British MP, George Galloway, offers his latest blunt assessment of the Bush administration.

‘Well I'm afraid I'm an advocate of the great Dr Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel.

He didn't mean, of course, the patriotism that is a noble, genuine love for what's best about your country & its beauty & its achievements & so on, but those who wrap themselves in flags & blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people.

As a means of getting them to fall in behind the colours & march off to ignoble wars: wars of conquest, wars of aggression & wars of exploitation. And that's what I think this Patriot Act is all about.

It's about fooling the American people into believing that if you just arm the state with enough fly swats you'll be able to whack away all the beasts that are coming your way.

But the truth is, these mosquitoes are coming out of a swamp: a very real swamp of grievance, of bitterness & hatred at our injustice & at the policies that we are following.

And unless we drain that swamp by reversing the policies of injustice that have germinated this threat then it doesn't matter how many Patriot Acts you pass, it doesn't matter how many fly swats you hand out, how many mosquito nets you wrap yourself in, you're not going to be able to stop them hurting us again.’ 

Hear the radio interview by Thom Hartmann on AM 620 KPOJ in Portland:

George Galloway MP