One of the things imprinted from my young life was sitting in my friend's house. I was maybe 8 or 9? Anyway, we were waiting for something else to come on like Happy Days or Dukes of Hazzard or something. These were the days of most households having one TV, maybe color if that family splurged and about 2-3 channels, LOL.

His parents were watching some local debate between two local candidates, possibly on PBS? The young guy struck me as a bit of a dumbass and had kind of slimey used car salesman vibes and the older guy seemed to be talking sense. Don't really remember many details, and hell, I was a kid anyway.

Thing winds up and my friend's dad is red-faced with anger over it and is growling about how the older guy will "raise my taxes!".

Did I say we were sitting in my friend's house? I left out the part that he lived in a trailer. My friend was poor, as was I - both our parents had bought large amounts of land in remote areas and put cheap houses on them. It is not likely at all that we were going to have our taxes raised in any way we'd really notice. I remember asking my parents about this reaction and I remember them laughing at the absurdity...

I'm pretty sure that's just a blip, a temporary roadblock on capitalism's path in those places. It'll only last until the right, or rather, the wrong people gain political power in those regions -- something that capitalists work towards endlessly. Once some morally flexible political elements gain power, the wealthy who put put those elements in place, will simply bribe them into deregulating everything they can which will allow capitalism to run its natural course.

Things looked pretty good in the USA for a long time too. Then the capitalists started supporting political candidates that convinced the public that the very regulations that protected people and the environment were really bad things that were hurting people. They got voters to believe that deregulation would allow everyone to be millionaires and everything would be puppies and butterflies forever.

We all know what deregulation really led to, of course. But as the saying goes, it's far easier to fool a person than it is to convince them they've been fooled. Getting people to admit they were fooled, especially against an endless barrage of propaganda from the capitalists, has been seemingly impossible. The fools, supported by their capitalist masters, are clinging to power and blocking all efforts to fix our problems. Probably because if the problems do get fixed, it'll be the final proof that the fools were fooled in the first place, and they can't allow that. They'd rather live out their days in squalor, breathing poison until they finally lay down in the graves they've dug for us all.

They definitely don't count… all the people they kill. bah-dum-tiss

Thank you.

No problem. :)