RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/pope_francis_goes_full_communist.html

In an encyclical published on Sunday, Pope Francis announced that he’d had an epiphany thanks to the Wuhan virus: It’s time to ditch capitalism. But that’s not all. He believes, too, that in a time of a serious infectious disease, we should focus even harder on open borders.  And he blithely upended almost two millennia of Church doctrine by doing away with St. Augustine’s “just war” theory.

These actions reflect Francis’s Catholic upbringing within the communist “liberation theology” of the Latin American church. They may also show the effects of his ongoing alliance with Chinese communists and with Muslims.

Fox Business sums up the gist of Francis’s communist dreams (emphasis mine):

“Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”

He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.

“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”’

[snip]

As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few — an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be).

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/italy-muslim-migrant-murders-priest-pope-calls-robert-spencer/

The irrepressible Pope Francis is at it again: in his Angelus address last Sunday, he announced: “Today the Church celebrates the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. I greet the refugees and migrants present in the Square around the monument entitled ‘Angels, unawares,’ which I blessed last year.” He spoke with sympathy about “the internally displaced, who are forced to flee, as also happened to Jesus and his family. ‘Like Jesus, forced to flee,’ likewise the displaced, migrants. Our remembrance and our prayer to them, in a particular way, and to those who assist them,”

Yet this came just days after Mahmoudi Ridha, a Muslim migrant from Tunisia, murdered a Catholic priest in Italy, Fr. Roberto Malgesini. After killing Malgesini, Ridha crowed: “The priest died like a dog, that was right.” According to Church Militant, in the wake of the murder, “police have categorically rejected the Italian bishops’ claim” that Ridha “had mental problems.”

After the murder, Pope Francis, as determined as ever to ignore the grim reality of Islamic jihad, declared that Ridha was “a person in need” and “malata di testa,” which is bad Italian for either “sick in the head” or a “headache.”

“I am not sure if Pope Francis is being deliberately ambiguous or speaking poor Italian as he often does,” said an Italian linguist. “Of course, he wouldn’t like his pro-migrant, pro-Muslim narrative to be disrupted if the assassin were found to have jihadi motives.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/10/04/china_foreign_affairs_and_the_anti-ideology_delusion_144345.html

The China challenge has revived an old and often arid quarrel about the relationship in foreign affairs between ideas and interests. Reconsidering that quarrel in light of the ideas that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) professes and the interests the People’s Republic of China (PRC) pursues provides a fresh understanding of the threats that China poses to freedom. 

The extreme form of the debate is generally confined to the domain of political science professors in the field of international relations. On one side stand the so-called realists. 

They maintain that the distribution of power within the international system — including the logic of, and the interests inherent in, countries’ particular geopolitical circumstances — drives nation-state conduct. On the other side stand those classified as idealists. They contend that a country’s ideas — government officials’ leading principles and favored doctrines, the people’s customary opinions and perspectives, and the habits of heart and mind of both — provide the key to nation-state conduct. These pure views appear among commentators and policymakers in watered-down form as dominant intellectual tendencies.

The case of the CCP and of the Chinese nation that it despotically governs proves the wisdom of the common-sense view: as with individuals so too with nation-states, ideas and interests are inextricably connected. The ideas to which the CCP is committed — a distinctive blend of dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and extreme Chinese nationalism — undergird the regime’s dictatorial rule at home. These ideas also fuel the party’s ambition to bring under Beijing’s sovereign control formerly free and democratic Hong Kong, still free and democratic Taiwan, and areas of the South China Sea far beyond China’s internationally recognized territorial waters; animate the party’s schemes to lure nations around the world into relations of economic dependence; and drive the CCP’s plan to reshape international organizations so that they conform to the principles of socialism as the party has decreed them.

Last month in an important article in Foreign Affairs, Elbridge Colby and Robert D. Kaplan appeared at times to take exception to the common-sense view. In “The Ideology Delusion,” they offer salutary warnings about the wrong way to connect ideas and interests. Unfortunately, their well-taken points about the excesses of ideologically oriented foreign policy occasionally slide into the extravagant claim that the very attempt to understand state conduct and great-power competition in light of leaders’ and peoples’ ideas about politics and international relations reflects the delusion that ideas are pertinent to foreign affairs.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-emmanuel-macron-targets-islamic-separatism-with-proposed-law-11601654320?mod=world_major_1_pos5

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron took aim at radical Islam Friday, announcing plans to outlaw what he called “Islamic separatism” in communities where he said religious laws are taking precedence over civil ones.

