Friday, February 23, 2018

Don't let 'Janus' case axe root of American labor

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/dont-let-janus-case-axe-root-american-labor
MGB:_Burke was a libertarian and a reactionary who believed that a society without strong elites ended up like the Jacobins in the French Revolution. That common core goes from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand to Donald Trump. It was resisted by Marx and Engels, the American Labor Movement and the Modern Cooperative Movement (which was created, in part, by Silas Locke Allen, my great-grandfather). The Catholic immigrant labor movement, as well as American craftsmen, joined in, but it was not a Catholic thing by any means. Socialism is not dead, as Bernie Sanders has shown. It has both secularists and Catholic workers and nuts and granola Protestants. As long as the Church behaves better than it did in the 1950s, you can play with us again.

The irony of this case is that if Janus were made to be a member, the could speak out about anything in meetings of the local. If he was persuasive, he would carry the day. If not, he could still keep speaking above the local level and at least be heard. Freedom of speech does-not carry the guarantee that others will agree. Instead, the law has allowed him not to join. He still speaks and has found deep anti-labor pockets to finance his speech. No one has stopped him. Let us hope that even here, only four justices agree (I suspect it will be three with Roberts finding a way to defend congressionnal intent).

The Catholic Church needs people who demand that the Church leave them alone in their marital lives, as their current actions are unjust. It needs someone on the inside to challenge how it deals with abortion, because it has become part of the problem for the unborn. Someone needs to explain to them solidarity with women and the principles of equal law, which are essential to solidarity and make first trimester abortion prohibition impossible. Few advocate abortion, but many understand that Roe is rightly decided and that will not change. In the end, the hierarchism of the Church needs to be blown up and that must come from the inside.

Even if this case goes the wrong way, there are both Democratic Socialist and New Cooperativist movements that are bringing both Marx and Allen back from the brink. We are just getting started providing alternatives to both goverment control and capitalism. Either was, this case is a speed bump, although there is mass organization planned for Saturday. All are welcome, except maybe that Paprocki guy.

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