Catholic Church Responsible For Immigration Problems

[TheMastersNemesis]

The Catholic Church's family planning prohibition in Central & South American that almost demands having as many children as possible is somewhat responsible for our immigration problem. Rather than fight poverty and corruption it is almost part of that same corruption. Mother Theresa supposed claimed that poverty is a gift from God. As much good as she did for the poor was contradicted by that message if it was true.

By having children you cannot support because of economic inequality that goes unaddressed you are creating overpopulation that encourages emigration when economic conditions do not improve.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Indeed.

To quote Hitchens, "MT [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."

Some of the religious left will likely chime in with much criticism of Hitch, but this is the truth.

[rug]

2. Lol! It has nothing to do with oligarchy, imperialism, international capital or land barons.

[malaise]

19. or Negroponte

[bravenak]

3. I am getting tired of the "poor people shouldn't have children" meme.

Try making your argument without calling for the poor to not procreate as it is a big fucking burden to you, while not saying shit about the rich ass lily white duggars and the quiverfull movement.


Our drug war and policies towards those living south of the border has caused many of the problems they experience, but for some reason they shouldn't be allowed to have children because it's a burden on your privileged american soul. So apparently, they will just need to die alone without help from the children you think they shouldn't have.


We shouldn't go around starting shit and not cleaning up our messes.

[yeoman6987]

6. The Duggars support each and every one of their children themselves

Even when they were starting off, the father was selling real estate so they supported their children. They even built that home themselves. Look I know some don't like them but I don't see them doing anything horrible. They seem like a really nice family.

[bravenak]

8. And i don't think the poor are doing anything horrible.

The same drama gets used against poor minorities in america. We had a poster here tell me that black men don't take care of their children ( boy,would my husband be surprised to hear that), and that black women have too many children and don't know how to use birth control.


My point was that if the sheer amount of children is a part of the problem, bash rich white people with 20 children too. Don 't save the wrath for brown immigrants. It's a nice way of arguing for a form of ethnic cleansing. Poor brown people shouldn't burden the world with more children, leaving the wealthier (whites are wealthier than blacks, or browns) to be the ones to pass on their genes; their kids would also get the benefit of less competition from those catholic immigrants.

[yeoman6987]

10. Well I don't bash anybody and that includes rich white people with 20 kids

I think that everyone here on Earth should look after each other. I try really hard to to bash anyone for any reason. Each community tries to work as hard as they can with the tools they have. I think it is a waste of time to bash folks. It doesn't do anything for the folks who are bashed and it really doesn't do anything for those who are bashing. It seems like a waste of time.

[bravenak]

11. I try to mind my business when it comes to other women's reproductive choices.

Rich or poor, the children are here and need support.

[yeoman6987]

13. I agree

And I do concern myself with reproductive choices in business especially. For example, I will not shop at Holly Lobby ever again. But I try to do that with all business. It is pretty strange how those exact folks that are against birth control and even abortion change their tune once the child arrives. Very difficult to understand that.

[PeaceNikki]

7. I agree, but preaching that effective birth control is evil is, well evil.

[bravenak]

9. I am for birth controll.

Even in Los Angeles, i always saw plenty of hispanic catholics at planned parenthood. If we want the people in latin america to have BC, we need to get it to them instead of expecting the church to do it. The church is ridiculous.

[lunamagica]

20. You are correct. I'm from Honduras and middle and upper class Catholics were obviously using BC

I say obviously because they have two, three children at most. Over there you don't see Catholic middle and upper class families with eight or more children as I see here among the Italian and Irish

The women who have lots and lots of children in Honduras (and I imagine all of Central America), are very, very poor, uneducated women. They spend their lives working every waking moment trying to support those children, because by the time those children are born, the father is long gone. They don't have time or energy to devote to things like church or religion

This is not a problem created by religion. It is a problem created by machismo, where the men think having as many children by as many women as possible proves their manhood.

It would be wonderful if they could be educated on BC, and have access to it. I'm sure they would not object to it, because most dread the thought of having another child

[bravenak]

23. Good post, i agree.

Maybe i just feel sensitive to the issue. It's my name, i feel like they're talking about my family. My grandmother was undocumented and had ten children right before BC was introduced. She would have loved it. After her husband got deported, she had to struggle to raise them, and it was hard on foreign aid. My mother is first generation (supposedly) citizen, because my grandma was born in a shack and the us government refused to give her papers. Half of her kids were dead before her.she needed us to take care of her when she got old. I can see others planning for the future the same way if they worry that their kids may die before them.

