The gravity of the situation sort of strained the limits of English rhetoric - still, I think it could have been more MLK-ish.

It seemed a bit contentious - like a campaign speech. Also seemed to cast both Bush and Clinton era as childish. "Time to cast aside childish things."

Then they would thrive in the 'free market.'

The asset bubble creates the condition of too much capital with no where to go. Hence, you got mortgage derivatives so all that capital could get parked in something that brought in 5% interest rather than 3% T-bills.
When everyone who could afford a house had one, then mortgage salesman began to cajole poor people into expensive houses (and in fact that house price was part in parcel of the asset bubble itself).

So now, instead of allowing "the market" to let the air out of the bubble, we're taking money away from taxpayers to puff the bubble up some more.

There's a Nat King Cole Christmas Carol I have never heard anyone else do - maybe it was written for him in '62 when the stereo version of "Christmas Song" was recorded.

It's always been a sentimental favorite of mine, as it emphasizes the warmth and humanity - literally of this 'God.'

Sing sweet and low your lullaby
till angels say, \Amen.\
A mother tonight is rocking a cradle in Bethlehem
while wise men follow through the dark a star that beckons them.
A mother tonight is rocking a cradle in Bethlehem.
\A little child shall lead them,\ the prophets said of old.
In storm and tempest keep 'em until the bells is tolled.
Sing sweet and low your lullaby
till angels say, \Amen.\
A mother tonight is rocking a cradle in Bethlehem.
choir
Sing sweet and low your lullaby.

A mother tonight is rocking a cradle in Bethlehem.

I'm in no way trying to be difficult or reject euchumenicalism - or coldly boil everything down in a 'cynical' Marxist way. I guess I'm trying to emphasize that both Catholic Christianity and Judaism both possess core values that are actually shocking to the 'suburban' middle class concept of modern mores. Seriously - who's up for an 'old' Christ(mas) tradition called self castration? Anyone... Anyone?

I personally am quite moved by the adoration of an infant-God. Instead of God being a super-dictator who is just a leader of men but with supernatural powers to smite, the baby-king appeals to a sublime, spiritual - but gentle - actually FRAGILE place in the soul. In some ways, maybe that is a particularly Catholic/East Orthodox concept - of 'veneration' and 'solemnity' more as a mood or way of carrying yourself than as an ideology.

Catholicism emphasizes a truly ancient (pre-Socratic) notion of 'piety' that is decoupled from ideology. It's a 'procedural' piety as in, burn this oil, say these ancient words (latin) you don't understand, kneel, sit, stand, make the sign of the cross. It's a formulaic or 'recipe' kind of piety.

My ultimate take is that 'Christmas' in the US is, probably rightly, de-coupled from ideology and should (and does) emphasize the rich foods and the colored lights and the gifts; skiing, sledding snowmen with a nice Tom 'n Jerry or Egg Nog in front of the fire after. It's the inclusive American Christmas of "The Christmas Song"

The whole idea of 'pure' Christianity - especially in the early years when an imminent return of Christ was expected - was that sex - even (or especially perhaps) to procreate was antithetical to the big spiritual picture.

So sexual abstinence was favored to "be a eunuch for Christ." At least one of the early saints took this literally, and castrated himself. - The practice can be traced back to the 'attis' (I think) cult, where all the priests castrated themselves at an annual festival.

Hence, 'hard' ideologies are ALL really antithetical to home and hearth values of raising well fed, happy children and plying them with GI-Joes and M&Ms and a magical story about a kindly old man and his flying reigndeer. Christ has a few lines about the need to abandon your family (reject your father and mother) to become an acolyte - and there's the story of God asking (Issac? I'm blanking) a father to sacrifice his own son.

How's them for 'family values'? We're a bunch of fat and happy 'bourgeoise' still clinging to these religions of desperate slaves and nomadic peoples suffering under the imperial bootheel of Greece or Rome. But we've become the Greece/Rome, so understandably, the primary tenents of our own faiths actually shock our modern conscience.

It's important to remember that much of the "Christian" celebration of Christmas comes from druidic festivals to mark the Winter Solstice.

The idea of lighting candles and feasting on rich food to defy the dark and infertile winter months is a uniquely "northern" - not Christian.

Even the icon and statue heavy Catholic Church - when it's being honest, just doesn't much cotton to the idea of a winter feast. I was at a Latin mass a few weeks ago - the first week of the advent, and the homily was the (all too familiar) message of spiritual 'cleansing' and, of all things, asceticism so that we would be focused on spiritual, rather than wordly affairs and therefore be able to countenance the return of the savior within our liturgical year.

This in the middle of the chocolate and gravy and Nintendo season.

It helps to remember that the zealots who create religions have such big fish to fry it's no mystery why they would be contemptuous of seasonal feasts or raising and amusing children.

It occurs to me that the "American Value" of massive windfalls is not coming from the lower classes. In fact, it is the "Leisure Class" (Thorstein Veblen's formulation) which places all the empahsis on 'making a killing.'

Look at John Mccain and his penchant for high stakes gambling. And remember Rudy Guliani's "high risk, high reward" primary strategy? The same is true, really of all the big time Yale WASPS and Harvard Jews on Wall Street. They're looking for the mega jackpot ship that comes in.

Slow and steady accumulation of wealth and "buy and hold" stock strategies are what they preach to the rubes who they rip off with their currency manipulations etc.

Blacks didn't invent the value of "pecuniary decency" - they've just adopted it as a value recieved from on high.

Here's an alternative plan for black America: Move to rural areas. Seriously. When I was in Wyoming over the summer, there were "help wanted" signs all over - everybody's working in the oil fields.

Lets take a wide angle look at the US - not who is the most 'evil' or good. We have a system based on 'bringing home the bacon' and it rewards small, low population states. Go back to the Electoral College, where a Wyomingite's vote counts roughly three times that of large population states.

I've read that a large chunk of the "Cowboy" ranks were blacks. This was partly because being a cowboy was actually a really terrible job. Still, my advice to urban blacks, who are getting the short end of the electoral stick:

"Go west, young man!"

The nasty thing about 'jokes' is that if you bristle, then you are 'humorless' and a scold - if you say nothing, you're a pushover - and you walk away really pissed off.