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Shannon was getting edgy about this stream of consciousness, but didn't interfere. She knew better. Let him vent - whatever it was that he was venting needed out. But she wondered what had she said to bring this on. Macaluso continued, "Stalin. Now, there, was another ass hole. Another power seeking ass hole who attained power, by pure chance of timing mean-spiritedness, and another man's stroke. Stalin could just as well have dressed his power in a tu tu. It wouldn't have mattered, but he went with the flow. He dressed his power in Marxist dialectic bullshit. People were into that then. That so-called philosophy drew its breath only from the power and fear of the beast who was in charge. Him. Without fear, it vanished in a blink. Commune-ism is a just another ism, a decoration, draped over the same old power predator essence. And, yet, philosophers fart their time away discussing the color of the tarp that bedecks the bomb that it hides beneath. The only meaning in the tarp is the hiding of the power. Hidden power is amplified power. Nazi-ism, Stalin-ism ism- schmism, just smoke and mirrors, bullshit. Forget the lips. Watch the feet. It's about power." Shannon knew that she had lost her grip on this conversation and just leaned back. He pressed on, his eyes far away, "Capital-ism. Sounds better. Huh? Another tarp? What's under it? Bombs? Maybe. Power for sure. Personal power of a few over the many? Who owns that one? Capital-ism was the mantle worn by the robber barons of the early 1900s, like lace on a naked centerfold. It didn't really conceal. Yet it did do something. Pleasing in the tease? But what was beneath? A good screw? You bet. Look at those big industrial names. They were all scurrilous crooks of insane power. Power. Power to exact and to hurt. In their acquisitions of power disguised as an