No, the title is not an careless error - I make enough of those, however, that the potential question needed to be addressed right up front. It's just that I have come to see a tremendous similarity between the recent $700 billion bailout of the US financial backbone and that of the institution of slavery in this country in the late 1700s.

During my Unitarian church service today, my minister was talking about Thomas Jefferson - you know the guy, founding father, US president, unitarian, and huge slave owner. Yup, he held more slaves than anyone else in all of Virginia, and there were a lot of slave holders in Virginia. How could one of our most famous founding fathers, author of the bulk of the US Constitution, declarer that all men are created equal, also be a slave holder? After all, there were a number of prominent and vocal abolitionists at that time so it wouldn't have been without precedent, people including George Washington, John Adams,  and Thomas Jefferson. No, that's not an error, Jefferson was both an abolitionist and a slave holder (as was Washington). Why? The answer to this seeming paradox is simple: economics.

Jefferson was a leader in the abolitionist movement before the mid 1780s. It was then that he realized the huge economic cost he - indeed, the entire US economy - would incur should slavery be suddenly abolished. This is why he couldn't simply free his slaves even after the Virginia legislature passed a bill allowing slave holders to voluntarily free their slaves if they chose to. He simply couldn't afford it. As Howard Zinn wrote in a People's History of the United States, "Jefferson tried his best, as an enlightened, thoughtful individual might.  But the structure of American society, the power of the cotton, the slave trade, the politics of unity between northern and southern elites, and the long culture of race prejudice in the colonies, as well as his own weaknesses- that combination of practical need and idealogical fixation- kept Jefferson a slaveowner throughout his life."

Which brings us to the connection between slavery and the bailout of Wall Street. Congress - and both McCain and Obama - know quite well that they have no choice but to "save" the greedy, allegedly capitalistic institutions from their own malfeasance. Have to. Just as Jefferson realized that the economy of the still-young US could not survive the abolition of slavery during his lifetime, congress knows now what drives the US economy - the stock market. It's the modern-day equivalent of slavery, in a very obtuse way. It's something that they believe must be kept going at all costs ($700 billion for starters in this case) regardless of any other considerations. Just like the plantations had to be kept operating. Had to.

For the slave, unfortunately, it was a basically moot point, as it is for the average US citizen today. If the South stayed in the Union, he was still going to be a slave. If the South left the Union over the issue of slavery, he was still going to be a slave, but without the influence of the Northern abolitionists. Slavery was going to continue in the South anyway. $700 billion bailout or not, we're all similarly screwed. Where do you think that $700 billion is coming from? Same place as all the billions for the war, it's being borrowed. But as the world economy depending on exhaustible resources like oil starts to go down the drain, those debts will be called in. And then the @#%$ will really hit the fan. But our government - and capitalism in general - doesn't care about that. It only cares about today. What will happen when the mortgage of the entire country represented by this debt goes bad?

Revolution, I hope. It's about time for another one, to throw off the shackles of the government we've allowed and to find new guardians for our future security.