What a bunch of sadistic phonies. Blubbering John Boehner, crying like a baby as he introduces the Pope. Then there's Marco Rubio, who was seen crying as the cameras flashed to him.
What are these assholes crying for?
Do they cry when they cut food stamps to kids and the hungry?
Do they cry when they cut Medicare to the elderly?
Do they cry for the students who are charged interest on their loans and whose lives are wrecked when they can't pay because there's no jobs?
Do they cry for the vets and the wounded who fought in the wars they authorize?
What a bunch of phony hypocrites. They should rot in Hell.
I don't understand... aren't most of the GOP politicians saying the Pope is a communist and they don't care about what he says? Certainly the likes of Rubio libertarian/propertarian crackpots don't care.
ReplyDeleteDisgusting.
Does the pope go home to his lavish estate and cry surrounded by enormous wealth extracted from the poor over a dozen millenia? My guess is also know. This guy talks a good progressive game (except when it come to women's poor gay issues), but like Obama is all bark and no bite. As Sara Silverman pointed out years ago, you could literally "sell the Vatican and feed the world." I don't see that happening. I wonder WWJD?
ReplyDeletePardon my autocorrect fails.
DeletePardon my autocorrect fails.
DeleteAbram,
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I hate all religions. Period!
That might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The outer husk needs to be shucked off to find the inner kernel. That kernel is one and the same. Peel away the cultural artifacts and institutionalization to find the core.The husk is just to preserve and protect the kernel until it is ripe to sprout.
ReplyDeleteThen it falls off naturally when the seed is ripe to sprout.
But in most religions that process has been thwarted by the cultural and institutional layers that have grown historically and have nothing to do with fundamental process. This encrustation need to be discarded. This is what Zoroaster said in his day, This is what Abraham and Moses said in their day. This is what Buddha said in his day. This is what jesus said in his day, This is what Muhammad said in his day. And it is what Meher Baba has said to this age. Incidentally, Rama and Krishna, while not impugning the traditions in which they were embedded, said, Take refuge in me alone. If you do that, you don't need to do all the preliminaries.
I think that Pope Francis gets this but being embedded in a huge institution he can't change everything all at once. I don't know whether he is ready to go to the lengths of the above, or even of his namesake Francis, who walked out the front door of his wealthy father's mansion naked and never looked back.
The pope is already under attack by conservatives even in liberal America. He is probably pushing the envelope now, but he seems to realize that he is in control and can management the situation as he wished, not how others attempt to push him.
But it's about more than religion, which in general have been largely discredited not only by their own failures but also by the rise of science.
Science is about exploring the frontier of knowledge. The frontiers are now the outer frontier of space and the inner frontier of consciousness.
The latter is the focus of the perennial wisdom found in the testimony of the seers and the teaching of sages, It's also the focus of the humanistic and transpersonal approaches to psychology and the emergent field of consciousness studies, which is transdisciplinary.
At the apex of Maslow's hierarchy is self-actualization. He explained this in terms of transcendence, which is the core teaching of perennial wisdom.
Now there are non-religious humanistic ways to explore that core.
Here is Jeff Sessions of all people who starts to get it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/jeff-sessions-pope-francis-immigration/
"Sessions added that the church should focus on spiritual issues.
“Jesus focused on the bread of life, the spiritual realm,” he said. “You get that right, everything else kind of falls into place. I don’t think there’s anything in the scriptures that says nation states shouldn’t operate as nation states do. There was never any arguments that Rome’s basic secular infrastructure was fundamentally evil.”
But then he directly exhibits ignorance too in his next sentence:
Sessions suggested it would be better to help countries understand that “a free market system will eliminate more poverty than a government passing a law.”
????????? Whaaaatttt??????
But then a bit of a recovery here:
"But he said there’s a delicate balance, and there are times when church leadership has been very important in the public sphere.
