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RebeccaJ
Guest
fyi…Her diaries are to be published this month. The Tablet has an article about it.
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why_me
Guest
No problem, we catholic, mormon, agnostics got to stick together.
I am glad that you liked the film.
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why_me
Guest
I understand your opinion. But at that time, liberation theology was a prime mover for liberation in societies that were repressed by a class ridden system. I don’t think that at that time, there was no other choice to be had.
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estesbob
Guest
What system is better?
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ibkc
Guest
Oh, so you think the Catholic Church should be supporting violent revolution to overthrow governments and replace them with Marxist dictatorships?
I see.
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LaMar
Guest
I think Dorothy Day would have defined “better” in the way Jesus would have, which would be the same way Marx and Bakunin would have. Better = less misery, hunger, poverty, violence.
It’s difficult to reconcile North America’s food production capability with the fact that there are children going to bed hungry in every city and town in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. We probably throw away enough food every day to feed the rest of the world. Many working-class (I use that term liberally here) Americans are disgustingly overweight, while their neighbors go hungry.
Dorothy Day looked for the root causes of inequality and economic disparity and tried to remedy them. You guys can quibble about her sainthood, I’ve already canonized her in the Secular Mormon tradition.
St. Dorothy Day, who has done more good for the world than the average Mormon prophet and Catholic pope, inspire people everywhere to start giving a damn about their most needy neighbors. Give us the strength to build a more just world, and give us the inspiration to speak out against oppression. Amen.
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estesbob
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You displeasure with the US is noted. but I asked you which system is better?
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LaMar
Guest
Why does there have to be a system at all? You’re thinking in the capitalist paradigm. You’ve grown up in a world where you expect to serve a master, and you somehow think that a master is necessary. It isn’t.
When my people (the Mormons) were sent out to start up cooperatives and collective farms, they answered to themselves alone. Technically they were in Mexico, but there wasn’t a government official within a thousand miles.
When the first Jewish Palestinians started the first kibbutzim they were in a British dependency, which didn’t recognize them as citizens. They simply organized themselves, made their own laws, and worked collectively.
Real democracy includes an economic democracy aside from the political one. The system is whatever you create it to be, and the laws are whatever you think works best for your collective. That’s the anarchist tradition which Dorothy Day reconciled with Catholicism.
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estesbob
Guest
So you have no solution to offer, just gripes about the way things work now. Or are you suggesting socialism? Can you show us any country where that was effective ?
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LaMar
Guest
I’ve already given you two examples. I’ll give you a third, which is contemporary…
Radical Catholic clergy and secular activists are right now overseeing a very successful program in Chiapas which has lifted thousands of native people out of poverty, and kept them out of sweatshops and brothels.
casacollective.org/
You’ve been conditioned to think of yourself as part of a system which is enslaving you. That’s not an insult, because most people have. Like you, I’ve made a lot of money and enjoyed a decent life in America, but I don’t pretend that what’s going on in the name of capitalism is “OK” at the same time. Open your eyes.
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why_me
Guest
Here is an alternative from the catholic worker:
When we examine our society, which is generally called capitalist (because of its methods of producing and controlling wealth) and is bourgeois (because of prevailing concern for acquisition and material interests, and its emphasis on respectability and mediocrity), we find it far from God’s justice.
–In economics, private and state capitalism bring about an unjust distribution of wealth, for the profit motive guides decisions. Those in power live off the sweat of others’ brows, while those without power are robbed of a just return for their work. Usury (the charging of interest above administrative costs) is a major contributor to the wrongdoing intrinsic to this system. We note, especially, how the world debt crisis leads poor countries into greater deprivation and a dependency from which there is no foreseeable escape. Here at home, the number of hungry and homeless and unemployed people rises in the midst of increasing affluence.
–In labor, human need is no longer the reason for human work. Instead, the unbridled expansion of technology, necessary to capitalism and viewed as “progress,” holds sway. Jobs are concentrated in productivity and administration for a “high-tech,” war-related, consumer society of disposable goods, so that laborers are trapped in work that does not contribute to human welfare. Furthermore, as jobs become more specialized, many people are excluded from meaningful work or are alienated from the products of their labor. Even in farming, agribusiness has replaced agriculture, and, in all areas, moral restraints are run over roughshod, and a disregard for the laws of nature now threatens the very planet.
–In politics, the state functions to control and regulate life. Its power has burgeoned hand in hand with growth in technology, so that military, scientific and corporate interests get the highest priority when concrete political policies are formulated. Because of the sheer size of institutions, we tend towards government by bureaucracy–that is, government by nobody. Bureaucracy, in all areas of life, is not only impersonal, but also makes accountability, and, therefore, an effective political forum for redressing grievances, next to impossible.
–In morals, relations between people are corrupted by distorted images of the human person. Class, race and sex often determine personal worth and position within society, leading to structures that foster oppression. Capitalism further divides society by pitting owners against workers in perpetual conflict over wealth and its control. Those who do not “produce” are abandoned, and left, at best, to be “processed” through institutions. Spiritual destitution is rampant, manifested in isolation, madness, promiscuity and violence.
In contrast to what we see around us, as well as within ourselves, stands St. Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of the Common Good, a vision of a society where the good of each member is bound to the good of the whole in the service of God.
To this end, we advocate:
–Personalism, a philosophy which regards the freedom and dignity of each person as the basis, focus and goal of all metaphysics and morals. In following such wisdom, we move away from a self-centered individualism toward the good of the other. This is to be done by taking personal responsibility for changing conditions, rather than looking to the state or other institutions to provide impersonal “charity.” We pray for a Church renewed by this philosophy and for a time when all those who feel excluded from participation are welcomed with love, drawn by the gentle personalism Peter Maurin taught.
