Win or Die: The Literary Revolutionary Ernesto Guevara – the man beyond the myth

Revolutionary Pen

=By= Gaither Stewart

Che Guevara

The short biography: Ernesto Guevara was born in Rosario in western Argentina on June 14, 1928 of well-to-do, leftwing parents, the oldest of five children, He died in the Bolivian village of La Higuera on October 9, 1967 at the age of 39. His family moved to Buenos Aires when he was 17. He learned chess from his father of Irish heritage, read from the family of library of 3000 books and was home-schooled by his radical mother. He read Pablo Neruda, John (I want to do the world some good) Keats, Walt Whitman, Jack London, Federico Lorca, Faulkner, Gide, Camus, Sartre, Freud, Bertrand Russell, Marx, Engels, Lenin and many Latin American writers. He studied medicine and motorcycled through much of Latin America. He studied Marxism also while in the youth brigades in Guatemala during the Jacobo Arbenz leftwing government before it was crushed by a CIA-organized coup d’état. In 1955 he joined Fidel Castro in Mexico where the Cubans began calling him el Che because of his constant use of the common Argentinean interjection, Che, that means something like Hey! Or, Eh? Argentineans use the interjection so often that other Latin Americans sometimes use the word for a man from Argentina. In effect, “Che” Guevara came to imply also something like “our comrade from Argentina.”. Despite their contrasting personalities he and Fidel formed a “revolutionary friendship to change the world”, which expressed their common desire. He sailed with the Castro brothers and Cienfuegos on the Granma to Cuba where they overthrew the corrupt Batista regime—the four who made the Cuban Revolution. Twelve years later, as a commander of the guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded, captured and executed by a Bolivian soldier on orders from the CIA.

CHE GUEVARA – A HERO OF OUR TIMES?

Some accommodating persons believe that there are more heroes in life than we imagine. Sophistic claim! Which I doubt. It depends on what qualities constitute a hero, which in my opinion include a consistent state of bravery, dedication and above all commitment to an ideal to which the person gives his or her life.

Superhuman requirements. Perhaps the real hero is still a figure of myth as in the ancient Greeks when the heroic was divine and there was no clear distinction between super humans and the gods.

More reductively we should speak of the heroic actions of which people are capable at certain moments, under particular emergency conditions. Heroic acts may be spontaneous and instinctive, or acts of desperation triggered by fear, or a one-time display of human decency or duty to dive into a raging river to save the life of a child. However, as often the case, the heroic action may be an ego-driven and temporary urge to perform an act of bravado, a pose for show. Sorry for that! In a way I hate that affirmation.

But then some solace! For there are those precious few persons so obsessed by a positive idea that they dedicate their entire (often) short lives to one idea in the most heroic of fashions. Lenin is an example: his life was the Russian Revolution … and he changed the world. Ernesto Guevara’s obsession was world revolution against imperialism. Neither family—parents, wives and children—nor even the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro succeeded in deviating el Che, the man from Argentina, from that one objective: revolution against imperialism.

So the real HERO does not exist only in myth.

While living in Buenos Aires in 2007 I acquired a book by the Argentinean journalist, Julia Constenla, Che Guevara, la vida en juego (Che Guevara, Life At Stake). Moved by her first acquaintance with Ernesto Guevara that lasted several days at a conference of the Interamerican Economic and Social Council in Punta del Este, Uruguay in August of 1961 and a lifelong friendship with Ernesto’s mother, Celia, the Argentine writer offers new materials about the Latin American revolutionary’s extraordinary life. Her three hundred-page biography is illustrated with hundreds of photos, letters, papers and drawings, many of which had never before been published, of the man who became el Che. The documentation for the book plus videos were then shown in an exhibit in the Centro Cultural of the Buenos Aires barrio of Recoleta in 2007 near my residence.

There is Ernesto in the video and photographs, the newborn child in his mother’s arms in Rosario in 1928, his features already recognizable. There he is on his bike traveling through South America; there he is with wives and children, with his companions, then, there is a victorious Che in Cuba, a defeated Che in the Congo, riding on donkeys with his rifle in his arms, and there he is reading, writing, revolutionizing. And there he is, at the end, a prisoner, weak, dirty and wounded, in La Higuera, Bolivia. He is about to be executed. And then, there he is, Ernesto Guevara, el Che, dead.

Posters hanging on the walls of youth of the world testify that Ernesto Che Guevara is widely considered a hero of our times. A profound explanation of the universal appeal and impact of this single Argentinean is found in the words of Jean Paul Sartre that “Che Guevara was the most complete human being of our age.”

I have long wondered what took place in some brain cell of that young Argentinean, Ernesto, to transform him into the man of action who became the idol of generations of world youth. For if he had not become a revolutionary, he would most certainly become a great writer.

Let’s see: he arrived from the provinces to the metropolis of Buenos Aires, a handsome, smart young guy, both John Keats and Karl Marx in his head, who wanted to make good, to make a mark, to leave a footprint. He wanted to divest himself of everything provincial and to distinguish himself in the world at large. But such considerations are reductive, in fact not even applicable for a man who wanted the whole world.

From Buenos Aires he wandered off with a friend on their bikes and ended up in Guatemala at the time the small country was experimenting with Socialism under Jacobo Arbenz. And his life began to change.

Here I turn to Wikipedia for details: Elected President in 1950, Arbenz’s modest policies of land reform and other social measures like eliminating brutal labor practices, displeased the United Fruit Company and the U.S. government who considered it Communism. In 1952 President Truman approved a CIA plan to bring down the Arbenz government. The operation was aborted because it became too public.

Then President Eisenhower, elected that year on a platform of a harder line against Communism, authorized another CIA coup d’état (John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles in the lead) with an invasion, bombings of Guatemala City and psychological warfare. Arbenz resigned and the United Fruit Company and the CIA won. That coup reinforced Guevara’s anti-imperialistic instincts.

Those events had a galvanizing effect on the 22-year old Ernesto Guevara, prompting him to move up to Mexico City to the north where he joined up with Fidel Castro, only two years older than him.

Now Ernesto was helping to make a real revolution. He was one of its leaders. He walked the streets of Mexico City, a still rather provincial city, nothing like the Buenos Aires he had left, but it was another world capital to add to his “captured places”. A place to spend his personal ambition (he was still emerging from the distant provinces of Argentina) and at the same time to fight the Yankee imperialists.

The Cuban revolutionaries, Fidel and Raul Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, took to calling him Che, the Argentinean comrade. He began smoking his symbolic cigar and adopted his famous beret with the red star. Perhaps he was still speaking in his Argentinean accent while learning the rapid fire Cuban of the revolutionaries; they were all heroic young men about to change the political landscape of all of Latin America.

In an article in the leftwing Buenos Aires daily, Pagina 12, Julia Constenla described her personal meetings with Ernesto Guevara across the Rio de la Plata in plush Punta Del Este in Uruguay where she was covering that conference organized by U.S. President Kennedy “to discipline the Latin American continent.” Though Cuba was not to have been invited, after complex diplomatic maneuvers, Che (by then a Cuban citizen) arrived to represent Cuba. Also Guevara’s parents came and they lived in the house of the journalist Constenla. There began her days together with Ernesto Guevara and his parents.

“I was not aware that I was involved in world history but only with one of the Barbudos of the Cuban Revolution. They had been in power two years in Cuba, Fidel and Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara. For days I had meals with Ernesto, interviewed him, conversed with him. He was very self-sure, with an extraordinary capacity to go straight to the point, had an acid irony, and was very seductive: when he entered the conference room everything centered on him.”

The journalist-writer says that by the mid-seventies, after Che’s death and the establishment of the dictatorship in Argentina, she realized he was one of the most important persons of the XX century. “He went down in history as the best our century could produce. In Mexico and in the mountains of Cuba, Ernesto became the famous Che.

“Before, he was a young Argentinean, brave, generous, intelligent and politicized, but not yet el Che. I see in him a level of commitment greater than I’ve ever known.” The video shown at the exhibit of him in Cuba shows a man constantly among the masses, talking, explaining, working. Electrifying speeches that many of us leftists dream of pronouncing ourselves. A man of the new state of Cuba who traveled to China and met with Mao Tse-Tung, met Nehru in India, Khruschev in the USSR.

“After his defeat in the Congo he could have returned to Cuba for a comfortable life of work and study; instead he chose to go to Bolivia. His level of commitment is incomparable. Therefore people who believe they are followers of Guevara because they have a poster of him sicken me.”

The Constenla biography denies the rumored rupture between Fidel and Che as the reason he went to Bolivia, labeling such charges as propaganda to denigrate the Cuban Revolution. She says that Che Guevara always recognized Fidel Castro as the chief. Castro on the other hand gave him the most important assignments. Though Castro did not agree with Che’s adventures in the Congo and Bolivia, he accepted his ideas.

Constenla also rejects the idea of Guevara’s suicide at the end: “He was in Bolivia to win or to die!” He lost. She recalled the strange coincidence that some eighteen people—Bolivians and others—involved in Che’s almost certain assassination died soon after in still unexplained circumstances.

Since Italy and Argentina are considered cousins because of the huge Italian immigration there, the Italian Left has strong feelings for the figure of Che Guevara. The Italian journalist Gianni Minà did a major interview with Castro back in 1987, which regularly resurfaces when news concerns Castro, especially since the Leader’s retirement.

In that long interview of many hours spread over several days Minà concentrated on the figure of Che Guevara and his revolutionary vocation. Castro stressed el Che’s altruism, his determination, his impulsiveness and his fear that the revolution in Latin America against imperialism would end like the others.

About Guevara the man, Castro recalled that when they were in Mexico together, Ernesto, despite his asthma, was determined to scale the gigantic Popocateptl peak near Mexico City. He never succeeded but he never gave up.

Che Guevara believed above all in the exportation of the revolution. And for him Bolivia was a stepping-stone back to his native Argentina. First Bolivia, then Argentina. As usual his foresight was striking. The explosive year of 1968 was just around the corner and Che Guevara was to be its symbol.

Now again today Leftists consider Bolivia a key to the future of a democratic Latin America. Readers might be aware that the socio-political movement of miners and peasants headed by Bolivian President Evo Morales emerged from the resistance that el Che had furthered forty years earlier.

Some political observers credit Che Guevara for transforming the Cuban nationalist Castro into the Latin American revolutionary he became. (Romantic thought!) Maybe it is true. For on every occasion Che’s slogan was ‘resistance to imperialism’. He must have hammered that idea into Castro’s head.

At the time of the great escalation in Vietnam in 1964-66, Guevara created the phrase of universal resistance: “Create two, three, many Vietnams,” a slogan that reverberated in Germany in the minds of the “terrorists” of the Red Army Faktion, and from there to the Red Brigades in Italy.

In his “Message to the Tricontinental,” the then newly formed Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a paper written before leaving Cuba for Bolivia, then published in April 1967 in the organization’s magazine Tricontinental, under the title “Create two, three…many Vietnams, that is the watchword,” Che wrote:

“How close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe, with their quota of death and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows against imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the lash of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world!”

Che’s credo was, “Any nation’s victory against imperialism is our victory, as any defeat is also our defeat.”

Among Ernesto Guevara’s many epiphanies on the road to world revolution was that of “guerrilla warfare”. Resistance, resistance and again resistance. Guerrilla warfare was the shortcut to the victory of Socialism and the birth of the New Man. He must have first seen the light after the CIA crushed the Arbenz revolutionary government in Guatemala. Like Saul on the road to Tarsus, his eyes were opened and he became a revolutionary.

Maybe he left Cuba and a life of ease for Bolivia because his vision was broader in scope than that of Castro. In fact, he had never belonged exclusively to Cuba. From Guatemala to Mexico City, from Cuba to the Congo, East Europe, Asia, his vision became universal. In Algiers, nine years after the CIA coup in Guatemala, in his last recorded major speech he criticized the Soviet Union and socialists countries for doing too little to help developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa and for not supplying arms to the poor to rise up against their oppressors.

Shortly afterwards he left Cuba for Bolivia, where he died. Twelve, 12, only twelve fast years had passed since he experienced the CIA coup in Guatemala. That may have been the catalyst for his dedication to world revolution: he was a young leftwing university graduate looking for adventure before; he was a revolutionist afterwards.

Protest and resistance are major phenomena of the modern age, part of contemporary vocabulary. Though often linked together, they are not the same thing. In rich Europe and United States we are familiar with protest against injustice. Protest can be easy and immediately rewarding. But you can protest, then go back home to comfort and ease.

Resistance, as indicated by the dean of Argentine writers, Ernesto Sabato, against all-pervasive power, against the system that stands behind injustice, requires commitment. Resistance and commitment like Che Guevara’s are difficult, a hard way of life. His kind of resistance demands your life; its price is high.

