USA. A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of...

I don't follow politics as closely as I -- and we all -- should. As Eisenhower said, "In a democracy, politics is everyone's part time job."

But I did list my most important issues, and I found a constant element running through all of them: US Corporations are too damned powerful. Beginning with a misunderstood court ruling in 1865, corporations have been systematically using money to buy political influence, then using that influence to change laws and regulations, then using those changes to gain more money, then... O, you get the idea.

The laws that used to keep them in check (read Hartmann's Unequal Protection to learn about them) have been largely erased, and since the 70s there's been a big propaganda campaign to convince people that anything good for corporations is good for the country.

And the propaganda has worked so well that almost an entire generation believes in deregulation so strongly that they question the intelligence of anyone who doesn't. Almost like religious fanatics talking to "outsiders." Or Cubs fans trying to explain why they're Cubs fans.

Business is vital for any economy, and some freedom is necessary to do business. But too much freedom invites excessive greed and corruption, and that's where I think we are now.

Every year, the country I love looks more like the ugly background to a Dicken's novel, where the ignorant are easily made poor and the poor become ever increasngly desperate, all while the Ebenezer Scrooges and Ralph Nickleby's of the world get richer.

So I went looking for a candidate who would talk openly about the need to curtail corporate excess. A friend of mine told me look at John Edwards, and this is a clip my friend made to talk about him.