Neil Clark writes:
The hills are alive… with the sound of G7 leaders talking
absolute nonsense.
Some described the event as a “world leaders” meeting in Bavaria, but that’s not true. More accurate to say this was a meeting of the US and its closest lapdogs.
The menu for the G7 leaders at the Schloss Elmau luxury hotel, nestled in Germany’s Eastern Alps, featured a hearty plate of Pomposity (with plenty of sauce on the side) and a stein of Double Standards.
To accompany the meal was a sanctimonious pre-dinner speech from the EU Council President Donald Tusk, former Prime Minister of Poland:
“All of us would have preferred to have Russia round the G7 table. But our group is not only a group (that shares) political or economic interests, but first of all this is a community of values. And that is why Russia is not among us.”
I wonder what “values” Tusk was referring to?
Was it the “values” of endless warmongering, which has seen key members of the G7 bomb, invade, attack and destabilize the Middle East, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold human misery?
Or perhaps it was the “values” which saw many of the G7 powers sponsor and support an illegal coup against a democratically elected government in Ukraine, in which neo-Nazi thugs played a prominent part?
Or the “values” of supporting Israel in their brutal assault on Gaza last year, in which over 2,000 people, many of them women and children, were killed.
If these really are the “values” Tusk is referring to, then Russia is surely better to distance itself from such a group.
However, even though Russia wasn’t present at the summit, Russia-bashing dominated the proceedings.
Barack Obama, leader of a global superpower that has launched wars of aggression against several countries in recent years, said, without any hint of irony, that the G7 would discuss “standing up to the Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
This was clearly shorthand for: “We want sanctions on Russia to be maintained and the others will have to fall into line even if it hurts their own economies.”
True to form and good lapdogs that they are, they all fell into line.
That proud patriotic Frenchman Charles de Gaulle would not have allowed the French economy to suffer because a group of vindictive Israel-first neocons in the US and the UK wanted to pay Russia back for blocking “regime change” in Syria.
But François Hollande is most certainly not De Gaulle.
And Stephen Harper, the belligerent neocon Prime Minister of Canada, is certainly no Pierre Trudeau, the man who made Canada internationally respected as a beacon of progressive politics.“If all politicians were like Trudeau, there’d be world peace,” said John Lennon in 1969.
That’s something no sane individual would ever say about today’s Canadian Prime Minister.
The G7 leaders are a gray and mediocre bunch. Bruno Kreisky, Austria’s hugely popular Socialist Chancellor of the 1970s and 80s, had more charisma in his little finger than today’s G7 leaders put together. He also had considerably more intellect.
(What we could do with a Kreisky, a Willy Brandt, a de Gaulle, or an Olof Palme in Europe today to end the new Cold War with Russia and get the European economies going again for the benefit of the people and not the elites!)
On the pressing issue of climate change, there was plenty of hot air from the leaders.
They talked about the need to strive for a “low-carbon global economy” but predictably they set no immediate binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions.
There was an agreement to phase out dependence on fossil fuels – but the deadline for full “decarbonization” was only set for the end of this century.
Once again, engaging in crude Russia-bashing was far more important than saving the planet.
David Cameron, recently re-elected as Britain’s Prime Minister despite only having the support of less than a quarter of the electorate, urged the G7 to tackle the“cancer” of corruption.
It’s difficult to believe that Cameron, the G7’s great anti-corruption crusader, was the prime minister of a country in which not one of the crooked bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash has gone to jail.
A prime minister moreover who had called for cheating bankers to be jailed when he was in the opposition.
This is the same head of a government that had flogged off the historic Royal Mail postal service for around £1 billion less than its real value; one of the companies that had made a killing on the deal was a hedge fund company, a member of whose management committee was the ‘best man’ at Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wedding.
Of course, none of this was condemned as “corruption” – modern Britain doesn’t do corruption (heaven forbid); only other countries, and in particular “official enemies,” do such things.
Not to be outdone in the G7 Hypocrisy Stakes, Obama weighed in with this classic comment:
“Does he (President Putin) recognize that Russia’s greatness does not depend on violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries?”
No other country in the world has violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries more than the United States - yet here we have the president of the US lecturing others against doing what the US does on a routine basis.
The one good thing about the G7 conference of hypocrisy and humbug is that it’s all over fairly quickly.
Russia should not feel aggrieved at not being invited, but pleased that it missed out. This is a club of yesterday’s men and women that has never been so out of touch with the views of ordinary people.
People in the G7 countries want jobs (proper jobs, not McJobs), an end to warmongering and Russia-bashing and to economic policies that only benefit the 1 percent.
But the G7 leaders aren’t listening.
All they provided was just more of the same old claptrap that will certainly please the western elites and Washington hawks, but no one else.
