Watching Good Morning, America is masochistic these days. The spin on everything from the election to the bailout is so patently obvious to anyone with a brain it's outrageous. I only watched a few minutes this morning but it made me so angry my blood pressure went up twenty points. Diane Sawyer was interviewing representatives from the Democratic and Republican campaigns about the upcoming vice presidential debates. Every time she asked the speakers a question she gave the Democrat more time. But even more blatently, when he had spoken for about five seconds his talking head was replaced with a clip showing Obama or Biden surrounded by worshiping supporters. When the Republican spoke, she was given time for a few sentences with no similar background clip of McCain and Palin. To call it obvious bias just doesn't illustrate how egregious it was. Which means GMA thinks the American people are such ignorant suckers they will swallow their sewage and think it's Perrier.
The media is doing the same thing on the bailout with their hysterical handwringing. And they are helping the democrats hide that these deals (which change by the minute) include earmarks for community organizers like ACORN who helped create the problem by agitating to pass the irresponsible Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). CRA forced banks to make bad loans. Economist Tom DiLorenzo has a great article outlining the problem.
Barak Obama is part of the clique that precipitated the crisis. Now the blame game is on to claim it was the Republicans' fault. NO WAY. The video below shows how the Republicans were stymied in their attempts to get regulatory control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac YEARS AGO. The Dems wouldn't hear of it. And now they want to get their hands on more taxpayer money to "solve" the crisis. It's a game, folks. Keep encouraging your representatives to just say no on the bailout. Christian economist Dave Ramsey has a recommendation to help the situation that is apparently on the table in the discussions. Read it and you can click on his link to send a message to your Senators and Congressman. Hold firm with a big NO NO NO on the $700 billion bailout!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Lawler's Book Banned at the Shrine
The bishops policies following the sex abuse scandals are based on openness and transparency right? Shouldn't we all welcome an analysis of how it all happened so we can make sure it never happens again. Apparently not. Eminent Catholic laymen, Phil Lawler who was scheduled to do a book signing at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception bookstore has been given the boot along with his book by Msgr. Walter Rossi, the Shrine rector. It's just too negative to talk about these things. Time to move on. (See Julia Duin's Washington Times article.) On the other hand homosexuals are still being trained for the priesthood. In July Tom Roeser blogged about the Rockford Diocese pulling seminarians out of Mundelein after two upperclassmen propositioned an underclassman. Rockford now says it isn't true and Roeser is being threatened with legal action. He stands by his story at the time he published it and is fighting back. (Does anyone really believe the diocese will go to court on this? After all the deals and money spent to avoid going to court with the - gasp - possibility of entering into legal discovery. It ain't gonna happen!)
Anyway, Lawler has obviously touched a nerve. The bishops (and those who hope to be bishops - last Shrine rector is now the bishop of Wheeling/Charleston) want to "just move on," but as Lawler said at the Brent Society Communion Breakfast today, "If you have cancer the doctor doesn't tell you to move on; he cuts out the cancer." That hasn't happened; the Church in the United States is in deep trouble. And Msgr. Rossi's inexcusable action is one more example of shooting the messenger. (Hey, they've told us they've solved the problem; who are the riff-raff in the pews to disagree?)
Please call, fax, or email Msgr. Rossi and tell him what you think of his cancellation of Lawler's book signing. And order the book, The Faithful Departed: the Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture. I bought it at the breakfast today and can't wait to read it. You may have to wait to get it. The first run has pretty much sold out, Msgr. Rossi and others of his ilk notwithstanding.
Here's the contact information:
Reverend Monsignor Walter R. Rossi
RectorEmail wrr@bnsic.org
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
400 Michigan Avenue NEWashington, DC 20017-1566Tel 202-526-8300Fax 202-526-8313
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Is Joe Biden Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
Remember when Dan Quayle misspelled potatoe (or is that potato?). The media hounded him for weeks. Well, now there's a full-time gaffe machine named Joe Biden, but he's not getting nearly as much ridicule even though it's more than well-deserved. Biden's latest goof was to claim that when the country went into depression in 1929 FDR went on national TV to explain what happened. What's wrong with this scenario? Two things: Herbert Hoover was president and TV wasn't around yet. Tyler Kent commenting on an L.A. Times on-line article about the episode made an interesting point:
"The trouble with Biden's remark about FDR is simply this: He did not 'goof.' He did not simply mix up his facts. It was not a slip of the tongue, or an error. It was not a case of a faulty memory. It was, in fact, a pure fabrication. Biden simply made up the entire story!!! FDR was not president when the stock market crashed, and there were no televisions. Fact is, he made up a lie in order to give emphasis to what he thought was terrific rhetoric. The trouble here is that a candidate for vice president was quite willing to tell a lie on national television, all in the vain hope that he would look good. Biden is simply a liar whose future discourse cannot be trusted."
In view of Biden's making up Catholic doctine on Meet the Press, Tyler's point is well taken. Is Biden just dumb or is he a liar? Whichever is the correct assessment, he better stay off the popular quiz show. He's probably not as smart as a fifth grader and maybe not as honest either.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Barney and Fannie -- what a relationship!