–A decentralized society, in contrast to the present bigness of government, industry, education, health care and agriculture. We encourage efforts such as family farms, rural and urban land trusts, worker ownership and management of small factories, homesteading projects, food, housing and other cooperatives–any effort in which money can once more become merely a medium of exchange, and human beings are no longer commodities.
–A “green revolution,” so that it is possible to rediscover the proper meaning of our labor and/or true bonds with the land; a distributist communitarianism, self-sufficient through farming, crafting and appropriate technology; a radically new society where people will rely on the fruits of their own toil and labor; associations of mutuality, and a sense of fairness to resolve conflicts.
catholicworker.org/aimsandmeanstext.cfm?Number=5
When we examine our society, which is generally called capitalist (because of its methods of producing and controlling wealth) and is bourgeois (because of prevailing concern for acquisition and material interests, and its emphasis on respectability and mediocrity), we find it far from God’s justice.
–In economics, private and state capitalism bring about an unjust distribution of wealth, for the profit motive guides decisions. Those in power live off the sweat of others’ brows, while those without power are robbed of a just return for their work. Usury (the charging of interest above administrative costs) is a major contributor to the wrongdoing intrinsic to this system. We note, especially, how the world debt crisis leads poor countries into greater deprivation and a dependency from which there is no foreseeable escape. Here at home, the number of hungry and homeless and unemployed people rises in the midst of increasing affluence.
–In labor, human need is no longer the reason for human work. Instead, the unbridled expansion of technology, necessary to capitalism and viewed as “progress,” holds sway. Jobs are concentrated in productivity and administration for a “high-tech,” war-related, consumer society of disposable goods, so that laborers are trapped in work that does not contribute to human welfare. Furthermore, as jobs become more specialized, many people are excluded from meaningful work or are alienated from the products of their labor. Even in farming, agribusiness has replaced agriculture, and, in all areas, moral restraints are run over roughshod, and a disregard for the laws of nature now threatens the very planet.
–In politics, the state functions to control and regulate life. Its power has burgeoned hand in hand with growth in technology, so that military, scientific and corporate interests get the highest priority when concrete political policies are formulated. Because of the sheer size of institutions, we tend towards government by bureaucracy–that is, government by nobody. Bureaucracy, in all areas of life, is not only impersonal, but also makes accountability, and, therefore, an effective political forum for redressing grievances, next to impossible.
–In morals, relations between people are corrupted by distorted images of the human person. Class, race and sex often determine personal worth and position within society, leading to structures that foster oppression. Capitalism further divides society by pitting owners against workers in perpetual conflict over wealth and its control. Those who do not “produce” are abandoned, and left, at best, to be “processed” through institutions. Spiritual destitution is rampant, manifested in isolation, madness, promiscuity and violence.
In contrast to what we see around us, as well as within ourselves, stands St. Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of the Common Good, a vision of a society where the good of each member is bound to the good of the whole in the service of God.
To this end, we advocate:
–Personalism, a philosophy which regards the freedom and dignity of each person as the basis, focus and goal of all metaphysics and morals. In following such wisdom, we move away from a self-centered individualism toward the good of the other. This is to be done by taking personal responsibility for changing conditions, rather than looking to the state or other institutions to provide impersonal “charity.” We pray for a Church renewed by this philosophy and for a time when all those who feel excluded from participation are welcomed with love, drawn by the gentle personalism Peter Maurin taught.
–A decentralized society, in contrast to the present bigness of government, industry, education, health care and agriculture. We encourage efforts such as family farms, rural and urban land trusts, worker ownership and management of small factories, homesteading projects, food, housing and other cooperatives–any effort in which money can once more become merely a medium of exchange, and human beings are no longer commodities.
–A “green revolution,” so that it is possible to rediscover the proper meaning of our labor and/or true bonds with the land; a distributist communitarianism, self-sufficient through farming, crafting and appropriate technology; a radically new society where people will rely on the fruits of their own toil and labor; associations of mutuality, and a sense of fairness to resolve conflicts.
catholicworker.org/aimsandmeanstext.cfm?Number=5
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estesbob
Guest
So you want to use a system that has worked only in very small enviroments and has resulted in death and destruction everytime it has been tried on a large scale basis. no thanks
You have been conditioned to think that just because you believe something you can condescendly dismiss everyone else as naive. My eyes are wide open-thank you.
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estesbob
Guest
Good ol communism. Boy that has worked everytime it was tried…
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why_me
Guest
Actually it is called ‘personalism’. Read the catechism and social justice. It is not very complimentary toward capitalism and materialism.
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estesbob
Guest
**2425 **The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for “there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market.” Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.
The Church categorically rejects Communism and Socialism. it accepts Captitalism as long as it is regualated-as it is in this country.
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puzzleannie
Guest
I came back to post more info about Dorothy Day and update on Catholic Worker, but see this thread now belongs in the politics forum (if we had one) and all involved have long since lost interest in topic of OP, so, outa here.
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why_me
Guest
I posted from the aims of the catholic worker. How does that veer offf topic of dorothy day?
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why_me
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It seems that the church supports Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and the idea of Personalism.
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LaMar
Guest
Looks like it rejects Capitalism too, for all the same reason Marx did. Good for the Catholic church. I wish the Mormons had the courage to condemn Capitalism so categorically. We haven’t since Brigham Young died.
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estesbob
Guest
Sorry I hijacked the thread puzzleannie. ill bow out.
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