capitalism. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Matt, I know a lot of people feel we have disastrously veered off course in this country, and they use the language of freedom fighters as if the government had been overthrown by enemies and saboteurs. They speak of unprecedented constitutional crises.

As hard as it may be for people to stomach, the Democrats and Obama (I'm not a Dem, BTW) swept into power fair and square by a margin of millions of votes from a nation desperate for their ship of state, riddled with holes and sinking fast under a thick flak of Voodoo Reaganomics (since discredited by none other than Greenspan himself) and Republican deregulation and derivatives trading schemes, to remain afloat.

To me, the only new or shocking thing about Obama is his race. He is a far more centrist, level-headed thinker than his predecessor. His "socialist" tax plan is to roll back the tax rates to those instituted by Ronald Reagan. Some Socialist!

But I digress. In my view, the REAL constitutional crisis is the total takeover of our government and economy by Big Business and the Rich, who own the media and are by far a right-wing bunch. So they howl about "liberal media" -- a canard to distract us -- while it's their own Limbaughs and Becks and O'Reillys who are the real dominant force... there is a media bias in this country, and it's hopelessly Right-Wing... and instead of holding the Big Business predators accountable, we spin ourselves into hysterics in a stupid "culture war" that leaves the goal totally undefended.

Which works too beautifully to not have been the plan from the beginning.

My political policy is this: whatever strengthens the middle class is good for the country, whatever weakens the middle class is bad for this country. There is no organism in nature in which the weak exploit the strong. Think of that. The powerful, the rich, always go too far -- if no one stops them.

I also appreciate Capitalism. I love it. Really. Capitalism is the greatest economic source of energy in the world. Capitalism is great because it rests on competition. Under Capitalism the businessman says (unless he's not REALLY a Capitalist but a... fascist...?), 'Hey, I'm an energy company. Regulate fossil fuels all you want. Write the strictest pollution laws you can, ones which our great-grandchildren will thank us for. Protect the planet, the oceans, the ice caps. It doesn't matter how costly the upgrades willl be, because we have CAPITALISM! COMPETITION! And Capitalism posits that if I can't figure out a way to profit despite regulation in the public interest-- then someone else who can, WILL! And I won't! And that's okay! That's entrepreneurship!"

Capitalism. Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Capitalism is like Plutonium: incredibly powerful and capable of creating virtually limitless capacity for expansion (on the one hand), but also highly dangerous and requiring enormous, redundant safety apparatus (on the other hand) in order to not be destroyed by the very power we would harness and control for good.

Capitalism thrives under regulation because regulation protects the market from excessive risk and mitigates the risk of using such powerful fuel. Regulation is also intended to fol the greedy and corrupt wall street raider from doing too much damage. Remove all that protection and we have... Bush economics...in fact, we live today in Republican Heaven... GOP Utopia... because they got what they wanted. Deregulated industry, fear on Main Street, and war all the time.

Why aren't they happy?