to Benedict XVI

Dear Mr. Pope Benedict #16:

You read a speech on the first day of this new year of 2013 in which you condemned modern capitalism and the injustices it perpetuates. While giving this speech, you were likely wearing a silken robe and fancy hat, the price of which could have fed a thousand starving children for a month. While listening to your speech, the army of soft-skinned and corpulent men who serve as your bishops and cardinals were likely patting themselves on the backs for deciding to join one of the greediest and least-transparent organizations ever established; as they listened to you lament the death of kindness and generosity, these minions were likely having the lint brushed from their tailored suits and getting second helpings of rich and hearty meals while just outside their doorsteps children scraped and begged and died of curable diseases.

Instead of showing the world what it means to sacrifice by selling the tons of gold you and your henchmen continue to horde within your churches' gilded walls and using the proceeds thereof to fight poverty and gender inequality in all corners of the globe, you deny women the right to join the clergy and spend time writing books about how many donkeys might have witnessed the birth of a dark-skinned, wiry-haired manchild. If you were truly a man of god, you would not bellyache about the greed of others while your Catholic church sits on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of real estate and innumerable works of priceless art – you and yours would be out in the streets with dirt under your fingernails working tirelessly day and night to realize Jesus' lessons of frugality, love, and self-sacrifice.

I, too, am guilty of not doing enough to help my fellow man. However, I do not command the attention of a billion devoted believers across the globe, adherents who do just enough to satisfy their consciouses without truly impacting their finances, followers who blindly heap praises upon you, their debauchee-in-chief, a pontiff who dresses in golden threads and perambulates on luxurious carpets in earthy palaces that are filled with the opulent evidence of a millennium of self-aggrandizement. In my early teens, I met your predecessor, the Polish fellow named John Paul II. At one point, he wiped his thumb across my forehead; at the time, I thought it swell to have been blessed by a pope; now, however, I realize just how little his gesture meant, just how hollow his and your words are, and just how much you, Herr Ratzinger, are to blame for the sadness and privation we experience today. Shame on you, for your hypocrisy, and for having the power to do much but insisting on doing little.

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corporate rule falters

As a self-appointed bane of America's corporate ruling-class, I speak often of the risks posed by these quasi-humans and their propensity to homogenize and sterilize any and every process and action they undertake. I have been encouraged, however, in recent months, by what appears to me to be a slipping of the corporate hand. Contrary to the image they work so hard to portray in countless and persistent television advertisements, in home-improvement centers such as Lowe's and Home Depot, for example, I wander the aisles for long periods of time without being approached or spoken to by those stores' employees; if I am approached (by anyone other than poorly-disguised undercover police officers who shadow my every move, all but begging me to steal something), I am called such things as, “Guy,” “Bro,” “Man,” or “Dude,” and only rarely, “Sir.” Such is the laxity of these corporations' wage-slaves that they stand around frequently in clusters talking to one another about anything but work, about kids or sports or how much their lives such, in earshot of paying customers who might need help finding something; such is the impotence of their bosses in middle-management that mandatory training-sessions aimed at fostering within their hearts a sense of decorum or self-pride appear to be wasted effort.

Whereas I initially placed the blame for such unprofessional behavior squarely on the shoulders of the under-educated and fiscally-misguided employees who live in this area of South-Central Pennsylvania, in my recent travels I have noticed similar behavior exhibited by employees stemming from other regions, as well. Therefore, I suspect that the once-iron grip of corporate rule – a grip that for many decades has relied on employees' fear of retribution or job-loss, their honest desire to serve the customer, and pride in their small-but-important contribution to goals clearly defined in their corporations' mission statement – that such inherent and priceless values have been steam-rolled into oblivion by incessant demands to increase profits and the need to keep stock-values rising, to the detriment of service to the customer. I have noticed the grip of corporate rule slipping in states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, at stores such as those mentioned above and at Sam's Club, Auto Zone, and at branches of different grocery-store chains.

Could my mind be so filled with vitriol for undemocratic, greedy corporations that I am seeing something that is not there, or could my observations contain a hint of the Truth? Am I so fed up with the way that corporations are destroying the fabric of American society that I nitpick even their slightest professional errors, making mountains out of mole-hills? While I admit to longing for a time when the Commons belonged to all persons equally and when we Yanki were self-reliant and self-respecting individuals who cherished things of intrinsic value and who contributed willingly to communal success instead of just looking out of ourselves all the time, I recognize the futility of my struggle to resurrect such lost values and my resemblance to a fool tilting at windmills; if, however, I do not fight to free the American Dream from the stifling grasp of materialism and conspicuous consumption, who will? If I do not sit here in this cold room every morning banging away at this netbook with a pot full of hot, green tea at my side championing the rights of gays and lesbians and hurling barbs at the creeping menace of homegrown religious extremism, who will? Few Americans are as stupid as I am to stake Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor on the notion that we as a people have a duty to defend Liberty at all cost, to work tirelessly to ensure that all of our fellow humans are treated equally, and to fight governmental over-reach with such foolish brashness as I tend to do; I blame this behavior in part on Silas Nickerson, my 18th Century ancestor, who took up arms in our War for Independence, joining a rag-tag band of homegrown terrorists who were fighting with a distant tyrant for their right to decide for themselves how best to make themselves Safe and Happy. I wonder if old man Silas would applaud my efforts, or if he would succumb to the siren-song of Me-First capitalism, signing away his hard-won freedom for 60 months of interest-free financing. Hrm.

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