suchfriends, much of what you talk about happened here.

replace blacks with catholics and whites with protestants in the following sentences - blacks can't get jobs and are denied housing by discriminating bodies of whites. blacks live in squalor yet white councillors take government money and spend it only on their own communities. whites make it very difficult for blacks to vote. whites try and rig the system in any way they can.

blacks can't stand this anymore and start to demand rights (directly copying the examples of martin luther king etc.). whites get jumpy about these blacks and their strength. whites claim (rightfully) that some of their communities are also in squalor. blacks realize whites are not listening and end up becoming militant. some whites get killed. the whites get militant themselves and call in the british army (national guard in your terms). shit hits the fan and there's lots of boom boom, only everyone has the same skin colour so its more difficult to know whose on whose side.

whites continue to discriminate and claim blacks are evil/directly controlled by satan/communist/terrorist/whining/violent savages etc.

-

but as all this shit is going on, the BOTH white and black paramilitaries are buying drugs using the same suppliers (while beating up anyone else selling drugs and taking away their market share, then claiming they are protecting communities from the drugs scourge). they both end up murdering many of their own side. they both terrorize the decent non violent people. they both are up to their necks in crime, extortion etc.

they control their communities by ENDLESSLY reducing everything to tribalism - white vs. black. they whip up fear to keep the communities divided and voting for them - the extremist parties with links to the paramilitaries. they restart the parliament but only because its in their interest. they slowly, slowly start to talk about introducing the changes that will take away the tribalism, yet at the first sign of trouble they start riling up the divisions again, in spite of the cost to the economy.

the ENTIRE THING is a way of avoiding the fact that BOTH whites and blacks are FUCKED OVER by the same economic system. and its usually the POOREST blacks and whites that fall for, or deliberately embrace this stupid shit.

the ONLY WAY we will ever get out of this cycle of a few years of calm then the resumption of tribal warfare is if the poorest are united - if the communities mix, if they share schools, if they live side by side instead of in tribal painted housing estates (projects).

you can talk endlessly about the injustices suffered and perpetuated by BOTH sides but the fact is this doesn't get us anywhere.

-

i know what my ancestors did when they came here and looted and murdered. they trotted on their horses past heaps of corpses of the natives with green mouths from eating grass and nettles due to starvation. we burnt all their fields and stole their grain stores and deliberately starved them.

i also walk over the bridge where, one fine day in the 16th century, THEY rounded US up, marched us to the bridge then THREW US IN THE WATER and stabbed us if we tried to swim to shore, because they realized there was a bad winter on the way, thus a bad harvest, and they wanted to strike first before we looted them again! lol!

i also walk past the street were my family used to own a business, a business which took considerable risk by hiring black workers. the black terrorist group (ira) went on to blow it up a few years later.

so as appealing as it is to do identity politics, its often playing into your enemies hands.

/game/set/thread

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dead_battery again.

dead_batter, I agree with you, but there is honestly a world of difference between mutually white Catholic and Protestants getting into a quasi-religious, blatantly political civil war, and the intense racialization structurally of the American economy, political machinery, and culture. Further and again, the very economy and class war in America is uniquely divided around racial parameters, and this is deeply embedded over literally several generations. Generational poverty is the hardest to overcome, and in the American experience this generational poverty is distinctly divided along racial lines. Yes, Irish Catholics and Protestants didn't get along (I'm sorry to over simplify the analysis here) but if they sat at a pub together and didn't open their mouth or wear ostentatious clothing with identifiable insignia, they could more or less blend and get along. Skin color differences are not so lucky. Black is black period, and even a middle-class or rich black man will always be most visibly black to his opponents. Your analysis is cool, but inaccurate to this particular American situation, regardless or not if !@#$%! wants to be your fanboy ;)

The thing about racialized identity politics, is they are imposed on you from the other, from the outside, from the racist structure. Black and brown folks don't necessarily willfully or excitedly adopt these systems, rather, the racist superstructure and minority of elitist white males enforce these structures by force, by default.

We can surely use some of the lessons learned from the experience in Ireland, but there are also certain aspects which simply don't translate.








