The audience booed during the movie Network when Ned Beatty, as the character Arthur Jensen, proclaimed that business was more important than nationhood:

"...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies... The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business..."

Repugnant thought. While Americans wouldn't approve a system like that of the former Soviet Union, where the government could wield absolute power, I fear that we don't recognize an equal threat, a system in which megacorporations wield the absolute power. That threat is a lot closer. Continue...

No, my friend, I don't have it backward: The bumper stickers do. By thousands of years. In the northern hemisphere, around this time of year, there has been a popular holiday since long before anyone ever heard of Jesus Christ. Evangelical Christians who try to claim this season as their private property do a discredit to Jesus and to their religion, not to mention the U.S. Constitution. I want to respect and honor Christians and Christianity; those who demand a suspension of rational thinking make that difficult. Continue...

When you witness a police officer committing a crime, who do you call? In Chicago and other big cities, it's too easy to be brushed off. If there are officers on the scene, well, what's the problem? B-b-b-b-but it's the officers who are robbing this place. It's a police sergeant who's punching and kicking a barmaid who thought he'd had enough to drink. It's the officers who are shaking down a motorist. Are you sure? Well, you can file a report maybe, or hope other officers will be sent. If you file a report and you happen to live in Chicago, you may as well plan to move. Having the Fraternal Order of Police mad at you isn't much better than pissing off the Mafia. If other officers are sent, the guilty ones may just say "We have this under control" and the new guys will dutifully leave. Maybe have a laugh about it at a favorite cop bar later, I suspect.

Now I happen to believe that most police officers are rightly motivated. They want to uphold the law, and they're not just thugs with guns and badges. Unfortunately, some are just that, thugs with guns and badges, and even more unfortunate, the code of silence prevents other officers from cleaning up their own house. At the end of the day, it's almost part of a police officer's job description to become a silent accessory to police crime. The officer who breaks that rule may simply get the cold shoulder, or may be framed for an offense of which he or she is innocent. In the worst case, the officer who tries to do the right thing may be rewarded by being set up to be injured or killed in the line of duty. How? Easy enough. "Murphy, you're just in time. Check out the garage while we go around the house." (Failing to mention that an armed offender was just seen entering the garage.)

Over time, organized civilians can and have successfully combatted police corruption, but in a condensed period of time, when you're the witness to a crime being committed by an officer, or the victim, you're close to helpless. If you try to intervene, you're taking your life in your hands, not to mention risking a charge of interfering with an officer performing his or her duties.

Of course it can happen everywhere. Police misconduct just happens to be one of many areas in which Chicago often excels. But remember the Forensic Files episode of the officer who got a warrant to arrest his former girlfriend on the basis of completely false accusations against her 15-year-old son? This happened in a non-metropolitan area (if memory serves me correctly). The woman had begged police authorities to keep him away from her home, but he pulled off this ruse and, during a raid on her home, went immediately to her bedroom. Knowing he was there to kill her, she made a dive for a night stand where she kept a gun, and an analysis of his first shot proved that he had not acted in self defense as he claimed. It took years to bring him to trial because of the reluctance of other officers to pursue justice in the case.

So what's the answer?

Obviously we could make police officers' careers more rewarding, pay them better, and do a lot better job of recruiting. Officers who show any sign of thinking their primary responsibility is to protect their own under all circumstances rather than serving and protecting the public should be re-evaluated and, if warranted, discharged. That's a long process, and it won't happen next year or in the next five years.

What can be done is to create, in each state, a division of the state police whose primary responsibility is to police the police. If I am being abused in some way by a police officer, a witness can call an alternative to 911. Say 811 or 922 or whatever. That goes immediately to this state police division which then dispatches officers on an emergency basis. If the local police or sheriff's deputies say "there's no problem," the state officers remain, observe, and make a report.

Will people abuse it? Some will of course. Someone who did so knowingly and maliciously should face charges for making a false police report. Perhaps at times it will be a matter of opinion. If I'm drunk and obnoxious, the police may think they're only restraining me, and my wife may think they've gone beyond necessary force and are committing aggravated battery. Sorry, but justice isn't always simple. Some will say this would tie the police's hands and prevent them from doing their jobs. I say it might make them think how much blood they want investigating officers from a different jurisdiction to find on me and my clothes, and officers who tend to act out of anger and frustration might decide to take a deep breath instead. Don't we have a right to expect as much of them as the law expects of the rest of us?

It would also help to pass a federal law against police abuse, making it a crime for one officer to cover the misdeeds of another or to fail to report a crime permitted by another officer. Drastic? Not in my opinion. Isn't respect for the law something America needs more of, at all levels?

And you see, fear of police and respect for the law are not the same thing. In fact, they work against each other.

If you disagree, please feel free to tell me. With what I've written here, I might have just made a lot of police officers hate my guts. But call me an idealist if you will, I think a lot more people who wear badges will think it's high time somebody got serious about this.

