My worries are similar to yours. We live in a harsh culture for the poorest and most vulnerable people. The big corporations and richest of the rich are in bed with the government, and they've been systematically skewing the playing field so that the rich get richer and the rest of us just sink.

They keep cutting taxes for the rich with the argument that they'll create jobs. Where are these jobs? India? The big corporations care about one thing -- the bottom line -- but they're given a "voice" in the government. Because supposedly they're people with the constitutional right to first speech. And since money is considered free speech under the U.S. Constitution, their "voice" drowns out everyone else. Then they send all the jobs abroad.

In my state, funding for the arts, education, welfare, and health care for the poorest are being defunded, while we cut taxes for the richest.

Then they "privatize" government services. Which means they hand over public money to private companies - run by their buddies - who then do the same thing government agencies used to do, but at a higher cost and poorer quality.

Then they have laws written to insure their services get used more. The people who run the private jails were the ones behind Arizona's immigration law. More people picked up and detained in jail equals more profits for the shareholders.

This is one reason I'm so suspicious of the incessant pushing of antipsychotics. Big Pharm got together in Texas and pushed through regulations requiring pdoc's in mhc's to first try three of the atypical AP's (which are much more expensive! happy shareholders again!) before going to older meds like Haldol or Thorazine. For whose benefit were those rules made?

Sorry. I'm a bit edgy about the whole thing. I need to take the advice I always give my son and "put my mind on something else."