https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/vatican-document-economics-serious-intellectually-hefty-indictment
MGB: The document is correct that economic activity is within the moral realm, but so is all human action, including medicine, warfare and nuclear physics.
Consumerism is Capitalism getting undeserved luck. It provides at least first world workers, and eventually workers in emerging markets, enough material comfort to avoid revolution, much to the disappointment of revolutionaries everywhere. Capitalists have built an adequate cage, although it is getting rusty, leading to a resurgence of demands for social democracy, which fuels the reactionary resistance of Trump and Le Pen.
All moral sciences, of course, have to abandon the realm of study and lead to the world of invention. At the end of his writing, Marx wrote about the workers controlling the means of consumption, but he did not elaborate. The current economics on the left is heading down that road and, while it will include more liberty, it will likely also include the Church as a provider of social services because workers will chose that.
When this message makes it into the mainstream, we will Occupy Capitalism rather than trying to outvote it. Once it is beaten from the inside, it will not stand.
Friday, May 18, 2018
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Links for 5/17/18
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-51718
MGB:_Sadly, SBA is a classic pro-life group because of its Republicanism.
Agreed, many undocumented workers are trafficking victims and CIS seems to not care about treating them fairly when they find them.
Control Boards only work with political officials calling then to justice. This governor is simply an idiot and it shows in how he has messed up the response to Maria.
Hillsdale wants to be as notable as Liberty and Regent. Good luck with that.
Foundations do the work of the donors, although throwing off the Senator’s family for not going along with their groupthink is tacky. I hope they sue to remove his name.
I don’t have to watch the video to guess Rahm.
MGB:_Sadly, SBA is a classic pro-life group because of its Republicanism.
Agreed, many undocumented workers are trafficking victims and CIS seems to not care about treating them fairly when they find them.
Control Boards only work with political officials calling then to justice. This governor is simply an idiot and it shows in how he has messed up the response to Maria.
Hillsdale wants to be as notable as Liberty and Regent. Good luck with that.
Foundations do the work of the donors, although throwing off the Senator’s family for not going along with their groupthink is tacky. I hope they sue to remove his name.
I don’t have to watch the video to guess Rahm.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Pope Benedict and Pope Francis: free and faithful in Christ
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/pope-benedict-and-pope-francis-free-and-faithful-christ
MGB:_Having done on camera interviews, I can testify how hard it is to be comfortable looking at the camera (unless it’s with a teleprompter). That Francis is natural at it shows he either has great tech or can visualize who he is really speaking to as a priest. When he washes the feet on Holy Thursday, it is no longer a sick farce.
He and Benedict upset the culture of the Vatican, including its dysfunctional teaching on sexuality. Benedict opposed birth control, not to affirm the goal-centered sexuality of the Neo-Platonists but to affirm the rights of people in developing countries to have fertility as part of their economic solution and to insist that the economy accommodate them, rather then they sacrifice child-bearing to international planner agendas.
Both Popes do not believe that it is the job of the Church to do our thinking for us. That we are up to the task of both thinking and belief ourselves. They are not Anachronists that want all of thinking to have been done by tradition, so we only need comply.
MGB:_Having done on camera interviews, I can testify how hard it is to be comfortable looking at the camera (unless it’s with a teleprompter). That Francis is natural at it shows he either has great tech or can visualize who he is really speaking to as a priest. When he washes the feet on Holy Thursday, it is no longer a sick farce.
He and Benedict upset the culture of the Vatican, including its dysfunctional teaching on sexuality. Benedict opposed birth control, not to affirm the goal-centered sexuality of the Neo-Platonists but to affirm the rights of people in developing countries to have fertility as part of their economic solution and to insist that the economy accommodate them, rather then they sacrifice child-bearing to international planner agendas.
Both Popes do not believe that it is the job of the Church to do our thinking for us. That we are up to the task of both thinking and belief ourselves. They are not Anachronists that want all of thinking to have been done by tradition, so we only need comply.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Links for 5/15/18
https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-51418\M\
MGB:_Hiring Cohen was business as usual and it paid off. No one is suddenly moving to bring back net neutrality. They will take the embarrassment as long as the policy change holds.
MGB:_Hiring Cohen was business as usual and it paid off. No one is suddenly moving to bring back net neutrality. They will take the embarrassment as long as the policy change holds.
CUA has always been reactionary. If not with Napa than with the bishops riding herd on the Theology Department. It is where you go when Georgetown turns you down.
Loras College, my Alma Mater has always been highly ranked on their Best Buy list, which caters to students saving money.
