RI Jimmy, I appreciate your comments and welcome them anytime. Capitalism is the best system there is. Lord knows that communism will never work because human nature dictates that though we think it would be wonderful if everyone had what they needed and recieved no more or no less than the next guy, everyone on an equal plane, it can't work because everyone wants to be better and have more than the guy next to him.
I mentioned the Christian fundementalists not for what they control now but what they would like to control and thier "threat", for a better word, is growing. You rightfully pointed out television, radio etc and the sex, language and violence it portrays but that is, however perverted we see it, a freedom of expression as guaranteed by the US Constitution and as such should be only minimaly controlable. I agree that it can get out of hand, but nevertheless, free speech and freedom of expression is a guaranteed right of every US citizen. The way I see it is that only a governmentaly funded television station (PBS) has any chance of being regulated in a more stringent manner than the privately owned national broadcasting companies. I always found it odd that they could show natives in the amazon running around naked on tv but when it comes to white women everyone gets thier shorts in an uproar. Smacks of racism to me.
I believe that Enron and TRW's people being put to the fire was a token gesture on the govt.s part. Just enough to show to give the illusion that someone in the govt. really cares. Pick a couple companies, burn the ceo and top management alive publicly then go back to business as usual. They were sacrificed for the greater good, that being conditioning the public into believing they are serious, which they really aren't. You will never ever see Haliburton toasted like that. Capitalism, or I should say, the theory of capitalism, is a good one, like you say the best we got. But it's full of holes, greed, nepotism and croniesm.
One of the real problems in anything getting done is lobbyists. Oil, drug, insurance and healthcare have them, and pay them big money to see things stay status quo. Hydrogen technology exists for cars to get unbelievable mileage but the oil industry spends billions in thier lobby against it. Very successfully I might add.
Democracy in it's purest form is without party, label or affiliation. It's the right of one human being to say what he thinks and vote his conscience on whatever issue lies before him. Democrats, republicans vote the party line if they are registered as such and woe to them that do not, they are chastised for it. I was once an Independent. Not anymore, they formed a party too! How can you be independent if you belong to a political party? Now I am registered as "non-enrolled". To me thats being true to the democratic ethic. My children are pre-disposed, as research has now found, to vote the same way and that makes me proud.
My proudest achievment as a parent is to have two kids who are independent thinkers. Who think with thier heads,thier hearts and thier conscience and who question authority's course. They are being conditioned to be anti-conditioned. Peace out to you all.
