Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

  • Easy Ways To Teach Kids
  • Bookworm’s Book
  • Books!
  • Contact Bookworm

Is this Leftist judge about justice or running a kangaroo court?

April 11, 2018 by Bookworm 16 Comments

When a Leftist judge is open in her social justice disdain for a “privileged” white male, is there any possibility of a fair trial?

Samson Donick Leftist Judge Kangaroo courtTwo and a half years ago, there was a front page story in our local Marin newspaper relaying the shocking news that Samson Donick, a brilliant Marin boy who was attending MIT, was being charged with rape back in Boston. I was especially shocked because, Marin being a fairly small community, I know of the family and cannot say enough good things about them.

The case has now reached a bizarre conclusion. When he was originally charged, Donick entered a plea of not-guilty back in 2015 and his attorneys recently said they were anxious to have the trial because they were confident that they could prove their client’s innocence. Quite unexpectedly, though, just three days before the trial, the alleged victim refused to testify, instead insisting on a plea bargain that was substantially better than the risk Donick had of spending ten years to life in prison:

On Monday, in a development that underscores the difficulties in prosecuting sexual assault cases, prosecutors told Sanders the woman had decided against testifying, saying that “reliving her trauma has become overwhelming.”

Without her testimony, prosecutors do not believe they can win a conviction, they said, and on Friday they struck a deal with defense lawyers to have Donick admit to sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt on a charge of indecent assault and battery, avoiding a formal conviction. He would plead guilty to the lesser charge of assault and battery, records show.

Under the agreement, Donick, of Tiburon, Calif., would be sentenced to five years of probation and the case would be continued without a finding, meaning he wouldn’t have a sex-offense conviction on his record.

He would have to perform 500 hours of community service, participate in sex offender treatment, and apologize to the woman in open court.

I’m of two minds. Maybe the whole thing was a set-up, as part of the campus rape movement, and the woman just couldn’t keep it going under oath. I have heard reputable stories of young men from wealthy communities being targeted with the hopes that they would buy-off their accuser.

Alternatively, the story mentions en passant that DNA floating around implicated Donick, so maybe the alleged victim really was assaulted and is indeed too traumatized to testify. Mercifully never having been the victim of a sexual assault, I have no idea how I’d feel under the circumstances.

The one thing we know with certainty is that there will not be a trial to enlarge upon any evidence, either proving or disproving Donick’s innocence. Instead, under the agreement, Donick recited a short, graphic passage describing what he allegedly did to the woman and said he was sorry. End of case — except for his life plans lying in ruins, which is a tragedy if he was indeed innocent. No college will ever accept him and he will be tarred and scarred for life.

Although the above recites a personal tragedy, either for Donick or the alleged victim, that’s not what bothers me about the news stories from this case. What bothers me is the Leftist judge’s conduct (emphasis mine): [Read more…]

Filed Under: Judges Tagged With: Boston University, Janet Sanders, Kangaroo Court, MIT, Samson Donick, Social Justice

At UC Davis, does “diversity” discriminate against straight, white males?

March 10, 2018 by Bookworm 34 Comments

UC Davis is a microcosm, demonstrating how the Proggie “diversity” racket discriminates against people based upon their race, sex, and sexual orientation.

UC Davis DiversityFor the past many months, I’ve been working with my son on college applications. He is a decent student with good test scores and a somewhat interesting back story. Like many of his sex, he plans to major in a STEM subject. And when I say “of his sex” I mean it — in this gender fluid world, he’s a genetic male who knows he’s male and who likes girls.

In normal times, my son would have been a shoo-in for a pretty broad spectrum of American colleges, especially the University of California system, which California taxpayers fund and, once-upon-a-time, was meant to give priority to California residents. We do not live in normal times, though.

My son’s experience with UC Davis provides an interesting insight into just how bad things are for straight white males in America. Davis has been on my radar for decades. Back in the early 1970s, my sister’s high school boyfriend went there (ending forever their young romance) and loved it so much that he never left. Tim and his wife met there, got married there, and have since worked and raised their family in the town of Davis, outside of Sacramento.

