Last night the Republican-led Congress voted to effectively kill Medicaid and food and health care for the poor in order to please billionaires with new tax cuts.
In an article entitled “Bernie Sanders Is Sending a Piercing Message About Musk and the Oligarchy,” John Nichols reports from the road on Sanders’ “Fight Oligarchy” tour, a crash course on how billionaire oligarchs are threatening American democracy.*
Sanders, visiting red states, has drawn 2,000 people in Iowa City and 3,400 in Omaha, to remind Americans that Abraham Lincoln called for a “government of the people, by the people for the people” and “not a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class and for the billionaire class.”
He declared that it is “morally outrageous” when “the richest person on earth—who is a billionaire 384 times over—is ending health care to the poorest among us. Whether dismantling USAID in Africa or in last night’s vote in Congress, the struggle is clear for all to see.
Why has the Republican Party, once Lincoln’s Party, declared its stand against Medicaid (Trump said he would not touch Medicaid)? Because the billionaire class wants still more tax cuts—up to 4.5 trillion dollars worth—and Republicans imagine dismembering Medicaid will pay for that gift.
Sanders alluded to the now $2.6 million Musk has put into an extreme right wing judge’s campaign in Wisconsin—with more to come. Now, if you get involved in a Supreme Court race in the state of Wisconsin, where can you not get involved? You can get involved in every governor’s race, every Senate race. That is their intention.
And he asks: Why? These oligarchs are not only happy to have huge amounts of money. They want more….I’ll tell you about the most serious addiction problem we have in this country: That is the uncontrollable greed of this billionaire class….They want more wealth. They want more power. And they just cannot stop themselves.
Thus we are asked to choose between the common good and the “handful of multi-billionaires [who] not only have extraordinary wealth but unprecedented economic, media and political power” bought through exploiting “a corrupt campaign finance system.” (Thank you, SCOTUS, for Citizens United.)
The answer? Millions of American voters coming together “in a strong grassroots movement” to say “’No’ to oligarchy and authoritarianism and kleptocracy!” And “No!” to tax breaks for the wealthiest on the backs of the working class.
Mystics and saints of old have spoken as Bernie Sanders does. Thomas Aquinas taught that “the greed for gain knows no limit and tends to infinity.” And he offered medicine for this addiction we call avarice or greed which we will consider in tomorrow’s DM.
Hildegard of Bingen also spoke out on this addiction to power and “more” that a healthy society needs to hold in check. She wrote that avarice is “the servant of idols [and] terribly envious….It pillages with harshness and bitterness…it walks and plunders ferociously, sparing nothing when it pillages.”
To be continued
* John Nichols, “Bernie Sanders Is Sending a Piercing Message About Musk and the Oligarchy,”The Nation, February 26, 2025.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, p. 301.
See also: Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Banner Image: Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a protest for a $15/hr minimum wage, while co-sponsoring 2017 legislation for the pay rise. Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Sanders and Aquinas and Hildegard that greed is behind much of the political dynamics of our time and that it needs to be kept in check? And that we are feeling the results of Citizens United when government moves from the people to oligarchs and billionaires dominating the media and politics and government?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
14 thoughts on “A Meditation on Greed: Hildegard & Aquinas vs. Trump, Musk & Co.”
Yes, unquestionably, in answer to the question; and a direct consequence of failing to heed the inner voice of conscience that exists within us all.
I briefly turned on CNN the other night only to witness another panel of talking heads. Most were in verbal rants about the current situation with Elon and Trump. It did not appear that the visibly noted panel members were adorned with credentials of the privileged and wealthy class.
If you are to start a grassroots movement then the average man / woman and family from Main Street and rural US have to be represented in person. The privileged class are devoid of showing / expressing the real pain that is moving across the country in real and affected lives. While Bernie Saunders and others like him may be good for the cause, but he / they need to travel with and speak within the midst of the affected and put them on the podium as witnesses to the painful truth. — BB.
Meant to say above — “It did appear that the visibly noted panel members were adorned with credentials of the privileged and wealthy class.”
