My Kinda Pope

Pope Francis is causing an absolute furor among all those pious (and impious, too) free market capitalists out there. Fox News, for example. He has said what needed to be said by the Church long since. In effect that the trickle-down nonsense that's been served up by the conservatives since before Reagan--you know what I'm talking about: the notion that wealth will trickle down from the rich in society to the less rich and poor by some sort of magical process involving tax cuts for everybody, but especially the really well off. See Wiki article.

In a new 85-page "apostolic exhortation," (You can find a good summary of the document's salient points here.) Pope Francis has basically played the bullshit card. A couple of samples:

The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings. (So much for Wall Street.)

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? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. (So much for income inequality.)

And this beauty, which no one can misunderstand:

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. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.

I like this guy. How can you not like him when he gives Rush Limbaugh apoplexy?