Pope Francis Calls Unfettered Capitalism 'Tyranny' and Urges Rich to Share Wealth

THE GUARDIAN: Pontiff's first major publication calls on global leaders to guarantee work, education and healthcare

Pope Francis has attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny", urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.

The 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March.

In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticising the global economic system, attacking the "idolatry of money" and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare".

He also called on rich people to share their wealth. "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. Such an economy kills," Francis wrote in the document issued on Tuesday.

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

The pope said renewal of the church could not be put off and the Vatican and its entrenched hierarchy "also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion".

"I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security," he wrote.

In July, Francis finished an encyclical begun by Pope Benedict but he made clear that it was largely the work of his predecessor, who resigned in February.

Called Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), the exhortation is presented in Francis's simple and warm preaching style, distinct from the more academic writings of former popes, and stresses the church's central mission of preaching "the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ". » | Reuters | Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Romania: The Spectre of Tyranny
A Romanian journalist discovers that the dictatorship of the past still casts an influence over people's lives today.

Which Tyrant Will Fall Next?
THE INDEPENDENT: The Year of Revolution: As the leaders of Syria and Bahrain cling to power, Patrick Cockburn explains how they have managed to resist the protesters – and wonders whether they can survive another 12 months

In three of the Arab countries east of Egypt – Syria, Bahrain and Yemen – protesters have challenged their governments over the past year but failed to overthrow them. The reasons for those failures are very different though they have important points in common. In each of these states protesters were frustrated because a significant part of the population had a lot to lose if the ruling elite were reformed or overthrown.

In Syria and Bahrain religious identity helps explain loyalty to the powers-that-be. Protesters in Bahrain might insist that their programme was secular and democratic, but everybody knew that a fair poll would affect revolutionary change by putting the majority Shia in power instead of the minority Sunni. In Syria, similarly, democracy means that the Sunni, three quarters of the population, would effectively replace the Alawites, a heterodox Shia sect, as rulers of the state. » | Patrick Cockburn | Thursday, December 29, 2011

Muammar Gaddafi: Inside the Mind of a Tyrant
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: As Colonel Gaddafi retreats deeper into paranoia, Michael Burleigh assesses the lessons to be learnt from history’s despots.

This week, newly released papers from the German government revealed something rather pertinent for those considering what the embattled Col Gaddafi’s next trick would be. The papers declared that on May 27, 1980, Gaddafi handed a written demand to Günter Held, the West German ambassador in Tripoli, for the eyes of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

He insisted that Schmidt expel exiled Libyan opponents of his regime who were living in Germany. If the Chancellor refused, Gaddafi swore he would take “counter-measures” against 2,500 Germans in Libya, including the few being held in jail. The Colonel asked if West Germany wanted “to co-operate with traitors – or the Libyan people”. He even offered to stop subsidising Red Army Faction terrorists, provided, of course, that Schmidt allowed him to liquidate “a relatively small number of people” living on German soil.

This, in a nutshell, is Gaddafi’s modus operandi. He bears grudges heavily, is never shy of wreaking blood-soaked havoc or proffering deadly threats – and has next to no sense of reality outside his own paranoid bunker.

Now Libya’s fate, and the credibility of the coalition’s governments, hinges on what this devious and ruthless man is thinking inside his Tripoli military-cum-residential compound. In power for 41 years, Gaddafi is not what his son Saif’s friend, Peter Mandelson, calls “a quitter”. » | Michael Burleigh | Friday, March 25, 2011

Robert Fisk: First It Was Saddam. Then Gaddafi. Now There's a Vacancy for the West's Favourite Crackpot Tyrant
THE INDEPENDENT: Gaddafi is completely bonkers, a crackpot on the level of Ahmadinejad and Lieberman

So we are going to take "all necessary measures" to protect the civilians of Libya, are we? Pity we didn't think of that 42 years ago. Or 41 years ago. Or... well, you know the rest. And let's not be fooled by what the UN resolution really means. Yet again, it's going to be regime-change. And just as in Iraq – to use one of Tom Friedman's only memorable phrases of the time – when the latest dictator goes, who knows what kind of bats will come flying out of the box?

And after Tunisia, after Egypt, it's got to be Libya, hasn't it? The Arabs of North Africa are demanding freedom, democracy, liberation from oppression. Yes, that's what they have in common. But what these nations also have in common is that it was us, the West, that nurtured their dictatorships decade after decade after decade. The French cuddled up to Ben Ali, the Americans stroked Mubarak, while the Italians groomed Gaddafi until our own glorious leader went to resurrect him from the political dead.

Could this be, I wonder, why we have not heard from Lord Blair of Isfahan recently? Surely he should be up there, clapping his hands with glee at another humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he is just resting between parts. Or maybe, like the dragons in Spenser's Faerie Queen, he is quietly vomiting forth Catholic tracts with all the enthusiasm of a Gaddafi in full flow. » | Robert Fisk | Saturday, March 19, 2011

We Won't Trouble Saudi's Tyrants with Calls to Reform While We Crave Their Oil
THE GUARDIAN: Unrest will be seen as destabilising for western governments too until our dependency on Riyadh's tap is curbed

Did you hear it? The clamour from western governments for democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White House and No 10 about the shootings on Thursday, the suppression of protests on Friday, the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday? No? Nor did I.