I see you troll!

also - i know that post was long as fuck - but maybe a better example than whites and blacks is whites and native americans.

ireland is like this - we (english) came here but we didnt do enough genocide on the natives like you guys, and they didnt put up with our limey fagocracy, also they have the same skin colour and thus you cant racially profile them so easily.

fair enough, but i doubt the republicans hate it when the national crop of wage slaves are too busy arguing about skin colour to realize they're all united in poverty.

here's one - funeral terrorism. my side throws grenades.

more funeral terrorism - the other side beats some guys to death

But don't you get it, black and brown folks are not arguing among themselves about skin color, they are busy fighting economically, politically, and socially AGAINST the system of oppression and racism. That is where !@%%! is simply talking out of his ass, its not a victim mentality, quite the opposite, its tackling head on the enemy of societal equality which in America is racism. Simply put, we will NEVER have an economically equal or balanced society, there will always inherently be some people with more resources than others. However, we can surely ALL get along racially if we work at it. THAT is what I am talking about. People, black, brown, and white working together to ELIMINATE racism from the superstructure of America, but that involves KNOWING YOUR ENEMY, and the enemy here is racism. If we wishful thinking pretend its not our enemy, the enemy wins in the shadows. If we call the out, shed light onto their darkness, and stand up for what is right, then we put the racist structure on the defense. Its worked in the past, its working in the present, it will continue to work in the future, that is, unless rose-lens viewing "Democrats" like !@#$%! and his kind don't become obstructionists accusing those of us fighting the good fight as being primitive ;)

ok - but is racism a problem for whites?

i mean - not really. not for a few decades yet. or maybe now in parts of south africa.

eliminating racism - ok - but in practice this often turns out to be white people taking the blame for everything bad that happens to black people, and white people being addressed as both the cause of the evil and the same person that has to stop it.

this doesn't really get any of the non white races equality. i mean, is there an END GAME for anti racist struggles or does it just go on forever? does it have distinctive goals that it wants to achieve that would accomplish its mission? if not then its interminable and i think that that is beneficial to white people who have a kind of secular fantasy of themselves as the redeemers of the minorities through their tolerance and liberal democratic inclusion.

im more pessimistic than you. i think that whatever race is in the majority and in control of the resources and power structure is the one that doesnt suffer from racism and its the others that do. i think no matter what colour of skin is involved that will not change.

however i could be totally wrong. i'd like to be wrong and for there to be some sort of TRUE post racial social order.

you're not "primitive". it's your ideologies that are primitive. you're just mule-headed and a bit of a monomaniac-- "to the man with a hammer every problem is a nail" sort of thing.

I know you are but what am I..

hey you can call me arrogant and a prick and whatever, fine, that's what i am. can you admit to being a stubborn mule sometimes who won't concede a point just out of stubbornness? i mean, it would do me a lot of good to be less of a dick when arguing but it would also do you a lot of good to be a little more open-minded to other people's point of view without trying to subsume their ideas into "what you already know." it's not a capitulation to learn from others.

everyone who benefits from the current state of things, except certain far right republicans and white nationalist types, and people who cant stop making racist jokes - would often prefer EVERY ISSUE to turn into a racial issue. because its so easy to reduce our sins and problems to one single thing - racism.

seriously, a guy can be racist or say racist jokes and still be a fine guy in other respects. there are certain people on the left now making racism into something worse than witchcraft or sin or satanism or whatever. they are, IMO, DELIBERATELY turning racism into the equivalent of the most extreme almost cartoonish version of the original prejudice whites had against blacks. like its almost as if they, only half sub consciously, want to turn racism into a branding iron that can be applied to almost anyone, thus stripping them of their job/future career/life. its as if they enjoy feeling so guilty about what our predecessors did to blacks, they want to now take that same vicious vile hatred out on US in a kind of self directed masochism. like they are secretly in love with that kind of power and hate. i KNOW what we, as in our predecessors did, was fucking evil, but the answer is not MORE punishment.

you know what i think is going on here? in some cases (not all obviously) this is functioning as a kind of hysterical game.

i think that one of the reasons anti racism is so successful is that it functions as a CODE that allows us to replace the difficulty of morality with dogma. its very easy for a commercial society to preach anti racism.

for certain white people, being NOT racist in the right way is a way to signal status (im not a poor white im a high cultured white).

lets be honest - its also about putting blacks in their place - which is slightly lower than us because they need our condescension and tolerance to even exist. they are always BLACK people before they are just people. whereas we white people are just people. again - this is only in certain cases and im not saying this crap in anyway removes the need for anti racist struggles.