The Democrats are busy spinning the economic meltdown to blame the Republicans. No doubt there's plenty of blame to go around, but it's particularly interesting to watch Barney Frank blather on in view of the cozy relationship he had with Fannie Mae (and one of Fannie's execs). The Business and Media Institute has a very interesting article on its site, Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection. A couple of excerpts below will give you an idea of Frank's involvement which involves serious ethical violations. Maybe it's time for the House to take action against this character for his corrupt behavior. He was in bed (literally) with Fannie Mae.
"Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk. Frank’s office has been unresponsive to efforts by the Business & Media Institute to comment on these potential conflicts of interest."
The article goes on to say Frank was in an on-going affair with an executive of Fannie Mae:
"While the relationship reportedly ended 10 years ago, Frank was serving on the House Banking Committee the entire 10 years they were together. The committee is the primary House body which along with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) has jurisdiction over the government-sponsored enterprises."
And another interesting piece of information:
"According to an article by Kathleen Day in the Oct. 8, 2003, Washington Post, Frank opposed giving the Bush administration the right to approve or disapprove business activities that 'could pose risk to the taxpayers.' He told the Post he worried the Treasury Department 'would sacrifice activities that are good for consumers in the name of lowering the companies’ market risks.'
"Just a month before, Frank had aggressively thwarted reform efforts by the Bush administration. He told The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems were 'exaggerated,' a gross miscalculation some five years later with costs estimated to be in the hundreds of billions.
"Frank has also reaped campaign contribution benefits from Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac. According a front page story in the Sept. 19, 2008, Investor’s Business Daily by Terry Jones, Frank has received $40,100 in campaign cash over the past two decades from the GSEs." [Along with many other politiicians including Barack Obama, who raked in over $126,000.]
And one more excerpt from Media Mum:
"According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, political action committees financed by both Freddie and Fannie have contributed $3,017,797 to members of Congress since 1989. And according to the July 16 issue of Politico, the two entities have spent a whopping $200 million to buy influence – including not only campaign donations to members of Congress, but also presidential campaigns and lobbying efforts."
Well, the American taxpayer will be left holding the bag for this graphic example of one of the seven deadly sins -- GREED.
"Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk. Frank’s office has been unresponsive to efforts by the Business & Media Institute to comment on these potential conflicts of interest."
The article goes on to say Frank was in an on-going affair with an executive of Fannie Mae:
"While the relationship reportedly ended 10 years ago, Frank was serving on the House Banking Committee the entire 10 years they were together. The committee is the primary House body which along with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) has jurisdiction over the government-sponsored enterprises."
And another interesting piece of information:
"According to an article by Kathleen Day in the Oct. 8, 2003, Washington Post, Frank opposed giving the Bush administration the right to approve or disapprove business activities that 'could pose risk to the taxpayers.' He told the Post he worried the Treasury Department 'would sacrifice activities that are good for consumers in the name of lowering the companies’ market risks.'
"Just a month before, Frank had aggressively thwarted reform efforts by the Bush administration. He told The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems were 'exaggerated,' a gross miscalculation some five years later with costs estimated to be in the hundreds of billions.
"Frank has also reaped campaign contribution benefits from Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac. According a front page story in the Sept. 19, 2008, Investor’s Business Daily by Terry Jones, Frank has received $40,100 in campaign cash over the past two decades from the GSEs." [Along with many other politiicians including Barack Obama, who raked in over $126,000.]
And one more excerpt from Media Mum:
"According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, political action committees financed by both Freddie and Fannie have contributed $3,017,797 to members of Congress since 1989. And according to the July 16 issue of Politico, the two entities have spent a whopping $200 million to buy influence – including not only campaign donations to members of Congress, but also presidential campaigns and lobbying efforts."
Well, the American taxpayer will be left holding the bag for this graphic example of one of the seven deadly sins -- GREED.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Dissing the Organizer: Obama, ACORN, and Catholic Action
When the Catholic Church takes up the collection November 23 for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, will Catholics in the pew know they are supporting abortion and other immoral causes?
By Stephanie Block
Over at the Catholics for Obama blog, the headline screams, “Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action.” This preposterous thesis has been crafted from her comments about Barak Obama’s past as a community organizer. The blog contends, “Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama’s service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago.”
Well! That’s quite a leap. Ms. Palin said nothing whatsoever about Catholic Action. It was the Catholics for Obama blogger who drew the connection between community organizing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). There’s no secret here. The CCHD gives between a third and a half of its grants to Alinskyian organizing networks.
Alinskyian what?
If you are saying “Alinskyian, what?” you need to know that there are over 200 organizations operating in cities around the United States training social justice activists according to the theories of Saul Alinsky. Over the past 30 years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given millions of dollars from Catholic donations to these groups. That’s a lot of money going to train people in a very distinctive way of looking at the world and its problems.
Alinsky’s writings contain a number of disturbing premises:
“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that … the end justifies almost any means.”
“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty detriment of ethics. ... There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a founding father.”
“The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. ... Moral rationalization is indispensable at all tunes of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”
“An organizer working for change ... does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing.”
