Pope Gets Academic Certification

[When the Holy Father finds himself on the same page with leading academics, he should worry—ed.] Al Jazeera posted an article, “Bernie Sanders, the pope and the moral imperative of systemic change,” by Gar Alperovitz, the co-chair with James Gustave Speth of The Next System Project. Speth, former administrator of the United Nations Development Program, put his name on its 1994 “Human Development Report,” which openly promoted global taxes for world government.

The “Next System” is another name for the replacement of global capitalism by global socialism.

Those endorsing this project, in addition to Alperovitz and Speth, include:

• Jane Mansbridge, Harvard University
• Gerald Hudson, Service Employees International Union
• Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA
• Robert B. Reich, University of California at Berkeley
• Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Author
• Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University
• Gerald Torres, Cornell University Law School
• Larry Cohen, Communications Workers of America
• Julie Matthaei, Cornerstone Cohousing
• Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers
• John James Conyers, Jr., 13th District, Michigan
• Bill McKibben, 350.org
• Saskia Sassen, Columbia University
• Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
• Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California
• Phillip Thompson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning Filmmaker
• Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK
• Timothy E. Wirth, United Nations Foundation and Better World Fund
• Sarita Gupta, Jobs With Justice
• Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Van Jones, The Dream Corps & Rebuild The Dream
• Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, California State University
• Daniel Ellsberg, Author
• Herman E. Daly, University of Maryland
• Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate, Author, Former Presidential Candidate
• Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
• Anna Galland, MoveOn.org Civic Action
• Danny Glover, Actor, Social Activist
• Tom Morello, Musician, Activist
• Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party Presidential Nominee
• Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research

“We have fundamental problems because of fundamental flaws in our economic and political system,” the New Project proclaims. “The crisis now unfolding in so many ways across our country amounts to a systemic crisis. Today’s political economic system is not programmed to secure the wellbeing of people, place and planet. Instead, its priorities are corporate profits, the growth of GDP, and the projection of national power.”

The group goes on, “Large-scale system change is needed but has until recently been constrained by a continuing lack of imagination concerning social, economic and political alternatives. There are alternatives that can lead to the systemic change we need.”

Yes there are. They are called socialism and communism. But they would rather call it “sustainable development,” in order to confuse people about how the American way of life is being targeted for extinction.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org . This column is excerpted from an article which appears on the AIM site.

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