::::::::
I'm just starting to get my thoughts together on this, so please bear with me (that's why it's in the "Diaries" section and not an article)....
I believe it was Aristotle who once said that man is a political animal. It was probably unconscious on his part to use the term "animal" instead of, say, "being", etc. But revealing nonetheless. Because, for all it's seeming "intellectuality", smartness & sophistication, politics is no place for a healthy, self-respecting person to put his or her faith, if he/she ever wants to truly grow up, and be the person God intended them to be.
Certainly no one wishes to live in a country which, as Bill Moyers recently said, is "hopelessly corrupt." And it is only natural to look to our political leaders to address and resolve the issue. Or, indeed, to perhaps look to someone outside the political system to get involved in politics and lead us to a Golden Age.
But it seems to me that a system which is totally corrupt became that way due to the "lack of will" on the part of it's political leaders. And no single individual, no matter how well-intentioned, would be able to transform a system which has become as intractable as ours has, over a period of many years.
Some say that it's simply money which is at the bottom of all this. As true as this obviously is, I think it's also more subtle and complicated than just that.
But money as a goal and aim in and of itself is not something which we can lay solely at the feet of the "elites". They may indeed be more governed and driven by it than the rest of us. But I fail to see anything which resembles a movement towards more personal and/or meaningful (if not "spiritual") values to take it's place on the part of the 99%.
OWS is an inspiring revolt against the status quo. But for all it's praiseworthy ambitions, it has not offered society as a whole, any kind of blueprint for anything one could point to as "a culture." And anything short of that is not (as they say these days), "sustainable". A non-sustainable non-culture is not what I believe could qualify as a long-term solution to this problem.
So, to go back to my original point: why do we continue to put our faith in something which no reasonable person could say offers any real solution to the current crisis? Why do we continue to focus our attention on disconnected, bits of sensational information?
Is there an alternative to power-politics, which is a long-term, meaningful and realistic solution to the problem?
