Those who control the liberal msm exhibit a fundamental contempt for the rest of the human race

Michelle Malkin writes:

"Liberal business executives are leaping like lemmings from President Donald Trump’s manufacturing advisory council. Good riddance.

These silly string-spined CEOs have sided with social justice agitators, Beltway media enablers, and Democratic resistance knuckleheads who believe Trump was wrong to condemn violence and hatred on all sides of the political spectrum.

Never mind that of the four people arrested after the violent outbreak in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend, two were identified with the white nationalist movement and the other two were left-wing “Antifa” counterprotesters.

One of those radical leftists is the man identified as having reportedly punched a female reporter for the D.C.-based newspaper The Hill.


But since that doesn’t fit the national media narrative of journalists allegedly being victimized by right-wing incitements to violence, mum’s the word from corporate media executives and the rest of the preening CEOs.

Merck CEO Kenneth C. Frazier claimed he stepped down from the Trump business panel because he felt “a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”

But Frazier, who served on President Barack Obama’s Export Council, felt no equivalent responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism when the White House invited leaders from the violence-inciting Black Lives Matter movement for a forum on policing in July 2016.

The invitation was a grievous affront to law enforcement officers and their families across the country outraged at the deadly ambushes committed against cops in Dallas and Baton Rouge that summer, along with several other forgotten cop killings fueled by Black Lives Matter-linked hate and vengeance.

Who remembers the slaying of Kentucky State Trooper Joseph Ponder by Black Lives Matter marcher and “Hands up, don’t shoot” slogan-spreader Joseph Thomas Johnson-Shanks in September 2015?

At least 11 police have been shot dead and at least nine more wounded by Black Lives Matter protesters, activists, and/or supporters to date.

One of the surviving policemen in the Baton Rouge massacre filed suit last month against Black Lives Matter and laid out the case against its leaders, who “not only, incited the violence against police in retaliation for the death of black men shot by police, but also did nothing to dissuade the ongoing violence and injury to police. In fact, they justified the violence as necessary to the movement and war.”

The permanently disabled cop’s lawsuit recounts escalating riots, arson, and plundering after the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray in Ferguson, Missouri, through the ambushes in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and leading up to the Obama administration’s embrace of Black Lives Matter’s leaders.

After the meeting, Black Lives Matter leader DeRay McKesson responded to questions about his movement’s culpability for inciting violence by asserting that his “people take to the streets as a last resort. … So when I think about anything that happens when people are in the street, I always start by saying, ‘People should not have had to have been there in the first place.'”

As the lawyers for the Baton Rouge cop, who must remain anonymous to protect his family, properly concluded: “These statements were a ratification and justification of the violence.”

But instead of recriminations, the militants of Black Lives Matter enjoy continued praise and coddling from corporate America. Tech execs from Netflix, YouTube, and Google all donated to McKesson’s failed mayoral bid in Baltimore.

Business execs have been coughing up untold hundreds of millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter and related causes, funneled through left-wing nonprofits such as the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy.

On Tuesday, Walmart executive Doug McMillon wagged his finger at Trump, urging “elected officials to do their part to promote a more just, tolerant, and diverse society.”

This from the head of a retail giant that only recently stopped selling racially divisive, anti-cop taunting, violence-glamorizing T-shirts that bragged: “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter.”

And the disavowal double standards beat goes on."

Of course it does.  The liberal msm isn't interested in objective truth.  Its sole agenda is to manipulate the reader or viewer and to advance its ideology.

In his critically important work Man Against Mass Society, Gabriel Marcel writes, "In spite of everything that can be said to the contrary, is not the real and deep purpose of propaganda after all that of reducing men to a condition in which they lose all capacity for individual reaction? In other words, whether the men in control of propaganda intend this or not, is it not of the very nature of propaganda to degrade those whose attitudes it seeks to shape? And is it possible to be unaware of the fact that propaganda presupposes, in these men in control, a fundamental contempt for the rest of the human race? If we really attach any value at all to what a man is in himself, to his authentic nature, how can we assume the responsibility of passing him through the flattening-out machinery of propaganda?