i just cant be totally comfortable being inherently on the side of all white anti racists anymore, since even though they are on the right side, they ARE now using this stuff to stifle freedom of speech. even if its the freedom of speech for stupid douchebags talking shit most of the time.

what happened to the idea that you respected your enemies folly because you knew your way was more noble, and you were asking for freedom of speech for EVERYONE? i think we GOT inclusivity (at least culturally) and now we are stalled with it, because if we took it further in the right direction it would lead back to economics. and thats too difficult for us to face.

ps my game/set/thread wasn't meant as trolling but rather as to signify that db had distilled the whole argument to its essence-- the politics of self-defeat-- and given it a final answer (in my eyes anyway).

yes, but in this particular instance there is good reason to remain stubborn, its a matter of principle. If you sell out your principles for the sake of polite conversation, nothing gets accomplished. Racism is an oblivious disease. Sometimes people need to be shouted out to come to the realization that they are infected. I'm very stubborn about these kinds of matters, yes even admittedly mule headed, but these are fundamental, core issue. I can't bitch out. The flag has got to be hoisted!





Yes, I am white, I have a problem with it, so do a lot of white folks in my family, friendship, and work-place. The thing about structural racism is it was imposed by a minority of elitist whites, and that means that as with Abolition or with the Civil Rights era, white folks are going to have to get off their ass and get involved daily.


That is a typical knee-jerk reaction to defensive whites about uppity minorities trying to rock the boat. The boat needs to be rocked. Yes, inherently white folks will lose some of their privilege, but simply put, a lot of white folks don't necessarily want it anyways. Ending racism is not a "white people suck" pity party, its about assessing the racial situation. If there is a gap in economy, then it must be addressed. If there is a gap in government representation, that must be addressed. If there is a gap in neighborhoods and communities and places of worship, that must be addressed. If there is a gap in educational quality and attainment, that must be addressed. Its not a finger-pointed game, its about tackling real life problems with pragmatic solutions. This means hiring black and brown people, period. This means ending redlining in housing and community redevelopment, period. This means ending gerrymandering political borders to benefit racial divisions (like the way "Repubicans" here in California have recently rezoned and redistricted their boundaries to included predominantly white areas even when these make ZERO sense geographically).. THESE are the solutions, just bitching and moaning neither sitting on your hands and pretending the problem has already been solved are not.



Yes, relative economic, political, educational, and cultural equality. If there is any instances of racial inequality in these fields, then there is still a fight left to win.


I agree, these folks live in a fantasy. However, there are still plenty of people every day, black, white, and brown, working together in the trenches, working in public education, working in community development, working in government, to make a positive difference.

I do suffer from painful optimism this is true :)


You're not totally wrong, just not entirely right either :cool:

yeah. just skip all my long posts.

tl:dr i win.

No, I read every single word, and enjoyed the conversation (serious)

When you're not trolling, you're an intelligent and thoughtful person to discuss divisive political and economic matters, but when you're trolling all bets are off!

but that's the flag of self-defeat. resentment is toxic and addictive. it leads to self-destruction.

and i'm not after polite conversation, i'm after some kind of "truth," which in order to be pursued requires openness to other points of view. i'm not threatened by "other" ideas and over the years i've changed my position on a lot of issues because i discover and see new things. being open-minded is not being a sellout. and braying in anger only makes one's ideas look ridiculous which is why i laughed the other day. obama explained it better.

so, in short-- your racialized ideology is doomed to fail because it perpetuates self-destructive resentment and the shirking of responsibility by externalizing all blame to an abstract "white man." IT'S A WASTE OF TIME. it's better to spend one's time making something useful rather than holding on to ancient grudges.

and yes, i see racism every day, even coming from "nice people", but that's not an excuse to fuck up or stop working or to waste life in anger. or to think that *everything is about race*.

ok - i and other non american people REALLY have a problem with this concept of privilege - because im sorry - shouldn't privilege be EXTENDED not removed?

you are not going to convince me that if in a society some people have more privilege than others they have to renounce it. the aim is always to extend it.

this might just be the european way, but, for example, if i hold open a door for a lady i WILL NOT EVER buy this stuff about how i'm treating her as inferior. if someone gets treated with extra politeness and sensitivity then that's a rare example of humanity being civilized and not an expression of preferential bias that in itself somehow takes anything away from someone who doesn't get the same deference.

