These three nations are responsible for subverting more legal and social codes, constitutions, civil rights and personal freedoms than the remainder of the world’s democratic nations combined.

Criminal governments are not a new phenomenon, what is new however, is the reaction, or rather the lack thereof from the people, who seem to delight in sacrificing liberties and freedoms that have taken centuries of struggle to obtain. Almost overnight today’s populations have relinquished what their forefathers sacrificed their lives to achieve. That is new, the complacency, apathy and contraction of modern western society.

It should be noted that no coercive tactics were employed to ‘relieve’ the people of their rights and freedoms. Deceptive tactics were the principal means employed by governments to realise their nefarious aims. Behavioural change must necessarily result from a change in the dominant/prevailing social discourse. The once dominant rational secular discourse, which has given the world almost all the discoveries, science, innovation and modernity has been effectively backgrounded by the irrational, theological discourse of mindless morons and fanatics.

Theological discourse traditionally sets itself in opposition to all that is rational and sane; it is antithetical to all that is demonstrable, testable and provable, it relies instead on blind belief and derives its influence (social power) from consensus or shared belief. Historically, theological discourse has been responsible for all the dark ages, superstition, ignorance and the majority of wars, yet it is precisely this discourse that has re-emerged to displace the relative stability and peace of the world. It is principally the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) that have unleashed their violent diatribes and apocalyptic vision onto an unsuspecting world.

The major wars and conflicts of today are based on sectarian divisions, which have been aggravated by other nations that desire to destabilise whole regions in order to effect the extraction of wealth and resources. The principal methods utilised to destabilise these societies is theological discourse and vandalism. The extent of destruction/vandalism in Lebanon makes the claim of a justified response for the capture of two Israeli soldiers an obvious absurdity – Israel and the USA are pursuing a pre-planned agenda.

In the case of the USA, its descent into totalitarianism is the result of Zionist influences at heart of government, corporate greed and the influence of extreme religious conservatism in the form of millennial and apocalyptic Christianity. The American religious right desires to expedite the return of their ‘God’ by supporting the present Bush regime and the state of Israel regardless of any other consideration including flagrant criminal activity and breaches of international law regarding warfare.

The secular world should note that clerics and theologians who take a distorted and literal reading of texts which are saturated with analogy, metaphor, symbolism and every other literary device, dominate theological discourse. However, the authority of theological discourse is based on the primitive (pathological) belief that religious texts are the ‘word of God’. The historical fact that all religious texts have been written, edited and compiled by men seems to escape the believers who continue to adhere to the misguided, delusional belief that it is ‘God’ not their religious leaders whom they are obeying! Rationalists would do well never to underestimate the power of fear, ignorance and the need for meaning in an essentially meaningless human society.

The ‘meaning’ to which religionists actually subscribe has been recorded for millennia and that is violence, murder and bloodshed draped in discourses of tranquillity, peace and the rescuing of souls! To any sane person religion is the most virulent of social toxins, which today jeopardises the future viability of life on earth.

Oddly enough, sanity and rationalism have always been the most effective remedies against the diseases of insanity and irrationalism!

Peace.