Priest (?) does a terrible job attacking M. Moore and defending Supply Side Jesus

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 02:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7dmdN_v5OU   Posted on YouTube: October 05, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 05, 2009 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 1482

 
Yuck. What an idiot.

[tomm2thumbs]

1. I hope this fella isn't receiving tax-free IRS status from our United States government - hmmm???

sounds an awful lot like a political or business organization if you ask me - maybe the IRS needs to take a gander

and if you notice, this fella knows EXACTLY where that camera is at all times - what a playah...

[ihavenobias]

2. I saw the movie Friday.

This video is one of what I'm sure will be many examples of why I think Moore made a mistake in attacking capitalism generically rather than making a more nuanced argument that the true 'evil' is un or under-regulated capitalism coupled with very low tax rates on the rich.

I know some here will flip out over that statement but it's no different than what Thom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders (for example) have been saying for years. Restore and enforce good regulations and top marginal tax rates. Throw in single payer and a focus on rebuilding our broken infrastructure using the funds from the increased rates and there you go. Sure, 'Capitalism: A Love Story' will appeal to many of us here but so what, we already knew or believed much of it. I'm much more concerned with moderates and independents which is again why I think a more nuanced approach would've worked better. Don't get me wrong, *I* liked the movie but I'm part of the choir.

PS---.

[ProfessorPlum]

6. I agree. I saw it on Saturday

the evil isn't capitalism, but unregulated capitalism. It isn't that people are greedy. It's that the government has ceased to exist in any meaningful way, and all we are left with is the greed heads. The problem is that the greedy have captured the government, and how do we change that within the system?

I agree, it's bad strategy, but I see what MM is saying: the economic system of capitalism is a problem without a real democratic political system to govern it. Right now we have capitalism without democracy.

[ProfessorPlum]

3. Let's break down this pile of shit

There doesn't seem to be any lies in the first 30 seconds or so. Then, at about 30 seconds in, the Poor Man's Doocey says that because Moore asks three priests about capitalism and all of them call it evil that "implies that the church (the Church?) is universally against capitalism".

Moore never comes out and says that, but I guess we can let that inference slide. He certainly doesn't feature any priests who praise capitalism in the film.

Then, Fake Priest says that Moore says there is a more Christian way than capitalism. Again, so far so good.

THEN! He lists other enemies of capitalism and links them to Moore. Are you ready for this list?

Marx, Stalin, Hitler (Hitler!!!WTF), Castro, Chavez.

So, right away, instead of engaging MM's points, he lists a bunch of right wing boogeymen.

[ProfessorPlum]

7. Next, at the 1:12 mark, right after quietly admitting that

capitalism might need "some" regulation, he claims that capitalism helps people become more HUMANE!

Wow, that's quite a claim.

To self-determine, to acquire property, he claims, is good, Christian, and human.

I don't seem to remember Jesus singing the praises of acquiring property.

[ProfessorPlum]

8. Next, he gets his panties in a twist that THE GOVERNMENT!!!

is going to be the ones "spreading the wealth". Yeah, asshole, that's the whole idea.

Next, comes a huge strawman, and essentially the only weapon they have against Moore. That because he is playing the game and getting his message out from within the context of a capitalist system, that he is a hypocrite. Now, this is a dumb argument. However, this guy then has to lie about it. (Bearing false witness, anyone?)

First, he claims that MM has said that "capitalism has done nothing for me". The whole first part of Moore's movie is about how great his father and his family had it when he was growing up. Strike one.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. then, Poor Man's Doocy repeats the claim that MM has said

that capitalism has never helped him. They must have this quote in their back pocket somewhere, but I doubt it's authenticity, or perhaps they've caught Moore in an actual contradiction.

At around the 1:55 mark, Fake Priest mocks MM for using "marketing" to promote his film. Yeah, idiot, Moore wants people to go see his movie and get his message, so he naturally wouldn't want people to know about it. Fool.

Then, Fake Priest accuses MM of being "disingenuous". Poor Man's Gretchen Carlson then claims they are glad to hear from the "other side" on whether capitalism is Christian.

Really, PMGC? Did we just hear from the other side? Or just a string of attacks on the messenger?

[Stumbler]

17. On "spreading the wealth"

I wish the viewers of Fox who fall into the lower, working class would realize the fact that "the wealth" they're afraid of spreading is not their own. While they think of themselves as middle-class, they are in fact the working-poor. When Fox pulls out the "spread the wealth" scare tactic, it scares the ill-informed Joe-six-pack into thinking the government's going to take away his whopping $30k earnings and give it to black/brown/lazy people. This in turn causes him to stand up and defend the multi-million dollar salaries of failed, corrupt CEOs, fear- and hate-mongers like Beck, Limbaugh, and Murdoch, and "investment capitalists" who sit around by the pool waiting for the divided check to come in the mail.