What we ought to enquire into, however, is the nature of this contempt. There are, of course, fine shades of distinction that analysis ought to bring out: but is there any essential difference between the attitude of someone like Goebbels, for instance, and that of a chief of Communist propaganda? In both cases we are faced with a radical and cynical refusal to recognize the competence of individual judgment, an impatience with what appears, from this point of view, the intolerable presumptuousness of the individual. It is also broadly noteworthy that even the sense of truth cannot fail gradually and unconsciously to be destroyed in those who assume the task of manipulating opinion. It would require a very uncommon degree of simple-mindedness in a professional propagandist for him to remain very long convinced that his truth was the whole truth. Such simple-mindedness is only conceivable in a fanatic." (pp. 50-51).

The Second Vatican Council, in its Decree Inter Mirifica, had this to say:

"For the proper use of these media it is most necessary that all who employ them be acquainted with the norms of morality and conscientiously put them into practice in this area. They must look, then, to the nature of what is communicated, given the special character of each of these media. At the same time they must take into consideration the entire situation or circumstances, namely, the persons, place, time and other conditions under which communication takes place and which can affect or totally change its propriety. Among these circumstances to be considered is the precise manner in which a given medium achieves its effect. For its influence can be so great that men, especially if they are unprepared, can scarcely become aware of it, govern its impact, or, if necessary, reject it."

The liberal msm knows this.   It counts on it!

Speaking of manipulating public opinion, see here

Brian Williams and Hillary Clinton have demonstrated their contempt for the American people

The New Orleans Advocate reports:

"NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who apologized on the air Wednesday night for lying about an experience covering the Iraq War, is now facing scrutiny over his gripping accounts of Hurricane Katrina, the disaster that burnished his nightly news bona fides almost a decade ago.

Williams’ account of seeing a body float by in the French Quarter — which remained largely dry — and even a claim of catching dysentery from drinking Katrina floodwaters have raised eyebrows among bloggers and elsewhere since he took it on the chin this week over a claim that he rode in a helicopter that was downed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq."

Jesse Walker, at his Hit and Run Blog, recalls a story which some of us conservatives remember all too well. He notes that, "Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on [March 25, 2008, that] she made a mistake when she claimed she had come under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady.

In a speech in Washington and in several interviews last week Clinton described how she and her daughter, Chelsea, ran for cover under hostile fire shortly after her plane landed in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Several news outlets disputed the claim, and a video of the trip showed Clinton walking from the plane, accompanied by her daughter. They were greeted by a young girl in a small ceremony on the tarmac and there was no sign of tension or any danger.

"I did make a mistake in talking about it, you know, the last time and recently," Clinton told reporters in Pennsylvania where she was campaigning before the state's April 22 primary. She said she had a "different memory" about the landing.

In her speech, Clinton had claimed: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Lying to promote one's own image and to manipulate others.  And this from two individuals who spend their lives in the pursuit of influencing public opinion.

In Man Against Mass Society, Gabriel Marcel writes, "In spite of everything that can be said to the contrary, is not the real and deep purpose of propaganda after all that of reducing men to a condition in which they lose all capacity for individual reaction? In other words, whether the men in control of propaganda intend this or not, is it not of the very nature of propaganda to degrade those whose attitudes it seeks to shape? And is it possible to be unaware of the fact that propaganda presupposes, in these men in control, a fundamental contempt for the rest of the human race? If we really attach any value at all to what a man is in himself, to his authentic nature, how can we assume the responsibility of passing him through the flattening-out machinery of propaganda?

What we ought to enquire into, however, is the nature of this contempt. There are, of course, fine shades of distinction that analysis ought to bring out: but is there any essential difference between the attitude of someone like Goebbels, for instance, and that of a chief of Communist propaganda? In both cases we are faced with a radical and cynical refusal to recognize the competence of individual judgment, an impatience with what appears, from this point of view, the intolerable presumptuousness of the individual. It is also broadly noteworthy that even the sense of truth cannot fail gradually and unconsciously to be destroyed in those who assume the task of manipulating opinion. It would require a very uncommon degree of simple-mindedness in a professional propagandist for him to remain very long convinced that his truth was the whole truth. Such simple-mindedness is only conceivable in a fanatic." (pp. 50-51).