Probably not. Of course, one can make the argument that China did not deserve the Olympics either, re its record on human rights, the environment, Tibet, and umpteen other reasons. One could just as easily make the argument that the Olympics is not an award for good behavior, and that the committee has to be most concerned with choosing a venue that promises the world a good show. Unfortunately, for someone who loves Chicago, I think America's most beautiful big city could be faulted on both counts.

In many ways, Chicago often comes across like a miniature police state. Mayor Richard M. Daley hasn't blatantly ignored the law as much as his father, Richard J., aka Boss or King, did regularly, and to my knowledge he doesn't run a miniature KGB like Chicago's infamous Red Squad of yesteryear. But as States Attorney of Cook County he turned a blind eye to police corruption and abuse, and as mayor he hasn't done nearly enough to put criminal cops in prison, or to put foot patrols on the street in high crime areas, or to use the enormous power of the City of Chicago to end conditions in the Cook County Department of Corrections that are reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. Taking action against a Chicago police officer for blatantly criminal acts invites a prolonged campaign of retribution, and in one case the head of the union that represents the officers virtually announced publicly that he was putting out a contract on the complainant. I believe his words were "xxxx had better move out of Chicago."

Not nearly so grievous, but just as symptomatic of a city government with a police state mentality, is the city's ability to hand out parking tickets at will, and citizens' inability to have a wrongfully issued ticket cancelled. If my information is correct, the city collects thousands of dollars in unwarranted fines every month by ignoring motorists' proof that a ticket was improperly issued or that they were not the offender. I was the victim of that game myself a few years ago, when I got notices about unpaid parking fined for a BMW, although I kept sending copies of my registration showing that the license plate issued in my name was for a different make of automobile.

If deciding on a venue for the Olympics were up to me, I might be concerned about visitors from around the world being arrested for the grievous crime of not speaking English, or a journalist from some country we don't like being arrested and tortured into a confession for murder, or just in general causing those who come to the Olympics to be subjected to rude, surly treatment.

What about the other aspect of the decision, the city 's ability to put on a show for the world? Well, friends, if the city can't put on a good show for the Olympic committee, how can it put on a show for the world? It would be typical of the Powers That Be in Chicago to go to Copenhagen with a sense of entitlement, poorly prepared, and unorganized. In how many cities is it headline news that the public schools will be able to open on time? The late columnist Mike Royko claimed that at the beginning of the first of Chicago's paralyzing snowstorms each winter, the Department of Streets and Sanitation would look up and say "What's that white stuff coming down? Do you suppose we should do something about it?" That probably describes the level of Chicago's preparation for the big show in Copenhagen.

There may have been some very influential people there. Certainly the most popular man in the world, one Barack Obama, did what he could. But it was the city that called the shots. "Da wunnerful city of Chicago." "Da mare" wanted the Olympics, and that should have been enough. Like da mare wanted to close Meigs Field, Chicago's lakefront commuter airport, and aviation authorities didn't jump to do his bidding fast enough. So da mare sent Bulldozers in the middle of the night to plow up the runways, with no advance notice to the commuter airlines or to owners of the planes that were parked (and consequently marooned) there.

Chicago is a great city, but the political machine that runs the city is much too full of itself, and seriously needed a reality check. Will this do the job?

I hope so. Or maybe da mare will decide he can send some police thugs and Bulldozers to Rio and bring the Olympics here the old-fashioned Chicago way.

In Springfield, IL, the tomb of Abraham Lincoln stands in an old cemetary. A simple sign asks visitors to behave in a dignified manner out of respect for our martyred leader. The great man's spirit seems to hang over the place as surely as if he had been gunned down by an American-hating secessionist only weeks ago. He had successfully held our nation together, governing under the banner of a fledgling Republican party, which was fiercely opposed to any further extension of the abomination of slavery. Opposing forces, under the Confederate Battle Flag, started the war that cost more American lives than any other, seeking to split our nation apart.

So grateful was America that for decades thereafter, the Republican party dominated national politics. It would take a long dissertation to outline the evolution of the parties since that time. I'd rather not use GOOD and BAD labels here, explicit or implied, but I think anyone my age who pays much attention to the news has seen how often the two major parties traded positions on important issues, and would have seen that it was integration that motivated southern white Democrats to jump ship en masse and re-invent themselves as Republicans. The national Democratic party had shown that it would use any means necessary to enforce federal law, just as the national Republican party had a century before.

Strangely, we had, as we still have, Republicans who consider themselves good, solid Americans, not standing together and singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but standing under the confederate battle flag. The governor of Texas has openly, publicly endorsed secession from the Union.

Excuse me? Wasn't one Civil War enough? Governor, are you an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, or of John Wilkes Booth?

However much I have have disagreed with the majority of Republicans at times in my life, one thing I've always believed you could count on Republicans for was reasonably polite behavior. In a local televised political debate I attended in Ohio, it was the Democrat who broke the rules and interrupted. In the state where I was born, Kansas, Democrats were shadowed by the history of Quantrill's raiders in pre-Civil War days, and the more recent Tom Pendergast, whose thugs used guns and brass knuckles to assure big Democratic turnouts. During the unionization of cab drivers in my home town, it was the unionizers who turned over some cabs. The Republicans more or less calmly pointed out the inappropriateness of this approach, while Democrats quite animatedly railed against the company intransigence that triggered it, while somewhat less animatedly suggesting that the union stick to legal methods.

