Media Marching Orders For The Day: All Hail The Pope!

Orders for the week, actually.

Now, is it a newsworthy event? Of course it is. What is out of whack is the amount of “coverage,” and since there are hardly any facts to report, they're stretching this story like Turkish Taffy to fill all that time with two facts: 1) the “Pope” is resigning, and 2) the “Cardinals” will pick a successor. (“Who will it be? We don't know! is the breathless trope endless repeated to stretch that tiny fact to fill loads of air and print space.)

Most shows on NPR dedicated to Pope palaver.

Bogus claim of “One Billion Catholics,” repeated uncritically. (1) (Sounds like the tally kept by a certain hamburger chain, only a lot less reliable.) Where does this number come from? No doubt the CC (Catholic Church) itself. I would bet it is highly exaggerated, and even if technically accurate- anyone who goes to “Mass” once a year being counted as a member, say- very misleading. We're told, for example, that most U.S. Catholics don't even obey the Church's “teachings” on birth control, for example. (Imagine, a gang of pedophiles and alleged male virgins “teaching” anyone else about sex. Of course, by “teach,” they mean “order.” It's a dictate, under threat of burning in eternal hellfire for disobedience. Unless you “confess” to a priest. Imagine telling a priest intimate details of your sexual relations! What kind of idiots are Catholics, anyway? Of course, forcing people to reveal intimacies is a standard control technique of cults. Then there's abortion- I'm sure that no Catholic has ever had an abortion, aren't you?)

The media has been assiduously whitewashing his role as protector of pedophiles. In fact, does just the opposite, claiming he was good on it. “Better than John Paul” in some unspecified way. Crap. He's spent years as part of the Vatican pedophile protection racket, going back to his days in Germany.

NPR put on some fool who was molested as a child by a priest and who was chumped by the Pope, to gush that the Pope “gets it.” This fool was obviously carefully selected by the CC to meet with the Pope. This idiot is still a loyal Catholic, apparently. NPR willingly made itself a tool of Church propaganda in the way it reported this insignificant meeting, at which apparently all that happened was that the Pope got to “feel the man's pain” (as we now say, thanks to a certain slippery politician who was President of the U.S. between the reigns of Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger). Totally gratuitous. NPR goes above and beyond the media's self-assigned duty to protect Roman Catholicism, bending over backwards to rehabilitate the CC- even as the Vatican still stonewalls and evades responsibility for its massive sexual crimes.

As I started writing this at a little before 4:30 in the morning last week (EST), I turn on the BBC to get some news. Instead of news, they're doing exactly what I'm writing about- vague, pointless speculation. (“Who do you think is likely” to be the next Pope? Answer: I dunno. And is the ex-Pope going to have influence? A: Dunno, but I expect so. Q: What about sexual politics under the new unknown Pope? And so on, worthless empty musings.)

Amid all the chatter about the quitting Pope's future living quarters, the media hacks omit the fact that by hiding out in the Vatican, he evades lawsuits against himself.

Of course, this news is actually unimportant, because another reactionary will be appointed (or anointed, if you want to semi-sanctify this shit) as Godfather of Catholicism. Nothing is going to change, contrary to the hopeful, idle speculation of some. On the other hand, the media is currently virtually ignoring lot of more significant news around the world. One worth mentioning: Baby Doc Duvalier is semi-embroiled in court in Haiti.

The establishment media has always done its utmost to promote and protect the Roman CC. It's easy to guess their motive. The CC is a bulwark of reaction. So that dovetails nicely with the interests of the corporate media and big business. The three have been allied throughout the world for over a century now. They're also united in hatred of their common enemies, “communism” (Bolshevik socialism) and socialism (variously understood). The two terms are also often conflated.

1) Aljazeera apparently couldn't decide if it was 1 billion or 1.2 billion, using both numbers within seconds of each other in a single broadcast.