But fanaticism is precisely what we find in the Democratic Party and those liberals who pretty much dominate every corner of the mainstream media which long ago buried any remains of journalistic integrity and objectivity.

This is nothing less than a moral tragedy. When communicating with others, we all have certain responsibilities.  For example, we all have a responsibility to submit ourselves to truth when communicating.  Dr. Germain Grisez explains that, “As creatures, human persons are utterly dependent on God.  Their freedom and action presuppose realities whose meaning and value cannot be changed.  Therefore, human fulfillment requires knowing and conforming to the truth, and especially to the truth about what is good.  But since genuine community is cooperation in seeking common fulfillment, it depends on submission to truth. Consequently, since all parties to communication should be open to genuine community, they should submit themselves to truth.  The alternative is pursuing what they want regardless of truth, caring about no common good beyond themselves, and so, while using means of communication, failing to promote genuine community.”

This is exactly what Brian Williams and Hillary Clinton have shown.  They care not so much for the common good as they do for their own good and their desire to control and manipulate others.

Rainbow Sash Movement embraces contempt for the Church

As I explained in a previous post, "Pope Saint Pius X, in his 1910 Catechism, teaches us that sodomy ranks second in gravity to voluntary homicide, among the sins that 'cry out to God for vengeance.' According to this Catechism, these sins 'are said to cry out to God because the Holy Spirit says so and because their iniquity is so grave and manifest that it provokes God to punish with more severe chastisements.'

The Catechism of the Catholic Church published by the Vatican in 1994 teaches clearly that homosexuality is contrary to nature and that homosexual acts are among the 'sins gravely contrary to chastity.' (CCC, 2396). This Catechism teaches that homosexual acts are 'intrinsically disordered,' 'contrary to the natural law,' and that 'under no circumstances can they be approved.' (CCC, 2357)....Now while it is true that everything must be done to help sinners, this cannot include helping them to sin or to remain in sin. Because of human frailty, every sinner deserves both pity and compassion. However, vice and sin must be excluded from this compassion. This because sin can never be the proper object of compassion. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 1).

It is a false compassion which supplies the sinner with the means to remain attached to sin. Such 'compassion' provides an assistance (whether material or moral) which actually enables the sinner to remain firmly attached to his evil ways. By contrast, true compassion leads the sinner away from vice and back to virtue. As Thomas Aquinas explains:

"We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written: 'They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.'" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.6, ad 4, citing Jeremiah 15:19).

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the sentiment of compassion only becomes a virtue when it is guided by reason, since "it is essential to human virtue that the movements of the soul should be regulated by reason." (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, c.3). Without such regulation, compassion is merely a passion. A false compassion is a compassion not regulated and tempered by reason and is, therefore, a potentially dangerous inclination. This because it is subject to favoring not only that which is good but also that which is evil (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 3).

An authentic compassion always stems from charity. True compassion is an effect of charity (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.3, ad 3). But it must be remembered that the object of this virtue is God, whose love extends to His creatures. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.3). Therefore, the virtue of compassion seeks to bring God to the one who suffers so that he may thereby participate in the infinite love of God. As St. Augustine explains:

"'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Now, you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection." (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, No. 49, which may be found here.

The Rainbow Sash Movement, part of the broader Homosexual Hate Movement, has failed to understand this teaching. Which is why the organization has accused the Catholic Church of advancing a "Theology of Contempt." See here. This charge is particularly ironic since the Rainbow Sash Movement (in the same article) calumniates Pope Benedict XVI, accusing the Holy Father of having "a Nazi past" and the organization has announced its plans to violate federal law and to show contempt for the celebration of the Holy Mass across the United States on Pentecost Sunday. Contempt (or deliberate hatred), as the Catechism teaches: "..is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm.."(2303). And what is calumny but a remark which is contrary to the truth which harms the reputation of another and which gives occasion for false judgments concerning that person (CCC, 2477).

