Pope Francis ignites a revolt that will overthrow American capitalism by Paul Farrell
Yes,
Pope Francis is encouraging civil disobedience, leading a rebellion.
Listen closely, Francis knows he’s inciting political rebellion, an
uprising of the masses against the world’s superrich capitalists.
And yet, right-wing conservatives remain in denial, tuning out the
pope’s message, hoping he’ll just go away like the “Occupy Wall
Street” movement did.
Never.
America’s narcissistic addiction to presidential politics is
dumbing down our collective brain. Warning: Forget Bernie vs.
Hillary. Forget the circus-clown-car distractions created by Trump
vs. the GOP’s Fab 15. Pope Francis is the only real political
leader that matters this year. Forget the rest. Here’s why:
Pope
Francis is not just leading a “Second American Revolution,” he is
rallying people across the Earth, middle class as well as poor,
inciting billions to rise up in a global economic revolution, one
that could suddenly sweep the planet, like the 1789 French storming
the Bastille.
Unfortunately,
conservative capitalists — Big Oil, Koch billionaires, our GOP
Congress and all fossil-fuel climate-science deniers — are blind to
the fact their ideology is on the wrong side of history, that by
fighting a no-win battle they are committing suicide,
self-destructing their own ideology.
The
fact is: The era of capitalism is rapidly dying, a victim of its own
success, sabotaged by greed and a loss of a moral code. In 1776 Adam
Smith’s capitalism became America’s core economic principle. We
enshrined his ideal of capitalism in our constitutional freedoms. We
prospered. America became the greatest economic superpower in world
history.
But
along the way, America forgot Smith’s original foundation was in
morals, values, doing what’s right for the common good. Instead we
drifted into Ayn Rand’s narcissistic “mutant capitalism,” as
Vanguard’s founder Jack Bogle called the distortion of Adam Smith’s
principles in his classic, “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism.”
The battle is lost.
Pope Francis, leader of the coming 21st Century American Revolution
In
the generation since the Reagan Revolution, America’s
self-centered, consumer-driven, mutant capitalism lost its moral
compass, drifting: Inequality explodes, income growth stagnates, the
poor keep getting poorer. Yet across the world, billionaires have
explode from 322 in 2000 to 1,826 in 2015, with 11 trillionaire
capitalist families predicted to control the planet by 2100.
But
not for much longer, as Pope Francis’ revolution accelerates, as
his relentless socialist message of sacred rights for all people
makes clear. Why? Our mutating capitalist elite have triggered a
massive backlash, a “profound human crisis, the denial of the
primacy of the human person. The worship of the ancient golden calf
has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money.”
An
aggressive Pope Francis is on a mission to transform the mutant
ideology of today’s capitalist world with its rampant
profits-centered climate-science denialism. Fortunately, the pope
will soon confront and challenge America’s GOP Congress directly,
then the United Nations General Assembly to challenge the capitalist
world’s failure to take climate change actions. Maybe they’ll
finally wake up.
Pope
Francis’ recent trip to South America revealed a clear
anticapitalism, socialist message, calling for a “structural change
to a global economy that runs counter to the plan of Jesus,” as
reported in Time by Christopher Hale. Francis warned:
“The
future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders,
the great powers and the elites.” The future “It is fundamentally
in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in
their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this
process of change. I am with you.” The pope is warning all
capitalists everywhere. As Jesus says in the Bible, the poor will
always be with you, but the rich may not be after the coming
revolution.
Yes
folks, Pope Francis is a revolutionary destined to end up in the
history books right up there with Lenin and Marx, Mao and Castro. He
is obviously inciting revolution, wants civil disobedience and
political insurrection, he is egging the poor into rebellion against
a vastly outnumbered rich.
In
fact, Francis has become one of the world’s great revolutionary
leaders. He not only is inciting an uprising of the masses against
wealthy capitalist billionaires, he’s out in front of the emerging
global revolution, encouraging the masses, shouting battle cries, a
leader in the tradition of Washington.
So
the media should stop mistaking Francis’s congenial nature, his
perpetual smile, dismissing his true intentions. His is an aggressive
call to arms, a call for a global revolution attacking today’s
out-of-control, consumer-driven “mutant capitalism,” a call to
replace capitalism with a new economic socialism giving the poor
“sacred rights” on par with the superrich.
Time’s
Hale went on to outline the four “foundations” of the pope’s
coming “revolution.” Hale covered the pope’s tour in South
America in, “Pope Francis Isn’t Holding Back — And U.S.
Politicians Should Watch Out.” In Bolivia Francis warned that
global capitalism is a failure and needs a “structural change”
because it runs “counter to the plan of Jesus.” Hale then added
that “leaders of both parties might regret their invitation to the
78-year-old Jesuit pontiff” to address a historic joint session of
Congress in two months. Five reasons make the warning quite obvious:
1. Socialism: Everyone has a sacred right to land, lodging and labor
“Pope
Francis argued that everyone has a God-given right to have a job, to
own land, and to have a home.” These rights go “well beyond the
traditional social teaching of the Catholic Church, which argues for
the dignity of work, but doesn’t go as far to say that everyone has
a God-given right to have a job.” But clearly, Pope Francis says
the poor do have inalienable “sacred rights” on par with those
guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. And clearly, Scott Walker and
the GOP already deny a similar liberal agenda of “sacred rights”
to a living wage, property and a home.
2. Humans, not capitalist profits, must be at the center of global economics
Pope
Francis message is unambiguous: “Unbridled capitalism” has become
a “subtle dictatorship,” is now the very “dung of the devil.”
Ouch, that must hurt even the stone-cold Koch ego. Francis says that
capitalism’s greedy “unfettered pursuit of money” is destroying
the “common good,” setting a stage for revolutions. The pope
urged the masses to “say no to an economy of exclusion and
inequality, where money rules,” because capitalists will “destroy
Mother Earth” in order to enrich the superrich elite. Yet another
revolutionary call to battle.
3. Billions worldwide, cannot wait much longer for action
Earlier
Pope Francis’ encyclical warned that “doomsday predictions”
about climate “can no longer be met with irony, disdain” or
dismissed without action. Now, Francis is aggressively pushing world
leaders and humans everywhere to fight against all economic
injustices against individuals. The clock’s ticking loudly, time is
“running out: we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are
tearing apart our common home” here on Earth. Pope Francis also
encourages people to start demanding, “We want change!” Remember
the 1976 movie “Network”: where an anchorman gets listeners
shouting, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this
anymore!”
4. Revolutions begin with angry citizens, not politicians or philanthropists
Time’s
Hale says the pope’s call for “structural change won’t be the
result from any one political decision.” The pope understands that
politicians rarely lead. Real change is triggered from below, by
angry mobs, they get “caught up in the storms of people’s lives,”
fired up, rebel, motivated to act, then revolutions ignite and move
fast like a wildfire on jet fuel.
5. Warning: Socialism is now a moral obligation, a commandment to obey
Admit
it, Pope Francis is clearly inciting people to rebel with his
passionate, provocative and inspirational message, which triggers
memories of Marx, yet is directly from the Gospels of Jesus: “Working
for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is
not mere philanthropy,” not just a handout from capitalist
billionaires.
Instead
Pope Francis shifts our focus: The socialism is now “a moral
obligation. And for Christians, the responsibility is even greater:
it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples
what is theirs as a sacred right.” And if we fail to do give it
freely, do not be surprised when revolutions explode across Planet
Earth.