Saturday, November 13

Saturday. My wife tells me I should take a rest from these diaries at the weekend. Maybe so. But, briefly…
An article tucked away toward the back of today's newspaper, about the increasing reliance of European museums on corporate sponsorship, reawakened this thought: that what you, Bush, tout as "democracy" is far from what I think of as "government by the people," etc. You're driving us, in fact, toward an oligarchy. When the big corporations have their hands in everything from the military to the arts and entertainment and even sports, it's hardly a stretch to think that they exercise a certain control over politics and government, too. Sometimes I wonder if this is inevitable in a world whose population is approaching the unmanageable. Still, I find it deeply troubling. I was brought up in a good socialist family long before I discovered, on arriving in the U.S., that socialism was a dirty word. Call me a wide-eyed idealist, but I continue to believe (and hope) that government has more to do with the common good than with power and profit for the wealthy. So much for Saturday, Bush. Have a good weekend.