Che Guevara was not a saint. He condemned to death traitors of the Cuban Revolution, according to his belief that in a revolution “you either win or you die.” And he allegedly once said that if the Soviet missiles installed in Cuba were under Cuban command they would have been directed to American cities.

True or not, that shows the stuff Ernesto Guevara was made of. And it underlines his belief in resistance and the revolution. Che Guevara did not become a model for the IRA in Ireland and other European leftwing terrorists as well as for Islamic fundamentalists because of saintliness. Revolution was not a tea party for el Che.

His real legacy was his own life. Most photographs of him show the man of action. Handsome like the photo above, intelligent, writer, doctor, political leader and revolutionary, traveling on his Homerian odyssey through all of Latin America and the Third World.

Movements of resistance, rebellion, revolt and revolution have always been rich in slogans and rituals and symbols that are more powerful and unifying than speeches: the red flag and the hammer and sickle mean resistance. A revolutionary movement needs symbols reflecting its ideology. The Cuban Revolution itself is such a symbol for resistance against imperialism everywhere. Che Guevara himself is a symbol. Since no movement is political without an ideology, we do not mistreat our symbols. They encourage the vanguard and work wonders on the people. The Internationale anthem stirs our emotions. Every society makes some objects sacred—totems, animal images, gods, holy books, flags, or even concepts such as freedom or democracy. Rituals bond members of the society. Symbols inspire devotion and loyalty among those who identify with them.

Ernesto’s beret with the red star and his eternal cigar gave vigor to the Cuban Revolution and linked it to world revolution.

As a result of my Buenos Aires experience and my love for Argentina’s great writers like Ernesto Sabato and Jorge Borges, I try to imagine what the conservative Borges might have said about his fellow countryman, Ernesto Guevara. He would have been curious and intrigued as he was about the Buenos Aires underworld but I wonder if the effete intellectual Borges would have been able to consider Che Guevara a hero of our times. …

Yet, yet, yet, just as I have wondered about Ernesto, who knows what ticked in that huge bourgeois brain of Borges. Both of them, at the end, had their sights set on Argentina and their ways might just have come together, arriving from totally different directions. I like to hope so.

Senior Editor Gaither Stewart based in Rome, serves—inter alia—as our European correspondent. A veteran journalist and essayist on a broad palette of topics from culture to history and politics, he is also the author of the Europe Trilogy, celebrated spy thrillers whose latest volume, Time of Exile, was just published by Punto Press.

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Latin America Has to Fight and Win!

by ANDRE VLTCHEK

“We will get rid of Morales”, he told me, openly. “Because he is a dirty Indian, and because we will not tolerate lefties in this part of the world.”

For now, Argentina is lost and Venezuela is deeply wounded, divided and frustrated. Virtually everywhere in socialist Latin America, well-orchestrated and angry protests are taking place, accusing our left-wing governments of mismanagement and corruption.

What was gained during those years of hard work and sacrifices, is suddenly evaporating in front of our eyes. And there seems to be no way to stop the trend in the foreseeable future. Whatever magnificent work our governments have done has been smeared. Western propaganda and its local serfs belittle the achievements of our people. In several countries, revolutionary zeal has almost entirely vanished.

But it is clear, even with an unarmed eye, that great progress had been made. Those of us who knew Ecuador two decades ago, (then a depressing country, humiliated and torn by disparities and racism), are now impressed by its wonderful social services, free culture and modern infrastructure.

The indigenous people of Bolivia are proudly in possession of their own land.

Venezuela has been inspiring all of Latin America and the world by its internationalism and determined struggle against Western imperialism.

Chile, step by small step, has been dismantling the grotesque legacy of Pinochet’s dictatorship, moving firmly towards socialism.

There are hundreds of great and inspiring examples, all over the continent.

In less than two decades, Latin America converted itself from one of the most depressing parts of the world, to the most progressive one.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] few years ago, it really seemed that the Empire had finally lost. There was no way that South Americans would want to go back to the days of darkness. The achievements of socialism were too obvious, too marvelous. Who would want to go back to the gloomy nihilism, depressing feudal structures and the fascist client-state arrangements?

It was the Soviet Union that stood in solidarity with almost all revolutionary movements of Latin America throughout the 20th century. And it was Russia that was backing Chávez during the countless Western attempts to overthrow his government.

Then the Empire re-grouped. It gathered its local lieutenants, its lackeys, and began striking back with deadly force.

All the means of imperialist propaganda were applied. The goal was to convince people that what they see is not actually real. Another objective was to subvert, to torpedo most of the achievements.

We lost elections? What nonsense!

It was clean economic and political terror unleashed against us, and it was the most vicious propaganda, which began forcing out the left wing governments of Latin America from power!

Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. A much maligned charismatic leader.

The world was watching, still demanding more Western-style “democracy”, more concessions. The West administered a “Fifth Column” that damaged Latin American revolutions, after infiltrating both media and brains in Caracas, Buenos Aires, even Quito. It consisted especially of the liberals and those so-called ‘progressive forces’; the same people who tried to bury the Cuban revolution after the Soviet Union had been destroyed by Western imperialism. The same people actually who were cheering the demolition of the Soviet Union itself.

They kept pushing for anarchism and for some formulae of “participatory economy”, in fact for their own concepts, for Western, white concepts, for something that most of Latin American people who fought and won their revolutions never asked for!

Jealous and petty, they hate the true powerhouses of resistance against Western imperialism: Russia, China, Iran or South Africa and in fact, even Latin America itself.

Latin American people have always been intuitively longing for big, strong governments, like those in Cuba and those that lately emerged in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. And their natural allies should have been those countries from other, non-Western parts of the world, with powerful people-oriented leadership, not some European and North American individuals representing grotesque and defunct movements and “intellectual” concepts.

In several countries, Latin America lost its way and again got derailed by Western demagoguery. Suddenly there was almost nothing left here of Chinese or Russian or Vietnamese ideas, nothing of internationalism, only Western soft liberal egotists and countless irrelevant marginal groups.

History was forgotten. It was simple, decisive and powerful action by China that single-handedly saved Cuba, when the island-nation was hit by the Gorbachev and Yeltsin disasters. I wrote about it a lot, and Fidel quoted me, agreeing in his “Reflections”.

What are we waiting for? Of what are we afraid? That the biggest terrorist on Earth – the West – would brand us as undemocratic?

Playing with anarchism, liberalism and Euro-socialist concepts brought several Latin American revolutions to the brink of absolute calamity.

South America is at the frontline. It is under attack. There is no time for the flowery theories.

I know Latin American revolutionaries. I have met many, from Eduardo Galeano to several Cuban and Sandinista leaders.

I also met many of the South American ‘elites’.

One day, not long after Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia, I spoke to a man, a member of one of the ‘leading’ families, which has in its ranks Senators, owners of mass media outlets, as well as captains of local industry.

“We will get rid of Morales”, he told me, openly. “Because he is a dirty Indian, and because we will not tolerate lefties in this part of the world.”

He was not hiding his plans – he was extremely confident.

“We don’t care how much money we have to spend; we have plenty of money. And we have plenty of time. We will use our media and we will create food and consumer goods deficits. Once there is nothing to eat, once there are food lines in all the major cities, as well as great insecurity and violence, people will vote him out of power.”

It was clearly the concept used by the Chilean fascist economic and political right wing thugs, before the 1973 US-backed coup against President Salvador Allende. “Uncertainty, shortages”, and if everything failed – then a brutal military coup.

Thatcher and Pinochet: lovey-dovey. Never mind those ugly, pesky accusations about torture and murders under his rule.

Thatcher and Pinochet: lovey-dovey. Never mind those ugly, pesky accusations about wholesale torture and murders under his rule. The West regarded the dictator as “their” man in Santiago.

In Bolivia the “elites” tried and tried, but they were not successful, because there was great solidarity with the government of Evo Morales, coming from socialist countries like Brazil and Venezuela. When the Right tried to break the country to pieces, pushing for the independence of the richest, “white” province of Santa Cruz, Brazilian President Lula declared that he was going to send the mightiest army in the South American continent and “defend the integrity of the neighboring country”.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is beasts, and actually extremely powerful beasts, who are heading the “opposition” in South America.

And to be frank, we can hardly speak about an “opposition”. These are oligarchs, landowners, Christian (many from the Opus Dei) demagogues and military leaders. In many ways they are still the true rulers of the continent.

Nothing except brute force can stop them. They have unlimited financial resources, they have a vast and well entrenched propaganda machine at their disposal, and they can always count on the Empire to back them up. In fact it is the Empire that is encouraging, training and sustaining them.

“The white, racist, colonialist Christian implants from Europe have been forming so-called South American ‘elites’. They are actually some of the cruelest human beings on Earth…”

“Violations of democracy and human rights!” the “opposition” yells, whenever our governments decide to hit back. It is not that we are lately hitting back really hard, but any retaliation is packaged as “brutal”.

What do we in fact do? We arrest just a few of the most outrageous terrorists – those who are openly trying to overthrow or destabilize the state.

But when they, the ‘elites’ and their armies, came to power, they cut open people’s stomachs, and threw them from helicopters straight into the sea.

Their death squads violate children in front of their parents. Female prisoners are raped by specially trained German shepherds dogs, and tubes with starved rats are inserted into their vaginas.

1980: Salvadoran death squads spared no one, not even US religious. Under the criminal Reagan four nuns were raped and murdered obviously as a warning to other "meddling" Americans. UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick famously declared that it was all "their fault."

1980: Salvadoran death squads spared no one, not even US religious. Under the criminal Reagan regime, four nuns were raped and murdered obviously as a warning to other “meddling” Americans. UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick famously declared that it was all “their fault.”

Entire movements and parties are liquidated by fascist South American death squads (some of them trained in the United States), but we must use some nice and clean tactics and “democratic means” to prevent them from grabbing power again?

The white, racist, colonialist Christian implants from Europe have been forming so-called South American ‘elites’. They are actually some of the cruelest human beings on Earth. Thanks to them, before our latest wave of Revolutions, Latin America suffered from the greatest disparities on earth. Tens of millions of its people were murdered. It was racially divided. It was plundered. Its veins were, and to a great extent still are, open – to borrow from the terminology of the great storyteller Eduardo Galeano.

My friend Noam Chomsky wrote about it extensively. I wrote about it in several chapters of my two latest books: : “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Others have as well.

How can people still listen to those mass murderers, with a straight face?

***

One thing cannot be disputed: only a big and powerful government and its army could now defend its people. Latin American revolutionary leaders were given a mandate by the people, and they have no right to back up, to betray.

Indecisiveness could prove lethal.

Referendum after referendum, people expressed their support for the revolutionary proceso, in Venezuela and elsewhere. Year after year the fascist “opposition” has been showing spite for the voices of the people, the same spite it has demonstrated for centuries.

Sabotage after sabotage was administered, one treasonous act after another committed. As was promised by the Bolivian ‘elites’, the Venezuelan capitalist bandits paralyzed their country by shortages. Even rolls of toilet paper became ‘a deficit’. All too familiar… Like in Chile before 1973!

The message is clear: “you want to be able to wipe your ass after shitting, then betray socialism!” Or: “You want to eat? Then down with the legacy of Chávez!”

The will of the people is being humiliated. The elites are spitting straight into the faces of the majority.

Some citizens are now voting for the right, simply because they are exhausted, because they are scared, because they see no solution. They are voting against their own will (as they used to in Nicaragua during the reign of Aleman), because if they vote for their own candidates, they would be made to eat shit, literally.

But solutions are there! They are available.

Instead of listening to some Euro-centric gurus from Slovenia or New England, the Latin American governments should ask for help and lean on such countries as Russia and China, immediately joining alternative financial institutions, forging defense treaties, working on energy and other deals with those who are actually standing up against Western imperialism.

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]atin America should never lose its independence. But with proven good friends and true powerful alliances, independence is never lost.

Our leaders should shed their dependency on the Western Left. Mainly because the Western Left does not exist anymore, with some tiny, minuscule exceptions that proves the rule. What remain are a huge army of “liberals”, and then a tremendous multitude of selfish beings defending their own interests and concepts. They are horrified of those who are truly fighting and winning; therefore they openly hate Russia, China and other non-Western nations. Frankly, they are racist. Such people cannot inspire or impress anybody, and so they are trying their luck at the distant shores, diluting determination and perverting the essence of the South American revolutions.

This is the time to be focused. South America should fight, with all its might. It is not easy, but its treasonous families, those who are destroying the precious lives of tens of millions of human beings, should be identified, arrested and tried. It should be done immediately! What many of them are actually doing is not “being in opposition”. They are interrupting the democratic process in their own countries, selling their homelands once again to foreign powers and international capital.

Mass media outlets that are spreading misinformation, lies and foreign propaganda should also be immediately identified. They should be exposed, confronted, and if their goal is to destroy the socialist fatherland, shut down. Again, this is no time for liberal niceties.

