It’s the capitalism-to-socialism-to-fascism cycle that’s so annoying. Equally annoying is the variation on that cycle, the socialism-to-capitalism-to-fascism cycle. Regardless of the variation, it is a conveyor belt to hell, one that most of us are often trying to avoid.

The recent history of California demonstrates these cycles. First, the Democrats, who had earlier replaced a capitalist, Republican government, fell into socialism. Governor Gray Davis led them. Then, in truly fascist manner, they refuse to allow the public utility company to raise its rates so it can make a profit. From that socialist-fascist government, the Republican-fascists take over, and are immediately into fascism with the enforcement of the “three-strikes” rule, whereby a man can be sent to jail for 50 years (sic!) for theft of half a dozen videos!

Instead of playing power politics constantly, both parties in California might try a little more diplomacy. They might listen to voices from both sides that say that California desperately needs better public libraries. A little less Arnold, a lot more reading - that’s what the situation needs!

Instead of hopping on the conveyor belt to hell with Smith, Marx and pick-your-fascist (Mussolini for example), we might consider the thought of the following philosophers or thinkers: Lincoln, Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, Mason, Randolph, Wythe, P. Henry, Hamilton, Wilson, Franklin, Yates, Jay, J.P. Jones, Washington, E.B. Browning, and R. Browning.

Here are some others: F. Douglass, Keynes, F. Roosevelt, J. Adams, J.Q. Adams, T. Roosevelt, Paine, Hume, Locke, Hutchinson, Boorstin, Dewey, G.B. Shaw, Berkeley, Jesus, J.S. Mill, Shakespeare, Milton, Churchill, Orwell, Kafka, Atwood.

More? Try these: Twain, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Sartre, A. Frank, Einstein, Kant, Hegel, Humboldt, Plank, Turing, Blake, Wordsworth, H. James, W. James, M. Mitchell, Hawking, H. Spencer, Galileo, Caesar.

These are worthwhile as well: Tacitus, Cicero, Plubius, Cato, Woodward, Bernstein, I.F. Stone, Reagan, Carter, Kennedy, Eisenhower, B. Crosby, W. Rogers, Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Pythagoras, A. C. Clarke.

Finally: Asimov, Sagan, Melville, M. Mead, G. Gamow, Newton, St. Augustine, Freud, M. Friedmann, U. Sinclair, Montaigne, Ghandi, Napolean, Da Vinci, A. Huxley.

That’s 100 thinkers who would be better read than spending another minute with Smith, Marx and pick-your-fascist on the fascism treadmill, a system of logic that leaves us up to our necks in hamster dust.