If anyone has shown contempt it is the Rainbow Sash Movement. Sadly, the misguided souls who comprise this disturbing movement intend to show the Catholic Church more contempt on Pentecost Sunday. And in so doing, they will be demonstrating their contempt for Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

The duty of fostering vocations...

Vatican II's Decree on Priestly Training (Optatam Totius) says that, "The duty of fostering vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it above all by a fully Christian life...All priests especially are to manifest an apostolic zeal in fostering vocations and are to attract the interest of youths to the priesthood by their own life lived in a humble and industrious manner and in a happy spirit as well as by mutual priestly charity and fraternal sharing of labor. Bishops...are to encourage their flock to promote vocations and should be concerned with coordinating all forces in a united effort to this end. As fathers, moreover, they must assist without stint those whom they have judged to be called to the Lord's work." (No. 2).

Unfortunately, this duty is not taken seriously by many within the Church. In fact, many vocations have been sabotaged by dissident priests and religious anxious to exclude those who are deemed "too rigid" or too "pre-Vatican II." Recall Michael S. Rose's book "Goodbye, Good Men." Such was my experience with the La Salette Missionaries. Because of my orthodoxy, I was never even seriously considered as a candidate. In fact, when I expressed concerns over La Salette priests promoting the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood during a vocation retreat, a La Salette Provincial accused me of "evil." I still have all my correspondence with several La Salette priests, one of whom actually had the grace and kindness to apologize to me for the way the La Salette community treated me.

Because I accept everything which is taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and because I defend the teaching authority of the Church's Magisterium, I am treated with nothing but contempt in my own diocese. I am not even permitted to participate in the life of my parish. And I am not alone. As Archbishop Elden Curtis explained in an article entitled "Crisis in Vocations? What Crisis?":


"There is much media hype these days about the present and projected shortage of priests and its effect on the sacramental life of the Church. It is time to pay close attention to the dioceses and religious communities reporting increasing numbers of candidates. There have to be reasons for these increases that bear objective analysis from which some conclusions can be drawn.
I personally think the vocation "crisis" in this country is more artificial and contrived than many people realize. When dioceses and religious communities are unambiguous about ordained priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines these calls; when there is strong support for vocations, and a minimum of dissent about the male celibate priesthood and religious life loyal to the magisterium; when bishop, priests, Religious and lay people are united in vocation ministry—then there are documented increases in the numbers of candidates who respond to the call.

It seems to me that the vocation "crisis" is precipitated and continued by people who want to change the Church's agenda, by people who do not support orthodox candidates loyal to the magisterial teaching of the Pope and bishops, and by people who actually discourage viable candidates from seeking priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines the ministries.

I am personally aware of certain vocation directors, vocation teams and evaluation boards who turn away candidates who do not support the possibility of ordaining women or who defend the Church's teaching about artificial birth control, or who exhibit a strong piety toward certain devotions, such as the Rosary.

When there is a determined effort to discourage orthodox candidates from priesthood and religious life, then the vocation shortage which results is caused not by a lack of vocations but by deliberate attitudes and policies that deter certain viable candidates.

And the same people who precipitate a decline in vocations by their negative actions call for the ordination of married men and women to replace the vocations they have discouraged. They have a death wish for ordained priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines them. They undermine the vocation ministry they are supposed to champion." (Full article here).

It is incredible to me that while Senator Edward Kennedy's life was celebrated during a very public funeral - even though he publically dissented from the Church's teaching regarding the sanctity of life - I am treated with nothing but contempt by those who would exclude me because of my fidelity to the Church's teaching. The Senator was referred to as "Our brother and friend." I cannot even participate in the life of my parish. I am held in so much contempt that when I contacted my Diocese to inquire about the priesthood, I received no response whatsoever.

Maybe if I promoted the killing of the unborn or women's ordination, I too would be welcomed as "brother and friend." That's not going to happen though. For what does it profit a man....you know the rest.