Mr. Macron said the law, if passed, would empower authorities to shut down associations and schools that he said indoctrinate children, and monitor foreign investment in religious organizations in France. It would also improve public services in poor suburbs, he said.

The bill, which will go before Parliament early next year, risks escalating tensions between Muslim groups in France and authorities who enforce the country’s strict secularism.

France began introducing bans on wearing Islamic dress such as face coverings in public areas years ago. Since then, the social and economic alienation of French Muslims has only deepened.

Groups that practice radical forms of Islam, Mr. Macron said, were trying to create a parallel society governed by different rules and values than those espoused by the Republic.

“What we need to take on is Islamic separatism,” Mr. Macron said, during a visit to Les Mureaux, a suburb northwest of Paris.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-calls-for-brotherhood-amid-covid-19-pandemic-11601806766

“Pope Francis’ major targets include what he calls the dogma of neoliberal economics and its promises of trickle-down prosperity. “The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he writes. He calls for strengthening the United Nations and other multilateral structures to rein in a globalized economy beyond the power of nation states to regulate.”

ROME—Pope Francis offered his prescription for a host of ills plaguing societies around the world, including poverty, terrorism and racism, in a major document written in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Fratelli tutti” (“Brothers, all”), released by the Vatican on Sunday, is only the third time Pope Francis has written an encyclical, one of the most authoritative genres of papal writing. The 43,000-word text echoes some of the major themes of his social teaching, including the rights of migrants and the poor, with a special urgency inspired by Covid-19.

“Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egoistic self-preservation,” the pope writes. “If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as result of the dismantling, year after year, of health-care systems.”

But he writes that the experience of the pandemic also offered hope in the examples of ordinary people—cleaners and supermarket workers as well as doctors, nurses and priests—who risked their lives to keep society going: “They understood that no one is saved alone.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/china-seeks-greater-control-over-united-nations-international-organizations/

As the U.N. approaches a century of existence, its chief challenge will be to grapple with authoritarian attempts to remake it from within.

D uring the U.N. General Assembly opening debate last month, the Chinese Communist Party’s effort to assume greater control over international organizations was on full display.

This year, “UNGA Week,” as the high-profile general debate of the assembly is called, took place primarily over video conference, and the in-person gatherings that make up the bread and butter of U.N. diplomacy prevented many important interactions. No matter for the Chinese delegation: In addition to general secretary Xi Jinping’s address to the Assembly, he participated in a side event on the U.N.’s 75th anniversary, and other Chinese foreign-affairs officials participated in other meetings throughout the week.Xi set the tone of the Chinese delegation’s message. Sadly, it’s been accepted by too much of the U.N. system, and by some smaller states that have yet to awaken to the brutality of the Chinese regime. As the U.N. turns 75 this year, the CCP made its case for why the country it rules over is a leading defender of the multilateral order. “When in competition, countries should not breach the moral standard and should comply with international norms,” Xi said, during his UNGA speech. “In particular, major countries should act like major countries.”

The CCP, of course, is gaslighting the world, and the authoritarian regime’s grip on international organizations is perhaps the biggest threat facing the principles laid out in the U.N. Charter. “How China Is Taking Over International Organizations, One Vote at a Time” was the title of a Wall Street Journal front page article this past Thursday morning. The piece described precisely what the headline suggests it would: the Chinese government’s co-optation of U.N. organizations, often by coercion, over the past several years.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16589/global-concerns

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.  From a briefing to Gatestone Institute on July 29, 2020.

Now, I believe, the US is taking measures to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from dominating the world, stealing American secrets, further imposing their system on the US and benefiting from US trade in a way that they do not allow the US to benefit…. People realize this is an evil, dark regime that many people have been deluded about for many years. People are now realizing their error…. I only hope that we, in Britain, in Europe, and in the US and other countries, are able to do that more in earnest.

Another thing that is coming into question is that we — in my view foolishly — have plans to allow China to construct a series of nuclear power stations in Britain. We hope that Britain will review these plans and stop them from happening.

The situation with Lebanon and Hizbollah is all tied up with Iran. Hezbollah is a creation of Iran, directed by Iran and funded by Iran. It is basically an extension of the Ayatollah’s right arm…. If the current US administration were to lose the election, there would probably be a policy similar to what the previous administration had, with every effort made, probably, to try and resurrect the nuclear deal. This action would certainly help enable Iran to have nuclear weapons.

The ICC are also trying to investigate Britain for war crimes in Iraq — as well as the US for war crimes in Afghanistan. Of course, it is the usual three suspects, Britain, US, and Israel, they firmly have in their sights…. The International Criminal Court is no longer a legal body. It is now a political body. It has turned itself into something it was never intended to be.

