Reply #19: What I should have added... [View All]

... is that this is likely not to come about until events make life in this country very difficult. That may take decades--you and I probably won't see that transformation. That's what I meant by the Churchill quote.

Right now, the Democrats and the Republicans alike are playing power games that have little to nothing to do with promoting the welfare of the people, and yet, the political split in the country is just about dead even.

The best we can do for now is to push Democrats to do the right thing all the time, in the hope that they respond some of the time. But, history isn't wrong--it simply is. And what is happening now has happened before. This adoration of the wealthy and big corporations on the part of government happened before. It took almost fifty years and a world-wide depression to convince people that such adoration of politicians promoting corporate interests wasn't in their own best interest, that it was, in fact, antithetical to their interests.

Here's the major point: they had to suffer in order to make them think. Most of us would like for society to avoid that, but human nature and history suggests that this country will go on electing the people who are harming them until reality smacks `em in the forehead. And, even then, they'll only grudgingly come to the notion that they might have been wrong all along.

The problem today is that we expect political problems to be solved in the same way that other demands for instant gratification are met. It won't happen that way. It will take more years of excess and waste and ignoring the obvious to bring about the fundamental changes the country needs now. That's not a reason to stop trying, but those efforts have to be tempered by the knowledge that change is going to come when people are forced by circumstances to rethink their closely-held beliefs about the status quo.

It's not pleasant to contemplate. But, it's the history of this country.

Cheers.