What'll it take to spark the massive ideological shift this country needs?

[Kid_A]

I really think that's what it will take to get this country back on the right track again. But I can't think of any way to get enough people to open their eyes to the truth. It's like the Matrix: you can only be freed after you've seen the truth about what's happening to your world. And the way our society is right now, people only pay attention to politics when it's presented in the form of entertainment, or when the discourse gets to be so negative that watching news about the campaign feels like watching "Temptation Island". It's full of lies and backstabbing and double-speak.

When news begins to resemble entertainment, people take the same passive approach to viewing the important news as they do to news about this month's celebrity sex tape.

So my question is this: What will take to usher our society into a new "age of enlightenment" where intellectuals are revered rather than derided, and we have higher expectations of our leaders than we do of our entertainers?

I know that the mainstream media is purposefully fueling the fire of public ignorance because of what they can gain from a docile, unquestioning public, but how can we change this? Is it totally hopeless? Am I just setting myself up for major disappointment when things only get worse?

[K-W]

1. A major tragedy or a major movement.

An organized grassroots movement or things just getting so f'd up that people can no longer ignore it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. Exactly....many of my friends think that...

it will take some sort of true revolt, but that at the moment, far too many people are far too comfortable (particularly those that have access to the media). In other words, when those that have finally end up losing what they have, then the truth of the current ideological failings will finally hit them in the head....unfortunately, it will be for all the wrong reasons...the true breakthrough would be if many Americans currently on brain autopilot engage them for once!

[Skidmore]

9. I disagree with too many people being comfortable, but believe

that too many people feel powerless and fearful. The 2000 election underscored for many that their voices don't count when they should.

[babylon_system]

2. LSD in the water supply?

Psylocybin burders at McDonalds?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. It already happened

and people chose to make war on nations, rather than address the real issues. They have sealed their fate.

[Kid_A]

7. Can you elaborate please?

So are you saying that there is no hope, and that those of us who want to live in a real Democracy are just deluding ourselves?

[hadrons]

3. remember, it took the destruction of Japan for them to ....

give up the whole "Empire of the Sun" and it took the Great Depression to dislog the Repukes in the 1930's and to create some form of gov't net

[Kanary]

6. I have an elderly, very educated European friend who is a student of

history. For along time now, he's been telling me that it will take a revolution, and it's going to have to get very bad in this country, just like it did in European countries, for people to "get it", and fight a war to overcome the power controls on this country, and get some smarts about what is really what in life.

Lately, I have come, sadly, to understand exactly what he is saying, and I'm afraid he is right. It's become impossible to even get "progressives" to hear a different point of view, and trying to get any semblance of community spirit to take action is very rare.

I'm afraid he's completely right, and his knowledge of history is getting too close for comfort.

Kanary

[BeFree]

8. Optimism demands...

... that I recognize DU as the beginning of the Grassroot movement needed to return our government to a position of service rather than it's present day state of over-arching rule of the elites.

[Ron Green]

11. Good for you, and fight the good fight!

Unfortunately, I sometimes cannot meet the demands of optimism (although most of the time I do).

:D

[kcwayne]

10. Draft, Depression, Deficits

When the draft kicks in and the younger generation wakes up to the fact that the government will waste their lives on a lie, those minds will turn.

When a major Depression hits and unemployment hits 15-20%, those minds will turn.

When the budget deficits blow away the social safety net, including SS and Medicare, those minds will turn.

People will not change on principles. They are only motivated to change when the skin they have in the game is getting torched.

[Kanary]

12. As for the safety net, NO, those minds will NOT "turn"

They'll be dead.

Kanary, who will be one of them. Mass graves, anyone?