also - im sorry but i DO NOT see myself as having to engage in a permanent struggle for the sake of anti racism. i am not going to treat people badly because of their race. when race comes into my life i am going to try and be blind to it, i am going to be sensitive enough not to use douchey words by default. i'm on the side of whatever legislation or activism puts an end to racial discrimination.

but i am not going to live in a permanent state of self hatred and guilt about it. because - sometimes the oppressed races are in the wrong. not because of their skin colour, but because they or other people can use anti racism to frame certain things in ways that play off our natural revulsion at racism. also because they're human and can be just in the wrong like all other humans can.

also, i am not going to blindly accept that everything presented to me as racist is necessarily so. i'm always going to try and look at what the real motivating factors are - which is almost always money.

the way you frame it there's an evil half invisible force of (white) oppressors who somehow always makes decisions based on race, not economics or self interest or practicality.

in every case where it IS down to race - then im with you

but i dont see me being white as a problem. you do, but you dont expect blacks to see their blackness as a problem.

i dont necessarily believe being "white" means much more than a certain line of ancestry and a certain pigmentation of skin. it doesnt mean im born in sin - sorry - racism.

and symbol is right that resentment is toxic and addictive.

you cant be blind to it but you have to be able to face it with a certain serenity.

people LOVE victimhood and love the easy moralism of defending the victim. but you can't just wallow in it forever.

a lot of white people would prefer if blacks were eternal victims, cos then they'd never have to actually treat them as equals.

as long as 98% of every character in Hollywood movies and television shows are cracka-ass white, everything is cool right?

Friends was set in NYC and the closest they got to a non-whitey was when Ross almost married that Asian paleontologist.

Seinfeld did the same thing, where nearly everyone they interact with is white, even though they tried to make a joke about it when Costanza tried hard to prove he had a black friend.

Top shows lately,

Breaking Bad - mostly white folks in a largely hispanic state, where blacks and hispanics are shown just as background color to the seedy parts the main characters visit.

Mad Men - Set in NYC in the 60's, a time when tons of blacks and puerto Ricans and Asians were moving to NYC, and they have one black semi-regular character that is used as a prop whenever they want to say something "deep" about black folks, or when a racist character wishes to feel good about themselves by hugging the black character.

Game of Thrones - Even in fantasy realms (hey, especially in fantasy realms. Tolkien was a racist BITCH), nearly everyone of importance is white, and the dark people are led by a whiter than white lady who is not one of them, and the white lady frees all the black and brown slaves.

It is not about being white or being black or brown. "Race" is a fully made-up term that applies only vaguely to any individual human. "Race" has historically been an attempt by white people to designate whiteness at the top of creation while the other "races" are naturally less divine.

If you think that shit is still not around and still not believed by the powerful and mighty, then you have been fooled quite well.

It can be, that is true, but if you don't get up in racist peoples' ear, when will they if ever come to the realization of the Truth? Being nice politics are not exactly nice yo!




That is where you have it wrong. Its not about casting or castigating blame, its about working to build and establish solutions. Again, by working in public education to alleviate the gap, by working in local government to shift the racialization in the opposite direction, and by working with our neighbors in the civic community towards harmonization. Its not about wasting time pointing the finger, but conversely its NOT about pretending there is no problem, when again, its quite apparent there is.


Who has a grudge? Again, its about building towards the future, not dwelling on the past. In the history we have horrifying racism, today, not as much. However, today we STILL have racism in our economy, in our politics, in education, and in our society. So its not an anachronism to continue to work against this. Its not ancient, its completely contemporary. If you can't see this fact, that all the more simply goes to prove the point doesn't it, that advocacy and awareness are still important, that we need to continue to have this national and local dialogue, and that we can't sweep this mess under the rug. The LA Uprising in 1992 was the result of sweeping the problem under the rug. The eruption of gang violence here in LA was a direct retaliatory response to the racial gaps in the LA economy, politics, and education. The city took brown and black folks kindness for weakness, promising education and community reform, promising to invest in the poor and minority neighborhoods. Instead they CUT school funding even more, imposed gang injunctions in every neighborhood, and carted off more-or-less 200,000 people into prison to temporary resolve the problem. There is still a problem, the question is, will we work to solve it, or continue in the status quo with a shoulder shrug approach..


