Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I’d lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me— Sting, “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” from the 1993 album ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales”
Saturday morning, CNN’s Carol Costello, microphone in hand, asked a girl in the Philadelphia audience awaiting the arrival of the Pope if she was concerned that the Pope might be a socialist.
It never ceases to amaze me that anyone still believes the mainstream press in the USA is objective in their approach to news.
Not only is “news” wrapped in a strict capitalist viewpoint, but it is also slanted negatively against socialism. Americans are taught from childhood that socialism is evil from a TV echo which never stops.
The irony in the socialist label on the Pope is that any careful reading of the Christian Bible reveals that the Pope’s prophet Jesus was clearly described as a socialist, from his throwing the money changers (capitalists) out of the temple, to his statement that “what you do to the least of them, you do to me.”
While the Pope is advocating some of that, he is at the same time denying birth control, denying females the right to be priests, denying priests to marry, and denying gay rights, all very conservative as many modern religions are leaning. If Francis is a leftist, we may be certain that the world has turned upside down.
Still, the US mainstream press accuse the Pope of being leftist. Evidence? Well, they make the claim that he is leftist because he supports the theory of global warming. My guess is that the Pope also supports the theory of gravity, which, like global warming, has a great body of scientific evidence to support it. But is science now a part of the leftist realm of influence?
My friend Carl Sagan, whose anti-nuke writing I edited, used to fire back at corporate media when they confused science with religion or politics. Once Carl was asked by a “journalist” why he supported the theory of evolution, but not creation theory. Carl immediately shot back: “Because there are billions of tons of fossil evidence to support the theory of evolution, but as yet, absolutely nothing to support what you call ‘creation theory’.”
Capitalism is so enamored by the establishment that in our culture, capitalists are held to be “infallible,” like the Pope. In the USA, the ruling capitalists and their regents are excused from punishment for crimes that would bring long prison sentences to any of us peasants lacking sufficient capital to be a part of the ruling plutocracy.
This week Martin Shkreli, boss of the controversial pharmaceutical company that increased the price of its life-saving drug 50-fold overnight, has claimed slashing the price of the drug may lead him to cut research for “lethal diseases” and force him to fire staff. In other words Shkreli is blackmailing the public that unless he is allowed to make ridiculous profits, he may not supply us with other life-saving drugs. Rich guys like Shkreli may extort in the Land of the Free with impunity.
Routinely, sports team owners threaten communities that they will move their team to another city unless the city buys them a new stadium. They are never charged with extortion, perhaps because they are capitalist billionaires and therefore above the law.
Each year thousands of workers die in accidents where the managers of the company knew the workplace was unsafe, but did nothing about it because their primary interest is in profit for their billionaire shareholders, so they neglect to implement safety measures. Almost never are company executives charged for these deaths, representing as they do, the infallible ruling plutocrats.
Each year thousands of consumers die from using products as directed, when company managers knew beforehand that the products were dangerous. Big Pharma is famous for this, but company executives are never charged with premeditated murder, even after it is proved they knew their pills were killing their customers. General Motors was recently let off with a mere fine, after killing over a hundred of its customers, when executives knew they were endangering the lives of their consumers.
Capitalism has reached a point in the USA where it might be confused with religion. Again, corporate managers are seen as “infallible,” like the Pope, who is thought to be leftist because he apparently believes in science, at least to some extent.
The so-called “journalists” of the corporate media never notice anything amiss in reporting the propaganda. If they did, they would soon enough find themselves unemployed. Any mention of socialism must be in condemning it, and the use of facts is never required for this– any lie is acceptable.
Many of the people who run our government do not believe in science. One Member of Congress boycotted the Pope’s speech because he feared the Pope might mention global warming. And Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” meant to convince people that they do not need a savior.
They do believe in god though, including every president of the USA. This is a god who doesn’t care if consumers and workers are slaughtered by corporations, or if billionaires blackmail state and local governments to increase their wealth. It is a god who loves war and slaughter, two things our government has done more effectively than any other nation over the last two centuries, beginning with the slaughter of its native peoples and the enslavement of Africans.
The irony is that so many of our leaders call it “god’s country.” Having travelled widely in the world I can state firmly that the common people in other lands do not agree. I have spoken with Haitians, for example, who call it “The Cold Country of the north.”
But corporations that embrace the most extensive propaganda system ever devised are in control of the textbooks our children read, which perpetuates it all with the help of a mass media that identifies the Pope as leftist and often balances science with religion as equals.
The entire system will collapse only after the masses are given access to facts. Until that time, the ignorance will continue to lead to the death of citizens who believe what they are told by the establishment press and we will be ruled by idiots who believe in promoting hatred, greed and delusion in the name of the god of capitalism.