Oh boy, here's an unrepentant socialist who's finally gotten his chance. But, as distinguished commenter Mr. Sweeney has noted aptly before, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Well, now it's Mr. Cockburn's time to shine. But what is coming is not "socialism" per se. We have to return to Mr. Hagel for the right approach: Capitalism is the "thesis," socialism is the "antithesis," and God knows what we will call it will be the "synthesis" born of the conflict. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
What synthesis will achieve, if we are to continue as the species that calls the shots on this planet, is getting our "leaders" to take a hard look at the the list of things we hate to confront because it just doesn't feel good. There at the very top can be found the very thing that our current woes are signaling in spades: The final merging of economic and environmental collapse. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
None of our economic models can find a way to produce economic growth without population growth. We are populating the planet into environmental oblivion, and all the cool talk about clean energy and green this and that does nothing more than spin fantasies for us about how finding exactly the right arrangement of the chairs on the Titanic is the way to keep the good ship afloat. We haven't even begun to crack open our eyelids after this last bender. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Now, one must understand that Mr. Cockburn, who never misses an opportunity to play devil's advocate, does not believe in global warming and apparently thinks destroying the natural carbon sink provided by the world's rain forests coupled with with massive increases in carbon dioxide production (not to mention increased production of all the other "greenhouse" gases, including the glorious hydrogen) is not something to worry about. Okay, he's a journalist, and doesn't really understand the applicable science, which you can't learn in a couple of college courses where you get good grades by writing impressive essays. So let's leave the complicated science aside, and just talk about the old rat cage. You know, that little world, where rats go about their daily business, which stays the same size no matter how many rats propagate inside of it. Eventually it becomes a matter of understanding the power of that axiomatic principle known as the piss-and-poop to available-space ratio. .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
But I digress. Let's just say that, by the time we get finished with finding a way out of our current mess, and we had better do it fast if we want to continue to have a planet we actually want to live on, no one will be able to fathom how in the world trivial little things like nationalizing the banks could ever have been seen as controversial. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Whether we are headed toward socialism isn't the question any more. We already have it for the corporate elite. The question is how to make it work, and how to finally cast off the old, failed economic superstitions that are choking us to death like the carapace of a molting crab that just won't crack.

Oh Jeez, I confused the spelling of the surname of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich with that of Chuck, who's also kind of cool...