At the end of the session where they cut Medicaid the Repubs PRAYED!
und das ist Gotteslästerung!!!!
I hope they were praying to be reelected, because I think they will have a big surprise in two years. I just hope there is enough left to recoup by then, the way things are going.
Stop referring to Musk as the richest man in the world, he and Trump are the poorest persons in the world.
Dark money is an ongoing systemic global problem. It is the ‘Golden Calf’ on perpetual steroids. Moses came down the mountain with his Ten Commandments for stable communities and sees that Aaron has caved in to the demands of the people to create the Golden Calf around which the people are dancing…..kind of like Elon Musk dancing around Trump of the golden toilets…..
https://hawk.ai/news-press/20-money-laundering-books-add-your-reading-list
YES! YES! Those two points were also the main message of Bernie Sanders, especially in the enclosed video interview of Bernie in today’s DM! We need more compassionate and passionate political leaders in the Democratic Party like Bernie to help clarify and defend the existential, humanistic, and planetary threats of the greedy billionaire class, the authoritarian threat of the Trump Administration, and the cowardly, sycophant Republican Congress who help maintain him in power. Among ordinary citizens, even though there are many ignorant, cult MAGA followers of Trump, I have faith that most Americans are good people who also have faith and care about others (especially their families and neighbors), their freedom, and Democracy.
My father-in-law was fond of saying “GREED is the largest religion in the world”, and this is being played out before us now.
I absolutely agree, and isn’t it terribly sad that the billionaires supporting Trump, with all their money and power, still don’t feel they have enough. Meanwhile, here’s one quick way to summarize what’s going on for Republican friends.
This month the acting director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (the CFPB)* ordered the agency to stop work. This bureau costs 800 million dollars to run, yet since its inception it has returned 21 billion dollars to consumers who have been ripped off by banks and large corporations. Does this sound like the Trump Administration is interested in cutting waste, fraud, and abuse? Meanwhile the Republican Party (who during Democratic administrations are always crying about the deficit) wants to raise the debt ceiling by 4-1/2 trillion dollars to give tax breaks that will mainly go to the billionaire class. This alone shows that the Trump administration is not interested in ending waste, fraud, and abuse.
*The CFPB was created in 2011 after the financial crisis to protect citizens from financial abuse by large organizations.
Pass it on.
What is going on in the U.S. is clearly rampant greed and the resulting depravity that has no bounds. The economy of scarcity has been sold by the richest people in the world to the poorest. But I try to remember what is behind greed, and I think that it is fear, which causes a bottomless pit of emptiness that can never be satisfied. As Matthew has pointed out before, the real problem is soul carnage. I try to imagine the darkness and lack of any experience of love that is behind the sadism being displayed–the two “leaders” glory in causing mayhem and have the nerve to laugh about it, while so many are losing their jobs and all their benefits. Love is the only response that can ever get through, and for some of them, even that won’t work. But it’s the only “weapon” that I have, so I must practice it at every opportunity, large or small. Now, I am going to call my Rep. again and express my dismay at his lack of responsibility to his constituents.
https://www.google.com/search?q=boycott+feb+28&sca_esv=6acdd3b722376336&tbm=nws&sxsrf=AHTn8zrfJDLdx-OG_gUCSAHQ6RzeMQI90g:1740684397677&story=GjMSMUVjb25vbWljIGJsYWNrb3V0IHByb3Rlc3QgcGxhbm5lZCBmb3IgRmVicnVhcnkgMjgyMAom55bfs8j62LdgrJ3y25rpi6zWAZ7GjLKA5MWQFfvb8Yf_06LxwQEQzPntqQ0YBXICEAE&fcs=AJQC52yumfN8QvsAtigujlhaAISx1WHxTQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJ9MHZyuSLAxWnHNAFHWRPGFsQjcEJegQIHBAD
This is such an important reminder of how unchecked greed and the influence of billionaires are shaping our political system. Bernie Sanders’ message, backed by the wisdom of Aquinas and Hildegard, calls us to action against oligarchy and for a government that serves the people. It’s a wake-up call to resist complacency and fight for true democracy. Thank you for highlighting these critical issues!