Aside from the Christian/True Christian, secular/religious, liberal/conservative, this or that -- "you're either with us or against us" -- social arguments of seemingly the entirety of human history, the single most toxic -- and I do mean, toxic -- economic argument has to be this one and the most insipid "charge" against Obama: "He's a socialist."

Yeah? So what if he were?



If there's a single reason why the political landscape does look so ridiculous, all the erroneous conflation saturating the air surely must be it. Enacting a few socialist policies does not mean the end of representative democracy by any stretch of the imagination.

Granted: America has generally followed in Europe's footsteps, but as our own intrepid Rodian so valiantly pointed out years ago, socialism itself is by no means a bad thing. What people seem to fear about it is that the next logical "step" would be Communism and - we all know about that, right? -- dictatorial regimes.

Guess what? That's erroneous conflation. Another granted: Human beings are not evolved enough for anything remotely like a Communist economic system much less a world in which everyone truly has equal opportunity and money is no longer even necessary. We're still stuck on tribal socio-economic class warfare, for heaven's sake.

Here's what I want to know: Just who was it that decreed we must always, always, always choose absolutely one or the other? We're way more creative than that. Aren't we?

"Yeah, yeah. You're talking about Utopia." Not really. We'd die without some challenges to take on but not only does nature seem to provide quite enough of those (human and otherwise), an awful lot of other challenges would seem better worth our time and energy.

K. Enough with the venting. I'm actually listener. (Believe it or not.)

Completely agree.

Even more ironic is how much the base of socialism resemble the tenets of many major religions, a particular style of which has become quite woven into the fabric of recent politics. Of all people, how can that crowd not lean toward socialist tendencies, or at least, understand the good parts of them?

I really dislike inconsistency.

JB

Been doing a lot of research (and listening to debates) on the plethora of "divides" for which there seems no logical cause. A Canadian blogger has termed this condition of Late Modernity "dehiscence". It's a global phenomenon. For lack of a better image, it's like watching tectonic plates shifting around.

On this one, in addition to the unfortunate influence of advertising and the MSM, it appears we're witnessing the zenith of a some thirty year trend in religious organizations (themselves apparently split in two due to generational shifts in attitudes) of "prosperity preaching" against which there is now a severe and ongoing backlash.

Like all the others, I get the impression it's more or less a deeply rooted subliminal phenomenon breaking into the open. We've come to a point now where no one can escape the realities anymore and America's collective consciousness appears to be awakening to some very nasty facts about the internal social, economic and political conditions that, "left to fester", have led us into this mess. In many ways, I get the impression that we're all victims of our hybrids. Socio-economic. No. There's social and there's economic. Socio-political. No. There's social and then there's political.

I'm not sure all the volatility we're going through is such a bad thing. The "sleeping giant" really needs to awaken and I think -- maybe -- it is.

The US Titanic has been turning for quite a while, but it's a really big ship. We didn't miss the iceberg, but that doesn't mean we have to sink.

Best question of the campaign put to McCain:

Why do you decry any national healthcare plan when you yourself have been the beneficiary of taxpayer-funded healthcare for your entire adult life?

(Dayton register).

McCain... mumble mumble.

Typical.

McCain is toast... er, if our questionable election system holds up.

Grrr. The suspense is killing me. If there's any one thing to hope for from an Obama presidency, it would seem that America may be finally on its way to becoming the United States.