn the money for your debt, including how efficiently you want to use your free time and liberty to go earn the money to pay the debt.
Capitalism is much more free, being less exploitative.
FFW to today: in Socialism or Communism, you owe the State, and the State provides the opportunities for you to pay your debt; you are not allowed to just go earn the money however you see fit.
This is why some say that Socialism / Communism is just one version of Feudalism. In Feudalism, you live on someone’s land, and you have to pay a portion of your crops to the landlord. Or, you have nowhere to live, and no place to raise food for your family. So, you have no means of livilihood outside of doing one specific type of labor to cover your debts. Which are ongoing.
Socialism / Communism is indentured Servitude. But, there is NEVER any way to finally pay off the debt. Since the Government oversees all of life, you have a debt to them for their services. Taxes in various forms. A production quota to pay your share. Therefore, it is a type of indentured servitude that is worse. Since you are not free to leave your employer , you are a feudal vassal.
Economically, this is not much different from the Slavery setup. The one difference being that as a vassal, you have some inherent rights, such as who you might marry, and being able to have your private property, and maybe some access to justice system for civil issues. As a slave you don’t have such individual rights. Worse, but only by that one step.
You must make the distinction between a “cooperative” and a “commune.” Which distinction, of course, is another victim of NewSpeak.
A cooperative (proper definition) is a group of capitalists that join in a larger organization in order to enjoy the economies of scale that are made possible. One somewhat larger shop that has the tools to repair all of the farm equipment, rather than fifty barns with the same. One grain seller to negotiate with the buyers, instead of fifty different farmers. Most cooperatives are not equal contributions, either; they operate on a percentage of sales, with each individual capitalist’s sales allocated to them, minus the cooperative percentage. The individual receives the proceeds from their contribution – which (for a well run cooperative) are more than they would receive as an individual.
A commune, on the other hand, distributes the proceeds “equally” (quotes there, there has never been a commune where some animals were not more equal than others), irregardless of the contribution made by each individual in the commune.
What the UN, and the Pope among other “leaders,” are advocating are communes, not cooperatives.
And, yes, in his “Brave New World,” the Pope will remain somewhat more equal than any of his Cardinals – and vastly more equal than your local parish priest.
THIS time communism/socialism/marxism will work!
All of the previous efforts that failed were not TRUE communism/socialism/marxism.
My son says European socialism works. He says all the US has to do is try it.
It only “works”, if you don’t look too closely. Which socialists never do.
The French are revolting. Take that any way you like. The E.U. is a failing Socilist experiment designed to benefit the French and Germans. It’s trade protections make Europe generally less competetive. Germany in particular benefits from a loww Euro that results from the economic inefficiencies of the Southern European countries. Underlying some surface affluence they are an economic time bomb that will go off. The fallout from the
China virus is yet to come. It has been papered over, literally, by central bank interventions and fantastic levels of government spending. It will all end in tears.
Germany pays for everything in the EU, we also suffer immensely from the weakness of other EU countries.
My son says European socialism works. He says all the US has to do is try it.
That must be why the Yellow Vests keep rioting. Its all a big misunderstanding, the riots are actually celebrations of the wonderful European system they enjoy.
“My son says European socialism works.”
Your son is confused. No European country is “socialist”, which actually means the State owns the means of production and distribution.
They often have nationalised militaries, roads, welfare, policing, firefighting, and pensions… but so does the US.
Some of them are more redistributionist (they have more generous welfare schemes) or have more extensively socialised sickcare, but that doesn’t make them socialist. Just more socialist than the US.
But if the American voter decided he’d rather have more subsidised sickcare, and less invasions of MENA non-vassal states, that would be fine with rest of us.
Though the end of the petrodollar would mean big trouble for the US economy, so I guess that won’t be happening any time soon.
You guys might find this climate video enlightening.
Yoou are a True Scotsman, Sir.
Coming from a man who has never earned a living.
I think you misjudge the priesthood. Personally I have grave doubts about the road down which Francis is trying to lead the Church but to dismiss his views on the simplistic grounds that he has “never earned a living” — by your standards — is to dismiss the work of every “man of God” and many others who, without believing in God, do similar important good work.
Only this isn’t good work. It’s tearing down and destroying the system that raised the standard of living for millions and taking away all our freedoms in the process.
Does he get paid by production or from donations to the church?
Yes. But he has never earned a living.
Your ignorance regarding how a church operates would fill libraries.
The Church operates on donations not by production. Unless you want to count bake sales where the product is provided free to the church who keeps the money from the sales.
The source of funding says nothing about if those receiving that funding have done anything to earn it. Those are two separate things. That said, I agree the current Pope doesn’t seem to be earning his keep.
