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It’s G8 summit time again. All our Dear-Leaders are gathered together for another round of inept bargaining under the guise of, “What shall we do about Syria?”

Top class hotels have aired out their finest bed linen, checked their supplies of vintage champagne, and ordered the most chic of Irish ‘colleens of the night’ to comfort those unfortunate Dear-Leaders and their entourage who were forced to leave their loved ones back home in foreign lands.

Am I the only one to note that US ‘intelligence’ suddenly, and conveniently, produced ‘evidence’ of Assad’s chemical weapons use just one week prior to the G8? This, barely a month after the UN reported that chemical weapons had been used – but by the rebels, not the regime.

One of the major discussion subjects we’re not allowed to know much about is the latest EU-US ‘trade’ agreement. Talks have been underway for some time, as have the secretive Trans Pacific Trade Partnership negotiations between the US and Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam. These discussions have been so secretive that even the US Congress isn’t allowed access, though plenty of high-ranking, corporate, officials are heavily involved.

Europe’s Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, dropped a minor faux pas recently when he said, according to a BBC report:

…integrating the EU and US economies would not be easy but “we will find convincing answers to legitimate concerns”. [my bold]^[1]

Integrating? And ‘convincing’ to whom?

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from all these ‘trade’ talks – and, if they’re only about trade, why so secretive? – is that our Dear-Leaders are now wholly hand-in-glove with the multinational corporations and are preparing the way for a handover of power, away from government and toward corporate control of the planet’s populace.

The only area of the globe still in question is the Middle East. Syria was a stable and relatively prosperous nation under Bashar-al-Assad. It’s likely the CIA stirred up the rebellion in that country, as it has done so successfully in other nations – particularly in South America. Assad is no friend of the US, and hence he has to go, even if the end result is a sectarian battlefield similar to that now occurring in Iraq.

Human lives are of little importance when vast new markets are there for the taking. Profits take precedence over people. After all, people are only good for producing and consuming. If they can’t do either, they’re superfluous and a drain on the ‘system’.

It was noteworthy that Dear-Leader Obama’s audience in Belfast today consisted entirely of an invited group of schoolchildren. No-one over eighteen was allowed in. Lots of adoring teenage kids happy in the knowledge the sun shone out of Dear-Leader’s backside; fully confident his winning smile and glib tongue would bring Utopia to them in Ireland. No doubt, it will take more than the three years he has left in office before they begin to realize just how much they were conned out of decent jobs, fair pay, retirement security.

However, in years to come they can find solace in the knowledge they weren’t the only ones to be taken for fools. Talking of the ‘trade’ deal being ‘negotiated’ between the EU and the US, Dear-(totally stupid)-Leader Cameron said:

…a successful agreement would have a greater impact than all other world trade deals put together…He said the pact could create two million jobs, and lead to more choice and lower prices in shops.

“This is a once-in-a-generation prize and we are determined to seize it,” said Mr Cameron.”^[1]

It really does sound like Utopia is just around the corner…doesn’t it?

Strange, though, our Dear-Leaders appear to have totally forgotten the one subject that once dominated G8 summits…

…whatever has happened to the vexed question of ‘climate change’?

^{[1] “EU and US ‘in biggest trade deal'” BBC, June 17th 2013}

We’ve been away for a few days to Canada. Not too far, just a couple of hundred miles across the border into Ontario. It was our first time in Canada. Initially, I was disappointed. I suppose, with it being a Commonwealth country, I expected it to be a rather larger version of England. Sadly, it had far more in common with the United States. With hindsight, and as my wife pointed out, it was naive to expect anything else. After all, the two are neighbors and Europe is half a world away.

There were some differences, though. At least they call motor fuel, ‘petrol’, and not, ‘gas’. After all, in the US gas can be something you put in your car, use to fire up the barbecue, or expel from one’s ass – or, one’s ass’s ass, for that matter. It can still be somewhat confusing, even after ten years in this country.

The Canadian news program is different also. More news, less brainwash. Now that’s definitely more British. The program covered a lot more world news than one gets from the US media, and they were quite extensive in their coverage of the Colorado wildfires and tornado damage in the US mid-West. I thought that was rather nice. When was the last time you heard the word, ‘Canada’, issue from the lips of Brian Williams, Scott Pelley, or Diane Sawyer – unless it was to do with an oil pipeline?

We arrived home this evening, just in time to learn from NBC that our dear leader-president Obama has decided to intervene in Syria. Presumably, he’s taken time out from his secret meetings with corporate bodies, selling out the American people under the guise of the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership, to take another step towards US domination of the Middle East on behalf of Israel, by once again committing the US to interference in the affairs of another country.

The excuse, this time, is the Syrian regime’s supposed use of chemical weapons. Interestingly, only last month the United Nations reported that chemical weapons had been used by the opposition rebels in Syria, not by the regime.^[1]

Suddenly, the US government has strong evidence Assad has crossed the dear leader-president’s ‘red-line’, making it necessary for him to take sides. Like he hadn’t already done so months ago.

Perhaps the US people, even the world, ought to consider the outcome of more US intervention (and, so far as Middle Eastern nations are concerned, US intervention means Western intervention) in that region.

