Pope "outlaws" class struggle

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SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1984 Pope John Paul Il's campaign against "liberation theology" has been stepped up lately. On Aug. 22 he issued a warning that he would not tolerate the use of class struggle as a basis for the Roman Catholic Church's "solidarity with the poor."

Two weeks later, on Sept. 3, the Vatican released a sharp statement against "certain forms of liberation theology" that use "concepts borrowed from various currents of Marxist thought."

Liberation theology developed in the 1960s in Latin America in reaction to poverty and brutal dictatorships. Certain priests and theologians saw that class struggle is an inescapable fact of life. They saw Marxism as the most accurate tool of analysis of class struggle. It could be used, they believed, together with the evangelization of the Catholic Church to produce social change. They thought that social change must be a primary concern of the church. In various forms liberation theology has spread to the Philippines, Africa, India, and parts of the United States.

The most ... K.A.L. 007 (continued from page 1: “South Africa revolt runs deep”) accounted for in subsequent position reports to air-traffic controllers.

The aircraft began to deviate from its scheduled flight path soon after takeoff, although it was not until it was out of the range of civilian air-traffic control that it veered widely off-course. The pilot, however, falsely reported to airtraffic control that the airliner was on course.

As K.A.L. 007 neared the Soviet Union, it passed in close proximity to a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane, which is one of the most advanced spy planes in the skies. Despite U.S. denials, Pearson states that "it is certain that the RC-135 had identified the airliner and knew where it was and where it was heading prior to K.A.L. 007's first of two intrusions into Soviet territory."

Pearson deduces that the time during which the two aircraft were in closest proximity was only half an hour before K.A.L. 007 first entered Soviet airspace. K.A.L. 007 was at that point more than 200 statute miles off its route.

"It is hardly believable, Pearson observes, "that this extremely sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft operating close to the Soviet Union would let an unidentified (and possibly hostile) aircraft pass between its operations and its home base."

Moreover, why did K.A.L. 007 alter its course precisely at the moment of its rendezvous with the RC-135?

The U.S. government claim that it was unaware of K.A.L. 007's fate is made even less credible by the fact that the Soviet Union was about to test a the example of priests who participated in the Nicaraguan revolution and who continue to serve in the Sandinista government. This has led to a sharp polarization of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, wherein "rank-and-file" elements support the revolution while the hierarchy encourages the CIA-backed counterrevolution. Archbishop Obando y Bravo has ordered the proSandinista priests to quit the government, but they have thus far not done SO.

This is not an ivory-tower debate in the rest of Latin America either. In Brazil, for example, liberation theology is taught and practiced through some 70,000 Christian "base communities" claiming 4 million members. The Vatican is afraid they are teaching more Marxism than religion.

"Neutrality is impossible"

The Sept. 3 statement acknowledges that the oppression and poverty of Latin America are "similar to what Marx described and interpreted," but says that this does not justify Marxist solutions. "The class struggle, it states, "as a road toward a classless society is a myth which slows reform and aggravates poverty and injustice."

new missile in this region. The "continuously vigilant U.S. and allied intelligence presence in the area" was thus "cranked up to the maximum" in preparation for the Soviet test. Far from an obscure speck in the sky, K.A.L. 007 was flying right onto "center stage" of the U.S. spy network's focus in the region.

Pearson's study establishes as a "virtual certainty" that U.S. military and intelligence agencies, including the Air Force, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, "had to have known that Flight 007 was off-course well prior to the attack over Sakhalin."

The agencies "had the time and means" to communicate with K.A.L. 007 but not one of them did. The White House and the Secretary of Defense, it can be presumed, knew of the events as they transpired.

Former intelligence officials told the New York Times that the U.S. military has over-the-horizon radar and radio navigational ability that can track aircraft almost anywhere in the world.

A sophisticated spy system Pearson details the sophisticated capacity of the U.S. intelligence system in the region. This monitoring system includes the Cobra Dane phased-array radar at Shemya Island in the Aleutians, which is powerful enough to spot a baseball at a range of 2000 miles out in space. Then there is the U.S.S. Observation Island, a ship equipped with a radar system, Cobra Judy, which can collect information that line-of-sight A sufficient answer was given by a leading liberation theologist, Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru, in his 1971 book, "A Theology of Liberation": "Class struggle is a fact and neutrality in this matter is impossible."

