Liberation Humanism dialogue with Liberation Theology

 

Because of our shared humanity we must work together to defend universal dignity and the commitment to a basic principle of human rights. Not only members of our own community but to all life on this planet. We Begin where the suffering is the greatest. We agree all humans should be agents of their own destiny. But not everyone’s desires are equal. Greed, neglect and oppression of others as the standard of power is unacceptable. This in line with what liberation theology calls primacy of the poor. Self-analysis on remaining faithful to our own values is a daily struggle.

People without a voice are now finding their voice. Fighting with their right to be heard. The daily struggle against class stratification, racism, nationalism, homophobia, misogyny, imperialism, and putting production or investments for profit above people. This is a daily decision that cannot be neglected.

Does the educated stand above in patronizing and paternalistic manner, or do we humbly walk among them with no pretense? Those of us who are first generation college educated understand this well. We can draw upon our struggles and sufferings to understand that of others. Liberation has only equals. Liberation requires each of us to walk in the shoes of another. Actively we walk the walk when we talk the talk.

The poor and oppressed will write their own histories, and it is a must reading for the privileged.  The victims of power, wealth and privilege, i.e., the humble poor of this planet are authors of a new age of democracy. When this education is expanded into these communities, this history of poverty is remembered by all and know poverty of the many creates wealth of the few and radical progressives will have the tools to change the world.

Core of Humanism

 

Humanism has at its core a collective  effort to create a more just and humane world. Built upon what we have learned from the historical and sociological roots of an unjust and stratified society. This creates an anthropology of moral and social activism.  With well thought-out and rational plans to solve the problems of poverty, inequality and oppression. To create a new society where people can live in dignity and become agents of their own destinies.  In this process is born the process of creating all new human beings. Transforming both economic and political social relations, we can transform the rest of society, creating an all-new culture and thus all new individuals. With comfort the celebration of life becomes the norm.

 

 

Humanism is an approach to life based on reason and our common humanity, recognizing that moral values are properly founded on the human condition and centered on human experience, thought, and hopes.

 

The silent voices rise up singing

Hegel as seen through the eyes of the Catholic left i.e.  Liberation Theology

 

The silent find their voice when the absent are present.  The misery of the disinherited will be heard over the cruel shouts of the powerful. This struggle begins with the social and cultural results of economic and political institutions founded on exploitation and oppression. Violence is built into the very fabric of everyday life. Criminal activities and sound business practices are hard to distinguish and depends on who is calling the shotes and not based upon anything real. Poverty is the results of wealth and the other way around. Oppression of the many pays for the freedom of the few. These are political decisions founded upon power and selfishness. Once this becomes institutionalized the economy runs itself. But dare we forget the economy was founded through political revolution. It was the liberal revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries that created capitalism. It was the Keynesian revolutions following World War II that saved a failed capitalist order. It will take another political revolution to destroy the global order based on coercion and dependency. Liberation can come about only by a collective conscious decision of the world’s disinherited. Not because they are more worthy. Not because they are more ready. Not because they are more organized. It is because of their numbers. It is because their suffering is the source of wealth. It is because the powerful are dependent upon the poor and the poor of the world being the dependent on bosses for their employment and will free everyone when the poor end their dependency on their masters. The master cannot change the world and eliminate slavery. But the slaves when truly united with nothing left to lose can destroy the institutions of slavery and free themselves and ultimately the master who is really little more than a cancerous growth with little to offer except their social and cultural demise.

Attraction

Ask why anyone would spend a lifetime studying the old left. The socialists and anarchists of the first two decades of the 1900’s. The Wobblies the Industrial Workers of the World of the 1910’s. The progressive new dealers and communists of the popular front of the 1930’s.

 

That generation born in the 1940’s and grew up in the 1950’s. Coming to age in the 1960’s. America of our youth seemed like an existential malaise. The cruel shallowness of the second red scare and the cold war, the old left seemed a lantern of light in a darken mine shaft. A drink of cold water in a desert and a warm shelter in the arctic winter.  The voice of the ancient ones became our collective voice.

 

I was always attracted to the American old left because when I was in my teens they were in their 80's. They were activists in the 1910's. The fought for unions, against Jim Crow, women's rights, for what they call social justice. They were the IWW and American socialists in their youth. They most of them went to prison for the stands they took. They were my heroes because they believed America could be better. I knew many personally. Later I found out about the 1930's and the progressive popular front including American Communists. Again, the story was the same and I knew many personally. As a young man it seemed they gave back more than they took. They were my role models from my teen years on. I want to carry on their traditions, I believe they still have a lot to offer. Thus, I am a true conservative. Does that help?

 

The dream and the heart break is what drives us forward as long as you never give up life is worth living. Hope born from despair the ancient ones give a new voice to the new generation.

 

Liberation is our song. With every advance comes new failures and new successes. New opportunities arise for each set back. With each success a firmer foundation for the next stage in the struggle. The word is spoken, and the stories told. We are now the ancient ones and we must tell our stories to keep the movement alive.

 

We can never be defeated because we will not be silent. Ours’s is the music of the soul. From the songs hope can never be extinguished. We follow in the footsteps of those who went before.

Christianity  ( the Catholic Church) came to the Americas with the Spanish and Portuguese conquests.  The Church has always siding with the powerful against the poor. The only help the poor could expect was Charity which kept the powerful in power by not challenging the major institutions of society. That was until the 1960’s. Three things happened at that time. First was  Vatican II, in which elements within the Catholic Church tried to re-invent themselves. After World War II, Christianity in Europe lost much of its following. The resistance against Nazism and Fascism  met with resistance from the organized Churches. In Western Europe  there were large a powerful Communist Parties, in Eastern Europe Communists were in charge. Worker on both side of Europe openly embrace Marxism, feeling betrayed by religion. Thus, the Church needed to re-invent itself.

Second because of the extreme poverty in thew countryside in Latin America and because the powerful oligarchs in these Latin American Countries  were supported  by North American Capital and the United States Government Marxist guerillas controlled the countryside fighting against the wealthy of their own countries and the US presence in those very same countries.

Third local clergy and church lay workers supported the Marxists, as did young North American Catholics  who came south to work among the poor.  The result was a thirty-year civil war that left massive mass murderer of the poor, failed states everywhere, drug related gangs and refugees with no to go.

 

The primacy of the poor.

 

The silent find their voice when the absent are present.  The misery of the disinherited will be heard over the cruel shouts of the powerful. This struggle begins with the social and cultural results of economic and political institutions founded on exploitation and oppression. Violence is built into the very fabric of everyday life. Criminal activities and sound business practices are hard to distinguish and depends on who is calling the shotes and not based upon anything real. Poverty is the results of wealth and the other way around. Oppression of the many pays for the freedom of the few. These are political decisions founded upon power and selfishness. Once this becomes institutionalized the economy runs itself. But dare we forget the economy was founded through political revolution. It was the liberal revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries that created capitalism. It was the Keynesian revolutions following World War II that saved a failed capitalist order. It will take another political revolution to destroy the global order based on coercion and dependency. Liberation can come about only by a collective conscious decision of the world’s disinherited. Not because they are more worthy. Not because they are more ready. Not because they are more organized. It is because of their numbers. It is because their suffering is the source of wealth. It is because the powerful are dependent upon the poor and the poor of the world being the dependent on bosses for their employment and will free everyone when the poor end their dependency on their masters. The master cannot change the world and eliminate slavery. But the slaves when truly united with nothing left to lose can destroy the institutions of slavery and free themselves and ultimately the master who is really little more than a cancerous growth with little to offer except their social and cultural demise.