A surprising moment of revelation has taken place within this year's bizarre Republican presidential primary contest. It began after journalists investigated candidate Mitt Romney's claim that he created over a hundred thousand jobs as chief of Bain Capital, a very successful private equity firm. They discovered instead that during Romney's tenure at Bain Capital the firm was just as likely to profit by investing in struggling companies and stripping them for parts, allowing the businesses to die and selling off their assets (all the while charging the companies high management fees), as it was to profit by enabling jobs.

Rick Perry (of all people) made a strong point when he called Bain's practices "vulture capitalism", and it was brave of Perry, an otherwise plodding pro-business Reaganite, to make this statement. Newt Gingrich cleverly baited Romney for a full week with questions about Bain and about his own finances, forcing Romney to reveal that as a venture capital investor he has continued to have a luxurious income every year, but has been paying only 15% in taxes, less than half what a typical American pays. The outrage over this has allowed Gingrich to vault himself over Romney in South Carolina's primary this weekend, a stunning upset victory.

It's gratifying to hear conservatives finally join liberals in criticizing the predatory and hyperactive forms of "extreme capitalism" that Bain represents, which are rooted in the same syndrome of reckless misuse of honest finance that caused the crash of 2007/2008. It has been a conservative basic principle to avoid any criticism of free market capitalism, to blame the crash instead on home ownership initiatives, and to characterize even the slightest critique of economic inequity in the USA as "class warfare". The accusation that critics of Wall Street or tax breaks for the wealthy engage in "class warfare" is intoned repeatedly these days by conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. This tends to be a real conversation-killer, since the term carries such ominous historic undertones. It reminds us of the guillotine, the gulag, Mao's terrible starvation farms.

I've noticed something strange when talking to friends and relatives and neighbors about politics, or about the future of the world. Many people seem to believe that ultimate evil is a real and powerful force in our lives today. They believe that this evil threatens our families, our society and our nation, and they see it as our responsibility to prepare to fight this evil to the death.

Evil, according to this notion, is an eternal force, absolute and self-sufficient. It is beyond reason or negotiation; it can only be defeated for a generation, after which it will rise again, ready for another battle. We train ourselves for this recurring combat by consuming pop-culture representations of the enemy we must eventually fight: Darth Vader, Voldemort, the White Witch. These mythical creatures are widely understood to have direct correspondents in international history and politics: imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Red China, Soviet Russia, Al Qaeda, Iraq, Iran.

I have never believed in the existence of ultimate evil, and I suppose this helps explain why I disagree so often with people I talk to about current politics. I was recently struck by the coincidence of two people I was talking with in two separate conversations -- both of them progressive liberals, smart and well-informed -- pointedly declaring to me that they are not pacifists. This is apparently a badge of honor for both of them, or perhaps it's more precisely an insignia of their membership in the army of good vs. evil. When the dark lord shows his face, I will be ready to fight. An awareness of quasi-mythical evil in the dark corners of the world also seems, unfortunately, to be present in nearly every American politician's foreign policy platform.

It must be the philosopher's job today to examine this kind of groupthink critically, and to help us reach a level of understanding that is less childish, less destructive, less obviously cartoonish. This is more vital than ever today, since modern weaponry has made the stakes for war and peace so high, and since cross-cultural paranoia appears to be currently at a hysterical peak.

I disagree with ultra-conservative presidential candidate Ron Paul on most issues, and I can not imagine myself ever voting for him (I'm a lock for Obama in 2012 anyway). Still, I recently found myself vigorously defending this controversial Texas politician to my journalist and fellow liberal friend Tom Watson. Tom has been a severe and constant critic of Ron Paul, and has called him the worst of the Republican presidential candidates.

I know that Paul has many flaws, but I think he's clearly the best of the Republican presidential candidates, because he's the only one who does not advocate a ridiculous "get tough" policy on Iran. This "get tough on Iran" idea is rooted in the same guerrophilia and bigotry as George W. Bush's previous "get tough on Saddam Hussein" idea, and I really can't understand how Ron Paul can be the only Republican candidate to understand the similarity. He is also the only Republican candidate willing to propose strong cuts in military spending and military activities around the world. The Republican candidates for 2012 are a raggedy bunch, but Ron Paul seems at least to be more clued-in than the others on military and foreign policy.

After reading a steady stream of anti-Ron Paul tweets by Tom Watson, I asked Tom why he puts so much effort into criticizing the one Republican candidate who has an antiwar platform, and who stands very little chance of getting elected, when other Republicans who have stated an inclination to invade Iran if they get elected are actually considered serious contenders. I also asked Tom why he doesn't feel any optimism about the fact that Ron Paul is introducing an antiwar message to many conservative voters who have long ago shut their ears to antiwar messages from liberals or from the mass media.