Freedom of expression has nothing to do with the freedom of using newspapers and television stations to spread fabrications, fear and uncertainty, or to call for the direct overthrow of democratically elected governments.

And in South America, entire huge international newspaper and television syndicates have been working for years and decades for one single and deadly goal – to smear and liquidate the Left, and to deliver the entire continent back to the racist, fascist foreign imperialist rulers.

It has all gone too far, and it has to stop.

A few months ago, I was riding on the impressive Sao Paulo metro system, together with my Cuban friend.

“It is much better than any public transportation network that I have seen in Europe or in the United States”, I exclaimed.

“But people in Brazil think that it is total shit”, commented my friend, laconically.

“How come?” I was shocked.

“Because they are told so on the television, and because they read it in the newspapers”.

Yes, that’s how it is! Free art, including opera, given to the Brazilian public, is nothing more than crap, if one reads the mainstream Brazilian press. Free medical care, no matter how (still) imperfect it is, is not even worth praising. Free education in so many South American countries … New transportation networks, free or heavily subsidized books, brilliant parks with brand new libraries that are mushrooming in Chile and Ecuador… Financial support for the poor, the fight to keep children in school, the fight to save the environment, countless programs to protect indigenous communities…

El Mercurio—Chile's New York Times—owned by the powerful Edwards clan, was one of the main media tools of the bourgeoisie during the process of destabilization of President Allende in the early 1970s. It continues to be a mouthpiece for the propertied class.

El Mercurio—Chile’s New York Times—owned by the powerful Edwards clan, was one of the main media tools used by the bourgeoisie during the process of destabilization of President Allende in the early 1970s, preliminary to the coup. It continues to be a mouthpiece for the propertied class, regionally and globally.

Nothing, nothing, and absolutely nothing is positive in the eyes of the pro-Western South American propagandists!

This has become one huge counter-process, financed from foreign and local sources, aimed at discrediting all those great achievements.

In the US, the Hispanic population is kept reliably misinformed via the ministrations of Telemundo and Univision, the two fiercely competitive Spanish-language networks with influence all over Latin America.

Corruption!!! That is the new battle cry of the elites and their lackeys. Accusations of corruption are fabricated or inflated against all governments of the left: Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, even Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Cristina Kirchner’s back was almost broken by constant corruption charges.

But how on earth could anyone take such accusations seriously, if they are coming from those who have been plundering, for over 500 years, their own continent on behalf of Europe and then the United States and multi-national corporations? Like locust, the right-wing families have been looting all the natural resources, while forcing people into near slave labor. Under horrendous feudal and fascist rulers, Latin America was converted into the pinnacle of corruption – moral and economic.

Nothing was left intact, and nothing remained pure. In order to survive in such a vile system, people had to bend, twist, and maneuver.

Now these same bandit clans that have been destroying the continent are smearing, pointing fingers at the governments that are, step by step, trying to reverse the trend and serve the people.

The same bastards that were bombing restaurants and hotels in their own countries, planting bombs on passenger airliners, and assassinating thousands of innocent people, are talking about morality.

Are our people, our governments, expected to reach, to achieve total purity in just one or two decades, after the entire continent had been functioning for over 500 years as a bordello of Western colonialism and imperialism?

Are we going to allow ourselves to be on the defensive when facing those who robbed and raped almost everything and everybody in Latin America?

Cortés disambarks in Veracruz, beginning the Spanish conquest f Mexico. Mural by Diego Rivera.

Cortés disembarks in Veracruz, beginning the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The brutality was there from the start. Mural by Diego Rivera.

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]es, the people of Latin America were brutalized for several long centuries. They went through unimaginable suffering. They lost everything. But they never gave up. Since the holocaust performed by Spanish, Portuguese and other European barbaric conquerors, they have been rising, rebelling and fighting for their scarred land.

Pablo Neruda wrote a tremendous poem “Heights of Machu Picchu.” Eduardo Galeano wrote “Open Veins of Latin America”. It is all there, in those two tremendous works.

The fight goes on, to this very moment.

Most of the power is now, finally, in the hands of those who are determined to fight for the interests of their people.

We have no right to be defeated. If we do, hundreds of millions will lose their future and their hope.

Such an opportunity would not come back. It is here, for the first time in 500 years! Millions died to bring it here. If the Revolution is crushed now, it may not return in full force for who knows how many years. In simple terms it means that several more generations would be lost!

We have to counterattack now. What are we waiting for? Of what are we afraid? That the biggest terrorist on Earth – the West – would brand us as undemocratic? That the same West that has, for centuries, overthrown our governments, murdered our leaders as well as simple men, women and children would not give us its stamp of approval? That we would be criticized by those countries, which are still looting, violating, lying and ruining?

Our friends, our allies are not in the West. We all know how lukewarm was the support given to Venezuela, Cuba or Ecuador in Europe and North America by those “progressive forces”, and how hostile was the mainstream. We have to wake up and join forces with those who are now standing proudly and with great determination against Western imperialism and market fundamentalism.

There is no time for experiments. This is the fight for our survival!

As I wrote earlier, in order for the Revolutions to continue, we need big governments, determined cadres, loyal armies and mighty allies. We also need huge Latin American solidarity, true unity and integration. One monolithic South American block in fraternal embrace with other truly independent countries.

This is an extremely serious moment, Comrades! This is damn serious.

Anarchism and the concepts of the factories administered by workers will not save us right now.

Argentina has fallen, but Venezuela is still standing. Each creek, each boulder has now to be defended, be it in Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cuba.

We have to be tough, we have to be alert, and we cannot do it alone!

Venceremos nuevamente, camaradas!

is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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Assessing Venezuela’s Elections: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

//

by ERIC DRAITSER

Antigovernment Venezuelans protest in London. Typical of the upper-class background of this insurgency supported by US agents. Notice the well-made signs.

The streets of Caracas were eerily quiet late Sunday evening (December 6) as the city, and indeed the whole of Venezuela, anxiously awaited the results of the critical legislative elections. Everyone knew the vote would be close: the polls had indicated as much in the weeks leading up to the elections, with many experts predicting a victory for the right wing opposition party Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

Traveling throughout the capital, and especially in the poor and working class neighborhoods, however, the mood was optimistic, with most Chavistas fully expecting to carry the day and maintain their control of the National Assembly. In the 23 January neighborhood, a stronghold of the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) and a hotbed of radical activism and resistance, local party and community leaders were upbeat as they showed me around, pointing out the gains made in the years of Chavista rule: every house now having a cooking gas connection, improved sewage systems, guaranteed government pensions, low-cost government housing, among many other tangible gains.

In El Valle, another solidly red working class district, I visited two of the many punto rojos (red points) – Socialist Party tents manned by volunteers who helped organize voter turnout for their respective neighborhoods – where the mood was festive, something between a block party and a local community meeting. The punto rojos, interestingly enough, were almost always opposite from MUD tents (a recent phenomenon as the right wing opposition has adopted the PSUV organizing strategy), and all was peaceful and quiet, no confrontations to be seen. Indeed, it seemed everywhere I went that these elections were a model of a peaceful democratic process, precisely what Venezuela’s government has long prided itself on, and precisely what the western media has always denied.

After having met with a number of community leaders, including PSUV candidate Jesús Faría who welcomed me with a handshake and a hug, thanking me for coming to his country to watch democracy in action, I went (along with my delegation from the US) to Tiuna el Fuerte, a cultural center and communal outdoor meeting space financially supported by the Venezuelan government. With intricate graffiti murals adorning the walls of shipping containers transformed into living quarters, computer labs, and other important resources, Tiuna el Fuerte looked like something out of hipster Brooklyn or Oakland, a meeting space where hip hop and reggae music blared from the speakers, and sancocho (a traditional soup dish) was ladled into bowls for anyone who wanted it.

THE GUARDIAN: A TASTE OF LIBERAL BETRAYAL

The British "leftist" publication illustrates the bourgeois condescending and jubilant tone used by the media after the elections. Below, Jesús Torrealba, with the opposition Democratic Unity coalition is reported to have "urged President Nicolás Maduro to address dire food shortages and free Leopoldo López after legislative defeat." In other words, stop whining and accept reality.

Democratic Unity Movement president Jesús Torrealba speaks at a press conference in Caracas. Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images Reuters in Caracas

[dropcap]V[/dropcap]enezuela’s opposition has urged leftist President Nicolás Maduro to stop making excuses for his candidates’ defeat in legislative elections, and instead urgently tackle food shortages and free jailed politicians. The worst economic crisis in the Opec country’s recent history has Venezuelan staples including flour, milk, meat and beans running scarce. Shortages are particularly bad for the poor and beyond capital Caracas, with shoppers lining up for hours under the sun hoping a delivery truck will arrive. “We urge the government to stop crying and start working,” Democratic Unity coalition leader Jesús Torrealba said in a news conference under a sign reading “Thank you Venezuela, we won!”

But as I sat voraciously devouring the delicious sancocho, gazing calmly at the trees and public housing buildings across the dusty street, it was immediately clear that there was a tension in the air, an unease somehow palpable in the cautious movements and facial expressions of the twenty- and thirty-somethings in charge of this cultural center. It was obvious that these people were nervous, that they had a sense that all was not well. The television around which everyone gathered flashed images from around the country, showing polling places still open well into the evening as voters waited in lines to cast their ballots. Text and WhatsApp messages went back and forth like electrical signals shot by digital neurotransmitters across the synapses of a collective Chavista brain. These people were worried, and now so was I.

I did not come to Venezuela to be objective – I am a leftist and an anti-imperialist, a strong supporter of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution – but rather to bear witness to these elections and see Venezuela for myself, this country I have followed and defended vigorously as a bastion of resistance against global imperialism these last 17 years. I came to document the reality, but also to counter the corporate media’s propaganda: President Maduro as dictator, Venezuela as failed state, and other such lies and distortions peddled by the mouthpieces of neoliberal finance capital. I came to be part of this momentous election, and to tell its story.

And then it happened. The bombshell. The National Electoral Council (CNE), the impartial body that conducts the country’s elections, announced an overwhelming victory for the right wing opposition and the MUD. The wealthy and middle class neighborhoods of Caracas erupted in cheers and celebrations, while the poor and working class sections of the city seemingly went silent.

The country had taken a stunning turn to the right, an astonishing thing for the most left wing country in the western hemisphere. How could this have happened? What led to these incredible developments? And what might this mean for the future of the Bolivarian Republic and its revolution?

The Elections through Venezuelan Eyes

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t would be rather easy to analyze the election results in purely political terms: inflation and economic war, corruption, the collapse of global oil prices, violent crime, a lack of responsiveness to the needs of the people from the ruling Socialist Party, and about a dozen other factors that played a role in bringing the pro-neoliberal, pro-US right wing to power in the National Assembly. Indeed, there is some value in doing so from a strictly objective and detached perspective. However this election, and the Bolivarian Revolution from its very inception, is (and has always been) about the Venezuelan people. And it is the Venezuelan people themselves who perhaps can provide the best insights into what exactly has happened here.

The morning after the election I rode the Caracas Metrocable system, a cable-propelled metro transit line that connects the working class community of San Agustín high up in the hills with the rest of city via cable cars traveling hundreds of meters above the ground, giving riders a breathtaking view of the city. The project, an initiative fully funded by the Venezuelan Government under Hugo Chávez, was designed to integrate San Agustín into the greater economy and provide the poor access to the city, while spurring development on both ends of the project. As such, the system is a visible and highly advanced testament to the grand-scale projects that Chávez’s government envisioned as part of the Bolivarian Revolutionary development process.

I had a chance to chat in one of the cars with a young woman from San Agustín, her purple, ink-stained pinky finger indicating that she had voted on Sunday. She explained that she had cast her vote for the Socialist Party because she remained loyal to Chávez and the government which gave her easy access to the city, as well as adequate, low-cost housing. But behind her polite smile was a clear current of outrage, anger at the fact that her neighborhood, which had benefitted so directly from government programs, had in fact gone to the opposition in the election. “Those of us who voted for MUD are either ignorant or ungrateful,” she explained, not mincing her words in describing many of her neighbors, friends, and even family. “They will soon realize what they have done.”

At the next station, a Venezuelan colleague, and leader of our US delegation, asked a young couple whether they had voted, indicating his own purple finger. “Of course,” was the reply, with the woman wildly gesticulating, not holding back her anger, “What the hell am I going to do now? How will I get an affordable apartment? How will I afford the basic necessities?” she raged, her frustration gushing from her like so many tears shed the night before.

Stepping off the cable-car, my Venezuelan friend pointed out a tall building next to the station, explaining that it’s a recreation complex recently constructed by the government. He noted that this building included a sports center, classrooms for young adult and adult education, a small market, and many other necessities for the people of the community. Touching his open palm to his forehead as if pained physically by the realization, he simply said “I have absolutely no idea what will happen to this place. The right wing will probably close it down because they couldn’t care less about the people who live here.”