The book from which those “rules” are taken is called Rules for Radicals and it opens with the disturbing lines: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
The reader can glean a great deal of information from those opening remarks. Machiavelli’s The Prince used to be on the Catholic index as forbidden reading (when the Church had an index) because Machiavelli was so completely amoral. The Prince and Machiavelli’s companion piece, “Discourses,” are cold-blooded examinations of political power, how it is obtained, maintained and expanded. In “Discourses” one reads: “Cunning and deceit will serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune” and “A prince cannot live securely in a state so long as those live whom he has deprived of it.”
In The Prince, Machiavelli makes it clear that he believes the moral law does not apply to leaders. He says, for example: “So you see a wise ruler cannot, and should not, keep his word when doing so is to his disadvantage, and when the reasons that led him to promise to do so no longer apply. Of course, if all men were good, this advice would be bad; but since men are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them…But it is essential to know how to conceal how crafty one is, to know how to be a clever counterfeit and hypocrite.” (54) Elsewhere, he writes: “So a ruler…should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary.”
This is Alinsky’s model, rewritten for “the people.” It’s the antithesis of Catholic teaching. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.
Ditching moral truth
Marxism teaches that “truth” is a social construction, determined by consensus. Alinsky teaches the same thing, writing, “An organizer....does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing.” The organizer, for whom the “ends justify the means,” can’t be bound by moral absolutes. To support a ut ilitarian ethics, the truth must be fluid.
This is not what scripture or the Church teaches, of course. It isn’t enough that organizations acquire “good things” for their constituencies. They must accept and teach moral truth; they must be principled. A lying or bribing political lobby may win all its temporal battles, but it will have lost its soul.
Contemporary Alinskyian networks, far from repudiating Alinsky, have built upon his work: Mary Beth Rogers writes, “All participants in the Industrial Areas Foundation [the first Alinskyian network, founded in 1940] national training programs are given a reprint of a 1933 article by John H. Randall, Jr. titled ‘The Importance of Being Unprincipled’. ...The thesis is that because politics is nothing but the ‘practical method of compromise,’ only two kinds of people can afford the luxury of acting on principle...everyone else who wants to be effective in politics has to learn to be ‘unprincipled’ enough to compromise in order to see their principles succeed.”
Civic action predicated on “truth by consensus” is the antithesis of Catholic truth. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.
Liberationism
Alinskyian organizing, operating within faith-based institutions, is liberationist – as in liberation theology. Liberationism uses religious language to promote socialism.
Consider again, for example, the words quoted above: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Christians don’t think in those terms. Catholic social teaching stresses the mutual dependency on God and one another that exists between the Haves and the Have-nots. They aren’t rivals. It’s an entirely different worldview.
Then there’s the pedagogy – the teaching method by which liberationists educate people into their worldview. Charlie Curran, a dissident Catholic theologian who admired Alinskyian organizing, writes: “Although Alinsky does not use the word ‘conscientization,’ there is no doubt that such a process is the cornerstone of his method….The people must learn that through their power they can bring about change. Raising consciousness is a part of Alinsky’s overarching commitment to popular education.”
Contemporary Alinskyian networks continue to use this pedagogy. Maryann Eklaund, in her Master’s thesis on one of these networks organizing in southern Texas, details the values clarification exercises – her term – its organizers used to get people to change their perspective on things. We’re talking serious manipulation of people.
Another writer, Mary Beth Rodgers, describes the same thing. “Cortes [an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation network, southwest region] knew that Mexican parents willingly sacrificed for their children – and often for their church. By talking about family values, could you motivate and organize people to act politically in their own genuine self-interest?...the new organization had to reach into the heart...The idea of protecting and enhancing families might make that possible.” The implication of this passage is that the religious and family values of Catholics have been used to generate a conversation between them and the organizers. The organizers use the relationship built from the Catholic values of the Mexicans to introduce another set of values – those of the organization.
That brings us to yet another element of liberationism, which is its deliberate use of scriptures and religious symbols for a political end. For example, St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in San Antonio used “new catechisms” that connected biblical and Mexican historical and cultural themes with the current issues of the Alinskyian organization to which it belonged. Now, Catholic catechisms don’t contain this sort of information. These “catechisms” were not designed to present Church teachings but the organizers’ teachings.
Liberation theology isn’t Catholic. It doesn’t support the Catholic faith any more than it supports authentic justice or truth. It cannot, therefore, be considered Catholic Action.
The big picture
What are contemporary Alinskyian organizations trying to build?
In general terms, their “vision” can be expressed as a practical philosophy of governance called variously a third way,” “participatory democracy,” or “democratic socialism.” All these terms, and others, describe a system of government that seeks to use “mediating institutions” – churches, unions, schools, and the like, held together by the relationships they have forged through the Alinskyian organization – to control all facets of its citizens’ lives.
To achieve this, Alinskyian networks are engaged in “restructuring” activities of all kinds. On the political level, they work among the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Democrats, and the New Party, and the Democratic Party. In the economic arena, they have promoted and overseen the Empowerment Enterprise Community Zones in dozens of communities. They support universal health care and are experimenting with church-based health-care clinics. They have driven federal education “reform” and are insinuated in many school-to-work programs. In short, the programs they support involve centralizing benefits that effect larger and larger groups of people.
Catholic social teaching has never supported socialism. In fact, Pius XI writes “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.” The work of Alinskyian organizations cannot be considered – by any stretch of the imagination – to be Catholic Action.
