But isn't this just the problem? I mean, that someone sitting in their home with a good idea and good intent can easily think up of a policy for government action that would take us in a positive direction, and yet it is just a pipe dream because corporations control everything and there is no possible way for us to actually design a system that works for people and the planet? Why are we so defeatist? Why is it easier for us to imagine politics as a permanent nightmare than to imagine real structural change?Obviously this is a pipe dream.
Experience, I guess. I had a debate with my cousin back in '08. I took the side that Obama was going to be a leader of a new direction for the US. He took the side that I was setting myself up for failure, because the President isn't really driving the bus to being with. It looks like I lost that bet. There haven't been many thing in life that I've been more disappointed by than Obama. I thought he was the new FDR. I was wrong. We definitely aren't getting a new FDR in 2016 either, it seems. Real reform has to come from the bottom up, and that's why I was so hopeful of Obama. I thought he was a man who knew when to be a populist and when to make hard choices that might disaffect a lot of people in the short term. Mostly, he's just toed the party line, and sided with money at almost every turn. Unless wages start to rise really damn quick, I think it won't be too many more election cycles before someone who has some real stones will emerge. People can tolerate a lot when they're making more money than last year, but the longer that ceases to be true, the more likely it is that people are going to start to get restless.Why is it easier for us to imagine politics as a permanent nightmare than to imagine real structural change?
My history and contemporary read on American politics is pretty much identical. Unless Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or some other real economic progressive emerges, I don't see structural changes happening in 2016. But at the same time, I don't care how much money the Koch Brothers have, I literally don't understand how ANY republican can win again. The GOP is like whack-a-mole on the national stage. So does that just leave us with Clinton? I don't know - but at a time when technological possibility appears to be actually capable of approaching science fiction levels our sociopolitical possibility appears to be shrinking out of existence.
Republicans have been winning by default. Their supposed majority mandate they now enjoy in Congress came from the votes of something like 16% of registered voters. I looks like a problem of education and apathy. Republicans have a lot of very motivated single issue voters. I vote Democratic despite my better judgement, because I really don't like Republicans. That's it. I don't see any vision, any new ideas coming from the Democrats; they just happen to be a better version of the status quo than the GOP. I'm not sold on Warren, because I just don't know what her other qualifications are (obviously the president has a lot of other things to contend with besides financial reform). Still, I'd probably vote for her were she to run. Anyway, I think the "morality" wing of the GOP is in its death throes. They can only exploit it for so long as people start to wake up to the 21st century way of thinking. As of now, my ideal candidate would be someone who has a three pronged platform that includes tax reform, ending the war on terror, and environmental protection/restoration. To me, those are the three 21st century problems that need 21st century solutions. I think we're still a decade or so off from meeting this challenge.
I may be overly hopeful and underestimating the resilience of contemporary structural stupidity but I think we're going to see a break sooner than this.I think we're still a decade or so off from meeting this challenge.