Did we miss it, or do they believe that change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than it is in Libya? If so, on what grounds? The democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit places Libya 158th out of 167, and Saudi Arabia 160th. At least in Libya, for all the cruelties of that regime, women are not officially treated as lepers were in medieval Europe.

Last week, while explaining why protests in the kingdom is unnecessary, the foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, charmingly promised to "cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters". In other parts of the world this threat would have been figurative; he probably meant it. If mass protests have not yet materialised in Saudi Arabia, it's because the monarchy maintains a regime of terror, enforced with the help of torture, mutilation and execution.

Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the Saudi autocracy than they were in the court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003. The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the al-Yamamah deals.

Why? Future weapons sales doubtless play a role. But there's an even stronger imperative. A few days ago the French bank Société Générale warned that unrest in Saudi Arabia could push the oil price to $200 a barrel.

Abdullah's kingdom is the world's last "swing producer": the only nation capable of raising crude oil production if it falls elsewhere, or if demand outstrips supply. As a result, political disruption there is as threatening to the stability of western governments as it is to the Saudi regime. Probably more so, as our leaders wouldn't get away with gunning us down in the street. Continue reading and comment » | George Monbiot | Tuesday, March 15, 2011

My comment on this article:

Excellent article! Thank you, Mr. Monbiot.

Western leaders, including British politicians and captains of industry, perhaps more especially the British trolls, have been a-scraping, brown-nosing in the Gulf for as long as I can remember. They don’t give a-you-know-what for the well-being of the British expats that work in the Kingdom. Nor do they care about democracy. They care only for their order books. Anybody and anything that comes in the way of a good order just gets trampled on. The British establishment’s behaviour is quite disgusting and despicable in this regard. They are all self-aggrandizing, self-serving, unprincipled hypocrites, almost to a man. They couldn’t give a damn about principles; they care only about lining their own pockets. It’s a case of ‘Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! Three bags full, Sir!’ – © Mark

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We Can No Longer Live Under Gaddafi's Evil Subjugation
THE GUARDIAN: Libya's oil has protected its regime from criticism abroad. But those who support democracy must back our fight for freedom

'Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt. Libya is different, if there is disturbance it will split into several states." These were the words of the son of Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, on Libyan state TV on Sunday.

He is right of course; Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia. It is a country of over 600,000 sq miles of land, populated by less than 7 million people. Since 1969 it has known just one leader – a man who has shown merciless cruelty to anyone who speaks out against him, the regime or the revolution he headed. It is a country built on the foundations of tribal unity and which, despite having the largest oil reserves in Africa, continues to allow two-thirds of its citizens to live below the poverty line. It is also a country that cannot boast of long ties with Europe and the west, having only in the last few years made amends with its neighbours across the Mediterranean after years of US- and UN-imposed sanctions.

After "coming in from the cold" in 2004, European ties with Libya developed rapidly. As it stands Libya is the third biggest supplier of oil to Europe, having recently surpassed Saudi Arabia. Its proximity to Europe, its unexplored terrain and its relative lack of foreign investment made Libya a gem worth cultivating to the oil-dependent economies of the west. The fact that its leader may publicly hang dissident students was of no great concern as long as his philosophy of intolerance extended to, and adequately suppressed, the supposed extreme "threat" of Islamism.

However, the events of the last few days have forced world leaders to re-examine their relationship with the crumbling regime. Accounts of unprovoked sniper attacks on peaceful demonstrators, the use of violent foreign mercenaries as a means of crowd control, live ammunition being shot into crowds of protesters, and the media blackout that tried (unsuccessfully) to prevent the world from finding out, has brought about new focus and attention to the plight of the Libyan people and to the reaction of their inhumane leader.

As he addressed the nation, Saif's feebly masked threats were received angrily by protesters in the streets. His claims that the celebrations of the people of Benghazi, Darnah and al-Bayda had been brought about by drunk and drugged youths led to furious chanting and jeering against Gaddafi and his son. His warnings of the possibility of separatism and civil war evoked slogans emphasising the unity of the Libyan people and their intention to support each other till they had achieved victory. >>> Mohamed Abdul Malek | Monday, February 21, 2011

Barack Obama Tells Africa to Stop Blaming the West for Its Woes on Historic Ghana Visit
THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama has delivered the most challenging speech by a US leader in Africa for decades by castigating the continent's leadership for creating a culture of "brutality and bribery".

Adopting a tone his white predecessors never dared employ, the US President told Africa it could no longer blame the West for all its woes.

"Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner," he told the Ghanaian parliament. "But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants."

Seeking to jolt Africa's politicians out of a complacent belief that his shared ancestry with them would soften his rhetoric, Mr Obama spoke with withering directness.

Condemning tyrannical African leaders who "enrich themselves" amid the continent's chronic poverty, he promised fresh "partnerships" only with states that were well-governed.

For the kleptocrats and autocrats who still sprinkle the continent, he had a simple message: enough is enough.

"No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery," he said. "That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."

Traditional "strong man" rulers must give way to "strong institutions" if they are to benefit from future Western assistance, he said.

"We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don't," he told the country's parliament from a podium draped in traditional yellow and green kente cloth.

"Development depends on good governance, and that is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many countries. That's the change which can unlock African potential, but that is a responsibility which must be met by Africans.

"Africa's future is up to Africans." >>> Mike Pflanz in Accra | Saturday, July 11, 2009

America: From Freedom to Fascism*

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*Viewpoints expressed in these videos are the viewpoints of the the maker of the videos and the people interviewed therein.

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
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