In the decades forty years after Tim’s experience (ending around 2004), I’d frequently speak to students who attended, or who had just graduated from, UC Davis and they all had the same thing to say: They loved it. They liked the academic experience, they liked the social experience, and they liked Davis’s small-town feel, with the added perk that they could as easily travel to cosmopolitan San Francisco as to the majestic Sierras. It seemed to avoid the Leftist insanity at places such as UC Santa Cruz or UC Berkeley, the antisemitism of UC Riverside, and the economic elitism of UCLA. I always hoped that one or both of my kids would go there.

My older child had no interest in going there and is happy at an unnamed school my readers know as OELAC — the Obscenely Expensive Liberal Arts College. (You can read my posts on the subject here, here, here, and here.)

My son, though, was interested in UC Davis. He applied knowing that his GPA and test scores exceeded the averages of those admitted to UC Davis and, as I said, he has an interesting back story. He felt he had a reasonable chance of getting in.

As was the case with every single college to which he applied, my son had to write several essays as part of the application process. A significant number are aimed at eliciting from the student his or her place in the victim identity hierarchy. Here are some examples of questions that explicitly or implicitly ask students to describe themselves as members of a victim class. (My knee-jerk response to each question was “I was born a poor black child….”) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: College Admissions, Gender Discrimination, Racial Discrimination, Sex Discrimination, Social Justice, UC Davis, Yale

Proving your social justice chops to get into Gonzaga

January 28, 2018 by Bookworm 10 Comments

Gonzaga University: Another college application and another dispiriting slog through the dreary social justice universe of American higher education.

GonzagaThe college application process continues. All the colleges demand essays that subtly invite the student to explain that he, she, or it was “born a poor black child,” or “born a gender mislabeled child.” When we got to the application for Gonzaga, a Jesuit institution, though, its single essay question, on a first quick read, seemed to be genuinely different and intriguing:

As part of Gonzaga’s Presidential Speaker Series, the University brings to campus individuals whose scholarly research and commitment inspire students to action. Who would you choose to speak at Gonzaga and why? (word limit 50-300)

I should know better than to skim. The above is not, in fact, what that essay question asked. In my first quick appraisal, I ignored a few key words:

As part of Gonzaga’s Presidential Speaker Series, the University brings to campus individuals whose scholarly research and commitment to social justice inspire students to action. Who would you choose to speak at Gonzaga and why? (word limit 50-300)

Et tu, Gonzaga? Et tu?

Just to give a little context, Gonzaga’s speakers for the last six seasons have included Greg Mortensen, liar and thief, who create a fake social justice story and then embezzled from the money that came in;* Thomas Friedman, the laziest man in journalism who has dreams of becoming a Chinese-style dictator; and Jane Goodall, who has done nice work with chimps but who also compared President Trump in an unflattering way to a chimpanzee and who is another mindless scientist who is all-in for anthropogenic climate change despite the fact that the predictions have consistently been wrong. (Which means no actual science was involved in the making of this theory.) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: College Applications, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Gonzaga, Greg Mortenson, Ingrid Betancourt, Jane Goodall, Siddhartha Kara, Social Justice, Thomas L. Friedman

Is our US Navy incompetent or did Obama seriously undermine it?

August 21, 2017 by Bookworm 26 Comments

The US Navy has been in the news lately for crashes and corruption. Is this the reasonable follow-up to 8 years of Obama’s approach to the military?

NavyA few days ago, word came down that the Navy relieved of duty the U.S.S. Fitzgerald’s commanding officer, executive officer and senior enlisted sailor. They suffered this fate because, on June 17, on their watch, a Philippine merchant ship crashed into the Fitzgerald, killing seven American sailors.

Also a few days ago, ten sailors were reported missing and presumed dead after the USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker near Singapore. The media, of course, has tried to make this about Trump, because he responded to a question about the crash before being briefed about the resulting deaths. His response, therefore, appeared cavalier when it was not.

This is not about Trump, however. Losing seventeen American lives in two separate peace-time incidents hints that there is something rotten going on in America’s Navy. If our ships can’t even survive commercial traffic, what the fugue can we expect of them should they have to answer a true call to arms?