“I’ve always been uneasy about church leaders getting too deeply involved in political issues because it can undermine their core mission, undermine their ability to be effective on spiritual matters. However, there is no doubt that on occasion there are times that a call for obedience and an objection to wrong policies is demanded of church leaders. Where you draw that line, I don’t know.”
At least he admits it....
With the new Pope getting so involved in this, elevating the issue within Christendom, it is scaring me that we will now witness a continued newly significant regression in our economic outcomes....
I'm pro-Pope Francisco. Boehner is one of the people responsible for making this the first pope to speak in front of Congres, and that's great. If the pope makes Boehner cry, great. Maybe Boehner will actually start listening to all that Catholic social teaching he seems to have missed growing up.
ReplyDeleteWith the new Pope getting so involved in this, elevating the issue within Christendom, it is scaring me that we will now witness a continued newly significant regression in our economic outcomes....
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the pope is changing the conversation, as did Occupy and Picketty, and to some degree Stiglitz, Krugman and others using their bully pulpits to focus attention on inequality. This has gone viral globally.
The reality is that political economy is both a scientific and a moral issue, as are all issue in the social sciences, which necessarily overlap with philosophy to the degree that normative issues are involved, which always, as cognitive science shows. It's just not possible to disentangle this in brain functioning. The "rational subject" as completely objective is a myth.
There is no way to leave religious issue out either as long as religions have large constituencies that vote. In a liberal society is a matter of working out sufficient compromise so that everyone can get along. This involves informed debate, which depends on a public conversation in which all voices are heard. In India there is a saying from Mundaka Upanishad, Satyameva vijayate, meaning "Truth alone (or always) triumphs." There is actually a talk show that addresses social issues. Here in the US we would probably say, "Trust the process."
I would say that Sessions did pretty good for starters. Better than a lot of them.
start listening to all that Catholic social teaching
ReplyDeleteRight. Catholic social teaching since Rerum Novarum (1891) has been about negotiating a course between economic liberalism and communism. These are all on the left side of the spectrum being based on liberalism in contrast to the right side of the spectrum represented by monarchism and feudalism.
Now that communism is one the wane, the pope is pushing it further to the left, which will move the Overton window leftward in the direction of social democracy.
I’ve always been uneasy about church leaders getting too deeply involved in political issues because it can undermine their core mission, undermine their ability to be effective on spiritual matters.
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a typical heathen philistine :)
Sessions thinks the Church, like the military, has a "core mission" which it must attend to to be effective on the matters that fall under its limited purview. In this case, the mission is apparently to take care of people's "spirits" so they can be packed off to heaven or the other place after the machinery of capitalism, war and political domination is done ransacking and destroying their bodies.
I doubt the Pope has the same bureaucratic, division-of-labor mentality about the scope of the Christian teachings, and what they mean for the way we are supposed to treat each other and organize our communities while we are still alive.
I have to agree with Sessions here, although I'm not sure he would agree with me. Too many religious leaders are too politically active given the non-profit status of religious organizations and the legal restraints on them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that there is a big difference between overt political advocacy and moral teaching that is related to current events and conditions.
It can be a narrow path to walk but some are taking way too many liberties.
It's one of those areas where most people are in general agreement but disagree over details.
Dan read his wiki he went to Moeller, played linebacker there for Gerry Faust.... then went to Xavier... how could he "miss" it ?????
ReplyDeleteWe are up against some really dark shit....
It makes them uncomfortable that people speaks about things they don't like being lectured on, so they can keep singing the 'free market' (free for who? and for what?) bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI'm not religious but anyone who can make politicians uncomfortable with truth is welcome regardless of what they could or could not do with their own religious institutions. Not as easy as saying that the Church could sell all they have to feed everyone in reality either, but the political establishment can certainly do much more than what they say they can do, instead they throw people under the bus all the time (at least the Church is more helpful than not).
Dan read his wiki he went to Moeller, played linebacker there for Gerry Faust.... then went to Xavier... how could he "miss" it ?????
