It's been said many a time: Money is the root of all evil. I have to admit that this simple statement stands very tall in my mind at the moment. It seems like everything I disagree with lately has much to do with money.

There's the War on Terror. This open-ended permission to harass any "suspect" on Earth appears decent on the surface. We have to think about the safety of the American people, right? It actually has a lot more to do with keeping tabs on the money. What are people spending their cash on? What books do they buy? What sites do they visit on the Internet? One of the first things the government does to punish people they don't like is freeze their assets. Take away their money. Now what are you going to do, suspected terrorist? Idiots. What the government never understands is that an angry, desperate passion--dot dollar signs--drives a terrorist.

There's the War on Iraq. President Bush needs 87 billion more dollars to keep up his pet project. Freedom ain't free, you know. Of course, if Iraq didn't have one of the richest oil supplies on Earth, Saddam wouldn't have made money. America could not have cared two squirts of piss about the place. It would have been like any of the nameless countries in Africa or Asia. Remember when you first learned that Kuwait was a country? Our government can talk all they want about democracy for the good Iraqi people, but the truth is billions of dollars are being passed along in defense contracts to corporations our president favors. This war could go on forever, or at least until the money runs out.

There's the ambition and desire of everyday Americans. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase "I'd love to do this if I could get paid for it." People sacrifice their hopes, dreams and talents to maintain a steady paycheck. They finance houses, cars, and toys with the assumption that the paychecks of the future will cover their debt. They are slaves to the all-mighty dollar. The American Dream is really a prison with a white picket fence.

There's the lead actor in the play I'm in. A movie about Elvis impersonators starring Kim Basinger is being shot in Albuquerque. He got a one-day shooting part in the movie and will receive $600 for his effort. The only catch is that the shooting conflicts with one of our performances of Julius Caesar. Suddenly, everyone is scrambling to fit in an understudy for the role of Brutus. I angrily spoke to the actor about being committed to the play he already agreed to be in, but he has acted so much that he feels that blowing off one non-paying gig to do a paying gig is no big deal. It's all about the money and making it. To quote my theatre mentor, "Fucking actors, man."

There's my childhood. On the surface, we tried to be a happy family. My folks always said "it isn't how much money a family makes, but how much love there is." It was a nice phrase, but in truth, my darkest years came when my folks got far into debt and hated life. They spent thousands of dollars that was supposed to be my inheritance from a grandfather, and I have never been close to being rich since. As a result, we are a polite and distant family. No amount of money can change that.

There has to be another way. I keep hearing that we are a capitalist society, and this is how things work. A friend once told me we will never evolve until we move beyond the money. Imagine what we could accomplish in our neighborhoods if we could dedicate one weekday to cleaning up and fixing the problems instead of going to work. Imagine if we were allowed to pursue our hobbies without the stigma of it being a freeloading waste of time. Imagine how much enlightenment could occur if we got away from the rat race and realized that it's only a little bit of cheese at the end of the maze.

You are not what you own, what you wear, or how much you make. It's how you treat people and the world around you that matters. Right now, we are occupying a far away land and going into record deficits. The root of all evil has sprouted some new branches.

Chris Jungle received no payment for this column.