WHY DOESN4T THE CRHUCH STIMULATE PEOPLE TO FIGHT GLOBALISATION?

-- PUNKER (PUNKER@PUNKER.PUNKER), January 08, 2005

Answers

WHY DOESN4T THE CRHUCH STIMULATE PEOPLE TO FIGHT GLOBALISATION

PUNKTER, Please define what is this "GLOBALISATION" you fear -specifically, what evil(s)?

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 08, 2005.

Wait a second... we are supposed to help the poor right? So if American companies which produce 2/3rds of the wealth generated by North America choose to spread some % of this wealth to other countries in the form of factories (giving jobs to the poor) this is bad?

Welfare programs wherein the state just taxes the rich and gives the proceeds to the poor are immoral. They don't solve the fundamental problem of the poor doing NOTHING with the talents that they have. Far better to change the fundamental problem by employing the poor and thus, making them not poor but middle class!

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), January 11, 2005.

Punker, you need to define what you mean by "Globilization"

To answer your question though, Punker, the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world. So what the Church must be busy about is bringing light to our dark world. Yes, we can stand up and be counted, we can be vocal about social ills, but ultimately this world is passing away with all its glories, and the little men you see in power now, will someday vanish like a puff of smoke.

In some ways Christ himself was an anarchist (though not in the way you mean it). He brought about THE KINGDOM OF ALL KINGDOMS, surpassing this world's craft and political powers, and establishing His own. That kingdom will prevail some day, Punker, and OH, OH, OH What a beautiful day that will be!

Gail

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), January 11, 2005.

When the time comes to fight for supreme victory or defeat, make sure you have not trifled away your strength on minor skirmishes.

our preparation is to stand through the tribulation, not to stop globalization of the economy. the politics of the world are minor skirmishes that we have niether the time nor reason to fight... we concentrate on the moral battles of our day so that we are ready when the time comes to face God in the second coming.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), January 11, 2005.

Umm... the Church DOES, to an extent. It's called Liberation Theology.

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), January 11, 2005.

If you’re referring to economic and industrial globalization, this is not in itself an evil thing to be "fought" against. But as with the industrial revolution of the 19th-20th centuries, it involves great social changes which may cause suffering especially of the poor, and the Church does indeed call on all involved to bring about globalization in such a way that suffering is prevented as far as possible, and resources fairly allocated.

If you’re referring to political globalization, the Church tells us that this is a good thing which it tries to encourage.

Liberation Theology is not really related to globalization. LT concerns the theology of the struggle to liberate the poor and oppressed from oppressive governments and economic dominators.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 11, 2005.

But, if you're talking about the "Supreme Religious Deception" known as Secular Messianism, the Church has this to say:

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), January 11, 2005.

Liberation Theology is not really related to globalization. LT concerns the theology of the struggle to liberate the poor and oppressed from oppressive governments and economic dominators.

????

Steve,

Be care with this morally relative definition -it more closely defines socialism than "Liberation Theology" e.g. economic domination is innocuous and can be good, bad or both good and bad. The same can be said of poor or rich nations and or individuals...

Instruction on certain aspects of the "Theology of Liberation":

Liberation is first and foremost liberation from the radical slavery of sin. Its end and its goal is the freedom of the children of God, which is the gift of grace. As a logical consequence, it calls for freedom from many different kinds of slavery in the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres, all of which derive ultimately from sin, and so often prevent people from living in a manner befitting their dignity. To discern clearly what is fundamental to this issue and what is a by-product of it, is an indispensable condition for any theological reflection on liberation.

Helping homosexual individuals avoid ocassions of sin by passing laws forbidding homosexual unions would be authentic application of "Liberation Theology". As would opposition to many 'liberal' agendas...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 12, 2005.

There’s nothing morally relative about it Danny boy. Economic domination is never innocuous. LT and socialism are two very different things. You seem to have only the vaguest idea about both of them. Neither of them concern homosexual laws or“opposition to many liberal agendas” (hmm what was that about “morally relative”?)

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 12, 2005.

Steve,

For your own good I suggest setting your ego aside...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 12, 2005.

Not sure whether it’s worth continuing to respond to your bizarre personal comments/attacks on me, Danny boy, but there’s no “ego” in what I said above. I never even mentioned myself, just reported what the Church teaches in response to Punker's query. You might have very strange ideas about what “socialism”, “liberation theology”, “liberal” and “globalization” mean, but surely YOU know what “ego” means!? (It's Latin for "I".)

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 12, 2005.

We live in a time of excessive centralisation of political and economic power. In European Union countries, half of all these countries’ lawmaking takes place in Brussels. A broad and coherent scale of institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund are having more say over how people all over the world organise their lives. The trend of centralisation of politics on a worldwide level goes hand in hand with increasing monopolisation processes in the economy. Fusion between industrial conglomerates is the order of the day. A corporation such as General Electric has more capital than the collective capital of the poorest third-world countries! Neo-liberal politicians gladly praise the sacred market and promise the populations of the world heaven on earth, but this ‘promised land’ seems reserved for fewer and fewer people.

