As a long time business owner and employer, I think all the discussion in the media about “socialism” is way off the mark – especially when you consider beautifully run and staffed and vital government entities in our society like municipal fire departments (which aren’t intended or expected to turn a profit or run like businesses).

Likewise consider the 35,000 post offices that provide universal service to every citizen no matter how remote (for as little as 44 cents!). The US Postal Service has more locations than Starbucks, Wal-Mart and McDonalds combined, and it manages 596,000 employees all delivering half a billion articles every day, six days a week.

Are these all bastions of socialism? What about the military – is that a socialist entity? What about libraries and streetlights? Or congress itself, whose members receive lifelong pensions, and free and excellent healthcare for their whole lives for themselves and their families – all at taxpayer expense?

The danger isn’t that too much of the our treasury will be used by our government to develop massive alternative energy projects, or even to sustain the minimalist livelihood of people on the lower margins of society.

The 12.8 trillion tax dollars spent, lent or committed by treasury officials to corporate coffers that were “too big to fail” is the real danger.

In November 2008, Bloomberg.com first estimated the TARP funding, loans and guarantees at $7.4 trillion, and the new administration has increased that by 73% as of the end of March of last year. Anyone looking at the funding sources behind both the Republican and Democrat parties should have seen that coming.

Wall Street Watch reported that according to a 231-page report issued March 4th 2009 by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation, “the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse.”

Read more here: http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.htm

Entrenched fossil energy interests are no slouches when it comes to political donations, either – and as a result of biases toward existing revenue streams, they’re likely waiting until what they have convinced themselves is the last possible moment to begin to change. This will perhaps be far too late, as they could listen hardest to the advisors who favor the latest action.

So, for these reasons, it seems likely that humanity and the planet cannot wait for “market forces” to drive events toward a sustainable future, and the legalization of bribery as free speech can only serve the entrenched interests that stand in the way of progress.

We’ve looked and hoped for a far reaching and forward thinking energy policy in America since Jimmie Carter warned us all that we needed one over three decades ago. Perhaps needed changes are just on the horizon, but ExxonMobil’s tens of billions of dollars in profit are – now more than ever – free to buy our leadership.

If you have interest in seeing more on the purchase of political power: http://2greenenergy.com/say-adios-to-campaign-finance-reform/2426/

This is where campaign finance reform meets sustainable energy, and where corporations (“fictitious persons” in American law) can’t be allowed to claim the rights of human beings. Until elections depend solely upon a contest of ideas and achievements instead of a contest of cold cash, I can’t harbor great expectations for rapid change.

I am, however, very optimistic about the technical possibilities, and every step toward sustainability means a better future – we just need to walk a lot quicker and smarter in that direction.

Craig Shields, Editor, 2GreenEnergy.com