AT LAST CRACKING THE GREAT BANANA CODE

Forget the "DaVinci Code." I've recently cracked an even bigger code lurking no farther away than your refrigerator. For generations, the powerful (imperialistic?) United Fruit Company got bananas out of South America only to mesmerize us with the cute little Chiquita Banana song: "Never put bananas in the refrigerator." I tremble at the brink of daring to suggest they lied to us. Seems they just want us to keep buying, not preserving, their bananas...!

I'm not saying this arguable deceit damns Capitalism to the many Socialist hells Wall Streeters warn us of. Lets face it, without the creative greed of entrepreneurial Capitalism, I wouldn't have this computer to write with or the meds to live by. On the other hand -- and really, Mr Beck & Ms Palin, there is one -- some of us find it either dumb or dumber to explain away our economic woes with the ghosts of encroaching "big bad government."

From philosophers to theologians to popes, our less pre-fixated minds have argued for years that neither Capitalism nor Socialism is bad. Or good. Rather, that a creative blend of both is the answer. Freedom laced with planning....individual entrepreneurship matched with collectivized programming....in other words, the best of both.

For anyone paying attention to history -- in contrast to the single-minded zealots from either the extreme right or left -- it's self-evident that ever since Bismarck in Europe and FDR in America, the mythic Capitalism of the raw-frontier has mutated into various forms of what can be correctly called State Capitalism. The so-called arrogant takeover of Detroit by the government was hardly a dangerous new leap, but rather a logical extension of how government has worked with & against industry for generations. And for the most part with reasonably good results. Most industries, from 19th C railroads to 20th C communications to 21st C energy wouldn't have succeeded as they have otherwise.

So a modest suggestion, please. Lets enter the new year without the angry rah-rah passions of the alumni at the big game with "the enemy" from the team "we love to hate." Instead, lets grow up and start realizing our best chances of "winning" this historic game start with learning rather than despising each other's playbook.

You want something to despise...? Maybe the upcoming Chicago winter can feed your hate gene...!