He’s not a theif, or on welfare, but is essentially a bureaucrat within a large charity. He’s “earned” his living that way.
You might not like the Catholic Church (I don’t either) but it functions via voluntary contributions, and the people within it get paid according to how well they are perceived to have met its needs.
I don’t use a hair colourist, but that doesn’t mean they’ve “never earned a living”.
What the pope has never earned is the right to be quoted as some kind of authority on subjects of which he has no expertise.
Having said that… as a (putatively) spiritual organisation (allegedly) concerned with bringing souls to God, fighting poverty is only good inasmuch as it is a struggle for the good of mankind. Whether a person is rich or poor is of no concern with respect to whether they are good or not, and as the poor are often more devout than the wealthy, you could – if you were a Catholic – make the case that humanity is better off without capitalism, as the material comfort it brings seems to go hand-in-hand with people being less religious. What is having a second car for a few years, compared with spending an eternity in the bosom of The Lord?
Hence the pope giving away all the Church’s riches and going about his everyday business in jeans and a t-shirt.
Yes but these other “men of God” who do good work and who have never earned a living aren’t pontificating and lecturing everyone else like Francis is. If he kept his mouth shut and got on with whatever the hell he’s supposed to do (like blessing babies or something) instead of lecturing everyone else on their capitalist sins, maybe he would be taken more seriously. But, like all true lefties, he’s just another hypocrite wagging his finger, tut tutting everyone like Greta Humbug and all the rest. Funny how the Pope lectures us about the evils of capitalism when it’s capitalism that has allowed him to live like a king in the first place. Funny how he lectures Trump on the evils of border walls when the Vatican is surrounded by one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ZvInRz84k).
That’s the one thing all lefties have in common. Hypocrisy.
if your good works priests stay out of economics and politics they are doing important work … step out of their lane and “never worked a day” has relevance … but you knew that what was meant because you can read … “Coming from a man” means one man not all priests … to try and claim it meant ALL priests are tarred with the same brush is simply a strawman … your defense of other priests who do good work is just virtue signaling on the cheap …
So, what is the difference between greenpeace and the church, apart from the somewhat different message?
The underlying problem with cooperatives, which has never been well solved, is that for them to work, human beings have to actually … well … cooperate …
w.
PS—In some situations, producer coops have worked over time. However, consumer coops to “distribute weath in a fairer way” as Il Papa recommends tend to have much shorter lifespans …
Willis, Producer co-ops are based upon profitability. Consumer co-ops are about equal consumption, hence distribution of product and therefore not concerned with putting capital back into the initiative for future profits. Socialism is doomed to fail because nobody is concerned with bigger, faster, better. Everyone is consumed with getting their fair share of a diminishing return.
Which is why consumer co-ops always fail.
However, there are co-ops that succeed, where a bunch of people pool their money to start a business that sells to the general public as well as the investors. Investors (shareholders) get a cut rate, but not so much that the co-op loses money.
That kind of co-op is pure capitalism.
Art did you read Willis’s comment? Seems you are overlooking the fact that what you are saying has already been acknowledged?
I did. The purpose of my comment was to illustrate the last sentence, that successful co-ops are capitalism. Why do I have to say it again?
Salute!
Thanks, Willis, et al.
The vast agricultural portion of the U.S. has many “co-ops” but not the ones the Marxist/Lenin folks and such envision. The U.S. “co-ops” are intended to and have succeeded in developing the most bountiful agricultural environment on Earth. It came about because local folks did not want to join the “big boys”, and establishing a “co-op” and such reduced all their day to day problems of finding the highest buyer for the product. Or do I read that explanation wrong? There’s lots more there, but for now…..
There has never been an example of a successful “communal” or “communist” or “socialist” agricultural component of society compared to what the U.S.A. has done for over 200 years. If so, please provide the documents and reams of studies ( double blind studies/tests, and outside comments besides the brothers-in-law).
I am not happy with the Pope’s apparent view of humanity, with all its warts and all. Even Jesus admonished Judas about the simple fact that there would always be poor, hungry folks.
You cannot help them by “giving” them the necessities of life without some instruction of basic survival skills. The old saw, “give a man a fish for dinner and he will not be hungry today, but help him learn to fish and he will never be hungry”.
Gums sends…
On the fish thing – there’s a modern addendum: “Give a man someone else’s fish, and he’ll vote for you!”
😎
The problem with any system devised by Man is that there are People involved.
Look to Seattle’s Clog (or whatever they called it) or Atlanta and the area around that Wendy’s.
Socialist don’t seem to understand those who have succeeded in creating wealth and jobs have earned what they have.
Take away the incentive, keeping what you’ve earned, you take away the incentive to create the wealth (and the jobs).
