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The Pope Has Left The Building
The Pope’s visit in America came and went without much of a splash, while much more immediately important things are going on both here and abroad without much fanfare at all. Things like rationing of food staples, such as rice. That’s right: according to the New York Sun, rice is being rationed because supplies are running low right here in our very own country. Other countries are running so low that export restrictions on this staple food source are already in place and the Philippines is exacting life imprisonment in exchange for hoarding rice. And while countries are scrambling to meet the basic needs of their citizens, biotech companies are “coming to the rescue” with genetically modified grains, which people are no longer quite so resistant to now that we’re facing worldwide shortages…
But some guy in a silly costume is obviously more important than all of that, because he took center stage on all the newspaper covers at 7-11 this past week, and I have heard nary a whisper about any of this other far more pressing material.
Via WordPress, my blogging platform, I discovered that the 2008 Papal visit to America had a WordPress.com blog of its own, which I decided to check out. The primary thing I found on it was just a bunch of “Holy Father” boot-licking on the part of commenters over at that site: people talking about how they were crying - no joke CRYING - when the man left on his special little airplane, called “Shepherd One”. One commenter expressed the following sentiment:
Feeling sad is exactly how the disciples felt when Jesus left them to go to the Father 2,000 years ago. But with the Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed on them what did they do after that? Well they were afraid no more and they went all out to spread the good news of the Risen Lord; they cast out many demons, anointed the sick and healed them. Had they just stay home behind a closed door? Then we wouldn’t have the Church that we all love dearly today.
Honestly, I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off without the “Church that we all love dearly today.” I’m personally fascinated by the symbolism and theology of the Catholic Church, but the institution itself, I find to be extraordinarily unbiblical. Whether or not the doctrine of Petrine Supremacy, upon which the ultimate authority of the Bishop of Rome lies is an after-the-fact historical forgery and insertion or not is basically a moot point for me. There are better Biblical passages which illustrate the absurdity of having one earthly man (with a *very* sordid past) stand in for a transpersonal figure such as Jesus Christ. My favorite, which I posted to the comments section of that official pope visit site, but which was never approved for obvious reasons comes from the Gospel according to Matthew:
5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Jesus, I’m convinced, was a Taoist. The first shall be last and all that:
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.If you don’t trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.The Master doesn’t talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”
Pinning spiritual hopes and fantasies on a living person is not far from the abdication of personal responsibility. Obviously, we all need to be inspired and to be able to dream bigger dreams, but those things should come from us - from our inmost hearts, where dwells the true Church of Christ, if such a thing can even exist (an institution founded upon the teachings of an iconoclast??) - not from somebody who lives in a friggin castle with a bunch of opulent costumes, while meanwhile people go starving and death compasses us round.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
But did he shake the dust off his sandals before boarding Shepherd 1? (viz. A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by way of Mark 6:11)
Inquiring minds want to know!
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
There are no food shortages. There is a money shortage. The money that was partially created by the artificial real estate boom here and elsewhere has left the real estate market and gone to the commodities market looking for a profit and thereby creating price inflation. The price of food was bid up to unaffordable levels thus being the direct cause of starvation. Exports were banned to provide a disinsentive to speculators. If there was a food shortage the commodties being grown for fuel would be confiscated and turned into food where possible.
I’m at work now so I can’t provide you with any links. You’re right on about the religious aspect.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I got a break and found links better than the ones I have at home.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid...&sid=aKuLB8TWqrBo&refer=india
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssCon...dsAndRetailNews/idUSN2229775120080422
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europ...22/trinidad_inflation_causes_concern/
This is ok too.
http://www.agribusiness-mgmt.wsu.edu/E...etters/price-cost/Price_Inflation.pdf
This seems to be the general consensus of thinking, humane libertarians. The other kind are nuts.
http://www.dailyreckoning.us/blog/?p=790
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
@ Julia
“If there was a food shortage the commod[i]ties being grown for fuel would be confiscated and turned into food where possible.”
I detect a flaw in your logic.
You assume some entity will automatically confiscate non-farmed land and turn it towards farming every time there is a food shortage. This would only be true if such an entity would be interested in preventing food shortages, rather than enabling them.
By some entity, I mean the “government,” whatever that is.
Historically, governments have frequently told their subjects to “Eat Cake!”
Of course, there is no real reason that “we” would need ethanol, any more than “we” would need say, Britney Spears, an iPod, or other manufactured wants. But that doesn’t stop such wants from being manufactured, because such wants produce the necessary leverage for control.
