Pope urges global elite to aid the poor

america.aljazeera.com...

“Pope Francis, who made his name caring for the poor in Argentina, is urging the world's political, financial and business elite attending the World Economic Forum to use their expertise to help the poor. In a message read on Tuesday to the annual gathering of the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, Francis said, "I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it."”

Here’s a man with some uncommon common sense…encouraging the elite rich ( the 85 ) to help the poor.
It’s no secret humankind no longer has excuses for having in its midst extreme poverty ANYWHERE on the planet when we have mass communication unlike anytime in the past. Indeed, people can be sitting down eating their supper of steak and caviar watching children starve to death on a CNN documentary. How vile the existential fact of that is!

In past times, before mass communication there was no easy way that the average person living in, for example, one part of the world could easily know that just in a neighboring country people were starving to death for no fault of their own. Today that is largely impossible.

Only certain philosophies of selfishness and abysmal ignorance do some use to maintain this status quo, as people actually claim the rich are some special kind of people and should be left alone to hoard their wealth and continually be allowed to rig the game so they will not only maintain their ill gotten gain but reap more and more and more.

On Tuesday, the pope’s overall tone was not as condemnatory as a similar message in his first major policy statement, which was issued in November and denounced trickle-down economics and a system that “tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits.” In another section, Pope Francis wrote that he was begging “the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor” – a call that President Barack Obama heard, and answered with a major speech calling income inequality and social immobility the key twinned issues which will be the focus of his second term. Obama called growing income inequality in the United States “the defining challenge of our time,” and quoted from the pope’s apostolic exhortation: “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?” Obama is expected to address inequality in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28 with discussions of the need for a higher minimum wage, universal pre-school and closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy.

Any macro economy is like a reservoir that we all share and influence in our own way, those entrusted with wealth have a unique input into this macro economy and have often poisoned this economic reservoir to their own selfish aggrandizement (such as the 2007-8 depression) to the detriment to the whole body of people who have to feed off this economic entity, and the poor and near poor get affected negatively the most when the elite rich do scams like in 2007-8.

In this age of opulent wealth and technological capacity unlike anytime in history poverty is rising up across the world and only people of influence like the pope can maybe persuade the filthy rich to understand that they can’t die with their money, it won't help them in death…so why not lend a helping hand in using this massive horde of resources to save millions of lives.

I hope this thread will not become another ideological fight but rather a positive indulgence in ideas that humanity can do to eradicate extreme poverty.

Where talking about the kind of poverty that kills millions of children across this world every year and makes life absolutely unbearable for people.

“According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” www.globalissues.org...

This is not about bashing the rich it as based on love, not hate.

Since it isn’t ONLY the rich the world needs to assist in eradicating extreme poverty, we all can do our share to raise humanity up to a level of prosperity where all human beings can have a shot at happiness and be free from the vicious suffering of poverty.

I hope we hear more from this pope on this issue, and Obama, and other influential people among ALL political persuasions, for this issue transcends politics and ideology, imo.

Pfft...

Why should the "elites" listen to the Pope anyway? They got theirs... though admittedly there are exceptions to every rule.

I can see one of the elite enablers now, Hank Paulson, reading the memo and getting a good chuckle out of it.

Empty words from an idealistic Pope who may inwardly know that just "ain't happin'n Cap'n" but it sure does have a populist ring to it, doesn't it? Trying to grow the flock maybe?

reply to post by Willtell


Already posted, sorry: www.abovetopsecret.com...

But, I agree with you.

reply to post by Willtell


Already posted, but you have a better title. I said there that one drawback to the American capitalist system is that corporations, by law, must try to gather the most profit for their shareholders. If all major corporations would just give four or five percent to assist the poor with food, housing, clothing, medicine, and salty snacks, the problem would be solved (and a one-percent tax on all stock transactions for these purposes wouldn't hurt).

The Pope has done some really good things, and with this speech he adds to that. Now if he would just do a sit-in on Wall Street (lol) he'd get the media attention this deserves.

I did search this topic and didn’t see anything. If the mods want to do their usual thing…go ahead. It doesn’t matter as long as the message is kept alive.

People talk in another thread about there is no God because look at the suffering.
That’s because WE ARE GOD!

WE have to stop this suffering. The lot of humankind…all of us together or it won’t stop

When God comes…it will stop and believe me the rich will be on the other side of the fence and then they will not only see the error of their ways…they will taste it.

Until then the only God in town is us and we are not doing what we should to be doing.
Looking after each other first and foremost

reply to post by Willtell

WE have to stop this suffering. The lot of humankind…all of us together or it won’t stop

Quite.

I'm agnostic about "God" - but I wouldn't 'bank' on him/her/it showing up here anytime soon. Or ever.

How about the devils at the Vatican open their coffers and help the poor also. The pope is a damned hypocrite.

I'm still waiting for Sarah Palin to call the new pope a "communist".

Please contribute additional posts to previously existing thread located here.

Thanks!

thread closed.