I wrote a rather long (too long) response to Adam's post, in which I constructed a scenario in which someone with thoughts like his might be one of our US representatives, fighting the fight for those same ideals from within our system

Mainly to point out that there ARE people with exactly those same views, trying their best to make significant changes in this country, and to achieve some of the same goals that also Kat so very well expressed

and in doing so, tried to paint a picture of what opposition they face, but that's where it just got too complicated, I got too involved with specific examples, stories of people who were victimized by lack of health care, and particular legislation that guarantees those things will continue, blah blah blah


Now I'm thinking that I should try to say it in the simplest terms possible:


That we have with a country based on free-enterprise, and that it has resulted in a corporate power that rivals, in fact often EXCEEDS the power of our own government


that's it, my answer in a nutshell, the rest is all details about the interaction between those different forces, the profit-making entities on one side, and the people who struggle to get through the day on the other

I certainly like the ideal of capitalism, that each and every citizen has the same opportunity to pursue their goals without interference

but in it's extreme form, it stops working, things like monopolies and manipulation of media get constructed, and the wealth and power get put in the hands of too few people

just like one of the other ideals, that of communism, which in theory, is supposed to be be about shared wealth, but in reality, it destroys an individual's motives to work harder, because he/she ends up with same economic reality, no matter how hard they try

So that's why I feel that our system, which I think was built with many, many, great ideas, is still the best, but it will collapse without better regulation to make a more level playing field

and why I think it's time for the pendulum to start swinging the other way, and we citizens need to use our voices, our votes, our influence, to be part of the process, it won't work without the involvement of We The People, and why it was one of the key principles so carefully written into our Constitution by our founding fathers

Dow