Who stopped working, or is wasting life, or fucking up simply by pointing out and discussing the realities of our society? Further, just because everything isn't about race, doesn't mean we should stop talking about it simply to be nice.

rabgor - watch doctor who where they insert black characters into victorian parliaments where - in real life - there were actually, shockingly, no black people

this is not making things better, this is whitewashing history.

also - isn't it fair, in a free and equal society, for people to produce fiction featuring WHATEVER characters they want?

the reason walter white and jesse pinkman are white, and all the friends were white, is not because the writers dont like black people.

the people that write breaking bad happen to be white. their lives were probably filled with people who emotionally resonated the strongest with them, and also happened to be white. this is not racism.

pretending that in ever situation everywhere you can just insert a woman, a gay, a black, a hispanic, a latino, an asian etc. is just stupid.

you can tell whatever story you want, and you shouldnt have to have an obligation to make it conform to a particular racial narrative.

if you said - hey sound man, i dont want your black hands on the equipment cos you'll mess it up - well then you're just crazy. crazy and racist. you should still have a right to express yourself through fiction, but maybe not to hire and fire. if ZERO black actors were ever on american tv, then that's wrong. but its not like that.

it's not "simply to be nice", nowhere i said that the great goal of all debate and discourse is "to be nice" but there you go again all mule-headed!

btw, "shifting the racialization in the opposite direction" leads to segregation. ending the racialization should be the goal rather than deepening the divide.

Notice this map from today's headline in NY Times about "In Climbing the Income Ladder, Location Matters"



Hmm.. the predominantly black regions are conspicuously hard to climb the ladder ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/bu...ml?ref=us&_r=0

Even more interesting, notice how well the maps of the "Great Black Migration" and today's income gaps superimpose over each other ;)

everyone should go here for some high quality writing

crabs in a bucket? ;)

nah, i'm just fucking with you and i don't really believe that (though i see a lot of it, i don't think it's the cause of these demographic trends). i see that map and i wonder about it, but correlation is not causation, and contrary to what you believe it's not all a white man conspiracy to keep the black man down. there are many reasons why the poor stay poor. but yes, atrocious schooling can be racialized, etc. but it's not all.

what about white appalachians though? how do you interpret their permanent state of blight? they live in those same areas, by the way.

actually, the link i was looking for is HERE

The current split between conservatives and liberals on this issue of the government’s size is farcical because it’s so one-sided in light of the failure of large-scale progressivism to offer a sustainable alternative to the default social order. To be sure, the conservative society is execrable from the modern viewpoint, since it dehumanizes us, treating us as animals struggling on our own for survival and power. And to be sure, some conservatives tell noble lies to conceal that this is what they fight for. Thanks to its association with the Nazis, social Darwinism is politically incorrect, but this is the true difference between conservatives and liberals. A small government means a power vacuum in the private sector and thus a brutal natural competition, which corrupts the weakened government and tanks the whole economy in boom and bust cycles. And a large government means the empowering of the vanguard party or of the bureaucracy’s upper echelons, which again corrupts the power center and dooms the society. In a conservative social order, the powerful minority benefit the most, although as in most animal groups, the total population benefits from the stability which is preferable to anarchy. In a progressive, egalitarian society, the naturally weakest members benefit the most since they receive a free lunch, but because this sort of society is miraculous it tends to be short-lived. Thus, only the rich and the powerful now have ardent political defenders in modern states, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Liberal politicians are much more confused about their social ideals than are conservatives, although the latter may seem confused in public if they keep their postmodern ideals secret.

Again, you demonize me too much with this "white man's burden" nonsense. I never meant to imply that racism is as simple as black man great, white man evil. However and again, just because its not that simple doesn't mean that even in the 21st century its an anachronism. As to you comments about the Appalachians, you realize that even those regions are upwards of 50% black like most of the South? It is a myth in America that Appalachia is predominantly white. Further, of course white people are victim to poverty, including in the Appalachias, shit, including in my own life. However, this somehow doesn't negate the impact of racism on the systemic poverty of black and brown folks across the past 400 or so years, and as shown by that map continuing today as much as ever..

white man's burden was kipling's notion that the white man had the duty to civilize the global savages. that has nothing to do with what you've been saying that "the white man is out to fuck us over." which to me only perpetuates resentment and shirks responsibility.

black/brown people can be racist too-- and sexist, and classist, and ageist, and predatory, and abusive, and all kinds of other things.

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this big ol' tl;dr, but I have it on expert authority that those who run the Detroit Institute of Arts aim to sell-off large amounts of near-priceless paintings in order to pay off (some of) the city's debt. It won't be long until the only way to view heritage works will be through grants by Big Corp.

