Sunday 21 August 2011

Buy Gold ... ??

In these difficult financial times, many people are turning to a very traditional option to secure their savings: Buy gold. It’s an attractive option. Gold seldom, if ever, loses its monetary value. Six years ago gold sold for about $400 an ounce. In recent months the price has surpassed $1,800/ounce and is accelerating. Moreover gold is extremely mobile. You can even wear it as you travel around from one jurisdiction to another! In turbulent times such as are occurring throughout the Middle East and Africa, gold can be the surest way of having your wealth at hand when you need it. The value of gold is not limited to individual fortunes but also to entire nations. Many countries in Africa and Asia particularly are loading up on gold reserves as a more stable back-up for future needs.
      So then, why not buy gold, if you can? The answers are many. First of all, you have to buy gold that is produced somewhere. Since the price of gold began to rise, a global gold rush has mushroomed into one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Gold companies, especially Canadian-based gold companies have fanned out across the world to dig for tiny quantities of that precious metal spread out over large areas. Entire mountains are displaced in order to sift out the microscopic grains buried there. Whole valleys are torn up, vast tailing ponds created, entire communities displaced. All this so that you can buy that precious gold ring that marks your love and declares your wealth. There is a certain parallel between the profiles of gold mining companies and that of the drug industry in terms of profitability and social impact. The difference, of course, is that one of them is considered quite legal. Another comparison might be with the tobacco industry and its history of causing large scale death and destruction.  However you look at it, to buy gold ties one into a major, global, predatory industry.
     And then there is the argument proposed by Chief Seattle: Gold may be very beautiful and serve as a handy tool for conserving one’s wealth,  however, it satisfies no basic human need. It is not a source of energy; it is useless as construction material and you certainly cannot eat or drink it. Yet vast territories that produce just those elements are ripped up, torn out, destroyed forever by gold mines. Now there are even several projects to mine gold under the ocean!
     It is strange how our capitalist economy works. It destroys whatever is really valuable to meet basic human needs in order to provide a tiny minority with luxury items that ultimately serve no useful purpose. As Joseph Stiglitz says, it is government “of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.” Why is it that we give those few people the power to run things the way they do?

Saturday 13 August 2011

The Journey to Interiority

     Maurice Zundel, a Swiss priest who died in 1975[i], complained that the great issue of our time had been entirely overlooked by the Church in its attempt to come to terms with the issues of the modern world. He considered it useless to update the Church’s teaching without coming to terms with what God we are talking about.  He was all the more passionate about this because he saw most Christians turning to a “false God” who was “out there” and that was powerful, demanding, and the source of religious laws that imposed themselves on us. He said that, if this were the true God, the criticism of religion and the rejection of a God who lords it over us would be entirely justified.
     Over and over again, he insisted that God is never “up above," wielding power over us.  He used the doctrine of the Trinity to explain how God is a relationship of love pouring itself out. God is not self-sufficient, caught up in a narcisistic self-regard, needing no one and unconcerned with anything except his or herself. For Zundel, this would be a God who is preposterous. Yet, he said, this is the God most people worship. 

Monday 1 August 2011

New World Order and Church (2nd part)

This reflection is a follow-up to the previous blog entry. (See below.)

     Evidence that governments around the world are attempting to reduce their commitment to social services is certainly not hard to find. As a major example, witness what is happening in Washington these days under the pretext of managing the public debt of the United States. Similar operations are underway in the European Union. (Witness the example of Greece.) In other times these were Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund.  The difference today is moot. And I insist that they are largely pretexts. The fact is that governments do not want to have to deal with this side of governing. They would much prefer that private interests or “civil society” organizations be responsible. Thus we find moves toward privately run prisons, “charter schools,” and all sorts of aid programs funded by groups like United Appeal.
     Now, where do we find the Church in all this, especially the Roman Catholic Church? At the Vatican there is a small organism with considerable influence called Cor unum. It is established to deal with assisting those in need. It would like very much to bring all Catholic aid and cooperation organizations under its umbrella. One of these is Caritas Internationalis.

This is the second largest international aid organization in the world, much larger than the Red Cross or any NGO like Oxfam or Care. Only the United Nations can mobilize more resources in an emergency than Caritas. Most countries in the world have a national Caritas organization under the direction of the bishops. There is a central coordinating body with an international secretariat and a Cardinal as president. Recently the Vatican intervened in Caritas to prevent the secretary general, a highly competant woman from Australia, from being re-elected at the international assembly. In recent years Caritas had begun to encourage the incorporation of elements of “international cooperation” into their aid programs. This meant not just handing out aid but helping people organize to meet their needs. This is not well viewed by Cor unum since it has a “political” flavour. So out with her!