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.
edit on 22-1-2014 by Willtell because: (no reason given)