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Because I have uncluttered the living room, 2007 will be a good year. Allow me to explain.

I am a world-class pack rat - stuff fills and overflows my little adobe. Always has. In November, however, I snapped out of whatever it is, threw junk out or sideways, cleaned, replaced plastic mini-blinds with dark wood and - voila! - home rediscovered.

Then Christmas brought hope by way of a Jewish baby. And at Keshet Dance Company's annual "Nutcracker on the Rocks," human potential danced across the footlights. At the annual Hanukkah Festival, the kids beamed and raced toward their futures.

This benign cycle has me so pumped I am resolved to tackle the second bedroom - where the iMac sits amid too many books, an overflowing desk, cartons of mystery, and a manual typewriter and the floor is covered with files. Not files - underbrush.

My high won't last, of course; soon the fire-breathing dragons deep in my psyche will re-ignite my Collier Brothers disease. But till then, I will accentuate the positive.

And why not? Donald Trump, candidate for worst person in the world, told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, "Bush will go down as the worst president in history." Gosh, even Trump gets it.

Maybe it's time to quit blaming the president for being himself and start, instead, to dismantle the system that put this inadequate guy in a huge job. Plutocracy, I mean - government by the wealthy.

OK, I'm not betting on it.

I will wager the new Democratic Congress will raise the minimum wage. Hardly fundamental reform, but it will help folks struggling for a living.

Systemic change will take longer, not only because the powerful oppose it but because - well, Will Rogers put it best - "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."

Like: The Republican and Democratic parties are very different. Ain't so. Almost all Republicans and a majority of Democrats belong to - let's call it the American Corporate Party.

That's why, despite incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's vows, Democrats won't repeal the Medicare legislation giving pill-producers control over prices. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Rahm Emanuel and other "centrists" won't risk losing Big Pharma's campaign cash. If I'm wrong, I'll unclutter your living room, too.

We used to know, too - and the Establishment press still does - that free trade, our current system, is preferable to the alternative of protectionism. Ain't so. There's no such thing as free trade, except when Libertarians smoke strange tobacco. Secondly, our current system isn't free, it's government-subsidized and, incidentally, succeeds brilliantly in exporting American jobs and production. Thirdly, protectionism isn't the only alternative; see economist Jeff Faux's "The Global Class War," now in soft cover. The good news is we're going to debate it.

We won't impeach the president in 2007, though grounds exist and new White House violations of decency and the Constitution will surface.

Also, Congressional panels will recognize the GOP's great achievement - replacing the old Democratic mom-and-pop model of political corruption with organized crime.

Perhaps grass-roots Democrats, having found each other and money, too, on the Internet, can rescue the Donkey from the corporatists. Imagine: a real two-party system!

Not that I'm counting my chickens. As the holidays remind us, religious faith can be utterly beautiful. Extending faith to human institutions, however, defies logic and history.

So you see, 2007 can be a good year if we stay positive and skeptical. And tackle our second bedrooms.