De-democratisation

Through these developments, the word ‘democracy’ has been stripped down to ‘the people’s right to choose their own government’ (Prisma dictionary). This shabby view of democracy manifests itself in the constantly reoccurring election circuses where it’s becoming more difficult to convince people that their vote reflects a real choice. The ever-increasing ‘de-democratisation’ of social decision-making processes leads constantly to conflict, not only between those who make the decisions and those on whose behalf decisions are made, but also within both groups. In order to be able to continue this de-democratisation, the politicians play a conscious game of ‘divide and conquer’. Divisions among ethnic groups and social classes, for example, are carefully cultivated and these divisions are used to cover up fundamental inequalities of rights and opportunities, and to play off the different groups against each other. At the same time, every form of social unrest that germinates gets channelled into so-called ‘opposition parties’ and ‘Non-Governmental Organisations’. In exchange for a place at the table of the powers-that-be, they keep society’s malcontents at home on the sofa, in front of the television. The attentive reader will have understood it already: the author of this brochure is saying that within narrow parliamentary channels, it is impossible to bring about real political change.

Parliamentary democracy is a capitalist discovery, which gives form and sustenance to the elite and to hierarchies, thereby justifying inequality. The parliamentary puppet show, with its ‘professional politicians’, doesn’t involve people in decision-making but instead pacifies and neutralises them. Elections and other ‘moments of democratic participation’ are nothing more than folklore that gives parliamentary capitalism the appearance of legitimacy. Politicians, together with their loyal mass media, do their best to try to convince us that there is something worth voting for, but this is exaggerated, to put it mildly. The choice between candidates only represents a difference in style. Parliamentary channels offer only a narrow margin of possibility for change. Stick your neck out and get your head cut off. We have seen enough of parliamentary democracy; we do not need any more time to determine that it is a fraud. There is no excuse for the enormous and ever-increasing gap between rich and poor and between the North and South. There is no excuse for the continued waging of war, in our name, in countries where the population already has little or nothing to eat. It’s high time for a post-parliamentary project, a project that not only fights parliamentary-capitalist power relations, but at the same time brings a just and workable alternative into being. The good news is that an alternative does exist: direct democracy. The pursuit of direct democracy is a struggle for radical democratisation of all decision-making processes in society. The intention of this booklet is to show that direct democracy is not a new ideology where you have to first convince the masses and then you can seize the power; it is not an unrealistic utopia. Direct democracy is a concrete way of achieving horizontal organisation in the here-and-now, from the local level to the global level.

When we speak of direct democracy we speak of equality between individuals as the basis of the organisation of society. With direct democracy there is talk of a fundamentally different way of organising than the present parliamentary capitalist practice. Bringing direct democracy into practice would mean radically changing the system of social inequality that is currently legitimated and laid down by laws and regulations. The direct-democratic ideal directly opposes the system of hierarchy that is current social norm. A direct-democratic society rejects all that which gives rise to hierarchy, whether formal or informal, such as sexism, racism, nationalism, capitalism and imperialism. An end should also come to the ridiculous idea that is propagated by bosses, that we have been put on this earth to compete with each other. Cooperation should be propagated instead. The door to a more just world opens when hierarchy and competition are rejected, and equality and cooperation become guiding principles in our lives.

Direct democracy is not just a system that can be used to organise society; it can be used when making decisions on a small scale as well as on a larger scale. It is also a way of stimulating the moulding of ideas and active participation in decision-making processes. In a parliamentary democracy, people are not asked for their ideas, but are asked to either accept or reject ideas already prepared by so-called ‘experts’. In that respect, direct democracy is radically different. In a direct democracy, the assumption is that people can decide for themselves what is best for them. People don’t need ‘specialists’, such as politicians, managers, or trade union bosses, to decide on their behalf what they need on the work floor and in their neighbourhoods. With direct democracy, people take control of their own futures, and those affected by decisions are the ones making those decisions.

Direct democracy can be applied on the work floor just as well as in your local neighbourhood. In parliamentary democracy, democratic decision making is seriously lacking on the work floor. In a direct-democratic society, the organisation of a company takes place in a meeting that is open to all workers. This meeting decides, for example, about working conditions and production targets. During the meeting, people who have revocable mandates are chosen , to fulfil coordinating functions in the factory, and also to take care of external contact with other people and organisations. In local neighbourhoods, issues that affect residents can be dealt with in comparable direct-democratic meetings of those concerned.

In a direct-democratic society, the different direct-democratic organisations (and that definitely doesn’t just mean ‘productive’ organisations such as companies) will cooperate on a regional level via federations. In these federations, which are often organised around a particular theme, representatives coordinate the activities of each other’s organisations. What is stated here is of course a very concise summary of direct-democratic thinking, but the intention is not to lay down the law, as an authoritarian ideology would, but instead to leave the filling-in of the content to those people concerned. The political framework above leaves you able to go in many directions, and that is exactly what it’s all about; a world of many different worlds is possible. Direct democracy is indeed the best guarantee that diversity will not be choked by straightjackets like nationalism, capitalism and state communism.

-- sdqa (sdqa@sdqa.com), January 27, 2005.

Steve,

LOL -your ego did respond defensively -substantively, you do not address the content of my posting with anything authoritive?

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), January 28, 2005.