POPE JOHN PAUL II/JAMES CALLAGHAN
(Comments: tony.papard@btinternet.com)
Condoms don't stop HIV. What Crisis?
Why is it when almost anyone dies, especially anyone
famous, they immediately become the greatest person in the field they were in,
or a saint, or both? Here we are in April 2005, and two prominent people have
recently died. Pope John Paul II and James Callaghan, ex-British Prime Minister.
Take James Callaghan first. He is now described by some as one of the greatest
Prime Ministers we ever had. What utter balderdash. He was a terrible Prime
Minister. He was never elected to that office, just took over for three
disastrous years when Harold Wilson suddenly, and mysteriously, resigned.
By 1979, under Callaghan’s premiership, the country was in total chaos. We had
the Winter of Discontent when there were strikes everywhere. Rubbish lay uncollected in the streets, the
country was grinding to a halt. In the middle of all this Callaghan went abroad,
and when he came back his reaction to Press questions resulted in the headlines:
‘Crisis? What crisis?’
Although Callaghan never actually uttered these words, the general impression
was of a bumbling old fool who was totally oblivious to the chaos in the country
and went off abroad in the middle of it. The result was, as we all know, an
election victory for Thatcher in the general election that year, and 18 years of
Tory rule which was only broken when ‘New’ Labour, under Tony Blair, became more
Thatcherite and right-wing than the Tory Party itself. So it could be argued
that Callaghan single-handedly destroyed the last vestiges of Socialism in
Britain.
As to Pope John Paul II, he is credited with being the main instigator for the
fall of Communism. Certainly, being the first Polish pope, he inspired and
encouraged the Solidarity movement. Unfortunately the collapse of Communism also
destroyed the last vestiges of Socialism worldwide, so between them Callaghan
and the late Pope have helped to give unrestrained global capitalism and market
forces, in the Thatcher/Reagan mold, almost free reign both in UK and worldwide.
We are now told, by the Vatican and others, that Pope John Paul II was a great
pope, and he is in future to be referred to as Pope John Paul the Great. Why?
What did he do which was so fantastic?
True he traveled around the world a lot, riding in his Pope-mobile and meeting
the people of many nations. But his doctrine was ultra-conservative. He was
probably personally responsible for thousands of deaths, despite claiming to be
‘pro-life’. By refusing to endorse the use of condoms even to prevent the spread
of HIV/AIDS, this reactionary pope helped to insure that this
epidemic spread rapidly thru the developing world, leaving many dead and dying,
and creating many orphans. Condoms and 'the pill' also prevent unwanted
pregnancies and help control the world population. That millions are starving to
death in the developing world is in no small measure due to lack of family
planning, and the Catholic Church is partly responsible.
This Pope was also against the gay lifestyle calling it sinful, yet conspired with the rest of his Church hierarchy in protecting priests who were sexually abusing minors. What was his Church saying? It's OK to molest children, but not for consenting adults to live together - surely not? No, the Church and Pope were just bumbling along incompetently, blinded by ancient and outdated dogma. He was against the ordination of women priests, and was of course strongly in favor of enforced celibacy for priests, which can only have increased the problems of pedophilia in the priesthood. These policies are homophobic, misogynist and have put minors in constant danger.
Pope John Paul II took his name from Pope John Paul I, who
was only in office for 33 days. This was the jolly, ultra-progressive pope who
threatened, among other things, to dispose of many of the Vatican treasures and
give the proceeds to the poor. What happened to this progressive pope has been
the subject of much conjecture, but the fact is he never lived long enough to
carry out any of his revolutionary plans. He died in mysterious, some would say
very suspicious, circumstances after barely a month in office.
Pope John Paul II was nothing like Pope John Paul I, or even the Pope John who
tried to liberalize the Church, and succeeded to some extent, with the Vatican
II Ecumenical council in 1965. Among other things Pope John introduced the
vernacular to replace Latin in Catholic services, and authorized cremation for
Catholics.
Pope John Paul II never did anything progressive in his long term of office. As
to his role in the fall of Communism, even he seemed disillusioned by what he
set in train. Following the collapse of Communism there were terrible
ethnic/nationalistic wars in former Yugoslavia, and parts of the former Soviet
Union. In former Yugoslavia, which Tito and the Communists had held together
successfully for over 40 years, atrocities occurred such had not been seen since
the Nazi regime of the 1930s and 1940s.
