Well, This Will Certainly Piss'em Off in Biloxi

Get out the white hoods and light that cross. This time it's not the Jews or the negroes - it's those damned Catholics!

If there's one thing American rednecks hate, it's the idea of a world government. They're positively xenophobic about it and you'll find plenty in the halls of Congress who'll happily take up the call to arms. These are the guys who see the United Nations as a conspiracy against the United States.

That's why they're bound to be thrown into a headlong tizzy by the latest encyclical from Pope Bennie released on the eve of the G8 summit. From The New York Times:

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a radical rethinking of the global economy, criticizing a growing divide between rich and poor and urging the establishment of a “world political authority” to oversee the economy and work for the “common good.”

...Indeed, sometimes Benedict sounds like an old-school European socialist, lamenting the decline of the social welfare state and praising the “importance” of labor unions to protect workers. Without stable work, he notes, people lose hope and tend not to get married and have children.

But he also wrote that “The so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favor of the shareholders.”
And he argued that it is “erroneous to hold that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.”

Benedict also called for a reform of the United Nations so that there can be a unified “global political body” that allows the less powerful of the earth to have a voice, and called on rich nations to help less fortunate ones.

Gee, that should go down well with the Group of 8, aka the Group of 8 Only. I can't begin to imagine what the likes of Glenn Beck will make of this.