Superficially, it appears that the Navy is having a competence problem. It’s equally likely, though, that we’re seeing a reflection of a very serious morale problem. Eight years of Obama attacks on the military may be taking their toll. Here are two things to keep in mind as you think about that theory. First, during the Obama years, the Pentagon engaged in a massive purge of officer ranks across the services. A list compiled in 2014, while the purges were still ongoing, gives an idea of the purge’s scope.

It’s entirely possible that these officers got the boot because they were calcified, ineffective holdovers from a previous era who were damaging military effectiveness. It’s also entirely possible that these officers got the boot because they believe that the military exists to defend America against her enemies, rather than to serve as a social justice experiment for people with gender body dysmorphia or to be a leader in the fight against “climate change.”

People like that would not have been welcome in Obama’s military. When these officers left, they took with them knowledge and experience, leaving in their wake a blow to morale.

And second, there’s the corruption problem, especially in the Navy. I don’t know how many of you followed the story when it broke, but it turned out that military officers were absolute whores when it came to accepting bribes from a macher in Malaysia: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Military Tagged With: Barack Obama, Military, Navy, Social Justice, United States Navy, USS Fitzgerald, USS John McCain

[VIDEO] Paul Joseph Watson explains why modern art is actually propaganda

April 2, 2017 by Bookworm 5 Comments

Modern art is not meant to delight or enlighten. Its sole goal is to tear down America and enforce social justice concepts, all while making “artists” rich.

Museum of Modern Art entranceI’ve always had a thing about modern art: I hate it. From the 1960s forward, the American art world has abandoned faith and beauty and, instead, celebrated only those things that savage America and American values. I’ve posted at some length on the subject, so I won’t rehash what I had to say back in 2011 and 2014.

Interestingly, just three years ago, and despite my obsessive attention to the American social and political scene, I still hadn’t really heard of the whole Social Justice Warrior issue. SJW’s popped onto my radar just a short time later. Even then, though, I didn’t connect them with modern art. I saw that modern art hated America, but I missed the fact that it was pushing a social justice agenda.

Paul Joseph Watson, however, has not missed the SJW agenda and he’s produced one of his best videos explaining what is going on in America’s modern art world (language warning if you have young children around):

And on a lighter side, Danny Kaye had a little fun with modern dance back in the 1950s:

Photo credit: Sergio Calleja, MoMA Entrance, Creative Commons license.

Filed Under: Art, Lefties on Parade Tagged With: Danny Kaye, Modern Art, Paul Joseph Watson, Social Justice

A Leftist hiding behind Anne Frank’s skirts attacks Trump on antisemitism *UPDATED*

February 21, 2017 by Bookworm 9 Comments

Trump made it simple: antisemitism is bad and it needs to stop so, of course, Stephen Goldstein, a Jewish Leftist hiding behind Anne Frank attacked him for not doing enough.

Anne Frank antisemitismTrump addressed antisemitism in a short statement at the National Museum of African American History and Culture:

I know President Obama was here for the museum’s opening last fall, and I’m honored to be the second sitting president to visit this great museum.

Today and every day of my presidency, I pledge to do everything I can to continue that promise of freedom for African-Americans and for every American, so important, nothing more important.

This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance, and hatred in all of its very ugly forms. The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.

Given that he was at the African American history museum and not the Holocaust Museum, I thought the brevity was appropriate. I also appreciated his nice, polite. little reminder to African Americans who are, sadly, amongst the most antisemitic people in America, that they need to stop being that way.

Steven Goldstein, the director of the Anne Frank Center in New York, took it upon himself to respond on behalf of all Jews and said that Trump’s denunciation failed because he hasn’t policed his own administration (which is full of people who are Jewish or adore Israel). This denunciation has gotten wide play in the mainstream media and on social media.

Oh! Did I mention that the center’s full name is the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect? Given Goldstein’s ill-informed and nasty attack, I guess someone forgot to read his own promotional material.