Yet, This Is What the Campaign for Human Development Supports
Those are the foundational problems with the CCHD. Its political problems are twofold.
In the first place, millions of charitable Catholic dollars are being poured into organizing networks that are furthering a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual civic agenda. Nearly every legislative healthcare package they propose has an abortion-supportive element to it. There is not one politician of which I’m aware who has been endorsed by or emerged from these networks who publicly opposes abortion or homosexual “rights.”
By funding the Alinskyian networks, Catholics have become practical allies of the very groups they profess to oppose in the public square.
The second political problem with the CCHD collection is much worse, however. Not only does CCHD fund people whose goals are antithetical to Catholic Action but it provides the vehicle through which Catholics are systematical educated to work against Catholic Action.
How? CCHD-funded Alinskyian organizations organize in Catholic parishes, reeducating Catholic activists to work according to liberationist principles (not Catholic Action principles). There is widespread use throughout American-Catholic parishes of materials crafted to support Alinskyian organizing. The confusion, therefore, that Catholics express over fundamental moral issues and their comparative weight and urgency in public affairs isn’t just zeitgeist. It’s been systematically inculcated.
Obama and the Alinskyian Organizations
If one must fault Governor Palin comments about Obama’s community organizing experience, it’s that she minimized the seriousness of that experience. CCHD gave $40,000 in 1985 and $33,000 in 1986 to the Chicago Developing Communities Project, of which Obama was then lead organizer. It also gave millions to Gamaliel and ACORN, the Alinskyian networks that trained Obama and which today are stumping for his election.
The most recent accounting of CCHD grantees available (2006-2007) indicate that in just that one year, $1,146,000 was given to the ACORN network and well over $2 million went into the other major Alinskyian networks.
What did ACORN give us for that investment? Last year, The Seattle Times reported the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history. Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged for filling out and submitting more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.” (Keith Ervin, “Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme,” 10-30-2007)
This year, an ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced for to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
Those are convictions from the past year. There are also examples of indictments this year, such as the four ACORN employees in Kansas City charged with identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election and the Reynoldsburg fellow indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties. And there are current investigations into ACORN for voter fraud all over the map:
the Milwaukee ACORN for 200 to 300 fraudulent voter registration cards;
the Cleveland ACORN for its submission of 75,000 voter registrations, many of which are fraudulent;
the New Mexico ACORN, which claims to have taken 72,000 new voter registrations in the state since January, is under suspicion for 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards turned in to the Bernalillo County clerk’s office recently.
These are recent complaints, but ACORN’s history is riddled with criminal activity. During the last major election, the Wall Street Journal did a story about ACORN. Four ACORN workers had been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board; other ACORN workers were convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado and investigations, at the time the article was written, were under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. [“The Acorn Indictments,” WSJ 11-3-06]
Programs that don’t work
The Wall Street Journal article points out some additional facts that have particular interest to us, two years later. “Operating in at least 38 states (as well as Canada and Mexico), ACORN pushes a highly partisan agenda, and its organizers are best understood as shock troops for the AFL-CIO and even the Democratic Party. As part of the Fannie Mae reform bill, House Democrats pushed an ‘affordable housing trust fund’ designed to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits to subsidize ACORN, among other groups. A version of this trust fund actually passed the Republican House and will surely be on the agenda again next year.”
ACORN was a tremendous force for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), created in the late 70s to force banks to make loans to low-income borrowers. Besides fighting for passage of this act, ACORN monitored banks9 9 compliance. Some analysts of the current housing crisis contend the CRA policies are in good part to blame. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, takes the analysis a step further. The “housing bailout” package signed into law to rescue Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with an unlimited credit line not only increases the federal debt but also gives millions of dollars to La Raza and the ACORN. [Elizabeth Williamson & Brody Mullins, “Democratic Ally Mobilizes In Housing Crunch: Acorn Leads Drive to Register Voters Likely to Back Obama; New Federal Funds,” WSJ, 7-31-08]
Brought to you, ladies and gentleman, in part by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Remember that in November
By Stephanie Block
Over at the Catholics for Obama blog, the headline screams, “Palin Continues to Smear Catholic Action.” This preposterous thesis has been crafted from her comments about Barak Obama’s past as a community organizer. The blog contends, “Catholics across the country continue to be outraged by Republican politician Sarah Palin who repeated her smear against Catholic Action by mocking Barack Obama’s service as director of a community group sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and led by eight Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago.”
Well! That’s quite a leap. Ms. Palin said nothing whatsoever about Catholic Action. It was the Catholics for Obama blogger who drew the connection between community organizing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). There’s no secret here. The CCHD gives between a third and a half of its grants to Alinskyian organizing networks.
Alinskyian what?
If you are saying “Alinskyian, what?” you need to know that there are over 200 organizations operating in cities around the United States training social justice activists according to the theories of Saul Alinsky. Over the past 30 years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given millions of dollars from Catholic donations to these groups. That’s a lot of money going to train people in a very distinctive way of looking at the world and its problems.
Alinsky’s writings contain a number of disturbing premises:
“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that … the end justifies almost any means.”
“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty detriment of ethics. ... There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a founding father.”