After the fall of Communism, the same people were STILL in
power in many of the former Socialist countries. The corrupt politicians and
ruling class just changed their allegiance from Socialism to Capitalism, grabbed
all the assets of the country (or allowed multi-nationals to grab them),
destroyed all the people’s social security and hung on to power by forming new
nationalistic political parties. Many of these former Communist politicians are
still in power today, 15 or so years after the supposed fall of Communist
dictatorships.
Even where more democratic regimes have replaced Communism,
the people have often fared badly. In former East Germany, for instance,
unemployment and the collapse of the social security system has made many people
regret the reunification of the country. Even West Germans in large numbers feel
this way, because of the strain on the economy caused by reunification. Moreover
the East Germans can still never vote in the government of their choice because
they are now outnumbered by West Germans, so no going back to Socialism for them
until they can win over those in the Western part of the country.
Pope John Paul II was against unrestrained capitalism and
its imperialist wars, but his hatred of Communism blinded him, and many others,
to the evils of Capitalism until it was too late. The Socialist baby was thrown
out with the totalitarian pseudo-Communist bathwater. Before the 1989/1990/1991
upheavals, the foundations of true Socialism existed in these countries, and
much of the infrastructure, but now it has been completely destroyed.
The world is now in a terrible state. No longer is there
any balance between two opposing social systems, and two super-powers. The
United States of America has absolute hegemony over the world economy, starting
wars of aggression wherever it considers its economic or political interests
threatened. The World Bank, IMF, WTO, etc. insure that free market economies are
spread throughout the developed world, and the resulting exploitation of both
human and natural resources has increased the gap between the rich Northern
hemisphere and the poor Southern hemisphere. National debt has bankrupted many
developing countries, and with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Socialist
bloc these countries have nowhere to turn for economic aid but to the
international capitalist financial institutions which are just out to exploit
them and get them further into debt.
All this is the partly due to the legacy of Pope John Paul
II’s political influence, although I’m not suggesting he was solely responsible
for the fall of Communism. There were many other factors which came into play,
not least the corruption and inefficiency within the system itself. But what was
needed was democratization and drastic reform, not the complete
abolition of all forms of Socialism worldwide and unrestrained global capitalism
running amok. HIV/AIDS spreading rapidly thru the developing world, unwanted
pregnancies, sexually repressed Catholic priests running amok and then being
protected by the Church, and the complete destruction of any Socialist moral
principles (or even lip-service to such principles) in politics – this is the
legacy of Pope John Paul II’s tenure in office.
So, in short, James Callaghan and Pope John Paul II spelled
disaster for all progressive forces in the world. Let’s hope it won’t be too
long before some of the damage they did can be undone, and a more enlightened
world order established.
The omens are not good, however. Both Pope John Paul II and President George W.
Bush have filled their legislatures with reactionary ultra-conservative
appointees who will influence decisions for years. In the Vatican this takes the
form of the unprecedented number of conservative cardinals the late pope
created, and in the USA the Supreme Court has been saddled with reactionary
members for years to come. In Russia and Eastern Europe many of the old corrupt
Communist politicians are still in power, and where they have been ousted,
reactionary capitalists politicians have largely taken over.
In the UK we are now saddled with two Conservative Parties. The rightwing New
‘Labour’ Tory Party and the equally rightwing Conservative Party. The Liberal
Democrats now look like raving leftwingers in comparison with the other two
major parties, but under the undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system
Britain (and USA) use, it is very difficult for the LibDems or any smaller party
to beat the system, which was designed for two parties. Most progressives and
true Socialists in the Labour Party have either left, died off or been
neutralized. Tony Blair and his cronies have not the faintest idea what
Socialism is all about. Karl Marx and Keir Hardie are dirty names, never to be
uttered in public. The Red Flag and Clause IV (all about public ownership and
control) have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The bumbling Callaghan
must take a large part of the blame for this situation, for allowing Thatcher-Blairism
to take hold of the country in the wake of the three-day week and resulting
chaos.
Thank you James Callaghan and Pope John Paul II. To paraphrase Oliver Hardy: 'That's another fine mess you've gotten us into'.