And just who is Steven Goldstein and what is this “Center for Mutual Respect”? Well, it turns out that, a few years ago, the Anne Frank Center deviated from its Holocaust mission and has turned into a social justice institution focused on intersectionality, , with an Executive Director who made a name for himself as a hardcore social justice warrior:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Anti-Semitism, Donald Trump, Lefties on Parade Tagged With: Anne Frank, Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, Antisemitism, Donald Trump, Holocaust, Intersectionality, Nikki Hayley, Social Justice, Steven Goldstein, United Nations

Betsy DeVos’s qualifications and Oakland’s Illegal Immigrants’ Fund

February 2, 2017 by Bookworm 19 Comments

Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos

I exhausted my self with last night’s lengthy Bookworm Beat, but I have two points — one about Betsy DeVos’s qualifications to be Education Secretary and the other about Oakland’s fund for illegal immigrants — that I believe go a long way to summing up so much of what’s wrong with Progressives.

First, I want to raise a thought that occurred to me in connection with a very specific attack against Betsy DeVos (whose position as Education Secretary may fall before two Republicans who have taken massive sums of money from teacher’s unions — unions that happen to be the most powerful unions in many blue states and that are nothing more than money laundering entities for the Democrat party). Here’s the offending poster:

devoss-lack-of-classroom-skills

The message, of course, is that DeVos cannot possibly serve as Education Secretary, making policy decisions about American public education, because she never got a teaching degree.

Before I get to the DeVos portion of this discussion, I want to address the sign-carrier’s unspoken contention that she is smart and knowledgeable, thanks to her teaching degree. I wouldn’t assume that at all.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Education, Lefties on Parade Tagged With: Betsy DeVos, DeVos, Education, Illegal immigrants, Oakland, Social Justice, Teachers, Teaching Degree, Undercover Boss

Oh, the things you’ll find at WOW! Magazine today

September 21, 2016 by Bookworm Leave a Comment

WOW-Logo-1Another day in which I didn’t blog as much as I would have wished. Thankfully, the team is working away at WOW! Magazine. If you check in today, you’ll find all of these great posts:

  • The Bookworm Beat 9/21/16 — the “I’m mad as Hell” evening edition and open thread
  • Hillary Clinton And The Second Amendment: Avoiding The Necessity
  • Hillary, you are the deplorable one
  • Black Lives Matter Hits Charlotte; Burning, Looting, 18 Cops Injured
  • Noted Pervert caught sexting with 15-year-old girl
  • Here we go again? Yet another false narrative begins
  • Social Justice Narrative Sends NFL Ratings into Free Fall
  • One Group Of Black Voters Trump Will Carry By 100%
  • Dancing With The Stars: who got voted off the dance floor?
  • The Bookworm Beat 9/21/2016 — the “hurry up” edition and open thread
  • How to Write a Screenplay
  • Those Were The Days

Filed Under: Watcher of Weasels Tagged With: African-Americans, Anthony Weiner, Charlotte Riots, Dancing With The Stars, DWTS, Hillary Clinton, NFL, Second Amendment, Social Justice, Writing A Screenplay

Monday afternoon mini round-up (and Open Thread)

March 24, 2014 by Bookworm 7 Comments

Victorian posy of pansiesThoughtful Jews are increasingly thinking one thought:  the notion of a two-state solution is ridiculous.  Moshe Philips and Benyamin Korn explain why it’s ridiculous.  And in a superior interview on the Glenn Beck show, Caroline Glick offers a single-state alternative.

***

When I was on vacation a few years ago, I met an extremely nice man who had retired from being a (very) high-powered executive and, instead, had become an Episcopalian minister.  He did not have a congregation but, instead, spent his energy furthering “social justice.” I, being a curious type, tried to elicit from him what this meant in practical terms. He was unable to answer my questions.  I have wondered since then whether his reticence was because he didn’t want to admit what he was doing or because he couldn’t admit what he was doing. After all, as Jonah Goldberg explains in this video, social justice is a very amorphous concept at best. And at worst, when boiled down to its essence, it demands that Big Government redistribute all wealth — something I don’t think this former high-powered executive, who lived an expensive life, was willing to admit even to himself:

***

I’ve seen several articles about the English Law Society’s decision to accommodate sharia law officially in the courts. All decry it. Tom Wilson, I think, has the best analysis of why it’s such an appallingly dreadful thing to happen in the land that gave us the Magna Carta and that seeded in America the ideas of liberty and equality.