I wish I could make all Fox viewers and Limbaugh ditto-heads to listen to Thom Hartmann for a week, while being given page after page of supporting documentation to show how ass-backwards their current beliefs are...

[SF342]

19. A bite of the pie

Fox target audience is a person that has had a bite of the pie....so to speak.

They confuse that with a share of the pie.

I see this day in and day out with the delusional working class...thinking they have a chance.

Why do you think State lotteries are so popular.....this is the deluded masses lifeline.

[bertman]

4. A Fux News Priest. An attention-seeking whore of a priest. Holy Shit.

[Caretha]

22. Well you hit that one right on the ole "nail head"

Next up a Catholic priest who has barely started to shave -
Has lived off the dole of his parents & the church his whole short life -
How many times has this poor schmuck been eligible to vote -
And what is it about seperation of church & state does this young republican Kool-aide drinking hypocrit of a priest not get.

I say let's tax the Vatican...that would be interesting.

[saracat]

5. What an idiot indeed. I notice he was only speaking for himself as well

And since when is acquiring things "christian" ? Very odd.

[seattle_blue]

12. I agree

I must of missed the boat on that one. Since when is obtaining personal property a Christan value?

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yeah, but he's a really cute priest. nt

[EmeraldCityGrl]

11. You can just tell he auditioned in front of his mirror...

An amateur hoping to get a gig on FOX.

[thereismore]

13. Those crossed legs - who sits like that? nt

[my future me]

14. Church's official position on capitalism

From Catechism: 2425 "The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern 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 regulatioln of the marketplace and economic initiative, in keeping with a just hierarch of values and a view to the common good, is to be commmended."

BTW, I am atheist

[saracat]

15. Someone needs to send this to the good father!

[stlsaxman]

16. Isn't that the guy in the pimp costume that did the ACORN videos?

sure as fuck looks like him...

[TheCML]

18. My favorite quote.

I am firmly convinced that whether they know it or not, all who approve and accept competition and struggle against each other as the means whereby we gain our daily bread, do indeed betray and make of no effect the "will of God." - George Lansbury

[chadmak09]

20. there is no way to regulate capitalism in america.

there is no way to regulate capitalism in america until lobbying stops.

As long as those making the laws can profit from the laws they pass, the regulating will just be more capitalism.

America has one choice, remove lobbyists and make it illegal, or there wil never be change. The healthcare debate has show us this much.
Our entire government is a big corporation today and capitalism is the name of the game.

[swilton]

21. How can that idiot 'priest' be used as an 'expert'

to comment on the film when he hasn't even seen the film...

He attributes Michael Moore saying things that he hasn't said...he is so totally uninformed. Usury is/was cleary outlawed by the early church (i.e., Roman Catholicism)-

The idiot even admits that capitalism should be regulated at some point and that is Moore's point. What we have now is unregulated capitalism because we've hired the foxes to guard the henhouses.



I do not believe that this guy is a priest...he would be such an embarrassment. He kept looking at the co-hosts as if waiting for his cues or punch lines or approval. Furthermore, with all that the Catholic Church has done with the Jesuit scholarship, liberation theology, and the lot - this guy (I don't believe he's a priest/some two-bit actor) sets them back to the Dark Ages.

[swilton]

23. Liberation Theology

Is a branch of theology/scholarship within the Catholic Church that is based upon the belief in bringing justice to the poor. Some of its spokespersons have been the late great Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-80) of El Salvador who was assassinated for his advocacy of socialism and his attacks on the ElSalvador governmdng. Liberation theology is the application of Marxism to Christianity.

Wikipedia website =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

As Max Weber noted, capitalism became more strongly associated with protestantism....Think of Ben Franklin and Poor Richard's Almanac and his sayings like A Stitch in Time Saves Nine....Waste Not Want Not....was all about worshiping thrift and making money.

Making money work - saving and earning interest, profit making and the belief in social Darwinism - the Protestant work ethic and social Darwinism, the belief that those who are somehow prosperous have thrived because god favored them and they are more deserving, is associated with Calvinism. I believe that this protestant work ethic/Calvinism is why the US is such an individualist (i.e., sink or swim) country....so many of our countrymen just abhor welfare.

The fact that this 'priest' doesn't know about liberation theology strongly suggests to me that he is a fake. Many outspoken Catholics are liberation theologians.

I myself am like Tolstoy - a pacifist, and belief that those who are the most religious and spiritual are those unaffiliated with any formal organized religion.