ReplyDeleteVery few Catholic kids learn the social teachings. He probably just learned how to be an alter boy, play football, go to confession and avoid masturbation and swearing.
Dan LOL you're probably right....
ReplyDeleteLets just watch what happens now though... I'm scared that what these people will do is now go back and re-double their neo-liberal efforts in order to deliver better economic outcomes .... now seeing themselves as more justified than ever to pursue/implement these policies...
and this is very strange behavior they are exhibiting with grown men crying, etc....
rsp,
"Does the pope go home to his lavish estate and cry surrounded by enormous wealth extracted from the poor over a dozen millenia? My guess is also know. This guy talks a good progressive game (except when it come to women's poor gay issues), but like Obama is all bark and no bite. As Sara Silverman pointed out years ago, you could literally "sell the Vatican and feed the world." I don't see that happening. I wonder WWJD?"
ReplyDeleteOkay. Let's go step by step.
"Does the pope go home to his lavish estate and cry surrounded by enormous wealth extracted from the poor over a dozen millenia?" Actually, no, he doesn't go home to his lavish estate: it's neither his -- it belongs to the Church -- and it's not lavish. He personally decided to go to a small apartment, where he cooks and does all the things one does in one's place. In fact, this is well-known and has been reported in the media.
But there's more. Are you blaming the current pope for things done over a dozen millenia?
"This guy talks a good progressive game (except when it come to women's poor gay issues), but like Obama is all bark and no bite."
Fine, the pope is pure talk. Paraphrasing Joe Stalin: how many army divisions does the pope have? What else can he do?
Or, better still, what would you have him do? I'm really interested: what would you do if you were on his shoes? Excommunicate David Cameron? Big deal, Cameron isn't a Catholic. Send the Inquisition after Obama? Meh, Obama has the SS (Secret Service).
"As Sara Silverman pointed out years ago, you could literally "sell the Vatican and feed the world."
Sara Silverman can begin by giving a personal example. She could sell her house (if she owns it) and feed me: I'm poor, ageing, sick and only work part-time.
I'm awaiting for donations, and anyone's help -- including yours, Abram -- would be appreciated.
OMG.....Catholic crocodile tears from Boehner. He doesn't cry when he hates Obama and obstructs progress for all Americans. He's a phony who is very hateful and full of himself. The Catholics I know are way above that! He has no compassion for his fellow man and that's not a Catholic. Yes, it's time for a psyc. eval. for Boehner to find out why he cries and what he hopes to get from those tears. I'm not buying it because I've seen him cry before without any change in his hateful personality and his contempt for those who disagree with him. No, you couldn't give me enough money to buy that circus act.
ReplyDeleteAll of these people have the best intentions but they are all also technically incompetent. ....
ReplyDeleteWatch now they are all going to redouble their efforts in the current budget battle to "get their fiscal house in order!" ... " do it for the pope!" "do it for the people!" ... here it comes... I hope i am wrong.
This is what you get when you substitute religion for competent technocracy. .. zealous idiots now driven to tears in doubling down on stupid for crying out loud....
I hope I am wrong...
Sidney Blumenthal in an email to HRC:
ReplyDelete"Among other things, Blumenthal called Boehner an "old scandal ridden hack Republican" and described him as "louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle."
Boehner cried when Cantor mistakenly told him Jack Daniels was going out of business
Both Rubio and Boehner laughed when www.census.gov announced:
In 2014, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent. There were 46.7 million people in poverty. Neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2013 estimates.
Perhaps they are crying because they are finally aware of the depth and breadth of their misanthropic efforts?
Going to be decision time for some of these folks. Jesus: "I came not bring peace but a sword." And the other "hard sayings" that so many of those professing to follow him prefer to ignore.
ReplyDeleteTom they will confuse that sword for a budget axe
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't crying for the Pope. He was crying for his political future.
ReplyDeleteNever seen a stone cry. And for his next trick blood.
ReplyDelete