***

Here’s something that is totally weird: I agree completely with Bill Clinton. When it comes to the internet, he makes good sense: “I understand in theory why we would like to have a multi-stakeholder process. I favor that. I just know that a lot of these so-called multi-stakeholders are really governments that want to gag people and restrict access to the Internet.” Part of Obama’s post-election flexibility, though, means he no longer need make obeisance to the Clintons, so he can ignore Bill’s sound advice.

***

Obama’s feminization of the American military continues apace. The latest goal is to use special forces not to engage in high-level military activity (guns, grenades, 20 different ways to kill with a ballpoint pen) but, instead, to turn them into a cutting-edge coffee-klatch. No wonder Obama is getting rid of the Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles. The new military will no longer shoot weapons; instead, it will kill the enemy with vicious girly gossip.

***

The far-Left is a comfortable resting place for angry, insane people. And no, those are not pejoratives. They accurately, almost clinically describe women who claim that Ronald Reagan is responsible for any stigma that fat people suffer in today’s society.

***

Sultan Knish has an excellent comparison between Vlad Putin’s old-fashioned hunger for land and power (so 19th century!) versus Barack Obama’s cool, modern hunger for pop culture fame, especially when it comes to selling the all-important Obamacare. Daniel Greenfield’s important point is that, while the two men intentionally project very different images, they are both totalitarians at heart, doing what they need to seize absolute power in their own countries.

***

Too many Jewish families fail to realize how antisemitic American college campuses have become. Nor is this antisemitism confined to fringe departments. Instead, it’s front and center, and increasingly enforced with physical threats and actual violence.

***

“Never before has our nation seen corruption on this scale.” John Hinderaker’s Obamacare epitaph, after reading one liberal woman’s description of her Obamacare travails — and what it finally took to fix the problem.

Filed Under: Open Threads Tagged With: Barack Obama, Hellfire Missiles, Internet, Social Justice, Special Forces, Tomahawk Missiles, Vladimir Putin

Pope Francis’s Marxist economic analysis reflects the Left’s long march through the Catholic Church

December 10, 2013 by Bookworm 51 Comments

Pope Francis

Pope Francis’s recent “Apostolic Exhortation Evangeli Gaudium of the Holy Father Francis, to the Bishops, Clerk, Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World” outraged conservatives, most notably Rush Limbaugh, because it attacks capitalism.  Even though I trust Rush, he admitted that he was just relying on Reuters when he expressed his dismay that Pope Francis would take on the free-market.   I therefore decided to read the Exhortation myself to see if Reuters (which approved of the exhortation) and Rush (who did not approve) were right.  I ended up skimming the 224-page document to get a sense of context and to assure myself that Rush was not misled by Reuters and that Reuters was not misled by its own ideology.   As it happens, both Reuters and Rush were right.

Before I begin, though, let me say that the Pope’s economic remarks are only a small fraction of a larger work that should not be ignored.  Indeed, when Pope Francis is not addressing specifically economic issues, the faithful should pay attention to his words if the Church is to survive in a world with increasing competition for people’s souls.

Pope Francis points out that these external pressures on the Catholic Church include competition from other religions, as well as pressure from what the Pope describes as a world “pervaded as it is by consumerism,” that breeds “the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.”  Because of this this highly competitive ideological market, the Pope says — rightly, I think — that the Church must update and adapt its tactics, both among the faithful and to outsiders, while still keeping to its core mission of spreading Christ’s words and ministering to his flock.

But what about his Marxist language? Yes, it’s there and it’s really Marxist. Here are just a few excerpts to give you the flavor:

Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality.

[snip]

Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized:without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.

At one level, these words repeat what the Church has said since its inception, which is that the faithful have an obligation to the poor. What’s new, and what cannot be denied, is that the words the Pope uses — e.g., “inequality,” “exploitation,” and “oppression” — have a definite pink, Marxist tinge. In the next paragraph, that tinge goes full red as the Pope makes an explicit attack against capitalism:

In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.