What does the Pope offer as an alternative to class struggle? 'Reconciliation, without opposing groups, without being 'against' anyone."

Most oppressed people, of course, would understand this as a formula for maintaining the status quo rather than a prescription for social change.

In 1979 the Pope told Latin American bishops that he objected to viewing Jesus "as a political activist, as a fighter against Roman domination and the authorities, and even as someone involved in the class struggle."

In fact, that is a pretty good description of the historical Jesus who has been revealed by some modern researchers, including Isaac Asimov in his "Guide to the Bible."

Ironically, the vanguard of the new biblical researchers has tended to come not from among "nonbeliever" academicians, but from Catholic theologians.

What they have shown is that the historical Jesus was the leader of a violent insurrection that had everything to do TKA AMC Cumander slande 1630 1730 NIPPT Moaile M 180z: Champaa coures 1800 .' 9 Actual Route n$ KAL +J07 R-20 With Chechposney SOURCE: David Pearso constraints block from Cobra Dane.

Also watching that night were several U.S. stations in Japan, including the U.S. Air Force's 6920th Electronic Security Group, which is the largest signal intelligence station outside the continental United States, as well as several Japanese radar stations and U.S. bases in South Korea.

As one Pentagon officer said, "Nothing flies from, over, or near Sakhalin that we don't monitor."

Pearson also notes that there is evidence that Soviet radar may have been jammed that night, implying that such electronic countermeasures were taken in an effort to protect the airliner.

The most "charitable interpretation," Pearson admits, is that the pilot simply "blundered" into Soviet airspace and U.S. intelligence decided on the spot to take advantage of the opportunity, not believing that the Soviets would shoot Jewish nationalism and the class struggle. Jesus' attempted coup d'etat was no exception.

As Karl Kautsky pointed out in Foundations of Christianity, the Gospels reveal "a savage class hatred against the rich."

Of the earliest Christian congregations, Kautsky writes: "Few are the occasions on which the class hatred of the modern proletariat has assumed such fanatical forms as that of the Christian proletariat."

But as Christianity began to spread and gain respectability, and even began to recruit rich people, its leaders tended to water down the element of class hatred. The insurrectionist Jesus was more and more transformed into a pacifist. The New Testament reflects both of these diametrically opposed traditions.

Eventually, of course, Christianity became so respectable that it was officially adopted by the Roman Empire. It lost its fighting spirit and turned into an ideology and an institution upholding slaveholders and ruling classes. It is this later tradition that the pope and the Roman Catholic Church heirarchy represent today.

Whatever one may believe about the historical Jesus, the dispute over liberation theology reflects the struggle of the oppressed masses to be free and the attempts of the established state and church to repress that struggle.

down the plane. But that explanation would imply that two experienced pilots incorrectly set the automatic pilot, which faces them at eye level, and failed to notice the error for five hours. They must also have decided not to use any of the radar or other systems available to them-hardly normal operating procedure.

The Reagan administration claims to this day that U.S. intelligence was unaware that K.A.L. 007 was dangerously off-course until it was too late. But if that is true then the conclusion must be drawn, as Pearson observes, that "the elaborate and complex system of intelligence, warnings and security that the U.S. has built up over decades suffered an unprecedented and mind-boggling breakdown."

But there was no such "mind-boggling" breakdown. The fact that the vast electronic spy network remained strangely silent that night, sounding no warning to K.A.L. 007, more than suggests that the U.S. government was hardly a passive observer in the events that led to the downing of the aircraft.

Davia Pearson has persuasively documented his case that the United States was neither ignorant nor innocent in this affair. While much of the relevant data concerning the downing of K.A.L. 007 remains classified, Pearson's research demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the culpability of the U.S. government in this tragic event can no longer simply be dismissed as a delusion of a few "conspiracy" theorists.

Copies of The Nation's Special Issue on K.A.L. 007 may be obtained for $3.00 from Nation Bulk Sales, 72 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10011.,

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