“The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. ... Moral rationalization is indispensable at all tunes of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”
“An organizer working for change ... does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing.”
The book from which those “rules” are taken is called Rules for Radicals and it opens with the disturbing lines: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
The reader can glean a great deal of information from those opening remarks. Machiavelli’s The Prince used to be on the Catholic index as forbidden reading (when the Church had an index) because Machiavelli was so completely amoral. The Prince and Machiavelli’s companion piece, “Discourses,” are cold-blooded examinations of political power, how it is obtained, maintained and expanded. In “Discourses” one reads: “Cunning and deceit will serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune” and “A prince cannot live securely in a state so long as those live whom he has deprived of it.”
In The Prince, Machiavelli makes it clear that he believes the moral law does not apply to leaders. He says, for example: “So you see a wise ruler cannot, and should not, keep his word when doing so is to his disadvantage, and when the reasons that led him to promise to do so no longer apply. Of course, if all men were good, this advice would be bad; but since men are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them…But it is essential to know how to conceal how crafty one is, to know how to be a clever counterfeit and hypocrite.” (54) Elsewhere, he writes: “So a ruler…should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary.”
This is Alinsky’s model, rewritten for “the people.” It’s the antithesis of Catholic teaching. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.
Ditching moral truth
Marxism teaches that “truth” is a social construction, determined by consensus. Alinsky teaches the same thing, writing, “An organizer....does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing.” The organizer, for whom the “ends justify the means,” can’t be bound by moral absolutes. To support a ut ilitarian ethics, the truth must be fluid.
This is not what scripture or the Church teaches, of course. It isn’t enough that organizations acquire “good things” for their constituencies. They must accept and teach moral truth; they must be principled. A lying or bribing political lobby may win all its temporal battles, but it will have lost its soul.
Contemporary Alinskyian networks, far from repudiating Alinsky, have built upon his work: Mary Beth Rogers writes, “All participants in the Industrial Areas Foundation [the first Alinskyian network, founded in 1940] national training programs are given a reprint of a 1933 article by John H. Randall, Jr. titled ‘The Importance of Being Unprincipled’. ...The thesis is that because politics is nothing but the ‘practical method of compromise,’ only two kinds of people can afford the luxury of acting on principle...everyone else who wants to be effective in politics has to learn to be ‘unprincipled’ enough to compromise in order to see their principles succeed.”
Civic action predicated on “truth by consensus” is the antithesis of Catholic truth. It cannot, therefore, be used to promote Catholic Action.
Liberationism
Alinskyian organizing, operating within faith-based institutions, is liberationist – as in liberation theology. Liberationism uses religious language to promote socialism.
Consider again, for example, the words quoted above: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Christians don’t think in those terms. Catholic social teaching stresses the mutual dependency on God and one another that exists between the Haves and the Have-nots. They aren’t rivals. It’s an entirely different worldview.
Then there’s the pedagogy – the teaching method by which liberationists educate people into their worldview. Charlie Curran, a dissident Catholic theologian who admired Alinskyian organizing, writes: “Although Alinsky does not use the word ‘conscientization,’ there is no doubt that such a process is the cornerstone of his method….The people must learn that through their power they can bring about change. Raising consciousness is a part of Alinsky’s overarching commitment to popular education.”
Contemporary Alinskyian networks continue to use this pedagogy. Maryann Eklaund, in her Master’s thesis on one of these networks organizing in southern Texas, details the values clarification exercises – her term – its organizers used to get people to change their perspective on things. We’re talking serious manipulation of people.
Another writer, Mary Beth Rodgers, describes the same thing. “Cortes [an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation network, southwest region] knew that Mexican parents willingly sacrificed for their children – and often for their church. By talking about family values, could you motivate and organize people to act politically in their own genuine self-interest?...the new organization had to reach into the heart...The idea of protecting and enhancing families might make that possible.” The implication of this passage is that the religious and family values of Catholics have been used to generate a conversation between them and the organizers. The organizers use the relationship built from the Catholic values of the Mexicans to introduce another set of values – those of the organization.
That brings us to yet another element of liberationism, which is its deliberate use of scriptures and religious symbols for a political end. For example, St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in San Antonio used “new catechisms” that connected biblical and Mexican historical and cultural themes with the current issues of the Alinskyian organization to which it belonged. Now, Catholic catechisms don’t contain this sort of information. These “catechisms” were not designed to present Church teachings but the organizers’ teachings.
Liberation theology isn’t Catholic. It doesn’t support the Catholic faith any more than it supports authentic justice or truth. It cannot, therefore, be considered Catholic Action.
The big picture
What are contemporary Alinskyian organizations trying to build?
In general terms, their “vision” can be expressed as a practical philosophy of governance called variously a third way,” “participatory democracy,” or “democratic socialism.” All these terms, and others, describe a system of government that seeks to use “mediating institutions” – churches, unions, schools, and the like, held together by the relationships they have forged through the Alinskyian organization – to control all facets of its citizens’ lives.
