Our lives are spent in a lucid dream, half asleep and half awake. In this dream everything is just fine. Our elected representatives are busy creating bills that provide for the common good, judges are devoted to protecting civil liberties and ensuring that the less powerful among us are shielded from misguided aggression and our president is intelligent, enlightened and understands the limits of power and the need for accountability.

Also in this dream the relationship between business and government is one of differing interests but shared goals. Both are committed to the protection and encouragement of the right to free association as well as political dissent. This dream is very nice. We continue uninterrupted until a slight disturbance, like passage of the patriot act, causes us to roll over and fluff the pillow but we don't wake up and it's back to the dream.

It seems that we only fully awaken in the middle of wars at which point we run to the window and watch in shocked silence as our leaders drive up and down the street with megaphones beseeching everyone to "Go back to sleep! It's not what you think!". And we do go back to sleep but with the vague feeling that something's not right. Our last thoughts before falling into a deep sleep are that "Congress seems to be gutting the bill of rights and I never noticed it before but the president seems kind of...of....well he doesn't seem like the kind of person who could or should be president".

But the final thought is the most unsettling, " I don't know how I could have missed it but I just had the strangest feeling that corporations have grown so powerful that they actually own congress and the mainstream media ................nah.....I must be dreaming........better..go...back..to sl-... ."