Later that same afternoon, I headed down to the aptly named “Hot Corner,” an area just a few meters from the National Assembly building, where Venezuelans regularly congregate to discuss politics. There was a large crowd there, with Chavistas angrily denouncing the right wing, and expressing their unwavering support for El Comandante and the Revolution. One man cried directly into my camera “Chavez is in my heart, the Revolution is in my blood. They’ll have to spill my blood to take my Revolution.” The tears welling in his eyes, and in the eyes of many others in the crowd, were enough to move even the most detached observer. I myself had to hold back tears as I watched this man, among others, speak directly to me, knowing I was a gringo there for the election, trying desperately to show just what the Revolution meant to him, his family, his people, his country.

While there are countless stories like these from around Caracas, and indeed throughout the country, there undeniably are many who were either pleased with, or indifferent to, the election results.

I took a taxi through the mountains connecting Maracay to the coastal town of Choroní, the point of embarkation for the boats taking people to the isolated Afro-Venezuelan fishing village of Chuao. The driver (named Pedro) was a middle-aged, middle-class man who could barely contain his pleasure at seeing the Chavistas defeated.

“This government is incompetent and corrupt,” he said, adding that “they have messed up everything with their bad economic policies and stupid decisions.” When I pressed him further, asking about whether he thought that the collapse of global oil prices – a drop from a high of $140 per barrel to less than $40, amounting to a decrease of roughly 75% of revenue – had anything to do with the problems in Venezuela, he dismissed the notion with a casual wave of his hand. He equally dismissed the economic war waged against Venezuela which includes hyper-speculation, an informal embargo by foreign corporations and domestic private distributors on certain key consumer goods and staple foods, the illicit trafficking of goods along the Venezuela-Colombia border, and many other forms of deliberate economic destabilization.

The face of chavismo after the defeat. It is hoped the movement can regain its momentum.

“I can tell you’re a Chavista,” he half exclaimed, half chortled as we took another sharp turn around a blind curve roughly one thousand meters up the mountain. “Look,” he said, “I was trained in economics and I used to work for a bank, but since I am not a Chavista I cannot get a job and have had to work as a taxi driver and open a restaurant.” When I asked whether he really believed that things would get better under a neoliberal, pro-US party, Pedro answered unequivocally, “Yes. They will get rid of the price controls and the economy will stabilize.”

But when I probed further, noting that such a policy inevitably meant sharp price increases that would hurt the poor and working class disproportionately, he again waved his hand and said, “We’ll see. I think change will be good. As soon as the MUD is in office, the US will ease up and Venezuela will get back on its feet.” Naturally, my immediate response was, “But right there aren’t you admitting that the US is deliberately exacerbating these problems through a coordinated campaign of economic subversion?” to which Pedro looked at me in the back seat, grinned slyly, and said “Maybe so.”

Pedro’s story is not unique, though his perspective is more rigid than most. I encountered more than one Chavista whose frustration with the government left them utterly indifferent to the election, despite their love for El Comandante Chávez. One such man I met was Glen Martinez, the operator of Colectivo Radio 23, a collective and radio station in the working class 23 January neighborhood which had, until this election, always been strongly Chavista. With his partner holding him by the arm (Glen is blind) he explained that he was disillusioned with the government because of what he described as incompetence and inability to combat the violence and crime plaguing his neighborhood. “We have safe zones where children play…these are supposed to be protected and clear of all violence, but nobody enforces this.”

Glen continued by noting that his frustration with the government had led him to not be involved in this campaign for PSUV as he had been in all previous elections. “We – I speak for the collective – did not participate because we do not feel that the government has listened to the people enough.” I acknowledged the legitimacy of his many grievances, but had to ask him the basic question, “I get all that, but Glen, isn’t the Bolivarian government the reason you have this radio station and collective in the first place? Without the local Chavista government, you would not have had this space rehabilitated from an old chop-shop into a functioning radio station, community center, and brand new theater with a 500 person capacity, all with government funds…And about the fact that Venezuela is one of the countries in the vanguard of resistance to global imperialism? Doesn’t that mean something?” He responded, “That’s true. This is a very complicated matter. There are no easy answers.”

Glen and Pedro both illustrate a distorted and dangerous strain of thought among both non-participating Chavistas and opposition supporters: the belief that an opposition government will be unable to roll back the gains made under the Bolivarian government. Glen firmly believes that Colectivo Radio 23 will remain as is, and that a right wing, neoliberal capitalist government aligned with Washington will not move to shut it down, privatize the space, and destroy the infrastructure of independent power embedded in 23 January since Chávez’s initiatives were launched.

Like Glen, Pedro is committed to the idea that the sanctity of contracts and agreements will be honored by an MUD government. “It’s impossible for the new National Assembly to get rid of our free health care and education. There are agreements in place, promises that must be kept.” I warned him that such an assumption of benignity on the part of neoliberal reactionaries is not only wrong-headed, but frankly dangerous. I said this politely, of course.

[dropcap]V[/dropcap]enezuela is full of contradictions, and this is nowhere more obvious than with these elections. However, what has become equally apparent in the two weeks I’ve spent here is the unanimity of opinion on key issues, at least among the poor, working, and middle class; the rich of Venezuela (like Cuban gusanos in Miami) are in another universe and they are beyond reason. Among most segments of the population there is a near consensus that Chávez was a hero and a good leader who is sorely missed. I heard this even from Pedro who had next to nothing positive to say about the government and the party Chávez left behind.

One other common theme that continually cropped up is what will happen if the new right wing government moves to dismantle the gains of the revolution. Every single person I spoke to reiterated quite forcefully that if the MUD-led government moves to dismantle the Bolivarian constitution – arguably the most progressive constitution anywhere in the world – there will be an uprising and the masses will pour into the streets to defend it. Nearly every Venezuelan has said that they think a recall referendum against President Maduro – allowed by the Constitution now that the opposition has a supermajority in the National Assembly – is unlikely, and that if the MUD moves in this direction, many of those who voted for them will vote for Maduro to keep him in power.

Above all else, there is one common theme that I have heard repeated ad nauseam these last few days: the vote was a vote against the PSUV, not for the MUD. In other words many, if not most, of those ballots cast for the opposition were simply a rebuke of the government, rather than an endorsement of the neoliberal capitalism that MUD represents. While this is undeniably frustrating, it is also heartening in a sense, because it demonstrates clearly that the general principles of the vast majority of the country remain unchanged: they want socialism and the Bolivarian Revolution, they simply want it to be improved. I heard this nearly everywhere I went, from the 23 January to El Valle, from San Agustín to the Simón Bolivar commune.

In other words, Chavismo is alive and well in Venezuela, it is the Party itself that has lost the support of many of the people. The numbers in fact bear this out. With 40% support, the PSUV still gained the votes of more than five million Venezuelans, even in the midst of excruciating hardship. Five million Venezuelans remain firmly committed to socialism and the Chávez vision. Five million Venezuelans have risen to say no to US imperialism and capitalism in the face of a crushing economic war, in the face of an unmistakable rightward shift in Latin America as the Empire makes it countermove against all the gains the Left has made in the last two decades. Five million Venezuelans remain steadfast in their commitment to the Bolivarian Revolution.

Having been here in Venezuela these last ten days, I’ve come to realize something I always knew on an intellectual level, but never understood on a human level: that revolutions are historical processes, not historical moments. The Bolivarian process has hit a roadblock, and it’s time for the Socialist Party to self-reflect. Indeed, that seems to be what President Maduro is doing.

In the last 48 hours he has called for the resignations of his ministers, led a demonstration to show that the Party will not miss this opportunity to improve itself, moved to appoint new judges, and promised further reforms in the coming days and weeks in the lead up to the new National Assembly taking their seats on January 5th. Maduro has moved to demonstrate to the people that he’s heard the message loud and clear; that he and PSUV will work to regain the trust of the people; that the revolution will continue.

There are countless Pedros and Glens throughout this beautiful country. There are also millions of people like the purple-fingered girls on the Metrocable cars and platforms, and the teary-eyed man on the Hot Corner. The poor and the working class deserve a bright future in this amazing land, and the Revolution must work to continue building just such a future.

Anacoana, a young woman and leader I met at the Comúna El Panal 2021 in Caracas, stated it about as poetically as one can. On the eve of the election, I asked her, “What will happen to the commune movement and to the Revolution if the election goes against the Chavista government, and the right wing returns to power? Will the commune movement come to an end?” Her answer was stunning, and I will quote it verbatim:

“NO!!! We will not go back (No volverán). ‘We will not go back’ is not just a slogan…No volverán is not a phrase for a t-shirt. It’s a principle. It’s OUR principle.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This piece first appeared at Global Independent Analytics. Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

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SPECIAL: Blase Bonpane on Pope Francis 2nd Encyclical Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You)

BLASE BONPANE, Director Office of the Americas (OOA)

Blase Bonpane Comments on The 2nd Encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You) On the Care of Our Common Home

Pope Francis receives a typical sombrero from Bolivian President Evo Morales during a World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, July 9, 2015. The word “Tahuichi” is from the Tupi-Guarani and means “Big Bird”. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi – RTX1JSSB

[box type=”bio”] Although the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, what he has to say resonates across all religions, all national boundaries and goes to the planet-wide human condition. It is for this reason that Blase Bonpane has dedicated his life to advance, through secular and religious struggle, the principles of this encyclical.—- Haskell Wexler [/box]

BLASE BONPANE COMMENTARY ON THE POPE’S ENCYCLICAL OUR COMMON HOME

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note: This commentary by Blase Bonpane is a text copy of three radio broadcasts during the months of June and July of 2015. (Broadcasts are included in this transcripted version). His program, WORLD FOCUS, is broadcast on the Pacifica Network by way of KPFK, Los Angeles and airs every Sunday at 10:00am.

1

Commentary on the Pope’s Encyclical – Our Common Home/ Part 1

http://officeoftheamericas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/kpfk_150621_100038worldfocus.mp3

June 21, 2015

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Pope has a letter for us about the environment, and it certainly shows some of the implications of Liberation Theology and the preferential option for the poor. And it’s very clear in the statement made ahead of time and in the encyclical itself that what he’s looking at is how we liberate the poor from the oppression in which they are living. And he blames part of it on a consumerist model, which he said is depleting resources to the detriment of the poor, and living simpler lives is called for. This is about our common home, this planet we live on.

The environment and the poor have been eagerly awaiting this. Scientists and environmentalists consider this a major event. We should read it carefully and see what we might accept or not accept. This is an important moment to say that the Pope is a liberation theologian. Some of the New York Times headlines have implied that. He has certainly taken some of the issues from liberation theology, but like everything, there is an evolution, and things moved rapidly ahead and we cannot presume that the Pope, even Francis, would approve of everything in the direction that liberation theology is going. Every idea that is new in church and state, it seems, has been condemned. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas wrote a definitive book on theology using Aristotle as a model for logic, and it became a forbidden book because Aristotle was an “infidel.”

So we’ve seen those condemnations over the years. Father Gutierrez, who wrote the book Theology of Liberation, was marginalized until Francis called him in to talk about what all this meant. So, theology does evolve. For example, if I had asked a question while in seminary at a dogmatic theology class about limbo – if I said, “Professor, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, that unbaptized children go to a place of natural happiness but would be deprived of the beatific vision, I can’t imagine dumber” – well, do you think I would have been retained by my congregation? At the same time, I could ask the question today and it would be said that, well, we don’t talk about limbo anymore. We talked about it for centuries, and made many parents of unbaptized babies very unhappy, and had special places in cemeteries for the unbaptized, but let’s forget that.

The point is that theology has evolved. And although, I would make no claim that the theology of liberation has been totally accepted by Pope Francis, the important thing is that he has accepted the idea of a preferential option for the poor. That’s a great move forward because if government would follow, first on their agenda would be, “what do we do about the homeless?” So in order to get a handle on this, I would like to give a view of liberation theology and where I think it is going, what it looks like today – without claiming that this is the theology of our pope. And I’d like to share with you something that developed in war zones, where there can be many delays.

During the Contra War one evening our delegation had such repose on the outskirts of Managua. It was in response to numerous questions about liberation theology, and this is my observation made at that time. This is why I’m saying that I’m not claiming that Pope Francis would agree with this. But this is where the theology is going at this time, in my belief.

Liberation theology is a response to many things associated with organized religion. Liberation theology is an attempt to discover an authentic theology removed from the trappings of empire. The Roman Empire that crucified Jesus became the model for the church established in His name. More of us learned about religion as an imperial matter. From the top down. Our religious views have been impacted by capitalism, salvation is a present enterprise. God and myself. My personal savior. My personal prophet. Churches have focused on personal sin. Guilt is wholesaled, salvation is retailed. Liberation theology was developed in places like Guatemala, where we worked as priests, and understood religion as something more than church and sacrament. Having tens of thousands of parishioners, we could have spent day and night administering the rituals of the church.

