Am I a Socialist?

I've been following only lightly this whole business about the financial market bailout and I find it a little overwhelming. I'm sure lots of people do. I'm not really one of the people who are on the edge of my seat because it affects me personally, but I think in the long run it feels we're on the cusp of an ideological branching, and there's a great deal of waffling about where we want to go.

From what I can tell, we're at a point where we have to take a good long hard look at ourselves and the basis of our perception for success. Our country is built on a foundation that say's money=success. While money certainly makes things simpler in a lot of ways, it comes with its own burden and the almost required obsession of making *more* money.

Whether you're a sex worker who swears they will only do this "for a little while" to earn money to do "what they really want" or someone who is committing fraud because "they have a serious problem that this little fraud can help" and then everything becomes a serious problem and fraud (or sex work) becomes a lifestyle, a career. These are the extreme versions of my point, but we all know how the more money you make, the more you spend, thus, the more you need to make.

It's a cycle of despair that has rampant capitalistic morality written all over it. When you make money, you're supposed to be happy, right? But what did you give up in yourself to make that money? Where did your heart go, where are your dreams now? How much compromise and erosion of idealism did you have to tolerate in order to get the success you scraped together? And we wonder why it's a country of people who love their SSRI's more than their mamma.

Is this just a morning rant fueled by prednisone, (holy cow, on that stuff I'm SUPERWOMAN!) coffee and a lack of antihistimines to bring me down in order to justify my currently unemployed status and a hope to stoke my rapidly diminishing dream to bring cool clothes to people who want them? Sure, maybe. But dammit, the republicans in the NYTimes are complaining that this buyout is a step down the path towards socialism.

My hackles went up at that, but then I thought... well, maybe he's right? And, is that such a bad thing? You look at capitalism in more socialist leaning countries, and people are able to make money if they're serious about it, but at the same time there are regulations about what you can do as a business. Regulatory agencies that are actually paying attention, stay on top of developments and have the teeth to make their regulations stick. That means there are certain things you simply can't do in the name of the holy dollar; things to the workers, environment, other companies, taxes and a host of other liberties that have been allowed in our capitalistic environment and have led to the collapse of today.

I remember when all the downsizing was happening, when they just started hacking and slashing internally to get rid of people at the bottom so people at the top could make more money. Cannibalizing your own company to skim more off the top -- what did they really think was going to happen when you stopped actually doing what your company letterhead says you do, and all you are really doing is making the numbers look good for wall street investment? What did we think was going to happen when companies were investing in risky mortgages, businesses and just general asshattery because they figured nothing could really touch them when their company was so big and there was so much money lying around? The bigger they are... yadda yadda.

If there was ANYONE who was supervising these children with their own personal jets and a blow job staff of 12 in at least a minimal way and said, "Hey, maintain at least a modicum of sense when making investments and managing your companies," would we be in this situation now? And it's PREVALENT! It's everywhere. We're talking HUGE companies with tons of money, enough money that their failure will destroy our economy, and *that* wasn't worth regulating a little bit?? Seriously, if nothing else, at least regulate the things that if they fail they take EVERYONE down with them. Some socialism, please?? Pretty please? Let's at least start considering the SOCIAL aspects of the world we live in, and how whether we know each other or not, we're all in this together and these big companies with no ethics, no compunctions, no sense and no regulation have in some ways more influence in our daily lives than the government that we pay to regulate *us*... why should they be immune? Where are the cops for corporate America?