"Apocalypse Please"
George Monbiot, London Guardian
US policy towards the Middle East is driven by a rarefied form of madness.
It's time we took it seriously.
To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first
understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening
there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican
party conventions last month. Take a look, for example, at the decisions
made in Harris County, which covers much of Houston.1
The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial matters:
homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any mechanism to
process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should
be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation
tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric
fences.2
Thus fortified, they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a
small state 7000 miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that
the "screaming and near fistfights" began.