Surely, first and foremost, it is the responsibility of governments to keep their own people safe. The effect of Western intervention in Syria will bring every hothead Islamic terrorist out of the woodwork. Dear leader-president Obama, along with dear leader-prime minister Cameron, and others happy to lick the US bootstraps in return for favors undisclosed (check out ex-British prime minister Tony Blair’s rewards for ‘services rendered’, if in any doubt) is acting with gross irresponsibility towards those he’s supposed to serve by even the suggestion of support for the Syrian rebels, who are, incidentally, made up of many factions, including al Qaeda and other crazed Islamic extremists.

Most of the US news tonight centered around the catastrophic events occurring throughout areas of America due to severe climatic conditions. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans are losing their homes, all they possess, due to fire, flood, tornadoes, or some other major atmospheric upheaval.

Where is dear leader-president Obama’s concern for his own people? Has he done anything to stop this meteorological ravaging of citizens in his own country? Everyone in their right mind knows the extreme weather patterns are due to man-made global climate change, yet all dear leader-president wants is to engage in another war in the Middle East.

Of course, it’s unthinkable that it may all be part of the great master plan. Despite all the silly bell ringing and emotive ceremony that accompanies the anniversary of 9/11 each year, the event is well forgotten. The American people, like all others everywhere, get on with their lives. Perhaps we should remember 9/11 a little more carefully. One thing we should all remember is a certain sentence from a document compiled by a supposedly now defunct organization – the PNAC.

…the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor”.^[2]

That statement, and its accompanying dossier on the future of United States military interventionism, was written exactly one year prior to the attacks of 9/11/2001.

Is the PNAC defunct? Maybe. But those responsible for compiling that report – for writing that sentence – are still very much alive and functioning, albeit somewhat less prominently.

There can be no doubt they held considerable influence in the administration of George W Bush. The unanswered question is how much influence they still wield in the circles of the present administration?

My guess is, quite a lot. Dear leader-president Obama, he of the glib tongue and a thousand broken election promises, seems determined to steer the exact same course as laid down by the PNAC nearly thirteen years ago.

My other guess is that this country, in its determined quest for world domination, is eventually going to drag us all into a global conflict of catastrophic proportions.

Maybe we should all consider moving to Canada, because the one factor obvious from my four days in that country was that sanity reigns a little more prominently there than it does in the United States of America.

^{[1] “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator” Reuters, May 5th 2013}

^{[2] “A Report of The Project for the New American Century September 2000”}

Two items hit the headlines this week in America. The first was a message from the new Pope Francis:

Basically, the Pope is saying that it matters not whether one is Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or whatever. All that matters is we do good towards others – without distinction. That is the only way to ever achieve peace on this planet.

Only the moronic among us could find any argument against that philosophy. Full marks to Pope Francis.

The second item was the horrific tornado that flattened the town of Moore, Oklahoma. In these days of man-made climate change (albeit, its existence still argued by the flat-earth society and oil-friendly politicians) even a tornado as bad as this one, (and it was the worst ever according to meteorologists), is only just newsworthy compared with Boston bombers and the IRS targeting of innocent right-wing friendly societies. Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s resident plonker, managed to stir up sentiment by assuming everyone in the state of Oklahoma (an area of the US with the affliction of not only being part of Tornado Alley, but also the Bible Belt) was an out-and-out religious nutter.

In fairness to Blitzer, he probably found the only atheist within two hundred miles to ask: “Did you thank the Lord for saving you?”

It’s easy to drop a gaffe in the heat of the moment, and today’s internet is merciless in sending such faux pas viral in an instant. The reaction was not uniquely American.

One of the great criticisms of US Protestantism is its cliquishness. Belong to a small church somewhere and you’ll be looked after during hard times. Don’t belong, and you won’t. Many of these churches verge on the Masonic.

This is exactly what Pope Francis was preaching about in his homily this week, or rather, it was the opposite of his message. Francis said we needed to do good to everyone, whatever their belief system, and not confine our charity to those within our small group.

When Rebecca Vitsmun told Wolf Blitzer she was an atheist and it went viral on the internet, the next thing we heard was that ‘Atheists Unite’ had set up an appeal and $7,000 had already been raised to help rebuild her house!

According to their spokesperson:

It’s important that our community shows that we have your back when you come out publicly as an atheist. Let’s show the world that you don’t need to believe in a god to have human compassion nor does all charity fall under the banner of religion. Let’s get this courageous woman and her family back in their own home.”

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

What is the matter with these people? They’re more concerned with getting one over on the Christian community than helping this woman and her family. What about all the other families needing to rebuild their homes?

This is exactly what’s wrong with the world today. We’re all too busy trying to prove our case is the right one, and everyone else’s is wrong, that we’ll only help those who advance our cause. The result is mistrust and condemnation of others, and a fear of reprisals that inflames hatred and violence.

This writer refuses to be pigeon-holed. He’s not religious, neither so arrogant as to describe himself as an atheist. He prefers to live in this life because he’s highly dubious of the existence of any other, and considers ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ as childhood fairy tales. He has, on many occasions, called the Roman Catholic church to task for its inhumane doctrines, and criticized previous popes for their pomposity and lack of basic humanity.

On this occasion, Pope Francis is right, and Atheists Unite is dead wrong. Appeal for funds, by all means, but for all the victims of Moore, Oklahoma, not just one because she happens to hold the same beliefs as you.

Atheists Unite’s appeal is not about doing good. It’s no more than an inglorious attempt to further a cause.