..

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] had my awakening in the community of Aguacatan in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Suppose five hundred indigenous people want to go to confession. Let’s not do this individually; let’s celebrate forgiveness and reconciliation for everyone attending this ceremony. I didn’t want to continue baptizing malnourished children. Was God going to throw these suffering innocents into hell? I’d prefer to vaccinate the children and let them walk in and ask for baptism as adults if they chose to do so. You’ll notice in this component of the campesino mass that you will attend this evening, we can celebrate what we are about to do or what we have done. We cannot expect the celebration to do the work. Consider a social event. A party is to celebrate what we are doing or what we have done. A graduation, the beginning of a new position, a marriage – everyone knows, however, that the party or the celebration won’t do the work.

Why do I mention this? Because there’s a theme in imperial theology that implies that the sacraments will do the work. It seems to me that the basis for this is a desire for the faithful to remain in a posture of non-action, and that is what empire wants. The sacraments will not feed the poor. Only political organization will do that. Then we have something to celebrate, and we should. The themes of liberation theology are democratic. The church was never meant to be a top down society. The Pope is not a line officer in the military who gives irrevocable orders. The key element is the base community, people. People like us gather together to consider a problem, to meditate over it and make an observation, a judgement, and a praxis – that’s a reflective act we have arrived at by consensus.

Many people became part of this Central American revolution because of their faith. They accepted the call of doing God’s work on Earth as it is in heaven – but we don’t have to put heaven in order; we do have to put the earth in order to make it into a beautiful garden like the beauty that surrounds us here. The spotlight in liberation theology is away from the dogmas which have divided the world for centuries. Liberation theology does not care to argue about the virginity of Mary, the divinity of Christ, the nature of the trinity – these sectarian issues have led to separations, hatreds and inquisitions. At the same time, the same thing is true of political sectarianism. We are actually very much in sync with people like St. Thomas Aquinas, who reminded us that theological thinking is analogous thinking. If we refer to God as Father, that is an analogy. Liberation theology would have us focus on the use of our time here and now. What is fitting conduct for us, and why.

Some social scientists say there is no such thing as the common good. But liberation theology is common good oriented. And you’ll see the Pope make reference to it in the new encyclical. Today people can create collective genius. They can pursue an authentic spirituality without being sectarian. We’re not interested in getting another member for our church. We do not want to imply that the Roman Catholic Church is the church. Does anyone think that Jesus would define His Way as Roman Catholicism? Do we not wish to say that we have the truth and all others are in error? This is the theology of inquisition, the theology of fundamentalism.

Now do you see why I call our home culture nationalistic fundamentalism? Atheistic humanists and theistic humanists can get along very well. I certainly found this to be true in Guatemala. At first, the position of our movement was classically anti-communist. By 1966, we put our anticommunist, okay to kill aside. The dope trade, the mafia, every dictatorship and the United States had used anticommunism to promote their might makes right politics. We let go of our anticommunism and began to work with people who were humanists, both theistic and atheistic.

Some were Marxist, some were not. It was clear, however, that anticommunism was not the road to democracy. We wanted to know how to get democracy across where it had never been practiced. The right to be; the right to study; the right to see what freedom should be taken away – the freedom to be illiterate, the freedom to die of hunger, the freedom to be a prostitute, the freedom to get polio. Once we agree on the common good, these things can be done.

In seeking common good consensus, we don’t go for a 51% majority. On basic common good issues, we can go for the will of the vast majority. For example, we might ask how many people approve of smog in Los Angeles. Well, a few hands would go up among the nine million people living in the area. Once the will of the people is established, we can then get rid of the smog. How many want effective rapid transit? All hands would go up. How many want low cost housing? This effort is being made here in Nicaragua. People want to build an economy based on need. Yes, that is socialistic. The profit motive is not accepted as the ultimate motive force in society. This theme is part of liberation theology.

The attack on these evils can be done with joy, enthusiasm and a sense of making history. It includes getting our mind off our navel.

We can be victimized by traditional religion. Is not the message of many sermons, first I must become perfect, then I can do something for someone else. Because I’m imperfect, I can’t do anything yet. When I stop smoking, I’ll start doing something for someone. What does this mean? It means I will never do anything.

Perfectionism is not a formula for action. It’s a formula for inaction. Non action on the part of the people – that’s the peasants – is the mode of imperial theology. You don’t know enough yet. You’re not good enough yet. You’re not an authority on that subject. Everything is waiting. Everything is tomorrow. There are homeless, yes, but they have no one to blame but themselves. Liberation theology, on the contrary, requires engagement and risk. It requires an intolerance of social injustice. It does not ignore personal failings; it simply believes that personal failings are best cured by an engagement in life. The world is changed by people who join together and do what they judge should be done. If there is any road to perfection, it’s that of doing what needs to be done. Careful parenting, for example. I cannot imagine a higher level of asceticism as we become conscious of a collective effort. We do not lose our identity; we find it.

Liberation theology requires an intolerance of social injustice.

The Pope came to this country, and in this case, you know, I’m referring to Pope John Paul II, and he created one of the great moments of church history in this century. In the early church, there was a history of speaking up to the Pope. St Paul is addressing St Peter the Pope when he said, “When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was manifestly wrong.” That’s Paul speaking about Peter being wrong. Such democratic dialogue was evident at the time of the Emperor Constantine, when the empire that killed Jesus became the model for the church. The early church was an illegal, clandestine organization. As such, it was very clean and very revolutionary. It was in hiding. It was communal. They had nothing of their own, says Acts. They shared everything in common. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Acts of the Apostles.

Religious orders retain this form of micro-communism, and they’ve done well by it. What was once a system for all members of the community, the church, became an exclusive system of the clergy and full time religious personnel. The pursuit of profit is not a good model, for the economic system of the future. We’re not speaking of the systems of the former Soviet Union or Cuba. No one is interested in static imitation. The thinking must be dynamic with new concepts and new ideas. Dogmatic politics are very similar to dogmatic religion. This requires an atmosphere of experimentation and listening, especially listening to the poor.

We can identify with the wisdom of the poor. The rich and powerful are wrong most of the time. They are holding onto something very tightly, and that makes them paranoid and full of falsehoods. The rich and powerful are not in a position to make decisions for prisoners, the homeless, for hungry people – they’re out of it. And so Pope John Paul II arrives here in Nicaragua.

The people were terribly upset. Fifteen teenagers had just been slaughtered by contra terrorists, paid for by the United States. And their mothers insisted that the chief shepherd make reference to this. They were asking for a blessing, an acknowledgement. And the Pope interrupted them by saying, silencio – silence. They knew of no reason why they should shut up for the Pope. They don’t shut up for the Pope. They didn’t shut up for Ronald Reagan. They don’t shut up for anyone.

4 Mar 1983, Managua, Nicaragua — Pope John Paul II arrived for a one-day visit. (Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS)

The president knows nothing about Nicaragua except to authorize its destruction. The Pope knew little or nothing about Nicaragua except for what he had received from Cardinal Casariego of Guatemala, a man of comic opera stature. The women of Nicaragua reacted to the Pope as a 40 year old daughter might react to a 60 year old father. They showed love, honor and respect. But they do not accept his jurisdiction about how to run their country. Whether to be socialist or not, Sandinista or not, these issues are not in his realm of competence. The objective is to practice democracy and to incorporate democracy into spirituality.

There seems to be more rapport between liberation theology and socialist thought than there is between liberation theology and capitalist thought. Some Latin American prelates have made statements about not being able to coexist with atheistic capitalism. There is not one ounce of theism in the capitalist system. It is just grab the money and run. We have experienced years of equating socialism falsely with godlessness, and capitalism with God. Liberation theology has nothing to do with the union of church and state. It is the integration of political and spiritual values. I’m the same person spiritually as I am politically. There are ugly political concepts, and beautiful political concepts. Ideas, such as “stay out of politics,” are only fitting for a monarchy. No one should stay out of politics. Everyone has to be in politics all the time, but must never promote an organized religion as part of the state. When a state becomes a theocracy, it becomes a disaster. It becomes the formula for perpetual war.

There will always be those categorized as “unsaved,” ethnic and religious outcasts are categorized as second class citizens, useful only for cheap labor. Well, there must be no cheap labor, just people who have a need for a living wage. Also, liberation theology is not simply a manipulation of Christian thought by Marxists. The spiritual message came first; Marx came later. It is most unfortunate that our culture is so protected from Marxist thought. Certainly no one in the United States is permitted to study Marx from kindergarten through 12th grade. Only demonization is acceptable. The same vacuum generally applies to the first four years of college as well. A rare graduate student may study some of the wisdom of Marx. Michael Harrington, one of the greatest US socialists, dedicates his book, ‘The Twilight of Capitalism’, to the future of an almost forgotten genius. The foe of every dogma, champion of human freedom and democratic socialist, Karl Marx. Does that sound like the devil?

“It’s important to understand that the [predominant] culture in the United States is a culture of nationalistic fundamentalism…”

I think Michael Harrington knew a great deal about this. And his books are very much written within the culture of the United States. This new deal is really a very old theology. It’s what Moses was trying to get across when he told them it was not right to be in slavery. The true God liberates idols and slaves. Our true idols today are nuclear missiles and an imperial foreign policy. Such things are perceived as the will of God. But we are among people today in Nicaragua who are sisters and brothers to us. What they suffer is what our family suffers. We don’t intend to tolerate this. In the US, our development of this theology is more secular because it’s the nature of our culture. Thousands of solidarity communities have sprung up, which are base communities in fact. Spirituality does not have to stand out like an appendage. It has to be part of the fabric of our character.
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Last month we joined and initiated the Days of Decision at the Van Nuys military airbase. 34 of us got arrested that day. We were held inside of a hangar. Within that hangar was military equipment for use against the people of Central America. We knew we were in the right place.

Our message is simple, it’s the same message we generated during the war in Indo China. Three million people were destroyed because they were so-called “communists.” It was a holocaust. Our message then was, stop the war or we’ll stop the country. Nixon was ready to use nuclear bombs against the people of Southeast Asia. He had made his decision. It was the only way. We were losing the war. But he knew he could not get away with it. Nixon witnessed the largest mutiny in history, US. Soldiers were killing their officers. He could see from the window of the White House one million patriots saying, Stop the War. Indeed, the great movements in our country have come from the streets. Mass mobilizations gave way to the 8 hour day, the 40 hour week, the right to organize. There’s great wisdom in the people of the base, and there’s great ignorance at the top. Wealth is going into fewer and fewer hands, giving our country the worst distribution of wealth in the world. Our leaders are incompetent to make decisions pertaining to health, poverty and housing.

They simply think in terms of military production, and it’s literally killing us. Our cause is to turn it around. We only want government servants in government, people who look like servants, act like servants, perform like servants – or get out of government. We don’t care what they want. We must demand that they do what the great people of our country want them to do. Our freedom to do and to make history. To do and create the future. To bring justice to the planet. Tomorrow, we will visit the war.

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hose, my friends, were thoughts shared with a delegation of foreigners in Nicaragua, US citizens, on a beautiful star-filled tropical evening, just outside of Managua.

And so that’s where I consider liberation theology is going, and I wouldn’t say that Pope Francis is accepting all of this. I don’t know that he would accept all of this. Maybe in his inner heart, but in terms of his current position, I don’t think that he accepts this. However, he certainly accepts one of the basic themes, which is the preferential option for the poor – and he demonstrates that so clearly in this new encyclical. So we congratulate him on that. Unfortunately many journalists don’t quite understand what’s going on.

We see here journalists saying “This is the first time the Pope has written an encyclical with the intention of influencing the political process.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I think journalists have to do their homework. I think every pope has had a political purpose. My goodness, Dante was arguing whether the pope should be the last word, or the emperor. And he thought the emperor should be, because the pope thought he should be. So the popes have been interested in political issues for years, even in modern times.

Take the 19th century. Pope Leo XIII gave us the wonderful document Rerum Novarum about industrialization, and he was standing directly on the shoulders of Karl Marx. He agreed with one Marxist conclusion after another. He agreed with the situation described by Marx, and you’ll find out if you ever study Marx, he asked the right questions. He didn’t give all the answers to everything. He was a Socrates who asked the right question: why should people who create the profit not receive any of it? Or receive an unacceptably miserly part of it? So he was standing on the shoulders of the Communist Manifesto.

Forty years later Pope Pius XI gave us the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. What did he insist on? A living wage. This was in the 1930s. A living wage, what is that? To have enough money to have a house, to save something, take vacation, to live as a human being. So it’s gone on. John the 23rd, a great revolutionary who called the second Vatican Council, and had such a deep impact on all of us in the wake of that council, because we were hearing things from Rome that we’d never heard before.

Giovanni Battista Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, the “People’s Pope”-—an indelible example.

