Are you feeling frustrated? Losing sleep? Bills piling up? You're a miserable low down piece of donkey shit.

Good morning, Echo Chamber - amber - amber - amber.

It's been hard to find my balance in the choppy seas of Yuletide cheer. I'm too broke for Christmas, and I'm upset about that. Not just because I wish I had the dough-re-mi to spend, but also because I've let the capitalist machine mow me down like a dandelion on the imperialist lawn of economics. They've got me. Resistance is futile.

I know that sounds like a surrender, but it's not, really. It is to say that I don't hate capitalism, I just think there oughtta be something to monitor it. Seems to me like it's a snowball effect, only the ball is made out of money, and belongs to only a couple of people. Like Rupert Murdoch.

It also seems to me that unless we the people need to stand up together and let them know we're not idiots, and that we're no longer going to give them our money for nothin' (or our chicks for free), or it's only going to get worse. They're going to care less about us as the gap between rich and poor grows, and they're going to continue treating us like morons. And just like the lemmings to the pied piper, we'll march happily along to a hypnotizing flute right into our watery graves.

Advertising is invasive and insulting. Big business (another way of saying "big money") will not take the chance of allowing us to think for ourselves. Everywhere we look we are bombarded by ads. Ads that insinuate that we're ugly, stupid, fat, and uncool. Ads that promise salvation from this fate. Clothes and Ipods make you cool. Beer and liquor makes you sexy. Cars make you smart and sophisticated. Food makes you happy. Any number of these things makes your family love you more. This is the message of capitalism. "You are miserable, and the only way out is to buy what I'm selling. I am your savior."

This is more than just an insult to our intelligence and character. It's scary, evil genius, take-over-the-world-from-a-black-leather-swivel-chair-in-a-secret-lair-while-petting-a-white-cat type of comical villainy. Rupert Murdoch is Skeletor. Dick Cheney is Doctor Doom. Bill Gates is Shredder. Ralph Lauren is Gargamel. E-vill for evil's sake.

We are the Whos down in Whoville, but first we have to agree that we're gonna have Christmas weather or not we've all been violated and burglarized. Then we have to all meet in the middle of town and sing. Together. Holding hands. To let them know that there are some things they can't take away from us. We might sing in different keys, but it's gotta be the same song, for the same reason. Otherwise, the Grinch still won't give a shit and Who society will crumble like the walls of Jericho.

You're not stupid or uncool, and you don't need any products to prove it. Don't let commercials tell you otherwise.