Pope Francis’ “Atlas Shrugged” – Benson’s “Lord of the World”?

Am reading some right wing Catholic blogs and the current meme driving up to become recognized as some global fact is that Pope Francis is supposedly quoting a lot from his so-called favorite author and book – Benson’s Lord of the World.

It is a hundred year old Eschatological piece that was all the rage in Catholic reading a century ago. It comes with a Vatican City state including all of Rome, Secular Humanism replacing the once sacred role of religion, and of course an American (veiled Jewish?) Antichrist called Julian Felsenburg.

I have not read the once popular work of fiction but two things I see coming if in fact Francis is a Benson Fan on the topic of religion as are so many anti-humanists in the United States are Ayn Rand fans in the political realm. False bibles to lead false movements are so necessary at times.

One. What scares me is that this End of the World mentality may be at the basis of the present pope’s philosophy if not practice to the poor. Organizing a Children's Poor People's Crusade so to speaks to mask a grab for secular power by religion? The poor as canon fodder (elections) in the climb back up to Political importance in EUrope?

Two. That the secular fascist forces of the bankers and politicians can easily merge with the religious fascism of the right. All this pro-life rhetoric in the face of climate change, all this end of the world stuff, false ideas as flypaper to glue the far right together in a self-fulfilling self-destructive prophetic scenario.

Having worked in back office banking once upon a time, I saw the financial melt down of the Argentine middle class in the early eighties, with its hyper-inflation and the middle classes and rich classes scrambling out of cash into legally allowed amounts of gold holdings in overseas and American accounts. Argentina has been unstable ever since the days of the Junta.  

Eschatology fits so well into the weak minded idea to rid oneself, an end, of the torture of self-doubt which religion is in the reality of many everyday people.

Is Francis real or merely the amalgam of all his doubts, guilts, sins and denials of the roles he has and is playing in his life?

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Koch Brothers’ Mistress Gina Rinehart - Richest Woman in the World - $30 Billion worth - thinks Poor are Lazy and Minimum Wage Too High -- in Australia that is

Once again it is those lazy poor people living off the system who make life so miserable for the very RICH, namely dear sweet Gina Rinehart and global business mining cohort of the Koch Brothers.

Oh dear.

Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, the richest woman in the world (yes, richer even than Christy Walton) must think she’s some kind of Dagny Taggart OR SOMETHING. Rinehart penned an offensive editorial column in a mining industry magazine that’s being widely condemned in Australia. Considering that she owns much of the media there, and undoubtedly many a politician, too, that seems significant. 

Rinehart’s fortune is estimated to be in the range of $30 billion and apparently the mining heiress thinks those drunken shrimp-on-the-barbie poors are just jealous of people like her and her rich friends. During a month when Rinehart is actively engaged in petitioning the government to lower the minimum wage and slash taxes on the wealthy, her timing couldn’t be worse. 

Setting aside the fact that it’s patently ridiculous that a single family could be allowed to make that kind of money by mining a natural (and therefore national) resource like iron ore out of the ground, Rinehart inherited her fucking money in the first place (Just like Francisco d’Anconia inherited his copper mines in Atlas Shrugged, eh? And remind me again how Dagny Taggart came to be running Taggart Transcontinental? Ah, yes, through an accident of birth!) Via Raw Story: 

“There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself — spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working. Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others” 

Rinehart blamed what she described as “socialist”, anti-business policies for the plight of Australia’s poor, urging the government to lower the minimum wage, as well as taxes, unless it wanted to end up like Greece.

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