The second Vatican Council went from 1962 to 1965, and it was in the wake of that council that so much of liberation theology developed. And finally Father Gutierrez wrote about it later; it had already begun in a peripatetic way, walking around analyzing what was coming from the Vatican. Then the bishops met in Medellin, Colombia to talk about the fact that many in the church were part and parcel of the revolution. They were dealing with Pope Paul VI, and he had written another encyclical which terrorized the upper classes. Popes have always dealt with the political. Don’t think for a minute that this is the first time. What did he say in Populorum Progressio? It is in Chapter 31:

“Everyone knows, however, that revolutionary uprisings—except where there is manifest, longstanding tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country—engender new injustices, introduce new inequities and bring new disasters.”

My goodness, the rebels in Latin America took that as a manifest saying that they have the right to revolt. So please don’t ever say that the popes have not engaged in political implications until this encyclical of Pope Francis, which contains marvelous ideas. And we’re very happy about it.

So we see that council as a very important time. That was an elderly man, John XXIII, who thought the church had grown so stuffy that they had to open the windows to let some air in. And that led to a reevaluation of dogmatic thinking, a reevaluation of fundamentalism, and you might say a reevaluation of Roman Catholic fundamentalism. A reevaluation of manmade ecclesiastical laws, a reevaluation of sectarianism. And this is a tremendous amount of progress.

So if we’re thinking about the environment, what is the foremost threat to the environment? There’s absolutely no question about it. The military at peace is the greatest threat to the ecology of the world. The military at war and this planet are not sustainable. We’re going to use these weapons that Reagan was ready to use, that so many presidents were ready to use, that John Kennedy was ready to use. People talk about overpopulation – friends, I don’t worry about over population, I worry about no population. Nada.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]eople are willing to save capitalism by way of biocide. When you kill and maim, blow the heads off of people for 24 years – that’s right – we started killing Iraqis in 1991. Of course we’re shocked when we see the blowback of ISIS. Of course we’re shocked as we see people about to have their heads cut off. Horror, terror, absolutely unacceptable. But who gave Iraq and Afghanistan the cluster bombs? These bombs take the heads off children by the thousands. So what is the difference between that and the beheading of some by a sword? These cluster bombs are absolutely unacceptable. The dear Saudi Arabians are using them in Yemen, we’ve used them for 24 years in Iraq, and they have these lovely little bomblets that look like toys and attract children who hold them up until their heads are blown off.

[box type=”bio”] Download here. LAUDATO SI[/box]

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o let’s talk about the ecology. You can’t have it and have cluster bombs. You can’t have it and have intercontinental nuclear missiles. It’s out of the question. So the first step toward saving the planet is to end war, and we can do it. We celebrated the Magna Carta this week, and we had some very silly editorials come out. Maybe they thought they were part of the new “post humanist period,” but it seemed like the silliness of academia. “Stop revering the Magna Carta,” Tom Ginsburg of the New York Times wrote. Well, well well. Stop revering it. Okay, I’ll stop right away! There’s no reason to stop revering it. “It wasn’t perfect!” Oh, I see, the Magna Carta wasn’t perfect. But of course the US Constitution was perfect. Is he trying to get around the fact that we’ve lost ground in 800 years since the Magna Carta? Does he realize that we’ve lost ground since 1215? We have. We don’t have trials, just suspects. And as we attack the suspects may be present or not. And with these virtual suspects thousands of innocents have been massacred by drones and F-15’s.

Well, maybe we got him, maybe we didn’t, but we thought he might have been on the list, we thought it was him, we might have got him, we possibly did, multiple bombs were dropped on the target. It will take us a while to determine whether we got him, unless terrorist websites confirm that we got him. Well. So we had somebody we thought might have done something or who might do something in the future. I don’t know of anyone in organized crime who would do such a thing. There is honor among thieves. I don’t think organized crime internationally would take such a step. Send in the F15 E’s and blow up as many people as are there, and you might possibly perhaps maybe get someone who we suspect might have been Muktar al Muktar.

This cannot continue. But it continues. So, where did he come from? The man we thought we might have killed allegedly had one eye. He was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he learned his combat skills. Why was he fighting the Soviets? Because we organized many of the fanatics in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, and he was one of them. He was also a major cigarette trafficker; he was known as an honorable man, according to the New York Times. So we’re seeing the blowback from ISIS. It is unifying as groups do. At first they compete, they argue, they differ, they argue politics and religion, but they do unify and they have become unified because of the terrorism that they have lived in since 1991. The extreme terrorism in the 21st century: that terrorism has been part and parcel of our policy, basically destroying the soul of the United States of America.

So as we look at the Pope’s encyclical, let’s think about that. In order to be in sync with it, we have to end the war system. What about extremists in the United States? Well you can also read in the New York Times that the terrorist threat in this country is primarily from the extreme right. Terrorism of all forms has accounted for a tiny portion of the violence in America. There have been more than 215,000 murders in the United States since 9/11. For every person killed by Muslim extremists, there have been 4300 homicides by other threats. Police agencies are trying to become aware of this, because this month the headline was about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month two Muslim extremists attacked an anti-Muslim conference in Garland, Texas, etc.

But the headlines can mislead, says the New York Times. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right wing extremists. Just ask the police. The survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year, which included 342 police agencies, showed that 74 percent reported anti-government extremism is one of the top three terrorist threats. So, when we look at extremism, let’s look at our own. And those who are demonizing Islam are the same thinkers as those who demonized Judaism. They are dead wrong. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know who the enemy is. They better look to themselves and say: The enemy is us.

Commentary on the Pope’s Encyclical – Our Common Home/ Part 2

July 5, 2015

http://officeoftheamericas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/kpfk_150705_100038worldfocus.mp3

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’d like to wish all of you a happy 4th of July. Independence Day. May we all be independent of imperialism, independent of the evil of war, the evil of torture, the evil of lethal lies that kill millions? Happy Independence Day. Independence from Evil.

Well, we have here a letter from the Pope, and I have it with me. And I’d like to comment on it today. I think it’s a very important letter for the world. And what it amounts to is a marriage of the peace movement and the environmental movement. That’s a very important marriage. We’ve been waiting for this to happen, and I think the Pope helped very much to make it happen.

It’s called Laudato si. That sounds like Latin, but I think you’ll find that it’s 13th century Italian. “Praise to you my Lord.” In the word of a beautiful canticle, St. Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life, and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace. “Praise to you my Lord, through our sister mother earth, who sustains and governs us and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.”

There’s a very interesting focus on St. Francis. And, in a way, it’s a little unfortunate that the Pope stressed simply the love of Francis for nature. That, of course, is key. But what we have to do is look at the life of this amazing man to understand some things that might be missing here. St. Francis was born in 1181. He died in 1226. He had abandoned a life of luxury for a life devoted to Christianity after reportedly hearing the voice of God, who commanded him to rebuild the church and live in poverty. He had been renowned for drinking and partying in his youth. After fighting in a battle between Assisi and Perugia, Francis was captured and imprisoned for ransom. He spent nearly a year in prison, awaiting his father’s payment, and, according to legend, began receiving visions from God.

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Here is the part that we forget about Francis. He abhorred the Crusades as miserable slaughter in the name of God. He stood against them in a way that the best of our peace people are standing against them today. The New York Times wrote of this, I think it was Thomas Cahill, back in 2006. He actually wrote of this on Christmas day, that amid all the useless bloodshed of the Crusades, Francis of Assisi, joined the 5th Crusade, not as a warrior, but as a peacemaker. Francis was not good at organization or strategy, and he knew it. He accepted the people who offered themselves as followers, befriended them, shared the Gospel with them, but gave them no wealth. He expected them to live like him, and he said, “Preach the Gospel, and if you have to, use words.” Nothing could be stronger. We don’t need the words as much as we need the action.

Francis was not impressed by the crusaders, whose sacrilegious brutality horrified him. They were fond of taunting and abusing their prisoners of war, who were returned to their families minus a nose, lips, ears or eyes – or never returned at all. And the endless slaughters of Jews and Islamic people. Francis thought the judgement was the exclusive province of the all- merciful God – just as Pope Francis said recently, “Who am I to judge?” It was none of the Christians concern to judge. True Christians were to befriend all. Condemn no one. Give to the other, and it shall be given to you. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. This was part of Francis’ constant preaching. May the Lord give you peace was the best greeting one could give to all one met. It compromised no one’s dignity, and embraced every good with a blessing bestowed on all. Francis bestowed it on people. Such an approach in an age when most visible signs of the Christian religion were the wars and atrocities of the Red Cross Crusaders.

This is critically important, friends. His great work was as a peace maker and as a peace activist. Symbolic gesture, Francis’ natural language, was a profound source he called on throughout his life. In one of his most poignant expressions, Francis sailed across the Mediterranean to the Egyptian court of Al-Malik Al-Kamil, nephew of the great Saladin, who defeated the forces of the hapless Third Crusade. Francis was admitted to the august presence of the sultan himself, and spoke to him of Christ, who was, after all, Francis’ only subject.

Well, friends. You know what this was? Trying to proselytize a Muslim was cause for on-the- spot decapitation. But Kamil was a wise and moderate man, deeply impressed by Francis’ courage and sincerity, and invited him for a week of serious conversation. Francis was deeply impressed by the religious devotion of the Muslims, especially by their five daily calls to prayer. It’s possible that the thrice daily recitation of the Angelus that became current in Europe after his visit, was precipitated by the impression Muslims made on St Francis.

So he went back to the crusader camp on the Egyptian shore and desperately tried to convince Cardinal Pelagius Galvani, who Pope Honorius III has put in charge of the crusade, saying that he should make peace with the Sultan who, despite a preponderance of force on his side, was all too ready to do so. But the Cardinal had dreams of military glory and would not listen. His failure amid terrible loss of life brought the age of the crusades to an inglorious end.

Here it is. Cardinal Galvani, who was a warmonger – and if we don’t deal with these realities in the history of the church, we’re playing Mickey Mouse, and if we play Mickey Mouse, we’ll never know anything. Donald Spoto, one of Francis of Assisi’s most recent biographers, rightly calls Francis “the first person from the West to travel to another continent with the revolutionary idea of peacemaking.” As a result of his inability to convince Cardinal Pelagius, however, Francis saw himself as a failure. Like his model, Jesus of Nazareth, Francis was an extremist. But his failure is still capable of bearing new fruit.

Islamic society and Christian society have been generally bad neighbors now for nearly 14 centuries, eager to misunderstand each other, often borrowing culturally and intellectually from each other without ever bestowing proper credit. But as Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, has written, almost as if he was thinking of Al-Kamil and Francis, “Those who are confident of their faith are not threatened but enlarged by the different faiths of others. There are, surely, many ways of arriving at this generosity of spirit and each faith may need to find its own.” We stand in desperate need of contemporary figures like Kamil and Francis of Assisi to create an innovative dialogue. To build a future better than our past, we need, as Rabbi Sacks has put it, “the confidence to recognize the irreducible, glorious dignity of difference.”

Friends, it’s so important to remember that St Francis was a peace activist. Just like our people today – Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly, a host of others who have gone and risked their lives speaking to the so-called enemy, talking about dialogue, talking about diplomacy – a lost science.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o I wanted to give this as a preliminary because the focus of attention here is on St Francis in beginning this letter, Our Common Home. Pope Francis didn’t care to deal with this particular aspect of it publicly – I think he might have hoped that everybody who knows something about peacemaking of St Francis would draw their own conclusions.

The church, as it developed, began to give easy condemnations of birth control, abortion, and homosexuality. Why? Because all of these throw the burden of sin to the individual. It’s a way of wholesaling sin, and does not deal with the societal sins – the greatest sins – war, hunger, disease. This would anger governments that support the church, and the churches have become subservient to the government. So the focus of attentions is diverted from the world’s greatest sins – aggressive war, torture, oppression, militarism. The church follows the state; it does not lead, and it tries not to offend power and money. And here’s an exception.

There have been many exceptions. The papal encyclicals of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Also, these letters are often not heard in our churches and our parishes because it would be “offensive” to power and money. But somehow I think Our Common Home will have an impact above and beyond all organized religion.

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So here are some thoughts about our common home. It’s about 180 pages, and I have it in front of me. Now, the New York Times said the US bishops will be wary of the document. Of course they will. They have interests and investments that would not be approved by Pope Francis. They love to make the comment, “Our people are not ready for that yet.” I think of the Cardinal of Washington DC who said “Well, it might take 75 years.” Well, why not more, why not forever, as the planet disintegrates.

It is truly sad that the Rerum Novarum was never translated into Spanish from the original Latin because the oligarchs of Latin America together with the bishops were afraid of it.

Well, we take a look now at the text, which is so very important and meaningful. He recalls previous popes who have also spoken on the environment. He recalls Pope Paul VI in 1971 referring to the ecological catastrophe under effective explosion of industrial civilization. My comment would be, there’s nothing more explosive than military industrial production. And as a reference, I would suggest the works of Seymour Melman, who wrote Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline and Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War.