Some described the event as a “world leaders” meeting in Bavaria, but that’s not true. More accurate to say this was a meeting of the US and its closest lapdogs.
The menu for the G7 leaders at the Schloss Elmau luxury hotel, nestled in Germany’s Eastern Alps, featured a hearty plate of Pomposity (with plenty of sauce on the side) and a stein of Double Standards.
To accompany the meal was a sanctimonious pre-dinner speech from the EU Council President Donald Tusk, former Prime Minister of Poland:
“All of us would have preferred to have Russia round the G7 table. But our group is not only a group (that shares) political or economic interests, but first of all this is a community of values. And that is why Russia is not among us.”
I wonder what “values” Tusk was referring to?
Was it the “values” of endless warmongering, which has seen key members of the G7 bomb, invade, attack and destabilize the Middle East, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold human misery?
Or perhaps it was the “values” which saw many of the G7 powers sponsor and support an illegal coup against a democratically elected government in Ukraine, in which neo-Nazi thugs played a prominent part?
Or the “values” of supporting Israel in their brutal assault on Gaza last year, in which over 2,000 people, many of them women and children, were killed.
If these really are the “values” Tusk is referring to, then Russia is surely better to distance itself from such a group.
However, even though Russia wasn’t present at the summit, Russia-bashing dominated the proceedings.
Barack Obama, leader of a global superpower that has launched wars of aggression against several countries in recent years, said, without any hint of irony, that the G7 would discuss “standing up to the Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
This was clearly shorthand for: “We want sanctions on Russia to be maintained and the others will have to fall into line even if it hurts their own economies.”
True to form and good lapdogs that they are, they all fell into line.
That proud patriotic Frenchman Charles de Gaulle would not have allowed the French economy to suffer because a group of vindictive Israel-first neocons in the US and the UK wanted to pay Russia back for blocking “regime change” in Syria.
But François Hollande is most certainly not De Gaulle.
And Stephen Harper, the belligerent neocon Prime Minister of Canada, is certainly no Pierre Trudeau, the man who made Canada internationally respected as a beacon of progressive politics.“If all politicians were like Trudeau, there’d be world peace,” said John Lennon in 1969.
That’s something no sane individual would ever say about today’s Canadian Prime Minister.
The G7 leaders are a gray and mediocre bunch. Bruno Kreisky, Austria’s hugely popular Socialist Chancellor of the 1970s and 80s, had more charisma in his little finger than today’s G7 leaders put together. He also had considerably more intellect.
(What we could do with a Kreisky, a Willy Brandt, a de Gaulle, or an Olof Palme in Europe today to end the new Cold War with Russia and get the European economies going again for the benefit of the people and not the elites!)
On the pressing issue of climate change, there was plenty of hot air from the leaders.
They talked about the need to strive for a “low-carbon global economy” but predictably they set no immediate binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions.
There was an agreement to phase out dependence on fossil fuels – but the deadline for full “decarbonization” was only set for the end of this century.
Once again, engaging in crude Russia-bashing was far more important than saving the planet.
David Cameron, recently re-elected as Britain’s Prime Minister despite only having the support of less than a quarter of the electorate, urged the G7 to tackle the“cancer” of corruption.
It’s difficult to believe that Cameron, the G7’s great anti-corruption crusader, was the prime minister of a country in which not one of the crooked bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash has gone to jail.
A prime minister moreover who had called for cheating bankers to be jailed when he was in the opposition.
This is the same head of a government that had flogged off the historic Royal Mail postal service for around £1 billion less than its real value; one of the companies that had made a killing on the deal was a hedge fund company, a member of whose management committee was the ‘best man’ at Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wedding.
Of course, none of this was condemned as “corruption” – modern Britain doesn’t do corruption (heaven forbid); only other countries, and in particular “official enemies,” do such things.
Not to be outdone in the G7 Hypocrisy Stakes, Obama weighed in with this classic comment:
“Does he (President Putin) recognize that Russia’s greatness does not depend on violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries?”
No other country in the world has violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries more than the United States - yet here we have the president of the US lecturing others against doing what the US does on a routine basis.
The one good thing about the G7 conference of hypocrisy and humbug is that it’s all over fairly quickly.
Russia should not feel aggrieved at not being invited, but pleased that it missed out. This is a club of yesterday’s men and women that has never been so out of touch with the views of ordinary people.
People in the G7 countries want jobs (proper jobs, not McJobs), an end to warmongering and Russia-bashing and to economic policies that only benefit the 1 percent.
But the G7 leaders aren’t listening.
All they provided was just more of the same old claptrap that will certainly please the western elites and Washington hawks, but no one else.
No comments:
Post a Comment