Cool the engines
red line's getting near
cool the engines
better take it out of gear
-- Boston, 'Cool The Engines'

I'd better take a break, let this Philosophy Weekend thing cool off ... let myself cool off a little bit too.

I've been writing a lot of high-pitched stuff lately, and getting into plenty of debates with friends and relatives everywhere from Thanksgiving dinner to Facebook. It's time for me to step back, review my progress, find my balance, and prepare for a new round of Philosophy Weekend next year.

I began this series sixteen months ago, first with a halting introduction followed a week later by the presentation of my main thesis, which amounts to a defense of the political and personal philosophy known as pacifism. I have gradually come to realize -- this wasn't apparent even to me at first -- that every article I write in this series is related in some way to the argument for pacifism. The connections may be hard to trace, but they are always there.

I'm giving this intense series a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa break, and will kick off the new year with a new thread in January. Till then, here are a few philosophical links you might like:

I'm discouraged by the response to last weekend's post, in which I suggested that Tea Partiers and Occupiers could find enough common cause to begin working and protesting together for an honest economy, reduced military spending and libertarian government. I guess it's not too popular an idea. Still makes plenty of sense to me.

I'm an optimist by nature, but sometimes even I run out of hope and good will. I spent a couple of days this past week enmeshed in a depressing Facebook debate with a bunch of Occupy Wall Street friends and frenemies over whether or not Barack Obama is a tool of evil empire (I see him as an honest politician trying to do his best in a difficult situation, but that was a lonely position in this debate). I find myself surrounded by bleak, pessimistic visions of eternal strife and sworn hatred on all sides. My optimism comes up empty sometimes, no matter how hard I try.

The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street -- two serious protest movements with urgent messages about the condition of the economy and the purpose of government -- do not currently communicate or collaborate with each other. What a wasted opportunity! Even worse, Tea Partiers and Occupiers often look at each other as opponents -- a ridiculous idea, since we are all protesting the same injustices and mistakes, and we all seek the same basic goals: an honest economy, a smaller government, greater freedom and greater opportunity.

It's time for the Tea Party and Occupy movements to begin working together. Throughout history, protest movements with common goals have benefited from collaboration even when they've disagreed on specific issues. The Tea Party and Occupy movements have a few major differences on principles, but we should not let this obscure the fact that our goals converge more often than they diverge. So why are we at each other's throats? Why isn't there a combined Occupy Wall Street/Tea Party gathering going on in every city in the United States of America right now?

I like to develop and improve my political ideas by talking to as many different people as I can, and I've already tested today's argument on a wide range of friends, co-workers and relatives. I discovered a surprising and encouraging thing: people who do not have much interest in either the Tea Party or Occupy movements are the ones most likely to dismiss the idea that they can work together, to declare that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are opposites.

People who support or participate in either protest movement, though, are more sympathetic to the idea. Because they are serious about their goals, they are willing to accept that the other protest group is serious as well. They sometimes have derogatory things to say about the other protest group, but once the insults are out of the way they have little trouble seeing the common ground, and are open to working together. Here are three major points of agreement between the two protest groups, along with a brief reality-check regarding the barriers to cooperation on each of the three points:

"Literary Kicks," says the guy where I pick up my mail, looking at my address on a package. "What is it, sneakers?"

"Books," I say to him. "Books. I'd probably make a lot more money if it was sneakers."

With that said, here are the latest literary links, for your edification and enjoyment:

1. Novelist and critic Walter Kirn, who has suddenly begun live-blogging the Bible, ponders the Tower of Babel.

2. Alan Cumming will star in a one-man performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

3. Check out The Books They Gave Me: A Tumblr for images of books given by former lovers. No, I'm not going to make a Herman Cain joke.

I took a gang of about twelve family members on a field trip to Occupy Wall Street this Thanksgiving weekend. First, we visited the desolate remains of the famous tent city at Zuccotti Park that was raided by New York City police a week and a half ago.

The Occupy Wall Street leadership (yes, there is leadership -- they just keep away from the spotlight) has abandoned Zuccotti Park to the police. This was a smart decision, because the park itself was never meant to be more than a temporary home, and a territory battle can only be a distraction from the movement's important messages about the economy. So, Zuccotti has been left to a raggedy bunch of drop-by protesters, tourists, homeless people, persistent old-school lefties, sign-carriers, guitar players and sad-looking solo drummers. The police have surrounded the entire plaza with a continuous metal barricade fence, and I led my family through a checkpoint into the center of the concrete plaza. It was nothing like the beautiful, crowded, energetic scene I'd witnessed only two weeks before. We caught a few weak "mic check" attempts that went nowhere, and stopped to listen in on one large sitting session, an outreach/messaging conversation group, but the session barely managed to keep itself going.