Our oligarchy knows that the very best way to make a profit is creating new wars. They are now out of control. More wars – and look at the plethora of candidates for the presidency. It’s really priceless. Now moaning that we’ve not been warlike enough, we need to get tougher! More profit. More destruction of the planet. Make it into a garbage dump.

Sadly, many of our people will listen to this inflammatory nonsense because the culture has descended into fear, which is the favorite theme of corrupt politicians. Yes. So other religions have expressed a deep concern and offered valuable reflections on this letter. And we’ll look to the text of the letter. I’ll mention paragraphs.

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Francis is justly recognized as the patron saint of animals and the environment. He demonstrated his profound love and compassion for nature and all creatures on numerous occasions. (Pauline Baynes)

So we look and find in the 13th paragraph: “Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.”

Friends, about the suffering of the excluded. If you make 25,000 dollars a year, you are in the top 1% of the people of the planet. I’m not talking about the US. Billions of people live on a dollar a day, or two dollars a day or less. So this is what he’s trying to deal with, that these are the “excluded.” And this is extremely harmful to our future, to have such people excluded.

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He’s so right on, because you can hear people in the churches say, “we’re here to worship God, we’re not here to talk about the bees and the birds, we’re not here to talk about the necessary patriotism of killing everyone else in the world, we’re just here to worship God.” Well, I’m sorry, friends, I don’t know what religion you belong to, but that’s not the message of someone who said we’re here to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, assist people who are sick or in prison, and what we do to them is our relationship to the Almighty.”

So this is paragraph 14. We move on here and find a lot of important statements. Paragraph 16:

“I will point to the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet, the conviction that everything in the world is connected, the critique of new paradigms and forms of power derived from technology, the call to seek other ways of understanding the economy and progress, the value proper to each creature, the human meaning of ecology, the need for forthright and honest debate, the serious responsibility of international and local policy, the throwaway culture and the proposal of a new lifestyle. These questions will not be dealt with once and for all, but reframed and enriched again and again.”

And that’s what he’s certainly trying to do. He creates an interesting word in paragraph 18:

“The continued acceleration of changes affecting humanity and the planet is coupled today with a more intensified pace of life and work which might be called “rapidification”.”

We see that everywhere. Hype. Speed. Remember Gandhi saying, “There’s more to life than increasing its speed.” Think of the car on the freeway going 95 miles an hour, endangering everyone. If you ask the driver where he or she is going, you’d probably here “nowhere” or “to the next bar.” So – “rapidification is not good.” He goes on:

“Although change is part of the working of complex systems, the speed with which human activity has developed contrasts with the naturally slow pace of biological evolution. Moreover, the goals of this rapid and constant change are not necessarily geared to the common good or to integral and sustainable human development. Change is something desirable, yet it becomes a source of anxiety when it causes harm to the world and to the quality of life of much of humanity.”

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Well, that’s paragraph 18, and an important part of the encyclical. The press was quite impressed with paragraph 21:

“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. Industrial waste and chemical products utilized in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation in the organisms of the local population, even when levels of toxins in those places are low. Frequently no measures are taken until after people’s health has been irreversibly affected.”

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[dropcap]F[/dropcap]riends, as climate is a common good and meant for all, we should look at the air. The water, the soil, the subsoil – and people might be paid for working on it. But never for owning it. And that, strangely enough, is part of the Mexican constitution of 1917. It has not been well applied in Mexico, but it is a very first class statement. Air, water, soil, subsoil, oil – all belong to the people. And of course you can be paid for working it, but not for owning it.

I guess the severest criticism of the encyclical came from David Brooks of the New York Times. He was very offended that the pope attacked cap and trade. I’m amazed that the pope pointed out that it’s a shell game – a useless effort to stop the disaster that’s taking place. The letters to the editor after Brooks’ article were extremely strong condemnations of Brooks’ approach.

Paragraph 24: Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity. The melting in the polar ice caps and in high altitude plains can lead to the dangerous release of methane gas, while the decomposition of frozen organic material can further increase the emission of carbon dioxide. Things are made worse by the loss of tropical forests which would otherwise help to mitigate climate change. Carbon dioxide pollution increases the acidification of the oceans and compromises the marine food chain. If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us. A rise in the sea level, for example, can create extremely serious situations, if we consider that a quarter of the world’s population lives on the coast or nearby, and that the majority of our megacities are situated in coastal areas.

..

And paragraph 26:

“Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change. However, many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption. There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next

few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced.”

I think it’s very important that he’s on top of the problem of public relations, which is a way of trying to lie our way out of reality. Paragraphs 27 and 28 address water:

“We all know that it is not possible to sustain the present level of consumption in developed countries and wealthier sectors of society, where the habit of wasting and discarding has reached unprecedented levels. The exploitation of the planet has already exceeded acceptable limits and we still have not solved the problem of poverty.

“Fresh drinking water is an issue of primary importance, since it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Sources of fresh water are necessary for health care, agriculture and industry. Water supplies used to be relatively constant, but now in many places demand exceeds the sustainable supply.”

Well, friends, we could add that war production is destroying the planet. You know, when the pope went to Turin last week, he spoke at the university. And he said, “Those who are involved in building arms and the arms trade should not call yourselves Christians.” I think he’s on a roll, and a very important roll. Understanding the problem we’re in. He goes on for a couple of paragraphs about water, and he says:

“Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market.” Yes, thank you Bechtel, for going to Bolivia and trying to privatize the water of Bolivia, and having the people of Bolivia throw you OUT of the country. “Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity. This debt can be paid partly by an increase in funding to provide clean water and sanitary services among the poor.” This is from paragraph 30.

…

The pope is not sparing the corporate world. In paragraph 31:

“Greater scarcity of water will lead to an increase in the cost of food and the various products which depend on its use. Some studies warn that an acute water shortage may occur within a few decades unless urgent action is taken. The environmental repercussions could affect billions of people; it is also conceivable that the control of water by large multinational businesses may become a major source of conflict in this century.”

Well, it’s already obvious. Talk to the Bolivians. They said get out of here. That’s what the Salvadorans are trying to do. Get out of here. Don’t mess with our water or our air. Do you want to sell air too? Do you want to sell it by the puff? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

That’s paragraph 31. He goes on to talk about the loss of biodiversity:

“Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.” And in paragraph 34:

“It may well disturb us to learn of the extinction of mammals or birds, since they are more visible. But the good functioning of ecosystems also requires fungi, algae, worms, insects, reptiles and an innumerable variety of microorganisms. Some less numerous species, although generally unseen, nonetheless play a critical role in maintaining the equilibrium of a particular place. Human beings must intervene when a geosystem reaches a critical state. But nowadays, such intervention in nature has become more and more frequent. As a consequence, serious problems arise, leading to further interventions; human activity becomes ubiquitous, with all the risks which this entails. Often a vicious circle results, as human intervention to resolve a problem further aggravates the situation. For example, many birds and insects which disappear due to synthetic agro toxins are helpful for agriculture: their disappearance will have to be compensated for by yet other techniques which may well prove harmful. We must be grateful for the praiseworthy efforts being made by scientists and engineers dedicated to finding solutions to man-made problems. But a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves.”

Consumerism. This letter is so important at this time. I think it will probably be read more widely than any other papal letters. The popularity of Pope Francis, and the subject matter. He speaks of specific areas in chapter 38:

“Let us mention, for example, those richly biodiverse lungs of our planet which are the Amazon and the Congo basins, or the great aquifers and glaciers. We know how important these are for the entire earth and for the future of humanity. The ecosystems of tropical forests possess an enormously complex biodiversity which is almost impossible to appreciate fully, yet when these forests are burned down or leveled for purposes of cultivation, within the space of a few years countless species are lost and the areas frequently become arid wastelands. A delicate balance has to be maintained when speaking about these places, for we cannot overlook the huge global economic interests which, under the guise of protecting them, can undermine the sovereignty of individual nations. In fact, there are “proposals to internationalize the Amazon, which only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations”.

..

All these trade bills being dealt with now have this as the objective – the corporate takeover of the planet. That is to say, the corporate destruction of the planet where people who have a patent on a death seed can sue someone else who has a natural seed because they didn’t use the death seed which can be used only once – and then you have to go back and buy more. I think we’re really onto something here.

In paragraph 40, pope states:

“Oceans not only contain the bulk of our planet’s water supply, but also most of the immense variety of living creatures, many of them still unknown to us and threatened for various reasons. What is more, marine life in rivers, lakes, seas and oceans, which feeds a great part of the world’s population, is affected by uncontrolled fishing, leading to a drastic depletion of certain species. Selective forms of fishing which discard much of what they collect continue unabated. Particularly threatened are marine organisms which we tend to overlook, like some forms of plankton; they represent a significant element in the ocean food chain, and species used for our food ultimately depend on them.”

So he’s talking about the death of the oceans. “Many of the world’s coral reefs are already barren or in a state of constant decline. “Who turned the wonder world of the seas into underwater cemeteries bereft of color and life?” This phenomenon is due largely to pollution which reaches the sea as the result of deforestation, agricultural monocultures, industrial waste and destructive fishing methods, especially those using cyanide and dynamite. It is aggravated by the rise in temperature of the oceans. All of this helps us to see that every intervention in nature can have consequences which are not immediately evident, and that certain ways of exploiting resources prove costly in terms of degradation which ultimately reaches the ocean bed itself.”

We should realize that much of this is done for military purposes – for military bases. The people of the world are protesting, and the destruction goes on. Because all creatures are connected, he says in

So he talks about the decline of human life and the breakdown of society. We go to paragraph 43:

“Human beings too are creatures of this world, enjoying a right to life and happiness, and endowed with unique dignity. So we cannot fail to consider the effects on people’s lives of environmental deterioration, current models of development and the throwaway culture.”

And
Yes, let’s gate it off, let’s have people pay to see something beautiful.

“In others, “ecological” neighborhoods have been created which are closed to outsiders in order to ensure an artificial tranquility. Frequently, we find beautiful and carefully manicured green spaces in so-called “safer” areas of cities, but not in the more hidden areas where the disposable of society live.”

..

Friends, where can you get this encyclical? Just Google it and you can print out the whole thing for free. That is quite a fascinating thing as well. You can print “Our Common Home” by Googling and printing it.

He speaks of the danger of social aggression, drug trafficking, growing drug use by young people and their loss of identity in these horrible urban situations. So he’s dealing with wasting and discarding; with the fact that one third of the food produced is thrown away – which is a horrible thing to think about in a world of hunger. He speaks about a very interesting issue in paragraph 47. He speaks about mental pollution:

“True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature.

Just look at the toys that people have – a new one comes out every week, and everybody is supposed to have them. I’m sure that there’s a lot of good that can be done by that kind of communication, but it separates us from our fellow human beings, and it’s a problem. He continues:

“Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise.”

Look at that – very interesting psychological statement: “For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise.”

Friends, how many times have we seen young people isolated, depressed, becoming loners and sometimes becoming dangerous.

So we haven’t gotten halfway through the encyclical, but we’re getting there. We’ll continue. The majority of the world’s population is poor. Capitalism sets up a system in which the majority of the population becomes “collateral damage.” How is that done? It’s done by way of no distributive justice. We have a horrible distribution of wealth. So he also goes on to something that will be very controversial with many people. And that is population. We’ll talk about it in the next segment of our examination of the pope’s encyclical.

Commentary on the Pope’s Encyclical – Our Common Home/ Part 3

http://officeoftheamericas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/kpfk_150712_100038worldfocus.mp3

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ello friends. Based on many requests, we are continuing our examination of Pope Francis’ encyclical, Our Common Home. I may not give the best analysis of this important document, with all my failings, but I will do my best to interpret what he said. I have read all 180 pages of the encyclical, thought about it, and it is quite an unusual piece of work. It is, you know, pretty well dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, so I’ve got to recommend a new book by Paul Moses. It’s called The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and St Francis’s Mission of Peace. This is important because we can say that St Francis was a peace activist, and was also an environmentalist. And now that we are talking about the marriage between the environmental movement and the peace movement, we look to the fact that he also was engaged heavily in the environment.

We look back at 1280. In the midst of the disastrous Fifth Crusade, St Francis crossed enemy’s lines to gain an audience with Kamil, the sultan of Egypt. Francis hated the Crusades. They were hateful, violent, evil things, and we shouldn’t brag about them. He opposed the crusades and hoped to bring about peace by converting the Sultan to Christianity. He didn’t succeed, but he came away from that peaceful encounter with revolutionary ideas that called for Christians to live harmoniously with Muslims. The Saint and the Sultan brings to life the battles of the Fifth Crusade as well as the parallel stories of Francis and Sultan al-Kamil.

