Social Justice and Fascism

Coughlin Social Justice NYC

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Ran into an interesting bit of trivia, via Wikipedia no less. Seems that in their zeal, the zealots sometimes don’t notice that others are watching. At any rate, the “Classical Liberal” page is marked as being locked down from edits (one presumes because the Socialists have been busy putting mud all over it… that seems to be a constant problem with the Wiki. It’s not just the Global Warming pages where folks on the Left are run amok). At any rate, I saved a copy. Then went off to look at the Social Liberal page for comparison (it is not locked, so there is no reciprocal graffiti going on here. That, too, fits the observed pattern of conservative folks being polite and not indulging in such dirty tricks). At any rate, long story short, I found an interesting connection ‘down in the weeds’.

If you follow the Socialist Liberal page, you find that they are claimed to be different as they support “Social Justice”. (I’ve already become sensitized to this as having become code words for “Socialist Agenda” in practical application). So I took a peek at the Wiki for that topic. It has this gem:

Social Justice was also the name of a periodical published by Father Coughlin in the 1930s and early 1940s. Coughlin’s organization was known as the National Union for Social Justice and he frequently used the term social justice in his radio broadcasts. In 1935 Coughlin made a series of broadcasts in which he outlined what he termed “the Christian principles of social justice” as an alternative to both capitalism and communism. Some Catholic contemporaries, such as the Catholic Radical Alliance, felt that he misused the term, and was too supportive of capitalism.

Now there were several things that this “set off” for me. One was a load of memories about “Father Coughlin”, another was the connection to the Fascist “Third Way” that was intended to make a path between the twin perils of Capitalism and Communism (that ‘alternative to both’ line) and the other is the interesting ‘religious’ nature of ‘social justice’. There are many religious links to its history. Including that it started in Catholicism, but more on that below.

The most interesting bit is that when you look up Father Coughlin, you find this in the wiki (at least, as I’m typing… but the Leftist Revisionists will likely go change history if they notice this posting, as they have done before… but that’s OK, I’ve already saved a copy of the page…)

Charles Coughlin
(Redirected from Father Coughlin)

Father Charles Edward Coughlin (pronounced /ˈkɒɡlɪn/ COG-lin; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979) was a controversial Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan’s National Shrine of the Little Flower Church. He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than thirty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930s. Early in his career Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, before later becoming a harsh critic of Roosevelt as too friendly to bankers. In 1934 he announced a new political organization called the “Nation’s Union of Social Justice.” He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor. The membership ran into the millions, resembling the Populist movement of the 1890s.

After hinting at attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to rationalize some of the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The broadcasts have been called “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”. His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal. Many American bishops as well as the Vatican wanted him silenced, but it was the Roosevelt administration that finally forced the cancellation of his radio program and forbade the dissemination through the post of his newspaper, Social Justice.

Ah, gotta love it. TOO Left even for FDR who had him censored (not wanting too much freedom of speech, these folks on the Social Liberal left…banning the sending of a newspaper through the mail…) So what is this “Social Justice”? Why, it’s “the Fascist agenda applied to American culture” and what are those agenda items? MORE radical left that FDRs “New Deal” and nationalizations… including harsher treatment of bankers, and nationalization of rail roads and major industries. Oh, and more support for “rights of labor” (that we presume means more direct control of the capital stock of the nation).

So good old Father Coughlin knew that Fascism was first kin of Socialism and that Social Justice was a socialist agenda writ large in the Fascist style…

Coughlin’s support for Roosevelt and his New Deal faded later in 1934, when he founded the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ), a nationalistic worker’s rights organization which grew impatient with what it viewed as the President’s unconstitutional and pseudo-capitalistic monetary policies. His radio programs preached more and more about the negative influence of “money changers” and “permitting a group of private citizens to create money” at the expense of the general welfare of the public. He also spoke about the need for monetary reform based on “free silver”. Coughlin claimed that the Depression was a “cash famine”. Some modern economic historians, in part, agree with this assessment. Coughlin proposed monetary reforms, including the nationalization of the Federal Reserve System, as the solution.