They seem to think that “wealth” (money in the bank) earned by another is their tight to confiscate.
Greed and envy are a powerful carrot used by those who want to gain or maintain power.
Oop, there it is. Ever body Cabbage Patch! We are what we are, and the worst side of us is, currently, in the ascendant. I, for one, will not submit. My son, my wife, my brothers and cousins, they will not submit. Leftists started a civil war in 1860 and they lost, they will lose this one and there will be no reconciliation, this time.
What does this stuff have to do with the salvation of man through the saving power of Jesus Christ? If the pope talk about anything other than that, he’s not doing his job.
The Roman Catholics have more-or-less reached the conclusion that everybody’s already saved by Christ regardless of belief, creed, etc., so evangelism is kind of an afterthought these days.
Seems to me God doesn’t intend for the church or the Government to equalize wealth otherwise the church and the governments wouldn’t be sitting on so much of it.
“Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm”
That sounds like a total avoidance of the corruption problem that plagues so many areas…… and the Vatican.
The corruption and crime plagues are greater than ever and it’s insulting to see them run off in other directions.
How is that alt/barter currency in some Vermont communities working out these days.
I suppose it had a tax avoidance element to it that was not talked about in the glowing descriptions.
for an example of whay he means, look into the ‘reductions’ the church ran in paraguay and other s.a. countries
“Society, through non-governmental organizations and intermediate groups, must put pressure on governments to develop more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls. Unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment.”
Does no one at the Vatican realize how incompatible those two sentences are?
The built in hypocrisy is intentional. It is needed to convince trusting people that the message is benign. Rigorous governmental regulations and controls will prevent the people from having any voice or control.
I think you’re right. It must be intentional. It sounds like the slogans from “1984”.
Cooperatives is a sound and nice thought, but in these globalization times the former cooperatives tend to become international giant scale companies, with the power to dictate global policy.
The former USSR also relied on the beauty of collective farming and grand five-year plans. The problem there, was that yield was close to zero and the general population was more less starved. Only the farmers’ own tiny plots, for their own household, actually gave great yield.
However, the Pope’s idea is noble and socialistically correct, serving the top brass and mostly devastating for the common man.
Vatican, please stay out of climate-catastrophism/scaremongering, as if there weren’t enough already doing it.
Pope Francis:
You, sir, have become the willfully blind plaything of forces that have obviously become far greater than you and your Church. Do you seriously imagine that technology – which obviously has a far different meaning for you than for those who understand it, a blatantly derogatory brain-dead treehugger one – only occasionally emerges from its despotic, dehumanizing (/sarc) mode to “resolve people’s concrete problems and help them live with more dignity and less suffering”? What in hell do you think the purpose of technology, from the domestication of fire and flint knapping to the quantum computer, has always been? You sit there in your Renaissance palace with your distorted, poorly understood and expressed worldview and pretend to dispense this shallow wisdom to your betters – SHAME!
And newsflash, here’s another “value deeply held by indigenous peoples”: brutal tribal warfare over scarce food resources – or just plain xenophobia. We emerged from the jungles and founded civilizations precisely to leave behind the dehumanizing effects of nature, you schmuck!
Communist Anti-Pope, take a long hike off a short pier! My God, I should re-read Revelation, I think there’s something in there about you!
Check 2nd Timothy 4: 3-4 also.
Yes, thank you. Excellent.
I believe the first disciples held their property communally for a while after Christ’s death. I don’t think that lasted very long. I imagine that practice ran into the same problems that bedevil most communitarian arrangements.
Ultimately, and I quote from memory, St. Paul felt called upon to say, “Let those who do not work, not eat.” Capt. John Smith said the same thing when the Jamestown Colony was failing. (All mention of failed communism in America has been stricken from Wankerpedia!)
Good point. Actually, sharing was completely voluntary. A chap named Ananias embarked on a bit of virtual signalling, misrepresenting his generosity with the proceeds of a real estate transaction. None other than Peter himself called him to account, not for retaining ownership or part of the profits, but for lying about what he had done.
Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?…Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
This did not end well for Ananias.
Well that should keep all the peasants in their place nicely so that all the wealthy and woke can carry on with their privileged existence uninterrupted by any demand for a better existence by the deplorables who must be ruled firmly.
China as a communist country is going along ok, a communist political governance with active capitalism.
The key difference between the USA and China is that the billionaires in China do not run the political system.
Regards
WOW!
You the have the temerity to spout that patent B.S. here at site that is knowledgeable, well-read and skeptical of garbage! It’s seems that supporters of Marxism fall into three categories: the ignorant, the idiots and the insane. I wouldn’t want to speculate which you fall into but anyone who thinks that executing political prisoners to harvest their organs, imprisoning Uyghurs in ‘re-education’ camps and forcing the people of Hong Kong to renounce their democratic freedoms as guaranteed by international treaty must be in at least one of the three!