This is so tremendously important because of Francis’ attitude toward war and peace, which were actually shaped by his own traumatic experience as a soldier. Al-Kamil was regarded as the most tolerant of Egypt’s Sultans. So we see that even the Sultan realized that war is the least practical way to solve any problem. In the end, he impressed the crusaders with his goodness. He was simply a good Sunni-Muslim whose actions and gentle reverence toward Francis was rooted in his own faith. So here we have the greatest Christian saint since the time of the apostles, and he opposed the crusades and peacefully approached Muslims at a time when they were supposed to be mortal enemies. That action can inspire and instruct us today. The fact that Al Kamil, a great Sultan of Egypt and nephew of Saladin, was so tolerant of Christians that he allowed one of them to preach to him in the midst of the crusade.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat were Muslims supposed to do in this case? They were supposed to cut the head off of the person who tried to convert them. This story of St Francis and the Sultan says there’s a better way than resentment, suspicion, and warfare. It opens to door to respect, trust and peace. So I recommend Paul Moses’ new book, which will help you see the great peace activism of St. Francis of Assisi. It’s well worth reading. The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and St Francis’s Mission of Peace.

This is background for the commentary of today. Now, it probably starts with the most controversial of all. The encyclical is available for free; just do a Google search, and print it out. All you have to pay for is the paper. So I urge you to read this 180-page document, and see if you are in accord with my analysis of it or not. The most controversial part, probably, is the matter of population. He realizes that population is a problem, and he is in touch with many analysts today who make it clear that where people have rights and are taken care of – for example, medical care and education – they have fewer children. One proof of this is Europe, where the population is falling everywhere. Italy is not reproducing itself. Neither is Spain. In fact, I don’t know of any country in Europe that is. In Russia, it’s worse. You get a full year off if you have a baby. So we have a population implosion in one part of the world and a population explosion other parts of the world.

It’s extremely important to look at some of the reasoning that doesn’t appear in popular literature. In rural areas, children are an asset. They work. They help take care of the farm. And people in countries especially that have no infrastructure or medical care – what is your security? Children. You may say, well maybe, if I have eight, three might be living by the time I get to be in my old age. So children are looked upon as an asset. People automatically have fewer children when they have rights for their care and services that provide it.

Now we see the fall in population in Europe and the influx of huge numbers of immigrants arriving from Africa. Basically our population is falling with the exception of immigration. We have to consider that reality – people will have fewer children once they have some rights. So that’s at least a thought on
Well, fortunately we’ll have someone next week who in the spirit of St Francis has been spending her time in the war zones of the world, Kathy Kelly. She should be back from Afghanistan, and will tell us of her experiences. She wasn’t talking to the Sultan, but she is in total sync with the people and the peace movement that she has helped to create in Afghanistan.

We certainly have leadership among our intellectuals. I don’t see it among the political people, but among our intellectuals – people like Naomi Klein and others – are really showing leadership. Now, the new trade agreements he refers to require international law. It’s clear that it’s a fight between international law and the corporate takeover of the world. To show the deadliness of this, he refers to the “deified market.” The market has become an idol. This is something that he feels is extremely deadly. We’re more concerned about the image than the reality, and friends, the image just doesn’t do it. We have to deal with realities.

He talks about a false ecology. That is, where people might be saying “oh, I didn’t know about that” or “oh, I just don’t want to hear it” or “oh, I wash out my paper towels.” He feels we have to get very serious about it to have a change in our culture. And of course that includes our spirituality, which is a spirituality of the love of nature and peace. Look at

We look at our prophets. Father Roy Bourgeois and so many others. They’ve been basically thrown out, as St Francis was thrown out of his order, the Franciscans. That’s a logical thing for an institution to do, because it starts to focus on itself, its own doctrinal issues, and I really have a severe problem with those. They go back to what I call the Nicene heresy where human beings made up what they called a “creed” and then began killing people who didn’t agree with everything in the creed. It was totally political and totally unacceptable. Political in the sense of uniting or attempting to unite a failing empire, the Roman Empire, where the bishops became subservient to the emperor. It’s tragic that people were executed because they didn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus as they were supposed to believe in the divinity of the emperor. They didn’t ask the victim whether that victim had compassion, whether that victim had love, joy, peace, and justice – they asked them about a manmade doctrine.

Carl Sagan sought to inspire reverence and awe of nature and the universe.

He talks again and again about distributive justice. Let’s look at
…

In paragraph 94 is farm labor.

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]e deals with the problem of theological fads. These frequently make me laugh. They are funny. People come along with a “new idea” and make it into a theological fad. Often these fads are total abstractions. I think it’s the French – I don’t have any French, so I can’t give you the original – but what I recall is the statement that the greatest sin is to take that which is concrete and make it abstract. Their leader talked about feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, dealing with prisoners, the sick, those without clothes – these were concrete issues. To make abstractions out of them for a phony theology is really a waste of time. And we’ve had one fad after another.

He talks again and again – look at When Corporations Rule the
World. Nothing could be worse.

He says, “The market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion.” The market cannot do that. In fact, the gauges of the market are like the gauges on an old airplane. The gauges are not helpful. Gross National Product. Does that tell us anything? It doesn’t tell us anything unless we look at the gross social product, the GSP, not the GNP. How is the air this year as compared with last year? What is the quality of the water this year as compared to last year? How about literacy this year? How about the distribution of wealth this year? All of these are part of the social product, and that’s what really matters. GNP doesn’t tell us much. People can be starving with a great GNP.

The fragmentation of knowledge is something he refers to in paragraph 110. People in a state of obfuscation of their knowledge and atomizing themselves in their particular discipline. “Oh, I’m an economic paleontologist, I’m not a political paleontologist,” leads to academic garble and the atomization of life. Techno talk masking the problem.

We recommend a new book from Paul Moses called The Saint and the Sultan: the Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace, which examines a little known encounter between St. Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt during the Crusades. St Francis was a peace activist.

If we look at paragraph 114, he calls for a bold cultural revolution. Of course, you can hear the voice of Martin Luther King in that.

This is done with what I call reverence and critique, because we’re showing a reverence for the common good, a reverence for distributive justice. We can’t help but have a critique of the church itself and its theology over the past years, which have included some horrors which were found in the Council of Nicea, leading to crusades which were a bloody disaster. Leading to inquisition – telling people they didn’t have a right to be Jewish, telling them that error had no rights: because you are in error, you can convert or die. Well, friends, a critique of history must go on. The church must learn to say its mea culpas, not just have its members say their mea culpas for their pecadillos. Little sins of whatever kind. But the church itself – institutions – should say “through my fault.” The church has to do that, because repeating the past is the worst possible view of life. You don’t repeat the past; you move on.

He goes on again with a controversial reference about abortion in

He talks about the extreme dangers of human trafficking that’s going on. Slavery is illegal in much of the world, but it’s still going on in a terrible way. He didn’t mention the economist Ricardo, who had the iron law of wages – basically, pay the workers as small an amount as possible. Well, tough luck, Ricardo. We don’t agree with you, and neither does the pope.

We’ve had so many laws that were made for small farmers (and now we’re looking at
He’s talking about what he calls integral ecology. That includes the whole social ecology of all this being interrelated, and he brings in the indigenous people. Of course, he’s with them this week, he’s been with them in Ecuador, and I recall a visit there to Riobama where the Quechua people were in the cathedral. The archbishop got up to apparently give a long talk, and the leader of the indigenous people said, “Thank you very much, you can sit down now.” It was a clear effort on the part of the indigenous people to say thank you very much, we respect you and the church, but you don’t run Riobama, and you don’t run Ecuador, and you don’t run

our Quechua culture. The dangers of the mining industry moving into these places, and the fact that in small countries (not small in size, but small in power) the corporations have taken advantage of them and trashed their lands – as in Ecuador, as in Peru, as in Nigeria – trashed the area, polluted the area, and moved out. There have been some successful lawsuits, but not nearly enough. So he’s very much in touch with these problems, and about the fact that people can and do and will migrate. As Europe empties out, Africa would like to come in. As our own country is not reproducing itself, we have more people coming in from the Americas, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. They’ve been good for our society.

Most of the comments made about our refugees are false comments, and that’s something that should not continue. We don’t need false comments about them. If we want to correct FOX News or others, we don’t have illegal aliens, we have quite a few refugees. These people are a huge source of income for the state of California, social security is taken from their checks, they never get it back, and they have not cost the state one cent. They have increased our economy. They do most of the hard work in California. They are frequently victimized by rotten and illegal pay for their work. If the border were open, it would be better for everyone. It would be easier for people to come and go. In earlier years, one third of those who came here went home. Now they are illegally criminalized going both ways. The Border Patrol is one of the most corrupt and bloody entities in the United States.

Yes, we are an insane asylum, as someone said. We have more billionaires than any other area, and we are insane for letting them have money they did not earn and which belongs to the workers they stole it from. So, migration is the only thing that has kept our population from falling dramatically, as it has fallen in all of Europe and Russia. Welcome to the strangers. Maybe they can help our sickness. Much of the data we get about this planet is false information, and that is extremely damaging to everyone.

The pope in paragraph 155 refers to natural law that is the belief that in one’s heart, you can know a great deal about what is right and wrong. Little children seem to know that very early. “That’s not fair,” they’ll say, and they know it’s not fair. Because, in his view, natural law, moral law, is written in our hearts.

He speaks of the principle of subsidiarity in
Brooks: A prominent and well compensated apologist for capitalism, was among the first to complain about the Pope’s denunciation of cap’n’trade, a cynical attempt to cure capitalism using its own playbook.

He shows that trade agreements are basically unacceptable.

In paragraph 179, the efficiency of small farming and the profound humanism involved in production. Those are key points. These are the areas we have to really accept.

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]e doesn’t think there’s a future for the financial system,
For the nth time, he attacks war in

A new life style not based on consumerism, not based on a culture of death (
Paragraph 225 talks about the capacity for wonder. And welcoming the strangers, they are not illegal, they are refugees. In paragraph 244, let us sing as we go, may our struggles and concern for this planet never take away from the joy of our hope.

In conclusion, in

About the Author

Blase Bonpane, and his wife Theresa, are Founding Directors of the Office of the Americas, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to furthering the cause of international justice and peace through broad based educational programs. Blase served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala during the revolutionary conflict of the 1960’s. He has also served on the faculties of UCLA and California State University Northridge. He is host of the weekly radio program World Focus on Pacifica Radio (KPFK, Los Angeles), and previously hosted the program World Focus on Time/Warner TV Educational and Public Access Channels. He was named “the most underrated humanist of the decade” by the Los Angeles Weekly. In 2006, he was awarded the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The Blase Bonpane Collection has been established by the Department of Special Collections of the UCLA Research Library (collection 1590). This is a compilation of his published and unpublished writings, lectures and recordings of his programs on Pacifica Radio.

Blase is the author of six books and numerous articles and commentaries which have been published internationally and syndicated by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. His most recent book is his autobiography, Imagine No Religion. Contact Blase Bonpane at ooa@igc.org. To order books, schedule a presentation, or find transcripts of Blase’s latest broadcasts, visit the OOA website at www.officeoftheamericas.org.[/box]

Photo: Blase Bonpane in Condega, Nicaragua during the International March for Peace in Central America, 1985.

The Office of the Americas is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of international justice and peace through broad based educational programs.

Founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, the Office of the Americas is a recognized source of documentation and analysis of current international events with a focus on the foreign policy of the United States. Through its public education campaign, the Office of the Americas works to reach constituencies of students, religious and human rights organizations and all others concerned about issues of international justice and peace.

Our goal is to end the long-standing international culture of militarism.

Office of the Americas

www.officeoftheamericas.org · ooa@igc.org · 310-450-1185

FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD, HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO. EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS.

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Mexico human rights body sees faults in probe of 43 missing

Relatives and friends of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa hold their portraits in Mexico City on March 26, 2015

© Provided by AFP

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]exico’s human rights agency said Thursday it had found shortcomings in the official investigation into last year’s disappearance and presumed slaughter of 43 college students.

The National Human Rights Commission said in a preliminary report that it found “flaws in the inquiries, lack of attention and assistance to victims, and omissions in the diligence” of prosecutors.

The commission urged investigators to question again police officers and soldiers deployed in the area on the night of the September 26-27 disappearance in the southern Guerrero state town of Iguala.

Authorities should also trace the use of two cellphones belonging to the students after local police attacked the group of young men in a night of violence that left six people dead and 43 missing.

“Due diligence is needed to have an investigation of the scale of the event,” commission president Luis Gonzalez told a news conference.

The attorney general’s office concluded that crooked local police confronted the students on the orders of the mayor after the young men arrived in buses that they had commandeered.

The officers abducted 43 of the students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, which killed them and incinerated their bodies, according to prosecutors.

Dozens of officers and gang suspects have been detained, along with the mayor.

Only one of the students has been identified among charred remains found in a landfill. Parents of the missing have rejected the government’s conclusions.

…

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