[840high]

14. Have only as many as

you can suppport.

[bravenak]

21. Let women make their own reproductive choices.nt

[MH1]

17. I didn't read it that way at all, not sure how you did.

There's a big difference between supporting the ability of women to CHOOSE HOW MANY children to have, and saying "poor people shouldn't have children".

Conflating the two is a disingenuous tactic of the right-wing forced-birth movement. I'm presuming that you just misread the post.

For some clarification:

"By having children you cannot support" <<< example after example exists of where family planning services have been made available, and infant mortality reduced by the availability of decent medical care, in those places women do, voluntarily, begin to CHOOSE to have only the children they can support. Family planning tools are obviously necessary, but also the reduction of infant mortality because people have kids as an investment in the future and need to know that one or two at least will survive to adulthood.

[bravenak]

22. He's trying to place sole blame fir the poverty and 'overpopulation' on the church and the women.

I see nothing in there referring to the men, which i find to be sexist as hell.
Also, churches are not medical centers.
If we want them to have BC we need to get it to them our selves not wait for the church. They would take it if they had it.
They are not running from over population. They are running from the violence. We are oartially at fault for the violence with our stupid drug war and our policies in latin america.


I am against telling poor women that is there children existing that is the problem, while saying nothing to the wealthy. The poor always get blamed for their own poverty.

[el_bryanto]

4. You don't think the issue is more complicated than that?

Or you don't think partly responsible might be a better title?

Bryant

[Gman]

5. Not really but that's where the roots may be

Large families are important in Latin American cultures. They are very closely knit and take care of each other.

[WinkyDink]

12. OMG. Try the UTTER CORRUPTION of Latin American govts. The immense WEALTH of their depraved 1%.

[840high]

15. ...^ that

[pnwmom]

16. Too many babies doesn't cause poverty. Poverty leads to people having too many babies.

We had a much higher birthrate in the 50's and 60's, but not a higher rate of poverty. That is largely a result of government policies.

But people in poor countries have more babies both because of lack of access to contraception, the high childhood mortality rate, and as a personal safety net. If they have enough children, some of them will live to adulthood and help take care of them as they age.

[malaise]

18. How about US policy in the region

supporting US corporations, against unions, military juntas, supporting the murder of the left in Latin America, and then the drugs and guns - ask Reagan and the Bushes!! And yes for a long time the leadership of the Catholic Church supported the exploitation of the people of our region and when some of their juniors stood up they were slaughtered as well.

Ask the Ambassador to the Death Squads - John Negroponte
http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/04/who-is-john-negroponte/
<snip>
Mr. Negroponte has served as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985; a period during which the U.S. military aid to Honduras grew from $5 million to nearly $100 million, and more than $200 million in economic aid, making Honduras the largest aid recipient in the region. Honduras was the launching pad from which the Reagan administration runs its violent "war on terror" in Central American. The U.S-backed atrocities and terror were condemned by the International World Court in the Hague (1). Like most of his colleagues in the Bush administration, Mr. Negroponte is a "recycled reaganites".

At the time Mr. Negroponte was in Honduras, Honduras was a military dictatorship. Kidnapping, rape, torture and executions of dissidents was rampant. The military top and middle ranks were U.S-trained at the School of the Americas (SOA), the Harvard version of the CIA, based in Fort Benning, Georgia. According to Human Rights Watch, graduates of the SOA are responsible for the worst human rights abuses and torture of dissidents in Latin America. Some of its 60,000 graduates are notorious Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia and Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, Honduras security police chief and later Honduran top military commander.

In Honduras the army intelligence unit, Battalion 3-16, which was involved in kidnappings, rape, torture and killing of suspected dissidents. In 1995 Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson of The Baltimore Sun unearthed massive and substantiated evidence from various sources pointing the finger at Mr. Negroponte knowledge of the crimes. The reporters also found that hundreds of Hondurans "were kidnapped, tortured and killed in the 1980s by a secret army unit trained and supported by the CIA&quot 2). Reliable evidence from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Honduras alleged that Negroponte oversaw the expansion of U.S training camp and military base on Honduran territory, where US-trained Contras terrorists, and where the military secretly detained, tortured and executed Honduran suspected dissidents.