How does one seize second class citizenship? Would that not include full repatriation rights for Palestinians as an Israeli Arab majority? Note to MSW: Berkowitz is a neo-con as the rest of the world describes it. So are you.
Eugenics is always wrong, but neither that nor the pill was the problem with Humanae Vitae. It was an Asexual Cardinal trying to sell married Catholics on the proposition that sex was a means to an end rather than an intrinsic good. It is a perfect example of Papal Anachronism.
Trump is an angry old man who, like his followers, believes FoxNews. Nothing is worse than a star who belieives his own P.R.
Why is Dymphna the saint of the mentally ill when it was her father that was crazy?
Monday, May 14, 2018
Celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary without reluctance
https://www.ncronline.org/columns/distinctly-catholic
MGB:_Israel has a fine democracy, as long as you are not Arab or Palestinian. It has a fine judicial system, provided you are not being held by the IDF (do you prefer electro-genital shock or water-boarding?) or your house is not in the path of a settlement (things that go boom).
Today is suupposed to be the anniversary of the United Nations mandate for Palestine. There may have been violence, but that justified self-defense, no a land grab that erradicated Palestine.
Israel has both a demographic and a moral problem. There is no acceptable solution if it keeps going on its current path. The Temple would never be restored to such a nation.
MGB:_Israel has a fine democracy, as long as you are not Arab or Palestinian. It has a fine judicial system, provided you are not being held by the IDF (do you prefer electro-genital shock or water-boarding?) or your house is not in the path of a settlement (things that go boom).
Today is suupposed to be the anniversary of the United Nations mandate for Palestine. There may have been violence, but that justified self-defense, no a land grab that erradicated Palestine.
Israel has both a demographic and a moral problem. There is no acceptable solution if it keeps going on its current path. The Temple would never be restored to such a nation.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Trump turned us into a National Enquirer nation
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/trump-turned-us-national-enquirer-nation
MGB:_The problem is not that Trump is a National Enquirer character, butu the fact that he probably believes what it says. Even if not, we know he believes what FoxNews says. That is a problem. Propaganda is meant for the masses who are not supposed to know any better. Trump believes it, which is like a declining Hollywood actor believing his own press clippings. You would hope that, given that fact, the Enquirer and FoxNews would have the good sense to abandon tabloid journalism and give the President real news. Sadly, that is not the case. Makes you wonder, who has an interest in preserving the madness of King Donald?
MGB:_The problem is not that Trump is a National Enquirer character, butu the fact that he probably believes what it says. Even if not, we know he believes what FoxNews says. That is a problem. Propaganda is meant for the masses who are not supposed to know any better. Trump believes it, which is like a declining Hollywood actor believing his own press clippings. You would hope that, given that fact, the Enquirer and FoxNews would have the good sense to abandon tabloid journalism and give the President real news. Sadly, that is not the case. Makes you wonder, who has an interest in preserving the madness of King Donald?
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Links for 5/10/18
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-51018
MGB:_Instead of judging modernity, he uses it as a criteria to judge the Church. Of course, if he had been open to truth, he would call for enforcing the rights of women to ordination as coming from God. I also doubt he delineates the difference between natural rights and natural law and why they are not the same.
Blankenship was a fossil who thought racism would appeal to his base. Good for them for being better than he. Someone revoke is parole. As for the pro-life Democrat, he needs to be clear on what he thinks it means as far as criminal penalties and privacy rights for everyone, from contraceptors to gays and lesbians.
Mayor Cantrell has faith. I hope it is more than just loyalty.
Trump has only one mission, to overturn everything done by the first black president because he assumes he has to be more capable.
The scandal can be encapsulated in one sentence. For the bishops, the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday is a sad farce.
MGB:_Instead of judging modernity, he uses it as a criteria to judge the Church. Of course, if he had been open to truth, he would call for enforcing the rights of women to ordination as coming from God. I also doubt he delineates the difference between natural rights and natural law and why they are not the same.
Blankenship was a fossil who thought racism would appeal to his base. Good for them for being better than he. Someone revoke is parole. As for the pro-life Democrat, he needs to be clear on what he thinks it means as far as criminal penalties and privacy rights for everyone, from contraceptors to gays and lesbians.
Mayor Cantrell has faith. I hope it is more than just loyalty.
Trump has only one mission, to overturn everything done by the first black president because he assumes he has to be more capable.
The scandal can be encapsulated in one sentence. For the bishops, the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday is a sad farce.
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