Ethanol has to be one of the deadliest, “dumbest” ideas, bar none. There are so many other ways to make energy, aside from exhausting the land supply, a limited resource, to grow something that will be combusted. I mean, this is about as dumb, if not more dumb than burning up all of the petroleum, a resource that is probably limited, when said petroleum could at least be made into plastics, which are somewhat recyclable, reclaimable, and have a longer shelf-life.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I like your take on that as an alternate explanation Julia, though I have not had time to delve into your links for background on it. Even if there’s no food “shortage” (on the planet earth), the simple fact that food is being with-held from people who need it seems to hold water at least.
What happens next is my real question, I guess. Even if there’s no food shortage, but it’s being made to appear as though there is a shortage, then what’s the next stage of the game, what’s the outcome, how do people prepare?
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I didn’t mean to say that the land would be confiscated. I think the actual crops themselves might be if civil unrest reached a level the government was uncomfortable with. My understanding is that most things grown for ethanol are inedible varieties anyway but I could be wrong about that.
I totally agree that mass starvation might be a goal of many powerful interests.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 am
i remember when the last pope came to toronto a few years back, there was such a gathering north of the city that the local sewage system overflowed and flooded a local furniture store.
i was in a cab when the pope gave a speech and the little italian cab driver became so distracted that he slowed to a crawl for several minutes as he listened.
regarding mass starvation, it makes sense from a commercial standpoint that if labour costs become prohibitive (thanks unions….) then capital will go elsewhere, and so the redundant labour force will have to fend as best they can. if the capital crunch becomes large enough and long enough then inflation will over-run a sustainable economy and then civil unrest will ensue over time.
the movie i am legend touches on that.
one good bio fuck-up and there goes the majority of the population.
i always contend that we are still living in a fuedal autocracy, it`s just that the pesants have hi-def tv and broad-band internet.
we still have to use the king`s roads and so on….and pay per use. and the king`s men cruise around amongst us to enforce thier position.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:47 am
For more on that subject:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2008...16/carnival-culture-06-peace-keepers/
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Well, a few people Living in castles doesn’t really directly cause others to starve and die. I mean that was your last point. You made other points, that I more or less agree with.
But I think the Pope hearkens back to monarchy. Monarchs existed not simply because they were able to con everyone, but because people wanted a figure head to give them a sense of identity. A central figure around which to organize society.
So thats what that is all about.
But that is a common argument about, why, when there are people starving, do Catholic churches, the Vatican etc. need to have so many gold decorations. The two aren’t really connected. Wealth isn’t a zero sum game. There is no finite amount of wealth in the world that is being hogged by a few people and kept from many others.
I was hung up on this kind of thinking for a long time, but I don’t think it is true. That’s also why I no longert think the dollar would have been better off being backed by gold. I think its better to have a money supply that increases with the increase of wealth. If the money supply was static the way Ron Paul advocates wealth would be more of a zero sum game.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:06 am
Now that I think about it, here is what I think it is:the Pope is an anochronism. But back when money was backed by Gold, Monarchs and the Church were hogging all the wealth. So that’s where the Masons came in. Illuminati etc.
They made it possible for wealth to exponentially increase in the world and for private people to accumulate it.
All we really need to do is get everyone on the planet on board with those ideas. Not a redistribution of wealth. We need poor people to learn to create wealth. The supply is not limited.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
[…] Brought up by Julia in response to my last post, worthy of further discussion: […]
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 am
That’s what Gandhi did with his whole spinning wheel thing…
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am
Yeah?
I’ll have to look into that. One brightside of this fact that the poor simply need to become entrapreneurs, is that people in the first world can go into business with them. Foreign aid never really works. Its demeaning.
People in the devoloping world want to do business with Americans and make money. Its commerce on equal terms that way.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
ponzi got nabbed by the government on that one.
the movement of money is a delicate game in that it is a representation of effort. whenever the supply of money increases to the point where it exceeds the amount of effort that created it there is going to be an adjustment.
i agree that it isn`t a zero sum in that if one person has a hundred dollars it`s somehow diminished your ablity to get a hundred of your own….but there certainly are a finite amount of man hours available in a labour pool.
interestingly i was reading an article recently about beach bums in california in the sixties selling dope so they didn`t have to work, though the effort to grow or otherwise find dope to sell is work…..though the position pays better that selling happy meals.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I’ve also heard some statistic recently about crack dealers making the equivalent of like $3/hr for their efforts… but that could be just a moral fable to dissuade behavior.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
It’s true. It was studied in Chicago at a housing project. I’ll slander the guy by saying that I think he gained the trust of the dealers by being a steady customer (judging by his picture).
The people at the bottom make big chunks of money in small spurts. Their days worked are interrupted by frequent stay in jail which cuts their overall wages.
I see it at work too. If you use a lot of creativity and take big risks to steal $100,000 but spend five years in prison you earned $20,000/year. You are now a convicted felon and are being supervised by a probation officer for the next three (or so) years.