BP

Coursing through the trackless wastes between Toronto and Winnipeg, our intrepid reporter Rap (short for “rapporteur,” just to add a touch of class), taking a leaf from Stephen Colbert (Col-bear) and his Report (pronouced Re-poor), checked in recently. In fact the paper trail of his expense account items continued, meandering across Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, notably hovering in Camden, N.J. with an item for $139.50 dateline Moe’s Jazz Society. But no matter. He’s now in Atlantic City and has updated us with a full report.

And, here’s the corker: No one gives a rip. Face it: No one gives a flying fuck about Iraq. The American people lost interest long ago, the politicians can’t be bothered, and the UN is too afraid of the US to lift a finger to help. They’d rather stamp their feet and scold Putin over Crimea than utter a peep about the genocide in Iraq. That’s the state of things today, right? No accountability for the men who started the war, and no justice for the victims.
A million people were killed so a few rich fuckers could get even richer. That’s a hell of a legacy.

Edward Snowden’s revelations on the voracious appetite of spying on all and sundry by the National Security Agency and allied agencies should not give pause for too much comment, other than to affirm a general premise: activists and non-government groups are to be feared. Non-profits are seen as potential threats, though what to is sometimes unclear. Any government worth its salt should be afraid of its citizens – the latter must make the former accountable; the former must hold to the contractual bargain with citizens.

David Cronin’s book Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War (Pluto Press) is based on his years as a journalist in Brussels looking at the way in which the European Union’s institutions really work. I also spent thirteen years in Brussels, working at the European Parliament and, before that, five years working as an advisor to the late Tom Megahy, an EU-critical left Labour Euro-MP, back in the North of England.