Gulf residents and others that defend capitalism with its excesses of wealth and privilege should not be surprised that BP CEO Tony Hayward is participating in a "glitzy" yacht race in Great Britain this weekend.

Hayward reeks of insufferable British snobbery and a lifetime of privilege. His accent and delivery--his delicately sculpted profile--his snotty British reserve--all speak to who he is and what might be expected of him.

BP paid Hayward a salary of $1,478,940 and a bonus of $2,216,928 last year. I should imagine one could afford a yacht or two on those earnings.

That's what capitalism is about--excesses and inequities. Hayward has a yacht, while Louisiana fishermen have no reason now to pilot their hard-banging old shrimp trawlers out of port.

But, sadly, the ignorant Cajun fishermen now venting about Hayward would be the first to punch one in the nose if he mentioned "socialism" as an alternative to the present inequitable system of excesses. They send their sons to "I-rak" to fight for alleged "freedom and the American way" when that American way, as now formulated, is, in reality, their greatest enemy.

They have been indoctrinated for multiple generations by capitalism's propaganda machine to defend with their blood a system that is dumping millions of barrels of crude oil onto them even as BP CEO Tony Hayward sails his yacht during a lark back home. This speaks to the unworkable and futile nature of the American economic experiment.

Our nation has been hijacked by jackals and the common man defends those jackals as they rend him asunder.

D. Grant Haynes