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Tonight I saw Ralph Nader on Charely Rose...to sum Naders position up in as few words as I can....1. He sees that Americans are apathetic Politically, while they are at the top of their game on the job...he points out two reasons...1. Americans feel that their vote doesn't count, it will happen anyway and 2. Lack of Civics being taught in schools. He says that the power lies with the people and we should hold our Policians accountable and take back the power...He also decrys the consolidation of corporate power as never before...that our Political process is corrupted by corporate money...I would also add that Americans are being distracted by the material lifestyle they lead....nobody wants to give up their SUV and they would rather watch Nascar than get involved in the political process....they are being bought off.

I totally agree with Nade,r however he doesn't take it far enough....Our corporate culture has superceded our Political process...the corporate culture is now GLOBAL...and the US government is subserviant to this corprate Globalism (Laws and Foreign Policy are subordinated to corporate interests)..The effect is that the USA is now an imperial power, that projects it's power economically through corporations rather than militarially as Rome did...military power is used as an adjunct to corporate power...at the heart of the Jihadist movement is a revlusion of this Global corporatism....they see the encroachment of Mickey Mouse and Coca Cola as an attack on their culture....the Liberalism that is brought with corporatism is viewed as an attack on their traditional values... Thus it doesn't matter which pollitical party holds the White House..the policies are ultimately going to be the same the only difference maybe in the style of goverence...

I would have to add that corporatism is what provides the lifestyle we lead today...it is the economy of scale that provides the goods we take for granted (affordabilty) and it is this scale that allows the R&D for the technological advances we see going on around us.. however this is a 2 edged sword. the price to pay for this progress is envirnomental degradation...U can't have it both ways... .