To achieve this, Alinskyian networks are engaged in “restructuring” activities of all kinds. On the political level, they work among the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Democrats, and the New Party, and the Democratic Party. In the economic arena, they have promoted and overseen the Empowerment Enterprise Community Zones in dozens of communities. They support universal health care and are experimenting with church-based health-care clinics. They have driven federal education “reform” and are insinuated in many school-to-work programs. In short, the programs they support involve centralizing benefits that effect larger and larger groups of people.
Catholic social teaching has never supported socialism. In fact, Pius XI writes “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.” The work of Alinskyian organizations cannot be considered – by any stretch of the imagination – to be Catholic Action.
Yet, This Is What the Campaign for Human Development Supports
Those are the foundational problems with the CCHD. Its political problems are twofold.
In the first place, millions of charitable Catholic dollars are being poured into organizing networks that are furthering a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual civic agenda. Nearly every legislative healthcare package they propose has an abortion-supportive element to it. There is not one politician of which I’m aware who has been endorsed by or emerged from these networks who publicly opposes abortion or homosexual “rights.”
By funding the Alinskyian networks, Catholics have become practical allies of the very groups they profess to oppose in the public square.
The second political problem with the CCHD collection is much worse, however. Not only does CCHD fund people whose goals are antithetical to Catholic Action but it provides the vehicle through which Catholics are systematical educated to work against Catholic Action.
How? CCHD-funded Alinskyian organizations organize in Catholic parishes, reeducating Catholic activists to work according to liberationist principles (not Catholic Action principles). There is widespread use throughout American-Catholic parishes of materials crafted to support Alinskyian organizing. The confusion, therefore, that Catholics express over fundamental moral issues and their comparative weight and urgency in public affairs isn’t just zeitgeist. It’s been systematically inculcated.
Obama and the Alinskyian Organizations
If one must fault Governor Palin comments about Obama’s community organizing experience, it’s that she minimized the seriousness of that experience. CCHD gave $40,000 in 1985 and $33,000 in 1986 to the Chicago Developing Communities Project, of which Obama was then lead organizer. It also gave millions to Gamaliel and ACORN, the Alinskyian networks that trained Obama and which today are stumping for his election.
The most recent accounting of CCHD grantees available (2006-2007) indicate that in just that one year, $1,146,000 was given to the ACORN network and well over $2 million went into the other major Alinskyian networks.
What did ACORN give us for that investment? Last year, The Seattle Times reported the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history. Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged for filling out and submitting more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.” (Keith Ervin, “Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme,” 10-30-2007)
This year, an ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced for to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
Those are convictions from the past year. There are also examples of indictments this year, such as the four ACORN employees in Kansas City charged with identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election and the Reynoldsburg fellow indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties. And there are current investigations into ACORN for voter fraud all over the map:
the Milwaukee ACORN for 200 to 300 fraudulent voter registration cards;
the Cleveland ACORN for its submission of 75,000 voter registrations, many of which are fraudulent;
the New Mexico ACORN, which claims to have taken 72,000 new voter registrations in the state since January, is under suspicion for 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards turned in to the Bernalillo County clerk’s office recently.
These are recent complaints, but ACORN’s history is riddled with criminal activity. During the last major election, the Wall Street Journal did a story about ACORN. Four ACORN workers had been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board; other ACORN workers were convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado and investigations, at the time the article was written, were under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. [“The Acorn Indictments,” WSJ 11-3-06]
Programs that don’t work
The Wall Street Journal article points out some additional facts that have particular interest to us, two years later. “Operating in at least 38 states (as well as Canada and Mexico), ACORN pushes a highly partisan agenda, and its organizers are best understood as shock troops for the AFL-CIO and even the Democratic Party. As part of the Fannie Mae reform bill, House Democrats pushed an ‘affordable housing trust fund’ designed to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits to subsidize ACORN, among other groups. A version of this trust fund actually passed the Republican House and will surely be on the agenda again next year.”
ACORN was a tremendous force for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), created in the late 70s to force banks to make loans to low-income borrowers. Besides fighting for passage of this act, ACORN monitored banks9 9 compliance. Some analysts of the current housing crisis contend the CRA policies are in good part to blame. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, takes the analysis a step further. The “housing bailout” package signed into law to rescue Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with an unlimited credit line not only increases the federal debt but also gives millions of dollars to La Raza and the ACORN. [Elizabeth Williamson & Brody Mullins, “Democratic Ally Mobilizes In Housing Crunch: Acorn Leads Drive to Register Voters Likely to Back Obama; New Federal Funds,” WSJ, 7-31-08]
Brought to you, ladies and gentleman, in part by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Remember that in November
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
More Desecration of the Eucharist
Desecrating the Holy Eucharist is getting to be epidemic. YouTube is filled with videos of poor deluded individuals finding mindless ways to treat the Body of Christ with disrespect and blasphemy. I think it's pointless to comment on these things. As Jesus said, don't cast your pearls before swine. A priest explained that reading to me one time. He said swine will tear to pieces anything cast into their pens. Placing the truth before someone who essentially has identified himself with swine will just see him tearing into the truth while it has no effect on his state of soul. Pray for these poor deluded individuals. Put YouTube on notice about this by visiting America Needs Fatima and joining their petition to YouTube.
