That socialism is "UnAmerican." Creating an economic system which moves us back to the days when the incomes between American workers, managers, and CEO's were far more equal, when the purchasing power of America's middle class shaped the production of the entire world market; back to the days when a single worker, working a 40-hour week, could afford a house, a car, health care for a family of four and a healthy, defined-benefit pension plan which, added to social security and medicare made sure he or she could enjoy a few years of retirement, in other words a society whose systems served the vast majority of its citizens instead of just the fortunate few (and I mean that in terms of good luck and random chance, NOT hard work); all of this is the only way of saving this country from become just another third world nation. If it takes a good bit of "socialism" and "socialized medicine" to get this country to the point where it works for all its citizens, then so be it.

The Fascist/Capitalists who don't like it when what they regard to be the "lazy poor" rise up and demand fair wages and benefits, can bloody well move off shore to follow their money to their foreign bank accounts and the labor being done by their companies to the places where their workers live. We won't miss them! They have been draining our society of it's lifeblood in the name of "free market capitalism" since the Reagan Administration.

and it was clear (at least to me) that the Republicans were whining about Bill's foundation because they wanted to take Bill down. If they'd had their way, he'd have been required to take his marbles, go home, and stay home all the while Hillary is Secretary of State. It sounded as if they think Bill is making the ex-Republican presidents who are sitting on their backsides and collecting the residuals for everything they've done for their wealthy friends during their tenure in office look bad. Good grief! If they don't stop him he'll become another Jimmy Carter!

The very idea that these Republican senators who, over the Bushco years, never saw an inside deal or a way to legislate the further padding of their own pockets and those of their friends, would even dare to raise the issue of conflicts of interest made me feel as if I'd have to hose down my radio when the hearing was over to wash off all the Bull S. it had been required to deliver. I found myself wishing the Democratic senators would call them on that very issue, but after all, this is the senate where, in the old traditions, everybody pretty much plays nice (well, except for the Republicans, but the Dem's are, no doubt, trying to return to those more decent days).

Still, at least one speech delivered in honey-dipped sacrcasm using high-flung rhetoric to draw some comparison between the Republicans' current concern for conflicts of interest as compared to their previous behavior and the common practices of the offspring of diamond backed rattlers or sewer rats (named by genus and species for proper effect) or some such thing would have been... refreshing.

Whatever shall we do? The ADULTS are really going to be back in charge! The era of Republicans operating our government as if the whole world were the island in "Lord of the Flies" is ending! Oh dear... Oh dear... Head for the mountaintop bunkers right wingnuts! Otherwise mummy and daddy are going to take you home and make you grow up and behave as civilized human beings!

Besides the dysfunctional pre-adolescent belligerence of the auto company executives and boards, is the invisible hand, not of the free market but of the oil companies who, in collusion with the American Auto companies are determined to keep fuel efficiency out of American cars for as long as possible in order to help keep the price of oil high and allow them to profit as much as is inhumanly possible as we enter the era of peak oil and dwindling supplies. If fuel efficiency and alternatively-powered vehicles are allowed to take hold in the US market, it will deny the oil companies untold trillions of dollars in profit that they would otherwise be able to extract from the rest of us as oil becomes more scarce.

"Whoever says to the wicked, 'You are innocent,' will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations; but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them."

Proverbs 24:24-25

Stop wasting your time trying to drag the rest of us into the emotional cesspool from which you're stuck looking out at life. It's your choice to stay there... but your perspective is useless both to you and to the world. To continue to say "all is black; There are no solutions," is useless indeed.

But you might find that, with a bit of help and healing, you could begin to see how you might move beyond seeing only terrifying problems and answer the call to become part of the solution. All you have to do is realize you have a problem, then dig yourself out of the muck, where you currently dwell and start searching for the solution to YOU.

In resolving your own issues, you'll also gain the skills you need to see possible solutions to problems outside yourself. Then just pick one and go to work, all the while seeking to learn, along the way, what will be useful in creating positive change in the world. In doing so, you, yourself, will become useful.

If, however, you continue to seek to drag the world and other people into ever-deeper hopelessness, you will eventually create an emotional black hole within yourself that will consume you. It's your choice which way you go.