It’s rather peculiar that Pope Francisco says that capitalism “has never been confirmed by the facts.” The history of world economic successes and failures should prove all the facts that anyone could want.  The countries with the highest standards of living have always been capitalist. Moreover, as I noted in an earlier post, true capitalism has social and economic mobility. In a free market, while poverty inevitably exists (“For ye have the poor always with you,” Matthew 26:11), it’s a way station for people on their way to greater economic security, rather than an end point. In non-capitalist societies, however, the same families are mired in poverty for generations. This situation reaches its apex in communist societies, where entire populations are mired in poverty for generations.

The Pope doubles down on his Marxist economic analysis when he defends a managed economy as the best way to relieve income “inequality.” He seems unaware that economic inequality is not a byproduct of capitalism but is, instead, a byproduct of managed economies with their inevitable “crony capitalism” (which is a fancy word for corruption).

While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.

There’s no way to pretty this up. The Pope is not saying that the best economic system is a free market system tempered by a moral citizenry.  Moreover, if he’s saying that poor Third World countries suffer from free-market systems, and that these systems explain their appalling poverty, he’s just wrong. The fact is that poor, Third World countries don’t suffer from an excess of free-market systems. They suffer from corrupt governments, medieval theocracies, and socialist economic systems, all of which use the strong hand of government to interfere with the marketplace.

The laws of economics are both as abstract and as inexorable as the laws of physics. Governments that try to override them only end up perverting their inevitable, implacable outcomes. Icarus soared for a few minutes until his poorly designed wax wings ended in his fatal fall to earth. Government interference works for a few years as it pumps paper money into the economy, or redistributes from rich to poor, but then true wealth disappears and the managed, manipulated economy collapses, leaving a few winners (usually government cronies) and a lot of desperately poor losers. We give our losers welfare, but they’re still losers in a system in which true wealth diminishes as the government continuously impoverishes the wealth-creators in our society.

Okay. So the Pope went full Marxist. Why did he do that? I think the answer is a simple one: he’s from Latin America. The Latin American Catholic Church went Leftist in the 1950s and 1960s, when it developed “liberation theology.” This time line coincides perfectly with Pope Francis’s coming-of-age as a Catholic priest.

“Liberation theology” is a pure Leftist doctrine tacked onto Catholicism:

Liberation theology proposes to fight poverty by addressing its alleged source: sin. In so doing, it explores the relationship between Christian theology — especially Roman Catholic theology — and political activism, especially in relation to social justice, poverty, and human rights. The principal methodological innovation is seeing theology from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed. For example Jon Sobrino, S.J., argues that the poor are a privileged channel of God’s grace.

Some liberation theologians base their social action upon the Bible scriptures describing the mission of Jesus Christ, as bringing a sword (social unrest), e.g. Isaiah 61:1, Matthew 10:34, Luke 22:35–38 — and not as bringing peace (social order)[better source needed]. This Biblical interpretation is a call to action against poverty, and the sin engendering it, to effect Jesus Christ’s mission of justice in this world.

Gustavo Gutiérrez gave the movement its name with his book A Theology of Liberation (1971). In this book, Gutierrez combined populist ideas with the social teachings of the Catholic Church. He was influenced by an existing socialist current in the Church which included organizations such as the Catholic Worker Movement and the French Christian youth worker organization, “Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne”. He was also influenced by Paul Gauthier’s “The Poor, Jesus and the Church” (1965). Gutierrez’s book is based on an understanding of history in which the human being is seen as assuming conscious responsibility for human destiny, and yet Christ the Savior liberates the human race from sin, which is the root of all disruption of friendship and of all injustice and oppression.