Shades of “wealth redistribution” and “welfare”…

Among the NUSJ’s articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing “necessary” industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of worker’s unions, and decreasing property rights in favor of the government controlling the country’s assets for “public good.”

My, but that sounds rather a lot like the Democratic Obama administration’s agenda now… What is the difference between “living wage with welfare” and “income guarantees”? The essential nationalizing of GM and much of the financial system via ‘bailouts’ and the takeover of health care? We’ve already got federal protection of unions; and the erosion of “property rights” via a variety of regulation and mandates is pretty well underway too.

Illustrative of his disdain for capitalism is his statement

We maintain the principle that there can be no lasting prosperity if free competition exists in industry. Therefore, it is the business of government not only to legislate for a minimum annual wage and maximum working schedule to be observed by industry, but also to curtail individualism that, if necessary, factories shall be licensed and their output shall be limited.

So, stamp out the evil ‘free competition’ and substitute for it the planned controlled and directed model (commonly called either Fascism or Socialism) as part of a drive for Social Justice. Minimum Wage? Check. Maximum work hours? Check. Curtailing individualism? Check. Factories licensed? Check. Sure looks like a lot of his agenda has been achieved…

After the 1936 election, Coughlin increasingly expressed sympathy for the fascist policies of Hitler and Mussolini as an antidote to Bolshevism. His weekly broadcasts became suffused with antisemitic themes. He blamed the Depression on an “international conspiracy of Jewish bankers”, and also claimed that Jewish bankers were behind the Russian Revolution. On November 27, 1938, he said “There can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution … was launched and fomented by distinctively Jewish influence.”

He began publication of a weekly rotogravure magazine, Social Justice, during this period. Coughlin claimed that Marxist atheism in Europe was a Jewish plot against America. The December 5, 1938 issue of Social Justice included an article by Coughlin which, according to some accounts, too closely resembled a speech made by Joseph Goebbels on September 13, 1935 attacking Jews, atheists and communists, with some sections being copied verbatim by Coughlin from an English translation of the Goebbels speech.

Gee… kind of making it harder and harder to keep that Fascist connection out of the Social Justice movement inside of Socialism…

History can be a terrible master…

Oh, and why do we have a licence to broadcast? Why, because The Left of FDR did not like public criticism, even from someone who was saying he was not far enough left!

In spite of his early support for Roosevelt, Coughlin’s populist message contained bitter attacks on the Roosevelt administration. The administration decided that although the First Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting, because the radio spectrum was a “limited national resource” and regulated as a publicly owned commons. New regulations and restrictions were created to force Coughlin off the air. For the first time, operating permits were required of those who were regular radio broadcasters. When Coughlin’s permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced. Coughlin worked around the restriction by purchasing air time and having his speeches played via transcription. However, having to buy the weekly air time on individual stations seriously reduced his reach and strained his resources.

“Fairness Doctrine” anyone? The power to license is the power to silence. That was what it was created to do in the first place… And folks wonder why I’m against having the government decide who gets to say what…

the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted new rules which placed “rigid limitations on the sale of radio time to spokesman of controversial public issues”. Manuscripts were required to be submitted in advance. Radio stations were threatened with the loss of their licenses if they failed to comply. This ruling was clearly aimed at Coughlin due to his opposition to prospective American involvement in World War II.

So the tactics being proposed to silence Rush, Hannity, Glen Beck, et.al. have been around for a very long time. It is just that they were first applied to a guy MORE left than FDR. I love it when folks on the Loony Side Of Left fight with each other, but really hate it when the fall-out hits those of us of a more Libertarian bent…

But even that was not enough censorship for FDR and the “Social Liberal / Progressive Left”:

Coughlin reasoned that although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials without censorship in his own newspaper, Social Justice. However, the Roosevelt Administration stepped in again, this time revoking his mailing privileges and making it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to his readers. He had the right to publish whatever he wanted, but not the right to use the United States Post Office Department to deliver it

Ah, freedom of the press… so long as you don’t have to move it anywhere outside the press room… (Now you know why I’m not fond of these folks ‘regulating’ the internet either…)

