Back in the late 80’s, Rush was the only one on the radio questioning the wisdom of the entrenched establishment of liberalism - which virtually controlled the media. . . He did so by himself and ended up gaining a large following and starting a cottage industry of conservative talk radio.
There were others before Rush, the Bob Grants etc. Reagan defeating the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, helped Rush. (I’m not saying that was a bad thing as free speech is essential ) So he is a very good businessman who paved the way for the Hannities, Beck, O’Reillies to follow suit. His success is no different than Fox News a decade later, as the beneficiary of an untapped market that the dominant broadcast media & print had inadvertently cultivated & galvanized via their arrogant attempts to socially engineer their desired voting bloc. He’s a businessman first. Like Fox News and Ailes, he is no more a crusader for the good than they are. And in politics, good businessmen, make good friends with those who wield, need to keep, or covet more power.
Fast forward decades later – just because the Conservative Media profits from both a hybrid entertainment/ ideological product to sell to those being repulsed by the Left who control the media, that effectual success does not necessarily validate the messages of Mr. Limbaugh and co. There is not any more credence amongst his ilk, than there is amongst the successfully revered Journalists and Pontificators on the Left, who gather their rewards and acclaim in front of cameras and live audiences.
Where Leftists set up Sunday programs, award shows to give the illusion of important persons, consisting of sages, and intellectuals at a round table – Conversely, (while more in the business on the right , could be honest and sincere as there are many diverse hosts today who accept a light stigma for their profession as the “right winger” ) ones message is not validated by the number of books to be sold every year, which is ultimately the equivalent illusion of credibility for the Right.
Furthermore, your attempt to equate capitalism with marxism is ignorant of the fact that the Church has never condemned capitalism per se. However, it has condemned socialism as inherently evil…“the problem with capitalism is capitalists. The problem with socialism is socialism.” WFB
Where did my post equate capitalism with marxism? Marx & Engles political thought (along with others in the 1800’s ) was a
godless response to the injustices of unfettered Capitalism of the Industrial Revolution. Buckley made the mistake in dismissing the Popes too, but he was Catholic, so it was more regrettable for him to do so.
Capitalism can be evil when practiced by evil capitalists. Socialism, otoh, is inherently evil as it denies human nature.
That presumes that Capitalism as a system is inherently neutral, because Socialism is not. No system is neutral. One is more corrosively abusive than the other. And because Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, all forms and systems are going to be wanting or corruptible. See the Freemasonic notion of Church and State embedded in our Republic: what Pope Pius X called a most pernicious error ]
Unfortunately because the ills of 20th Century’s implementation of Leftist socio-political solutions to “Capitalism” has wrought greater evils, we get lulled into thinking that “Free Markets” “Economic Liberty” are terms that should ignite hope, neglecting to realize that certain powers with vast wealth who encourage these buzzwords every four years, have no interest in encouraging the values of alleviating or stopping the injustices that do oppress the poor, that they do benefit only the very wealthy who own public office holders – that do punish the lower middle class and do close doors and ladders of opportunity to people under the guise of curing the lurch to the Left or Right every four years.
I hope that this recent political uproar over this new pontificate will wake up many American Catholics about building their house on the sand of both political parties and ideologies as they currently stand.
One’s political preferences on how government should run exactly and how economies should work, should not de-evolve into a pseudo-religion, as Americanism has developed in much of the minds of its Citizenry. This is why the Political Parties have caused such division amongst Catholics even in this board and amongst the Prelates themselves since the 1930’s and why to this day one can find Catholics on both conservative and liberal messageboards; failing to realize they have both been misled on certain things, when hitching their wagons where they should not be hitched.
For instance, not once have I heard about “JUST WAGES” or the content of the dignity of the Worker in Rerum Novarum brought up whenever Capitalism is discussed , and like I said William Buckley Jr. and National Review and Austrian School of Economics , have all contributed to this false dilemma that because the Church condemns Marxist Philosophy, All Capitalistic Rhetoric is always therefore good.
The objections you have posited have been unwittingly leading into more an argument in semantics of economic exchange rather than the weight of evils between the two general philosophical terms.
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"Does Capitalism Exist? " **
youtube.com/watch?v=7ra0d_1OVfQ
To give an idea of where I may be speaking from…
Fulton Sheen breaks down certain misconceptions that is fed about Capitalism, and the false predictions that Marx had in his atheist based philosophical “solutions”