Good times.

white-washed television is not racism, but it doesn't help. TV and m,ovies create our realtiy,a s stupid as that is, but it is true for a great many people.

what they see on TV and movies, (blacks and hispanics playing roles of criminals, junkies, gays, thugs, homeless, servants, etc. far more often than they play roles which normally go to white actors) is how many people perceive reality to be. I don;t believe the hype.

Most writers for television are white males. they can only write about what they personally have experienced, which is the privileged, white existence they enjoy in the USA. believe me it is true.

as a hispanic who looks white as fuck, I see it all the time, and I see how my fellow 'panics are treated differently from me, just because I am pale and have red hair. prejudice is pervasive, and that is the issue, not racism. racism is prejudice in action. prejudice is taught.

Who said they aren't or can't be? The question is about structural racism, which by every metric demonstrates that black and brown folks are disenfranchised from the economy, politics, and education system disproportionately to white folks. This isn't to imply that white folks have this discrepancy willfully, or spitefully, rather, just that structurally and systematically in the US, racism clearly has an pronounced effect. About your idea of perpetuating resentment and shrinking responsibility, I think the opposite is true. When we vocalize our feelings and insights about racism, we vent ou frustrations and cleanse the wound. When we ignore or minimize its effects, we let the wound fester to erupt later. Further, when we discuss these matters about structural racism, we inherently are also discussing those systematic solutions of community initiative and involvement. Again, its not about empty finger-pointing, but rather identifying where work needs be done, and getting to work. I work in public education where we see huge racial gaps in quality and over-all attainment. That is how I can contribute and work every day towards a solution. Its pragmatic. It works. There are other folks involved in business, in government, and in community involvement that can do their part, share in the work to alleviate the gaps. Its not about the blame game, its about identifying problems and working on everyday solutions.

well, the AT&T 4G commercial that's been airing right now shows a bunch of kids of all colors talking about slow vs. fast turtles or infinity plus infinity but if you notice (it's subtle) it's always the white kid who has the "winning" answer while the brown kids serve as acolytes.

but to go from there to say this is why young lakotas are killing each other is too much of a leap.

True, but it doesn't negate the impact of TV and subconscious racial inferiority. When the TV portrays black and brown folks predominantly as villains, crooks, side-kicks, underlings, extras, or just non-existent, it sends bad message to the white folks who watch these shows, and also the black and brown folks who internalize that message. Countless black folks talk about how pioneering even derogatory or demeaning black characters were on TV in the 1960s and 1970s because simply put, they had never even saw themselves on TV before. It provided radical sense of self-affirmation, and yet conversely, perpetuated subconsciously the idea of white superiority. When all the leading, powerful, and charismatic characters on TV are predominantly white, it sends a very overt yet subtle message, which is what Rob is talking about. Things are changing, albeit slowly, but thankfully in the right direction. My point in all this thread? We still got A LOT of work to do, we ain't even got time for a pit stop to check our progress, got to keep on the move, can't let any grass grow under our feet, nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream..

In terms of media misrepresentation, in the UK anyway, the first thing that needs to happen is for TV executives to stop treating the white working class as some kind of grotesque freakshow through programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show, Shameless, etc. Dead Battery's right, the media is free to represent whatever it wants however it wants but if a single group is being systematically demonised by the media in Britain, it's definitely the white working class.

I think we can rightfully concede that in any of its forms, regions, or contexts, TV is bane cesspool of human evil, almost viler than the pornography on the internet.

Except that the government here is on a crusade to ban porn on the internet but appears to think portraying the white working class as little more than tracksuit wearing benefit scrounging 'scum' is perfectly fine.

the reason why things change slowly is because politicians and preachers and academics and rabble-rousers much rather spend their energy bitching and crying about it than building an alternative.

they profit from saying "look at what ____ is doing to us!"

we all know what's wrong, but too many of our "enlightened leaders" have a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are.

You conflate what politicians do with what I am talking about. However that is understandable, from my experience talking with you in the past few years about politics, elections in particular, it seems you put a lot of inevitable faith (I'm not sure this is the best choice in words, but I can't think of a more apt way to phrase what I am thinking) in politicians and the political process. That is not the focus of what I am talking about, merely one side of the equation. Education, community initiative, economic reform, these things are substantive factors which must also be directly and consistently addressed.


Unfortunately that is too many degrees not true, so advocacy is just as important as action.