There are a few global concerns that affect us all. The first is the current situation with Iran and its various ramifications. The second, connected with Iran, is the current situation in Lebanon, with Hezbollah in particular, which is also in Syria.

The next is the International Criminal Court, from which we are imminently expecting a decision that could have a potential impact on Israel as well as on the rest of us.

Iran, I believe, is under enormous pressure right now — the greatest pressure since the creation of the Islamic Republic during its Islamic Revolution back in 1979.

The leaders of Iran, the Ayatollah and the various others who run the country, are doubtless deeply worried about the survival of their regime. Regime survival for them is, of course, everything. Keeping their flame alive in Iran is the number one imperative of all that they do. To maintain that regime, they carry out large numbers of extreme activities both there and around the world.

First, their economy is reeling in a great depression with little sign of hope, due mainly to the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign.

The US has imposed severe sanctions on Iran and also encouraged other countries not break those sanctions, and, in some instances, to take their own measures against Iran. These strictures have caused Iran an enormous problem.

They follow, of course, the repudiation by the current US administration of the dreadful Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, which was supposedly intended to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed state, but which actually paved the way for Iran to become a fully nuclear-armed state.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16539/eu-iran-human-rights-abuse

“One day, I heard screams, shouting, and pleas for help in the police department…. I witnessed two officers who were dressed in unofficial uniform cursing and hitting Navid with batons and metal pipes with no mercy. They would tell him: ‘the truth is whatever we say, will you write what we are saying or not?’ Navid was… begging: ‘please, stop, please don’t hit me, I didn’t do anything.’ He covered his head with his arms. And one of the officers, whose name I later learned was Abbasi, hit Navid with such strength that Navid let out a gut-wrenching scream and fell unconscious”. — Witness to the torture of Iran’s wrestling champion, Navid Afkari, who was reportedly tortured into a false confession, then hanged.

Iran’s leaders most likely wanted to make an example of the highly respected wrestler, to impose fear in society, and send a strong message to the people that anyone who dares to protest can face severe consequences.

Did they hear about the four teenagers who will have their fingers amputated as a punishment for stealing, also, according to them, after being tortured until they “confessed”?

The European Union, in empowering a regime that is torturing and executing protesters and political prisoners, is making itself complicit in these crimes against humanity. Instead, the EU needs immediately to join the US in putting pressure on the mullahs and holding them accountable.

The European Union is openly siding with the ruling mullahs of Iran and attempting to scuttle US efforts to pressure the rogue regime to stop. Britain, France and Germany, on September 18, told the UN Security Council that the EU is strongly committed to ensuring the continued lifting of sanctions against the Iranian government. The three European powers added that, as far as they were concerned, even if the United States reimposes all sanctions, their UN sanctions relief for Iran would continue beyond September 20.

The EU has also been helping Iranian leaders to evade US sanctions through a payment mechanism labeled as INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), which is designed to permit European firms and corporations to continue doing business with the Iranian government in spite of US economic sanctions against Tehran.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-new-york-times-publishes-a-defense-of-the-hong-kong-crackdown/

The New York Times published an op-ed by Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing politician widely known for her ambition to become chief executive of Hong Kong. The piece is entitled “Hong Kong Is China, Like It or Not.” (She seems to like it.)

Ip, a longtime apologist for Chinese Communist Party control over the city, led the charge on anti-subversion legislation that spurred mass protests in 2003. What does she think of democracy? “Adolf Hitler was returned by universal suffrage, and he killed 7 million Jews,” she said at the time.

So naturally, the Times is publishing this esteemed figure, whose comments on an issue of international concern are apparently more reliable than what a sitting U.S. senator has to say. As far as the implications of Ip’s argument are concerned: The Chinese government’s crackdown in Hong Kong has obliterated the remaining freedoms that its residents once enjoyed, and provided it a thin veneer with which it targets free people everywhere, including U.S. citizens. But don’t expect much outrage from the NYT’s newsroom about this piece.

It’s a PR coup for the dictatorship that’s snuffed out the remaining elements of democratic governance in the city. The only reasonable argument for publishing it would have been to expose the CCP’s aims — but these are already widely known.

Still, Ip’s defense of Chinese power is startlingly blunt. The op-ed is an unabashed statement of China’s aims in Hong Kong. It’s helpful that Ip says the quiet parts out loud [emphasis mine]:

To some, the new national security law is especially chilling because it seems simultaneously vague and very severe. But many laws are vague, constructively so. And this one only seems severe precisely because it fills longstanding loopholes — about subversion, secession, local terrorism, collusion with external forces. One person’s “severe” is someone else’s intended effect.