Simon Schama - Obamas America

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• America

[zooch79]

Maybe less cigarettes...

[greenday1978]

The objective of catholic authoritarians rarely is the intalation of a pure catholic theocratic State (although you can find that position in a few authors). It is more often an explicit alliance between the church and the civilians or military in power. Any of these dictators I mentioned consulted their bishops before any major decisions and included church recomendations in their policies. The comunications between Cardinal Cerejeira and Salazar are well documented as an exemple.

[greenday1978]

@SocratesTheGadfly If you knew anything about the recent history of Spain you would know that it was this catholic authoritarian ideology (together with the hatred for the left) that unified the different groups of the spanish right under Franco (and with the help of bishops to negotiate between the factions), be they carlists, requetistas, proper fascists, monarchists etc. They all believed in the same motto Patria, Dios y Familia. The church was the cement of all these regimes.

[greenday1978]

@SocratesTheGadfly No I am not. Theocracy is the rule of a religious establishment over a State, it is a form of governemnt. Catholic authoritarianism is a ultramontane ideology that gave support to Franco, Salazar, Dolfuss, Pinochet and many others and believes the interests of the church are better served by a conservative, if necessary (but not always) military regime whos justification is its service to "traditionalist" values and not the democratic process.

[SocratesTheGadfly]

@greenday1978 what you are referring to is collectively known as theocracy and the western world has not had theocratic governments for quite some time and is a relic of the middle ages in europe. iran today is an islamic theocracy that conducts terrorist operations throughout the middle east and north africa. spain under franco was a facist regime.

[greenday1978]

@SocratesTheGadfly Religion, any religion, is an ideology. An ideology is a system of beliefs that explain the world in a specific way. ...and you will notice please that I said -catholic authoritarianism- which is an ideology that even ruled countries like Portugal (Salazar dictatorship), Spain, (Franco) and Austria (Dolfuss) and was the ideological basis of support for military dictatorships all over south america.

[SocratesTheGadfly]

@greenday1978 Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity and is NOT a political ideology. Catholicism is the largest denomination of Christianity with nearly 1 billion people who profess to being Catholic.

[greenday1978]

And all that intact industrial power would have been useless and fallen into depression if it wasent for Keynesians policies (like the Marshall plan, like the policies to support war veterans buy houses and go to college for free, and public works and reconstruction work to go on).

[greenday1978]

only simpletons with hidden agendas equate the left with lack of democracy

Oh how did Henry Ford justified giving his staff wagers higher than average? And he was no leftist! He said he wanted his staff to be able to afford his cars.

There are many countries in the world immensely wealthy (look at Brazil) where the concentration of wealth in the hands of very few does not allow for the creation of a healthy middle and working class with money in their pocket to spend and push the economy

[greenday1978]

The separation in the late XIX century between communists and social democrats is well documented. It happened in each country as soon as access to power thru democratic processes was allowed between those who wanted to play by the rules of democracy and those who thought that power should be reached thru a revolution. Being from the left (social democarts, european liberals, greens) is much more being for democracy than being from the right.