Gutierrez also popularized the phrase “preferential option for the poor”, which became a slogan of liberation theology and later appeared in addresses of the Pope. Drawing from the biblical motif on the poor, Gutierrez asserts that God is revealed as having a preference for those people who are “insignificant,” “marginalized,” “unimportant,” “needy,” “despised” and “defenseless.” Moreover, he makes clear that terminology of “the poor” in scripture has social and economic connotations that etymologically go back to the Greek word, ptōchos. To be sure, as to not misinterpret Gutierrez’s definition of the term “preferential option,” he stresses, “Preference implies the universality of God’s love, which excludes no one. It is only within the framework of this universality that we can understand the preference, that is, ‘what comes first.'”

As you can see, liberation theology’s defining concept is “social justice,” which is what all Leftist faiths (Unitarians, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Reform and Conservative Jews, etc.) espouse. The United Nations, in 2006, explicitly defined “social justice” as economic redistribution:

The United Nations’ 2006 document “Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations”, states that “Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth…” The same document reports, “From the comprehensive global perspective shaped by the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, neglect of the pursuit of social justice in all its dimensions translates into de facto acceptance of a future marred by violence, repression and chaos.” The report concludes, “Social justice is not possible without strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies.”

So no, you’re not imagine that Pope Francis is preaching Marxism to the flock. He is a product of his time and place: namely the Catholic Church in Latin America from the 1950s through to the present. The Church there is a Marxist institution and he has absorbed those teachings.

What we are seeing is simply another example of the Left’s march through institutions. The Quakers, once pacifists, now promote the Palestinian’s genocidal ambitions against Israel. The Girl Scouts of America, once a youth organization promoting wholesome values for children, now sponsors pro-abortion speakers and is basically run by a far-Left drag queen who made anti-woman, pseudo-snuff videos.  The Boy Scouts of America now allows gays (showing that, on the Left, its okay if troop leaders or older scouts molest little boys into the future, but it’s not okay if priests in the 1960s once molested little boys).  Notre Dame, once a bastion of Catholic education in America, now invites Barack Obama to give pro-abortion speeches on its campus.  Hollywood, which once was run by patriotic Republicans, now promotes anti-American Leftism throughout the world.  And of course, there’s the pervasive Leftism that now permeates America’s public schools and all of its universities.

When we read the Pope’s words, it’s important to understand that he doesn’t see himself as a Marxist.  He is, instead, preaching core Church doctrine as he sees it.  The problem is that, while no one was really paying attention, core Church doctrine in Latin America fell victim to the Left’s long march through institutions.  When Francis was given the papacy, he simply took that ingrained doctrine with him.  Now that he is Pope, he’s not just spreading Christ’s gospel, he’s spreading the gospel of Liberation Theology, which he was trained to see as inextricably intertwined with Catholicism itself.

There is no doubt in my mind but that Pope Francis is a truly good man, graced with extraordinary compassion.  He loves the Church and does not wish to see it destroyed.  The primary purpose of the Exhortation is to allow the church to grow and thrive in modern times.

Given Pope Francis’s mission and his goal, it’s tragic that he fails to see that the Marxist, redistributive policies he genuinely believes are part of Catholic doctrine also spell the death knell for the Church.  Why do I say that?  I say that because I defy you to name me one society in the world that managed to be both socialist and communist, and still be genuinely (as opposed to nominally) Christian.  To the extent that Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, revolves around the individual — his conscience, his soul, his redemption, his relation to Christ, his worthiness to live (“I say to you, choose life”) — Christianity is antithetical to socialism, which promotes the collective at the expense of the individual and replaces the individual’s conscience with the demands of the state.

Filed Under: Christians Tagged With: Apostolic Exhortation Evangeli Gaudium, Catholic Church, Liberation Theology, Marxism, Pope Francis, Redistribution, Social Justice

Writing this blog is a labor of love. However, if you'd like to donate money for my efforts, please feel free to do so:

Top Posts & Pages

  • Bookworm Beat 4/22/2018 -- the Earth Day illustrated edition
  • Like Thomas Sowell, it was life facts that made me conservative
  • Bookworm Beat 4/20/2018 -- the "no stoners here" illustrated edition
  • Viral photos showing Paris in its death throes
  • [VIDEO] All theories about our universe are matters of faith

