2016 Elections

[Brian37]

Never underestimate the power of one voice, your voice.

How did the Arab Spring work out in Cairo? 

If you recall that began because there were no jobs; unemployment was sky high, and kids with college degrees were shoveling camel shit at the Giza Pyramids and that was a good job if you could get it.  They took to the streets and brought down the government and now are right back in the same shit hole they were before.

I kept wondering why American kids weren't out protesting since they were suffering from the same problems with the added fillip of crushing student debt.  They were content to stay in mommy's basement waiting for the next app to come out for their cell phones.

I have to say, I can't remember a prior post that bothered me at all from you in any serious sense until now. Comparing their politics and religions to ours is apples and oranges. If you want to in any case, Christianity was able to climb out of it's dark ages, and to say assume there are no cracks even in the Middle East is flat out wrong.

I can link you to several Arab and former Muslim websites with people who want that change. And if you value the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, you do a disservice to her and tons of Arabs who do want that change. You do a disservice to the lady from Pakistan who wrote a letter to Ben Afflack after he falsely accused Bill Maher hating all Muslims.

No one is asking you or forcing you to be public or famous or be a super hero. But if all you do is simply converse here it may make you feel good, but it takes more than that and it isn't accomplished overnight. If all you do is post online with a nickname, no one needs find out who you are, but your voice does add up. You think about where our collective species was 2,000 years ago, to our modern west and modern secular law, it is not impossible.

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Time for a reality check, FNM.

Um no, if you want to be pessimistic you can. GOP is the problem and you know it and giving up is not going to solve shit. 

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No need for a reality check.  I see the writing on the wall.  I'm just not sure that the approach we take of voting for the lesser of two evils isn't setting the bar too low, and perhaps it's time to realize that fighting for true change is our only viable option.

How are you going to do that?  The game is rigged.  The only thing the parties agree on is that there should only be two of them.  The plethora of state election rules is designed to erect a roadblock to any challenge to the status quo and, as Citizens United demonstrated, the courts are firmly in the pockets of the power structure.

If you want to give up and say "what can I do" you can. I wont.