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| This could alleviate a lot of poverty |
There are approximately 320,000 christian churches in the USA according to a report produced in 2007. They claim over 100 million members. There are tens of millions of people affiliated to other churches which are not Christian. This is an enormously powerful apparatus and force. And with the exception of a tiny handful of these churches, they all support capitalism. They may have, and do have, their differences on this-or-that nonsensical detail of doctrine, but they all with practically no exceptions support capitalism. They meet weekly and indoctrinate their members with their ideas. They drive home their indoctrination by imposing themselves at births, weddings and deaths. These leaders who do this indoctrination are again, with the exception of a tiny few, unelected and male.
How do these organizations support capitalism? They do so by ruling out any alternative. When was the last time a preacher took to the pulpit and identified capitalism as the system that exists and one that had to be overthrown and that it is the working class that can overthrow capitalism? The present pope, another male, and elected by a handful of other celibate males, has recently mentioned capitalism. He does so because he sees that capitalism is on the way to destroying life on earth as we know it. He wants capitalism to recognize this and take measures to change it and he worries that his organization the Catholic church, the main church of capitalism, might go down the tubes along with capitalism if things continue as they are.
But he does not call for capitalism to be overthrown. He just calls for more regulation. His criticism is not of capitalism but of unregulated capitalism. Whenever there was an attempt within the catholic church to seriously oppose capitalism in the form of the liberation theology movement in Latin America for example, the Catholic church hierarchy including this pope, cooperated with US imperialism and the dictatorships and elites of Latin America in putting this movement down in blood. The most widely know death of a prominent figure of this movement was Archbishop Romero.
But to return to Peggy Noonan and her call for the protecting of the "greatest cohering force in America, the churches," This bourgeois journalist is very conscious of the importance of the churches and religion to capitalism, very conscious of the role of these organizations and the religious ideology in the struggle of the capitalist class to dominate the consciousness of the working class. The working class are to be convinced that they should not expect too much on earth, too much from the capitalist system, they will get their reward in heaven if they do what they are told by the hierarchies of their churches. The churches' ideology is very important to capitalism. Noonan is worried that the insanity of the Trump regime and his supporters will expose the real role of the churches and religion and undermine this "cohering force."
The understanding that people like Noonan and publications like the Wall Street Journal have of the importance of the churches to their system was also shown some years ago when the savage sexual exploitation by so many of the full time organizers of the Catholic church, the priests, the bishops etc first exploded into the mass consciousness. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial at the time said sure, things should be cleaned up, but remember the importance of the Catholic church to capitalism how it helps prop the system up, maintain its rule. Yes, Noonan and her class understand how important the churches, the "greatest cohering force" is to their class rule, so that this force can preach for capitalism and make every effort to keep any discussion of socialism off the agenda.
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