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Originally Posted by djchameleon
I feel like the narrative is slowly starting to change and people are realizing that we have to attempt to get money out of politics.
Occupy Wall Street had the right idea but no real direction. The only thing it ended up accomplishing was bringing to light an issue that has been going on for far too long with lobbyists. The ridiculous amounts of money that gets thrown at both parties is out of control. When they campaign they spend 80% of their time just fundraising alone.
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Occupy Wall Street was for the most part a bunch of college kids. College kids with signs do not change public policy, no matter how much the sixties generation would like you to think so. A significant enough voting bloc does. And right now the people with common sense who might agree with me are too busy tuning out because the squeaky wheels, such as the Evangelicals, are making the debate so unbelievably unpleasant to be a part of. We just get lost in the incendiary rhetoric that moves the extreme ends of the political spectrum, who, as the Tea Party has shown, are willing to go somewhere else for their political pandering, while the rest of us are still willing to vote for their choices because at least they're better than the alternative, right?
And sure, there's a very real chance that the Republican Party may well splinter into two halves that end up losing much of their influence, but in the mean time the public discourse is becoming ever more polarized because of it. And even if the Evangelicals marginalize themselves by breaking with the more moderate side of the party, you still have a younger generation of socially liberal conservatives who hate Obamacare just as much as the racist, homophobic, Bible thumpers who seem to be multiplying at an ever increasing pace who may very well pick up the torch of anti-Communist fear mongering.
Not to mention the corporations who continue amassing ever more, not less, influence. Until sensible people's voices can compete with the shear amount of money that big business throws at Washington, especially now with Citizen's United making buying politicians now de facto legal, then we are again drowned out.
The Great Recession and dissatisfaction with the government may have inspired Occupy Wall Street, but there has also been no escalation. Some people hung out in tents for a few weeks and then it was over, move on to the next Kardashian sister who's pregnant. The fact that there was such a large protest movement in the first place is cause for some kind of optimism sure, but until it builds into something greater and more politically influential, something that truly reflects mainstream America and not just the more radical elements of it, it's nothing more than an isolated brush fire. And for that, we need greater negative stimuli to hit: an even worse recession, intervention into a war with casualties in the tens of thousands rather than just the thousands, Congress so deadlocked that they legitimately cause this even worse recession, or for all I know it might even take legitimate economic collapse. Something that people can't just ignore and grumble about cause at least they can still afford Cable and don't have to worry about a draft. Might it change sometime in the future? Sure. Will it happen any time soon? As in the next decade, or couple of decades? I'm dubious. And whenever that change occurs will it be caused by or possibly even cause something that destroys whatever optimism this change might otherwise have given me? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Remember, it was complete economic collapse that led to the fall of the Czar's tyranny in Russia, and it resulted in rise of the Soviet Union. Be careful what you wish for.