We here i the US are sadly and sorely afflicted with an emerging conservatism thta precludes us from seeing any value in others, particularly others who are different. We are losing a part of the underlying humanity and goodness that has made the US a pretty good place to live in and a country that is pretty good to the rest of the world.

This xenophobia extends into parts of the fabric of our society that most people don't recognize. For example, the corporate culture of greed. It used to be that the greed in the American marketplace was linked directly to what was good for the shareholder. To some extent all of us are or could be shareholders.

But of late what we've seen is personal greed rising up to strangle the corporate greed. CEOs and CFOs and their cronies are now lining their own pockets at the expense of the shareholders. Enron, Global Crossing, Quest, etc. etc. ad nauseam. And this greed extends into the highest levels of our government. Bush's stock trading was, if not illegal, certainly very sleazy. And I predict that Cheney will be the second US vice president to resign in disgrace. What happened at Halliburton was almost as criminal as what went on inside Enron. And there appears to be ample indication that a subsidiary of Halliburton was the recipient of a very large government contract apparently without even bidding on it. How does stuff like this happen? Because some of us have turned away from a set of values that at least recognized the right of others to exist, and we have replaced it with a mindset in which the winner of the game is he who screws over everyone, even his own relatives.

Pretty sad.


TEd