Ernest, there has not been a decent trial of Socialism anywhere that I know of yet.

While I am tempted to jump up on the soapbox and rail against the monied interests who continue to oppress the average folk, I will confine my comments to this. The opiate of the masses isn't socialism. It's the old okey doke bullshit being spread that says something like, "if you are willing to work hard, you can make it in this country". Tell that to the single parents working three jobs and trying to raise kids. Tell that to the honest and hard working members of the working class who have seen their jobs, livelihood, and the future of their kids sacrificed at the altar of capitalism so that the rich got richer, and the gap between the richest and the poorest just got bigger. Tell that to the average bloke, yourself included, who will pay several thousand dollars this year just to finance the rescue of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG. Oh, and by the way, the fellas that ran these companies into the dirt walk away with obscene golden parachutes. I saw that the fella that took Lehman Brothers into the dirt got 66 MILLION bucks for doing so.

Time for folks to start using some of that old working class common sense they are so proud of and quit voting against your own economic self interest. Time for us, as the bards of our age, to start using the tactics taught to us by Woody and Utah to get through to folks. And part of that should be to put a pretty good coat of tarnish on that old statue of the great communicator, Ronald Reagan. That friggin' cowboy actor is the one who started this whole bit about pissin' on our feet and convincing us it was raining outside.

Mick