Mr Kime Drewls:

[Quoting me:]

Don't you guys always jabber on about how the Shareholder and His Prophet, the CEO, are the Highest Authority, unlike God only in that probably more people believe in them than in him nowadays? At least that's what *I* get from DrooK and BeeP and Idunnowhoall, when sometimes I dare suggest that maybe American society has got the power structure tilted a bit too far in favour of the Holy Corporation...

Slow down a second. I'll let Bill defend himself, but I can't imagine how anyone would think I don't believe the power structure is tilted too far.

Oh, all right, so you might not be all that wild about the Holy Corporation, per se... But wasn't it you who lectured me, a while back, about how the Godly Shareholder is the basic fundament of any civilized society? Hey, no, hang on -- now that I think about it, that may have been Critter Rathman! Sorry, I just got the two of you confused for a while there.

Anyway, my point (to him, then, and to you only if you hadn't considered this already) was this: If you want to cut the Holy Corporation down to size, you'll have to touch the privileges of the Godly Shareholder too; the two are inexorably intertwined.

Where you and I seem to differ is that you seem to think the government can and should fix this. (Is this an accurate description of your views?)

In a sense, yes: Namely, in the wider sense of "government", as "system of governance". I mean, WTF would you *call* the fundamental way of "how to run a country", if not "government"? And in that sense, a change in "how you run the country" -- specifically, adjusting the Holy Corporations' share of the power, of how much of the country's affairs they actually get to run -- is obviously a change in government.

OK, that may have been a bit too facile... (albeit correct in and of itself). You obviously meant "government" in the narrower, classical, sense of "political machinery of representative democracy".

And in that sense, you're at least half right: I'm far from sure that government in this sense *can* fix the problem (though I certainly *hope* so!), but I sure am convinced that it *should*. I mean, the problem is that the Fat Cats are riding roug-shod over the Little Guy, right? So, what's needed is precisely "democracy", or *some* kind of better representation for the Little Guy -- a seat at the table where the *real* decisions that affect *his* life are made.

And where the heck ELSE would he -- or you -- have even the *faintest chance* of finding (or creating) representative democracy, than in the "political machinery"?!?

Whereas I think that it's primarily the government that has caused the power to become so concentrated.

In the wider sense (cf above), that's of course a truism: The problem IS "government", in that sense.

In the narrower sense (also as per the above)... Yeah, that may be (not that I think it necessarily *is*, but it *may be*) -- but so what? There is NO OTHER alternative, that I can see, for where to transfer the bit "too much" of power over society that the "Godly Shareholder / Holy Corporation / Prophet CEO" triumvirate holds at present, than to the "political" sector.

I mean, where would *you* transfer it to -- the judiciary? Religious institutions? The Meeja?

I don't know which of those alternatives makes one's laugh feel the most sickly...

Our Elder Philosopher p^Hwonders:

So then - what's your take on the "pack animal phenomenon" in Finland, the rest of Euro? Are avge. citizens you observe as insouciant about local politics as our'n?

Yeah, unfortunately they are, more or less.

Here we are mollified, rendered catatonic via the dangled Murican Dream\ufffd\ufffd ie. remain a good drone in the Worker Caste, believe the slogans and someday.. You too may be reincarnated as Pharaoh! Why.. Anyone can become President! [we have surely proven That one].

Here, it's "Remain a good drone in the Worker Caste, believe the slogans and someday... Your children will be Safe and Secure in the protection of the Cradle-to-Grave Welfare State".

Funny thing is, that's the "SOMA" -- NOT the reality, as all those Merkin Bashers(*) of "European 'Cradle-to-Grave Welfare State' Collectivism" seem prone to think.

What's the Soma in your bailiwick? Do folks around there actually participate in the elections, require actual debates, listen to them and vote against patent BS? Or just bitch a lot in better English syntax?

Naah, I'm pretty alone in bitching at this level of English syntax -- apart from the actual English themselves, that is... :-( Most people don't even do that.

They, just like your ComPatriots(+), swallow the bait, slightly different a bait though it may be, and happily chew the Status Cud.

"When the rich assemble to concern themselves with the business of the poor, it is called Charity. When the poor assemble to concern themselves with the business of the rich, it is called Anarchy."

-Paul Richards

Sounds like a pretty smart guy; who the heck is (was?) he, and why haven't I heard of him before now?

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(*): Hello, Bogey-Fake!

(+): Hmm... And they complained about "ComSymps"!