Republicans or Democrats may have been right or wrong, wise or foolish, at various times, depending on your views, but generally speaking, Democrats might behave like ladies and gentlemen, while Republicans just would. You could always count on a Republican to carry the flag, politely and with respect; the flag of the United States of America.

Recently some Republican leaders announced their plans to disrupt "town hall meetings." I'm not referring to people attending, participating, asking questions. People were sent to disrupt, to prevent, not encourage, discussion. Our elected representatives were shouted down, and peaceful participants were denied the opportunity to ask relevant questions. You know about Congressman Wilson of South Carolina, who shouted an insult at President Obama during his address just last week. That same miserable specimen has a history of calling anyone who disagrees with him an "America hater." I propose to you that it is Joe Wilson who hates America and democratic process, and that it speaks very poorly of his party that he has not been excommunicated long ago. (Predictably, be loves the Confederate flag.)

Anyone who long ago gave up on the Republican party may believe this is not his or her problem. I disagree. For better or worse, we have a winner-take-all system. It would be not impossible, but extremely difficult, to begin a viable third party, or a fourth and fifth, which could introduce more innovation into our political repertoire. But it would not be too difficult for our two party system to become a one-party system; I don't believe that would benefit our nation.

Further, it would be easier than most of us like to think for peaceful dissent to be replaced by social breakdown. That's always very costly. In a heavily armed population, it would be a catastrophy.

If you have differing views on this, which you can express without name calling or threatening my life, I'd like to hear them! Of course you're welcome to comment if you agree as well.

To many Americans, the Second Amendment is the most important part of the constitution. In fact, many have said that the right to bear arms is the right that guarantees all the rest. It’s a controversial subject, and almost anything I say about it is going to make a lot of people angry, but it’s a topic we can’t afford to ignore, a topic we need to think very seriously about.

I’m a gun owner. Living in the country, I believe there are legitimate reasons. It took some extra pains on my part to become eligible to buy a firearm legally. If you don’t know why, please check out my other website sometime: going-straight.com.

Now supposedly I also have the right to free speech. Maybe my interpretation is that I can stand on a street corner and yell "Congressman Loudmouth is a blithering idiot!" Suppose a squad car stops and a couple of policemen tell me to shut up or get arrested. Does my right to bear arms mean that I can come back the next day, with a couple of other people who share my view, armed with assault rifles and 9 mm automatics with 40-round clips, plus a couple of bullhorns? Some crackpot at a place called Ruby Ridge thought that being required to pay taxes amounted to unlawful search and seizure, and that his right to bear arms gave him the moral right to stage a holdout with federal agents; you probably know the tragic results of that.

Need I go on? The idea that you could possibly defend yourself, or would ever need to defend yourself, against your own government with your own rifles and shotguns and pistols is nothing short of preposterous. Meanwhile, the costs of our juvenile fixation on guns is staggering. Firearms are involved in 68% of homicides, 52% of suicides, 43% of robberies, and 21% of aggravated assaults. It’s not gangs that make tough neighborhoods unlivable, it’s gangs with guns. Children don’t get killed in their own living rooms in a drive-by stabbing or strangling; it’s a drive-by shooting.

You’ve heard that cliche "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Poppycock. First of all, no one is trying to "outlaw" guns. There have been efforts to impose better gun controls. Second, if guns were less plentiful, it would be harder for those outlaws to get guns. Third, no one whose intentions are at all legitimate needs to be able to buy one gun a day. Anyone who wants to do that is either a little deranged, in my professional opinion, or may be hoping to start an armed revolution.

My wife and I own three motor vehicles. Each one has a license plate. If I commit a vehicular homicide and anyone gets my license number, the police know whom to ask about it. That’s only right. Now suppose a bullet from a gun that I own winds up in the body of a dead police officer. I see no reason that the ballistics of my weapon should not be on file with the FBI, just like fingerprints, so that the police would, in that case also, have a prime suspect from the start. Just as it’s a federal crime to convert a semi-automatic to a machine gun, or to use a silencer, if we had a national ballistics registration, as I think we should, it could be a federal crime to knowingly alter the ballistics.

Shotguns are a little more complicated. I don’t have an easy answer, but would be interested in knowing what suggestions you might have.

At present, the most alarming development in our world-famous right to bear arms obsession is people strutting around public meetings armed to the teeth. So far, I believe, they are believed to be those who sympathize with far-right views. But let’s remember that in the 60s and 70s it was some on the far left who were resorting to bombs and guns to get their point across. Are we headed for the point when we’ll have opposing political "militias," as has happened in many other countries?

How far down that road are we willing to go? If we go too much further, I’m afraid we can kiss democracy as we know it goodbye for at least a generation.

Is it time to go back to the interpretation of a "well regulated militia" as the constitution described it, instead of everybody who can get a gun, as decided recently by the supreme court?

If you can discuss the subject in a civil manner, I definitely want to know your views on this.