Links for 12/27/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-122718
Kolfage is yet another in a string of Republican operatives going back to the Birchers and the Nixon error who created Fox News and gave us the vast right-wing conspiracy against Clinton (and his wife who helped take Nixon down), became the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Tea Party and the MAGA movement. Luckily for America, it is losing more members to old age and death than it is adding,

Opposition to the Gaza Genocide or the unilateral wall on the West Bank and the continued second class status of Palestinians who get work release from behind the wall to do the dirty jobs in Israel is not anti-semitism. Last I checked, Palestinians are Semitic. Neoconservatives like Michael Sean do not appreciate that fact.  Neoconservatism is all about Israel, not MAGA or No Trumpers.

There are few new cases of clergy abuse of children. The new focus is to open the files, even in cases long since settled for which the statute of limitations has expired. Reopening old wounds does survivors no good and it is more grandstanding than reform. Reform would be choosing to have the Vatican either backstop settlements, using the artistic patrimony to actually help its victims. The other option is to go to local election of bishops by lay deacon parish administrators (no promise of celibacy or obedience to anyone but the parish) and the local clergy.  Many would not mind doing both. Archbishop Gregory is spot on, but the jury is out on he and Francis, who must be more radical than the USCCB or any bishops want.

World trends are better internationally, although real wins against Capitalism are few and far between. The generosity of Buffett and the Gates Foundations are nice bandaids, although the logic of having fewer brown people around as a side effect is unfortunate at best and eugenic at worst. Even NFP substitutes the same ZPG bias when a living family wage is the better path. Brooks also misses what both Marx and modern scholar Michael Harrington said about social welfare movements, which is that it helps save capitalism from itself and enables its hegemony.

The First Amendment protects against the regulation of speech by the government only. It does not protect Capitalists. Boycotts are not only not control of speech (as the Capitalists have greater resources) but they can be effective in getting consumers involved in reform, as Marion Barry and Operation Push found out when they employed this tactic to desegregate much of non-official Washington. Concurrent picket lines worked as well, but are harder to do against a mega-corp.

The Notorious RBG is not as far off on abortion being about the rights of women as Michael Sean thinks. She is not far from the herd in preserving Roe, which was upheld in the Partial Birth Abortion case, joining Kennedy, Roberts and Alito. They are likely joined by Kavanaugh and Gorsuch in considering Roe settled. It is dirty ball to single her out. Indeed, it proves her point. Catholic Social Teaching requires employers (especially Catholic ones) to pay a family wage which is sensitive to family size, with intervention by the State when the free market cannot do this alone. Run this view by most Republican pro-lifers and they will respond by saying that they don't want their tax money subsidizing the sexuality of women who would otherwise have abortions (who should face a pelvic police state instead). So yes, abortion rights really are about the rights of women in general.