DC_DEEP said:
Ah, b. c., I've been ranting on this subject for a long time, and I usually get the same 4 responses:
I can't make a difference.
It's gone on for so long, it'll never change.
I'm so tired of politics I just don't care anymore.
and
I don't know, it seems that everytime we vote them out of office, we vote a whole new batch right back in again
The salient point should be, yes, WE can make a difference if we let them all know that the status quo will no longer be tolerated. Period. We are putting out the trash, and getting some fresh stuff up on the hill... and if the fresh stuff fucks up, even once, referendum will happen so fast it'll make their assholes whistle.
Actually it is doubtful that we can make a difference, since rather a lot of people actually ike the status quo - i.e. the people with money.
The people with no money who should not like the status quo,
tend* to be ignorant through lack of education, and so fail to grasp their predicament and don't get angry in the right way or have any interest in taking action about a situation they don't or don't want to comprehend.
So the people who are a portion are a portion of the middle class, and educated/naturally intelligent lower class people, while the majority either don't know and don't care or do know and actively try to cling desperatly to the status quo which makes other people's lives so miserable and theirs so pleasent.
Now, the further problem is that whenever a bunch of visionaries do make a difference, they have a habbit of being replaced by either carbon copies of the people they deposed (ANC, South Africa), or absolute tyrants (Stalin, USSR).
This is because basically, power attracts assholes like flies to shit. If a group of non-assholes depose a group of assholes, assholes will worm their way in and endear themselves to the non-assholes, and as soon as the non assholes die, or present an oppertunity for succession, the asshole steps in from the wings and assumes power. Then we're back to square one - being ruled by assholes.
Now, the thing is that only assholes are that slimy, that power obsessed and that confident to worm their way to the top, while the decent people are usually pretty happy with their lot in life, it's the asshole that ascends to the top of the shit-heap (read: "Government") and becomes head asshole. Then, the decent people moan and groan about the asshole running the country, but if they vote him out, they just get another asshole, because at that level of the shit-heap, there are only assholes, since assholes are the only people asshole-y enough to climb the ladder and kick it away afterwards. Decent people are too... decent to fight dirty in order to ascend to the top.
*highlighting this now so that I don't get a mouthfull for calling all poor people stupid. I'm not, I'm calling most poor people stupid.