🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <31CF328B.698C@ids2.idsonline.com>, dan@ids2.idsonline.com wrote:

>    While there are certainly distorting factors, such as media bias and
> information control, big money - both private and commercial, and
> single-issue fanaticism, we nevertheless live in a republican
> democracy with a basic winner-take-all political system.  The people,
> including the people in DC, have the precious ability to throw the bums
> out, but often they won't.
> 
>    I suspect that the real reason is that the pain level isn't high
> enough.  When it is, you'll see real change.

Here's a slightly different spin on it.  People don't throw the bums
out for the same reason they don't have that rattling noise in their
car investigated: because it's painful to realize exactly how messed
up things are.  Most folks would rather just turn up the radio and
keep driving.

This explains why people are so willing to back the policies of the
rich: because to acknowledge that tremendous wealth very often goes
hand-in-hand with corruption, is to acknowledge that there's something
amiss with the system.  And that's just too painful to consider.  Or,
from another perspective, faith in the ultimate fairness of the system
is comforting: "If Ed got downsized, it must have been because he wasn't
a hard worker, but I'm a hard worker so it'll never happen to me."

Of course, the pain level will eventually get high enough.  We're
getting there, but scapegoats are being found (unwed mothers,
immigrants) so the real scumbags aren't actively threatened yet.


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Lou Duchez   -   ljduchez@en.com   -   http://www.en.com/users/ljduchez
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