AND now you also know that “Social Justice” is joined at the hip with Fascism and is just a ways to the LEFT of FDR and the New Deal…

What else can we find out about social justice from the wiki page?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice

First off, it’s a religious belief system. No, really:

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating an egalitarian society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of “social justice” was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and given further exposure in 1848 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati. The idea was elaborated by the moral theologian John A. Ryan, who initiated the concept of a living wage. Father Coughlin also used the term in his publications in the 1930s and the 1940s. It is a part of Catholic social teaching, Social Gospel from Episcopalians and is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party upheld by green parties worldwide.

But despite being formed from a religious base, promulgated by priests, and elaborated by a ‘moral theologian” and being part of the “Catholic social teaching” and the “Social Gospel from Episcopalians” the page then claims:

Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls.

So, one endorsement and it’s no longer a religion. Gosh, these guys ought to take up money laundering…

Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum.

No? Really? Who knew… /sarcoff>

And what’s in this package?

Social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution. These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a proceduraly just system.

So everyone ought to get a First Prize! and everyone must have the same “outcome” regardless of what they do… Um, last I looked, that was what communism and socialism were all about and they were not working out so well…

OK, along the way it looks like the Religion angle has really taken off. They also have links to Judaism and Islam:

Judaism

In To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks states that social justice has a central place in Judaism. One of Judaism’s most distinctive and challenging ideas is its ethics of responsibility reflected in the concepts of simcha (“gladness” or “joy”), tzedakah (“the religious obligation to perform charity and philanthropic acts”), chesed (“deeds of kindness”), and tikkun olam (“repairing the world”).

I’m not familiar enough with Judaica to know how central Sacks might be, but it’s got to be interesting explaining why a Jesuit precept is central to Judaism…

Islam

Social justice is one of the most important components of justice in Islam. The guidance toward social justice in Islam is intended to promote and maintain social order, harmony, balance and general welfare.

Gee, makes you kind of wonder how that whole Pope thing fits into Islam… Didn’t know the Jesuits had that much pull with Mohammed… Somehow I suspect someone is taking liberties here and trying to take the ‘feel good’ words of “social” and “justice” and graft them onto a pre-existing process inside Islam that has little to do with the political and socialist term “social justice”…

Therefore, the social justice is regarded as one of the most important values upon which Islam is built on and the Prophet Muhammad and his companions practiced precisely in order to found a strong and coherent society that was marked with fraternity and affection. Social justice in Islam is achieved through several elements such as: the taxation, the wakf, the feasts, the zakat and equality is promoted through several religious features (marriage and divorce, Islamic banks,…).

Somehow I have a bit of an issue with equating “divorce” with “social justice” as applied to things like “wealth redistribution” and “progressive taxation”… though I do note that they are ready to jump on that whole taxation theme… (Every power structure likes a good tax on the supplicants.)

They do go on to try to somehow tie this whole ball of wax in to John Rawls and his position on basic human liberties, but I’m having trouble buying it. For example, the basic ideas they list don’t look at all like the laundry list of wants you get from someone demanding “Social Justice”:

The basic liberties according to Rawls

Freedom of thought;
Liberty of conscience as it affects social relationships on the grounds of religion, philosophy, and morality;
Political liberties (e.g. representative democratic institutions, freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of assembly);
Freedom of association;
Freedoms necessary for the liberty and integrity of the person (viz: freedom from slavery, freedom of movement and a reasonable degree of freedom to choose one’s occupation); and
Rights and liberties covered by the rule of law.

So it looks to me like Rawls is just pulled in to provide cover for the fact that Social Justice is just a Catholic Church doctrine based in the desire to ‘redistribute the wealth’ as part of an envy and greed issue…

On The Other Hand

The Wiki does include a very abbreviated list of criticisms of “Social Justice”, a couple of which I’ll include here:

On the other hand, some scholars reject the very idea of social justice as meaningless, religious, self-contradictory, and ideological, believing that to realize any degree of social justice is unfeasible, and that the attempt to do so must destroy all liberty. The most complete rejection of the concept of social justice comes from Friedrich Hayek of the Austrian School of economics:

There can be no test by which we can discover what is ‘socially unjust’ because there is no subject by which such an injustice can be committed, and there are no rules of individual conduct the observance of which in the market order would secure to the individuals and groups the position which as such (as distinguished from the procedure by which it is determined) would appear just to us. [Social justice] does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term `a moral stone’.