Recent Comments

  • NeoWayland on [VIDEOS] Mothering blacks to death and cops are the good guys
  • NRA4Life on [VIDEOS] Mothering blacks to death and cops are the good guys
  • Tonestaple on RIP, Barbara Bush
  • NeoWayland on [VIDEOS] Mothering blacks to death and cops are the good guys
  • NeoWayland on [VIDEOS] Mothering blacks to death and cops are the good guys

The Watcher’s Council

  • Ask Marion
  • Bookworm Room
  • The Daley Gator
  • Don Surber
  • The Glittering Eye
  • Fausta's Blog
  • GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD
  • The Independent Sentinel
  • JoshuaPundit
  • Maggie's Notebook
  • New Zeal
  • Nice Deb
  • The Noisy Room
  • Politically Short
  • Puma By Design
  • The Razor
  • The Right Planet
  • Virginia Right!
  • Watcher Of Weasels
Although this is a WordPress blog, it's on a dedicated server. This means that, if you have a WordPress.com ID, it will not work here. To leave comments at Bookworm Room, please register here.

Pages

  • Books!
  • Bookworm’s Books
  • Contact Bookworm
  • Easy Ways To Teach Kids
  • Fighting Keyboardists

Archives

Categories

  • 9/11
  • Abortion
  • Activism
  • Afghanistan
  • Africa
  • African-Americans
  • America
  • Animal rights
  • Anti-Americanism
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Arabs
  • Argentina
  • Art
  • Australia
  • Barack Obama
  • BBC
  • Bill Clinton
  • Bits and Pieces
  • Blogfriends
  • Blogs and Blogging
  • Books
  • Britain
  • Bureaucracy
  • California
  • Canada
  • Capitalism
  • Carly Fiorina
  • Children
  • China
  • Chris Christie
  • Christians
  • Civil War
  • Climate change
  • College Course Catalogs
  • Communism
  • Congress
  • Conservative ideology
  • Constitution
  • Corruption
  • Crime and punishment
  • Cuba
  • Cuba
  • Culture
  • Death penalty
  • Democrats
  • Denmark
  • Donald Trump
  • Ebola
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Egypt
  • Elections
  • Energy
  • England
  • Environmentalism
  • Europe
  • Euthanasia
  • Feminism
  • France
  • Free speech
  • Freedom
  • Gay marriage
  • GBLT
  • Gender
  • George Soros
  • Germany
  • Germany
  • Government
  • Greece
  • Hamas
  • Health
  • Hezbollah
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Holland
  • Hollywood
  • Holocaust
  • Homosexuality
  • Identity politics
  • Illustrated editions
  • Immigration
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • ISIS
  • Islam
  • Islamic State/ISIS
  • Israel
  • Japan
  • Jews
  • Jihad
  • Jimmy Carter
  • John McCain
  • Jordan
  • Judges
  • Judicial activism
  • Just Because Music
  • Law
  • Lefties on Parade
  • Leftist morality
  • Liberal Fascism
  • Libertarianism
  • Libya
  • Marin County
  • Marriage
  • Media matters
  • Men
  • Mexico
  • Mike Huckabee
  • Military
  • Morality
  • Multiculturalism
  • Muslim violence
  • National Security
  • Nazis
  • Newt Gingrich
  • North Korea
  • Norway
  • Open Threads
  • Pakistan
  • Palestinians
  • Parenting
  • personal responsibility
  • Police
  • Political correctness
  • Politics
  • Presidential elections
  • Race
  • Rand Paul
  • Religion
  • Republicans
  • Revolutionary War
  • Rick Perry
  • Russia
  • San Francisco
  • Sarah Palin
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Science
  • Second Amendment
  • Self-reliance
  • Semantics
  • Sex
  • Silly Stuff
  • Socialism
  • South Africa
  • Strict constructionism
  • Sweden
  • Syria
  • Taxes
  • Tea Parties
  • Ted Cruz
  • Tipping Points
  • Truth
  • Tunisia
  • Turkey
  • Unions
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Nations
  • Uplifting stories
  • Venezuela
  • Vietnam
  • War crimes
  • Watcher of Weasels
  • Welfare
  • White House
  • Women
  • World War II

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2018 · Bookworm Pro News Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in