Well, I will get myself into trouble if I use the word "socialism" without giving an adequate definition. But I usually think of a socialist agenda as an agenda which contains more humanitarian objectives, and a capitalist agenda as an agenda which contains more business or profit-oriented objectives. And I think the current political parties, Democrat and Republican, represent the socialist and capitalist agendas respectively, to a certain degree. But I don't see the two terms capitalism and socialism on oposites ends of a continuum, if you will. In fact, I think people usually think of communism and capitalism as polar opposites. I also didn't think OWS was very clear in either direction, but if I could make a general assessment on what it was about, it would be about or against the dominanation of a few corporations (i.e. on wall street, but not necessarily?) over other companies, or even the government- but I'm not sure. And there has been, throughout American history and starting at the very beginning of our country, a concern over too much power in the hands of "a few", or a concern over big businesses overrunning government, and so the "American people" are an attempt to address these concerns through the formation of a system of checks and balances (i.e. our government), and through the passage of acts which bust corporate monopolies- just to mention a couple of examples. But have they been entirely successful? And could they better achieve a decentralization of power through a third party, that is when they need to achieve it? Can a third party be formed at all? I also know about this view, and I hope it isn't an increasing view of our government, that government is simply to be a "service provider"- to me, this was a view that was devised by business for business, anyway. There are certain beliefs and principles (as I mentioned, separation of power) that underly the foundation of our government, and so, to view our government as simply a service provider means that we're through- we have to move on to something else- which maybe we do, given the OWS movement and it's fizzle into political oblivion- dare I say it.... Chad PS- It's that ever-snarling bald eagle that I don't think will ever go away- in fact, I think the bald eagle is off the endangered list, but now a group of Native Americans want to continue ancient rutuals by killing a few, I hear...