Monday, September 22, 2008
40 Days for Life -- Putting an end to abortion through prayer and fasting.
This week, in more than 170 cities nationwide, the 40 Days of Life campaign will once again engage thousands of pro-life prayer warriors seeking an end to abortion. Wherever Christians have entered spiritual battle in the abortion wars, miracles have happened. You can read about them in articles posted on the website. Last year's campaign saw many victories. In Richmond a prayer warrior shared her story saying, “The highlight of my day was having a young woman roll down her car window as they drove away from the abortion clinic and say with a smile on her face, 'Thanks for the brochure. We decided not to go through with it.’" In El Paso sixteen babies were saved. Eighty-four mothers chose life in Pensacola, Fl and several post-aborted women sought healing. Stories like this come in from every corner of the nation.
Join a campaign near your town. You can find the locations here. If there is no city near you, commit to prayer and fasting for the 40 days from September 24 until November 2. Give up one thing that will remind you every day to pray: coffee, TV (even if it's only one show you always watch), alcohol, sweets, your choice. Then add something: a daily novena of memorares or Hail Marys, an extra rosary, the chaplet of Divine Mercy. Sign up for the inspiring updates. At the end of the 40 days you'll know that you were part of the solution.
"To save one life is as if you have saved the world."
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Expel Pro-abortion Politicians from the Knights of Columbus
Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, released an open letter to Senator Joe Biden on Friday, September 19th challenging his scandalous pronouncements on NBC's Meet the Press. The letter is a powerful defense of Church teaching and calls Biden to account urging him "to work to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits of our hard-won liberty."
This is a great opportunity to write to Mr. Anderson praising him for taking action and asking him to follow it up by formally removing the many, many pro-abortion Catholic politicians (at least 72 in Congress alone -- how many at the state level is anybody's guess) who are members of the Knights of Columbus. They could begin with Ted Kennedy. The Knights' own policies call for removing members who are a scandal to the order. Unfortunately, whenever a local council attempts to take action, they are overruled, declared out of order, or ruled unconsitutional. Unfortunately, Carl Anderson who has been head of the Knights since 2000 has done nothing about the scandal of pro-abortion politicians in their ranks. This is a case where one can't help thinking that human respect takes precedence over respect for God.
Concerned Roman Catholics of America have been following the situation with the Knights for years. In a press release earlier this summer they exposed the horrendous scandal in Massachusetts where 16 Knight/politicians helped to pass legislation allowing gay marriage in the state.
I applaud Carl Anderson's open letter, but now I remind him of what every mom on earth tells her children: "Actions Speak Louder than Words!" Expel pro-abortion politicians from the Knights of Columbus NOW! Including Joe Biden, who, according to CRCOA, was a Knight as of 2006.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Spare us, O Lord: a shepherd misleading the flock - again!
The October 16th Al Smith dinner, sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York, is slated to feature co-guest speakers John McCain and Barack Obama. Hosted by Cardinal Edward Egan, the dinner gives the politicians the "opportunity to show how well they speak when they aren't on a political stage" according to Catholic News Agency. The Alfred E. Smith Foundation website says the organization was "founded by His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman in 1946, to honor the memory of Alfred Emanuel Smith, New York's renowned Governor and patron of the 'Little People'. The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation supports and aids the poor, sick, and underprivileged of the Archdiocese of New York, regardless of race, creed, or color."
Okay, so this is clearly a Catholic organization. Now let's get this straight: a Catholic group is holding a Catholic event hosted by a prince of the Church that will give a position of honor and prominence to 1) the most pro-abortion, pro-infanticide politician ever to walk the halls of Congress and 2) a politician who supports embryonic stem cell research. Neither of these gentlemen is allowed under the bishops' own guidelines to speak at this event, particularly Obama who holds the most radically pro-abortion position of almost any politician in the country. How many have refused to help babies born alive after a failed abortion? Obama is an icon for the culture of death.
In 2004 the bishops approved a document at their General meeting called "Catholics in Political Life." It states, "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions. (my emphasis) Obviously the Al Smith dinner gives both Obama and McCain positions of prominence. It is confusing and likely to make people assume that their positions are equal and that Obama's abortion extremism is perfectly fine with the Cardinal as he appears in media photographs laughing and chatting up the the abortion extremist.
During the 2000 presidential campaign George Bush and Al Gore spoke at the dinner, but in 2004 presidential candidates George Bush and John Kerry were passed over for Bush senior and former New York Governor Hugh Carey. It is not a tradition set in stone to feature the presidential candidates and this is one year someone else should have received the invite. To bring a man whose policies are so evil he is the soulmate of the worst mass murdering tyrants in history is scandalous.
Please protest this scandalous event!
Contact Cardinal Egan's office at
1011 First Ave
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 212-371-1000
Fax: 212-308-2674
1011 First Ave
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 212-371-1000
Fax: 212-308-2674
If anyone has the Cardinal's email, please leave it in the comments section.
I'm no expert, but isn't this common sense?
First issue:
I don't pretend to have any deep understanding of economics, but I know I need to make sure the money in my checkbook is enough to pay the bills every month if I want to stay out of debt. And I know that debt is an albatross. Millions of people learn that lesson when they get themselves buried in monthly 18-29% credit card charges for the junk they just can't live without. Hey! Go to the thrift store and only buy what you really need.