You forgot to mention how the ‘brave’ ChiComs fought against the virus introduced by the US to cause a world-wide pandemic and destroy the world economy! /s I wish that people with little or no understanding of reality, history or human nature would keep their yaps shut and let the adults in the room carry on important conversations! Communism IS slavery; with the Party elite ruling over the workers and the middle class utterly destroyed! Everywhere it’s been tried you get the same result so it’s not a ‘bug’ in the system; it IS the system! What a maroon!
What simple minded nonsense. Has the pope ever started a business? You know what is the best kind of cooperative? A corporation where various shareholders pool together their capital to create products which people need.
Are you sure you are responding to the right post? Your reply had nothing to do with what Abolition Man wrote.
heh, the RCC is heavily involved/invested in businesses globally, it’s tax free holdings are beyond measurement.
also, this pope is a jesuit. they know a thing or two about starting /running businesses and governments.
the jesuits have the largest network of schools on the planet, hospitals too. if you think these aren’t businesses then i don’t know what to say.
Really?? Start by checking out ‘the revered Leader’s’ fortune, and then work your way down the Party hirarchy.
+97. The elite are filthy rich in China.
You make two claims, both of which are 180 degrees away from the truth.
So you can be rich just so long as you follow the party line and make sure everyone else does as well 🙂
You have just given the literal definition of Fascism
Amazing how every issue the Left/Socialist/Woke/BLM/etc mob gets around to is redistribution of wealth! They don’t mean you get something either, they mean they want part of yours. I live in Argentina and I have yet to meet a Papa Francisco supporter, enough said.
Throwing a tantrum and receiving state funding is an easier income than working for a living.
His Infalliblecy apparently is not familiar with the experience of the Plymouth Colony in 1623 with socialism. Perhaps because they were, in the eyes of the Vatican, heretics.
Also check out Robert Owen, Owenism, Utopian socialism and New Harmony, Indiana.
Infallibility and this Pope have nothing in common.
Says the communist Pope as he is literally surrounded by the largest and most ostentatious display of wealth I have ever seen. Let me know when they start re-distributing the treasures of the Vatican. I have always been taken with the Etruscan gold. I call dibs on the scarab ring.
I want the hat.
It is a damn nice hat. Flip you for it? Best two out of three?
Who wants to call dibs on the popemobile?
For the leadership it’s always a matter of “the strictures of communism for thee, but not for me”.
He doesn’t practice what he preaches, not his comments on Christianity, wealth redistribution or global warming/climate change. It’s always other people who must make the sacrifice.
Hearing Pope Francis espouse various communist ideals always reminds me of the baptismal promises: “Do you renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his empty promises”
If I were Catholic I’d be questioning my faith right now.
As a former Catholic who was brainwashed during years of indoctrination starting a a very young age, I can tell you it is not easy to question your supposed faith as a young person. It took me years of mental battles to break out of the guilt and fear instilled during those years. When finally I was able to free myself, I was half surprised that someone didn’t tell me my real name was David Webb.
WR2:
Oh it’s much worse than that, I’m afraid. It seems the entire proposition of Catholicism is in dire crisis as of July 4, 2020. If the following is true the foundation for the existence of the Pope as head of the church is in question:
“JERUSALEM—In a decision that’s rocking the church around the world, Christian authorities have decided to revoke Simon Peter’s apostleship after disparaging comments against Gentiles were discovered in a personal journal dating back to Peter’s teen years.”
For the full story:
https://babylonbee.com/news/peter-removed-as-apostle-after-anti-gentile-statements-uncovered
Its from babylonbee…where lampooning is an art form.
Bee informed!
Whether chicken eggs or even rutabagas, it’s still capital, the conserved wealth of production. Perhaps he’s referring to markets, which are, in fact, democratic distribution systems, proportional to capital reserves and future productivity.
I’m waiting for the Catholic Church to start redistributing some of their wealth. It will be a long wait.
The original colony founded by the Pilgrims had essentially the same parameters as the Pope defines and lasted through only one harvest before the failure of some colonists to contribute their labor killed the concept.
Its the Achilles heel of socialism. How do you deal with people who fail to cooperate? Capitalism at least provides an accounting system. People who stay the course on socialism, even after the problems become obvious, the solution is usually something brutal like forced labor. The Pilgrims showed wisdom in recognising their mistake before it got to that stage.
I would be happy to arrive penniless at the Vatican if they promise the share the wealth.
Is he the Pope of the Catholic Church, or the Pope of the UN & the far left ?
– JPP