A drum-banging protest march finally emerged outside the barricades around 5:45 pm on Friday evening, and my family enjoyed joining it for a noisy stroll around Zuccotti. The six teenagers in our group participated with a healthy mix of irony and enthusiasm, and together we presented three generations of support for the movement. Then we left Zuccotti Park, because I hoped to find better action in the quiet atrium at 60 Wall Street, one of many locations where small, focused groups of protesters have been holding meetings to make decisions about the future direction of the Occupy action.

We found a much more lively scene at 60 Wall than at Zuccotti Park. At least five working groups were meeting this Friday evening. The Occupy discussion groups are fully open, and my gang of tourists was able to feel welcome as we split up to listen in on various working groups. Some forbidding new signs have been put up by the lease-holders of this building, the gargoyle institution Duetsche Bank, warning protesters not to push their luck. But the mood in the atrium appeared to be as friendly and positive on Thanksgiving weekend as it had been the previous time I'd come around, before the police crackdown.

A hilarious video of a self-proclaimed Tea Party Congressman from Illinois yelling at his constituents during a campaign appearance made the rounds this week. Representative Joe Walsh (no relation to the talented rocker, whose best song is right here) makes himself ridiculous, though to his credit he seems to realize by the end of this two-minute video how badly he's lost his cool (the woman he's yelling at easily wins the fight with the simple power of a patient smile). Here's what he's saying:

CONGRESSMAN: I don't want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House. I understand all that. But you've got to be consistent.

And it's not the private marketplace that's created this mess. What created this mess is your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home, and we have made it as easy as possible for people to be in homes. All the marketplace does is respond to what the government does. The government sets the rules. Don't blame banks and don't blame the marketplace for the mess we're in right now. I am tired of hearing that crap.

WOMAN: Don't you think --

CONGRESSMAN: I am tired of hearing that crap.

WOMAN: -- exploiting the situation? Taking and doing out money to people they know couldn't afford --

CONGRESSMAN: They're are already mechanisms in place --

WOMAN: You don't have to scream at me, I can hear you.

CONGRESSMAN: This pisses me off. Too many people don't listen. There are already mechanisms in place to do that. Are they doing their job? No. But what do you want to do? You want to bombard them with more regulations, more government?

WOMAN: No, I want smart reform.

CONGRESSMAN: Government screwed this problem up. You know what you got? You got Dodd-Frank. You got Dodd-Frank now, that's tying everybody's hands. You want more reform, more regulation? That's what you got. Do you want more regulation? Is that what you want? Do you want Dodd-Frank?

I've dreamed up a political project so crazy, so utterly out of step with the mood of American media coverage today, that you know I'm going to have to run with it.

Many have suggested that the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement have a lot in common (many others have ridiculed or severely ridiculed this notion). Well, I don't think it's worth dwelling on whether or not they currently have a lot in common. Instead, let's look to the future and ask if a common political platform -- addressing the economy, social issues, foreign policy, the environment and electoral reform -- can possibly be built that might capture the enthusiasm of a significant fraction of both Tea Party and Occupy protesters. And I'd like to try to construct that platform over the next few Philosophy Weekend blog posts, with your comments and suggestions. I can hardly think of a more exciting and ambitious project to take on.

A unified protest platform for the United States of America -- why not? One thing I'm pretty sure about: there are only a few bloggers or political commentators stupid ambitious enough to seriously try something like this. And I'm one of them.

I believe a unified protest platform is possible because the need to fix structural problems in the USA government is so urgent that caring citizens on both sides ought to be willing to cast a wide net in the pursuit of change. Who are the real opponents of Tea Party and Occupy protesters? The automatic answers might include Barack Obama (if you're a conservative) or the Koch brothers (if you're a liberal), but I'd like to propose instead that these are the real opponents:

• Dishonest government bureaucrats
• Corrupt lobbyists, and the businesses that pay them
• Pessimistic citizens who fear the future and prefer the safety of the status quo
• Apathetic or uneducated citizens who don't understand the urgency of either protest movement

Please note that I said "opponents", not "enemies", because a friendly and non-judgmental approach towards fixing major problems is much more likely to gain traction than a hostile and accusatory one. My proposal is to examine the practical political platforms represented by both protest movements, identify the areas of mutual agreement, and suggest some compromises that might appeal to moderate or action-oriented protesters on both sides.