Now, why can't the U.S. learn that lesson? How can the men and women in Congress who are supposedly intelligent understand that deficit spending is irresponsible (not to say immoral - burdening our children and grandchildren with our debt). At some point you have to pay the piper. I'm not sure what the outcome of all the bank failings will be, but I do know as a parent that if you constantly bail your kids out of problems, they never learn anything from their bad or stupid behavior. The government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac makes every taxpayer in the U.S. the fall guy for their bad loans -- to the tune of billions of dollars. Now that the government has taken on all those debts, WE OWE IT ALL. The government doesn't have any money except what it takes out of our pockets. So, face it folks, we are shafted again.
And why should taxpayers be penalized because the banks made bad loans? People like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer should be held to account for pushing policies that penalized financial institutions for not making bad loans and pressured them to meet quotas on loans to the poor who couldn't afford them. No one has a "right" to a house and there's no shame in renting. The way to get a house is to work and save and buy small when you can afford it without jeopardizing your next meal.
The best thing that taxpayers can do at this point is to get out of personal debt. Cut up your credit cards, pay them off, and buy with cash. If you can't pay for it, go without. We all have too much stuff in our lives anyway.
***********
Second point:
I can't claim to have any expertise on foreign affairs either, but I'm furious about the plan to put nuclear missiles in Poland. Using the recent Russia/Georgia conflict as an excuse is baloney. Georgia provoked Russia. Why would anyone be surprised at her response? Was it too much? Maybe. But it is no excuse to renew the cold war.
Maybe it's time to review our own history. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? We didn't want all those nukes aimed at us from an island not that far from our coast. And we demanded the Soviets remove them. Do we really expect Russia not to oppose nukes pointing at her? Look at a world map. It's about 700 miles from Warsaw to Moscow. How would you feel if you lived in Albuquerque and New Orleans had nukes pointed in your direction? That's an 1100 mile distance.
Seems to me the golden rule applies here. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. We demanded the Soviet Union pull the nukes out of Cuba. We should do the same with regard to nukes in Eastern Europe. It's reasonable not to engage in provocative moves that escalate hostilities with Russia and other countries. Let's stop acting like the biggest bully on the block.
Sometimes I think our leaders are like little children rattling their sabres in their war games. (Maybe they all spend too much time playing World of Warcraft.) It ain't a game, folks. We need to demand that our leaders act like grownups instead of moving us closer to World War III. Besides war is expensive and we can't afford any more of it.
I don't pretend to have any deep understanding of economics, but I know I need to make sure the money in my checkbook is enough to pay the bills every month if I want to stay out of debt. And I know that debt is an albatross. Millions of people learn that lesson when they get themselves buried in monthly 18-29% credit card charges for the junk they just can't live without. Hey! Go to the thrift store and only buy what you really need.
Now, why can't the U.S. learn that lesson? How can the men and women in Congress who are supposedly intelligent understand that deficit spending is irresponsible (not to say immoral - burdening our children and grandchildren with our debt). At some point you have to pay the piper. I'm not sure what the outcome of all the bank failings will be, but I do know as a parent that if you constantly bail your kids out of problems, they never learn anything from their bad or stupid behavior. The government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac makes every taxpayer in the U.S. the fall guy for their bad loans -- to the tune of billions of dollars. Now that the government has taken on all those debts, WE OWE IT ALL. The government doesn't have any money except what it takes out of our pockets. So, face it folks, we are shafted again.
And why should taxpayers be penalized because the banks made bad loans? People like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer should be held to account for pushing policies that penalized financial institutions for not making bad loans and pressured them to meet quotas on loans to the poor who couldn't afford them. No one has a "right" to a house and there's no shame in renting. The way to get a house is to work and save and buy small when you can afford it without jeopardizing your next meal.
The best thing that taxpayers can do at this point is to get out of personal debt. Cut up your credit cards, pay them off, and buy with cash. If you can't pay for it, go without. We all have too much stuff in our lives anyway.
***********
Second point:
I can't claim to have any expertise on foreign affairs either, but I'm furious about the plan to put nuclear missiles in Poland. Using the recent Russia/Georgia conflict as an excuse is baloney. Georgia provoked Russia. Why would anyone be surprised at her response? Was it too much? Maybe. But it is no excuse to renew the cold war.
Maybe it's time to review our own history. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? We didn't want all those nukes aimed at us from an island not that far from our coast. And we demanded the Soviets remove them. Do we really expect Russia not to oppose nukes pointing at her? Look at a world map. It's about 700 miles from Warsaw to Moscow. How would you feel if you lived in Albuquerque and New Orleans had nukes pointed in your direction? That's an 1100 mile distance.
Seems to me the golden rule applies here. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. We demanded the Soviet Union pull the nukes out of Cuba. We should do the same with regard to nukes in Eastern Europe. It's reasonable not to engage in provocative moves that escalate hostilities with Russia and other countries. Let's stop acting like the biggest bully on the block.
Sometimes I think our leaders are like little children rattling their sabres in their war games. (Maybe they all spend too much time playing World of Warcraft.) It ain't a game, folks. We need to demand that our leaders act like grownups instead of moving us closer to World War III. Besides war is expensive and we can't afford any more of it.
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