Janusz Korwin-Mikke argues simply: »Either „social justice” has the same meaning as „justice” – or not. If so – why use the additional word „social”? We lose time, we destroy trees to obtain paper necessary to print this word. If not, if „social justice” means something different from „justice” – then „something different from justice” is by definition „injustice”«

Gotta love that Hayek guy, he just keeps popping up in all the right places…

Where Else?

So, where else has “Social Justice” started popping up?

Liberation Theology

Liberation theology is a movement in Christian theology which construes the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. It has been described by proponents as “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor”, and by detractors as Christianity perverted by Marxism and Communism.

Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1950s – 1960s. It arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty caused by social injustice in that region. It achieved prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. The term was coined by the Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the movement’s most famous books, A Theology of Liberation (1971). Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay.

Looks to me like we’ve got a pretty good “Left Wing” connection here.

Oh, wait, that’s just the Catholic Church in a different place… But if you ever wondered if being Green was maybe just a bit on the “religious movement” side:

The Green Party

Social Justice (sometimes “Social Equality and Global Equality and Economic Justice”) is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party and is sometimes referred to as “Social and Global Equality” or “Economic Justice”. The Canadian party defines the principle as the “equitable distribution of resources to ensure that all have full opportunities for personal and social development”. As one of the 10 key values of the party in the United States, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.”

Yup, I’d call that a religion. Not very clear on what socialism has to do with making sure Bambi does not go extinct, but hey, if enough wealth is being redistributed some has got to fall off the table near the forest, eh?

And finally, the Healthcare Connection:

Social justice in healthcare

Social justice has more recently made its way into the field of bioethics. Discussion involves topics such as affordable access to health care, especially for low income households and family. The discussion also raises questions such as whether society should bear healthcare costs for low income families, and whether the global marketplace is a good thing to deal with healthcare. Ruth Faden and Madison Powers of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics focus their analysis of social justice on which inequalities matter the most. They develop a social justice theory that answers some of these questions in concrete settings.

So now we know why we’re getting Obamacare… because the Pope or the Jesuits said it would be a good thing… and Mr. & Ms. Powers agreed. Now if I can just get “society” to pay my mortgage payment, put my kid through college, give me a pension, put food on the table, keep the lights and heat on, and give me enough pocket change for some ‘entertainment’, I too can become a Welfare King… or a government retiree… (I’m sure they are different, but I’m a little fuzzy on exactly how… I think one of them showed up at work for a little while, but I’m not sure which one DID any actual productive work..)

Postscript

In some Government jobs, you can rack up a lifetime retirement if you work for that government for 5 years, then hit ‘retirement age’. It’s a nice racket… Others “double dip” by doing things like getting a city retirement from a high risk job (like firefighter or Police where it was historically a 20 year job) then working for a different branch for that 5 years… My brother-in-law was in the Air Force for 6 years, then worked for a government agency for some more until the total hit the retirement mark. Yes, the USA, too, is well on its way to being just like Greece…

At one point I worked for the State of California. One guy showed up every day and sat at a desk doing exactly nothing. He was not fired. Why? I was told “He would just end up on welfare and it would cost the State either way.” Seems he had lost it one day at work and never quite got it back together. By now he, too, is collecting a nice fat pension. Thus my comment about welfare and government pensions. Yes, I’m sure that there are some fine cops and firefighters collecting a well deserved pension as they rub Ben Gay on a lot of stiff joints and sore old injuries. But there are others…

And that is the basic problem with all “Social Justice”. It is just a little more “just” to those who can game the system well and really likes to abuse the folks who are not very good politicians and do have a moral compass…

But hey, no religion is perfect.

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