Forum Post: We let this happen, but we can also undo it. We can unseat the corporate hijackers who have co-opted our government.

Brightonsage has written some of the truest words I've seen on this forum, some of the truest I've EVER encountered actually.

I think he/she nailed it PERFECTLY HERE when he/she said:

"The reality that we live in is not perfect and we are not perfect. And we have to design and define processes that fit us and people as flawed as we are. We have to live it and change it and make it better and recognize that we made it worse, last time we tried to make it better. We have to know what we don't want, but we need to know why we didn't get it. We can't default to "they messed it up", when it is really, "we let them mess it up." We were busy watching, sports on TV and going out to dinner and having the fun we were ENTITLED to after a hard days work. We are where we are because of what we have done and what we have left undone. Yes, I am in this boat with you. It takes work to get out and more to stay out. Voting by mail every two years is not nearly enough."

Thank you for saying this Brightonsage.

Beautiful. So damn true. You're talking about CITIZENSHIP rather than consumerism. You're talking about the hard work of maintaining a democracy, the elegant yet messy tension of a republic. You're talking about citizenship as a participatory pursuit. You're talking about taking *personal responsibility* for your nation and directly participating.

Many in our nation yack about this "taking personal reponsibility" thing but do exactly the opposite. They selfishly pick and choose their moments, squirrel away a private stash and then hide away in a gated enclave "thinking how mighty they have become" as Dostoevsky put it in his masterpiece, the Brothers Karamazov.

Dostoevsky went on to explain that the security of the individual could never be achieved in isolation, only in the context of community:

"Today, everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual.  But these efforts lead not to a full life but to suicide, because instead of realizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation.  For in our age, man has been broken up into self-contained individuals, each of whom retreats into his lair, trying to stay away from the rest, hiding himself and his belongings from the rest of mankind, and finally isolating himself from people and people from him. And while he accumulates material wealth in his isolation, he thinks with satisfaction how mighty and secure he has become, because he is mad and cannot see that the more goods he accumulates, the deeper he sinks into suicidal impotence.  The reason for this is that he has become accustomed to relying only on himself; he has split off from the whole and become an isolated unit; he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in man and mankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole."

"BUT AN END  to this fearful isolation is bound to come," Dostoevsky continued, "and all men will understand how unnatural it was for them to have isolated themselves from one another.  This will be the spirit of the new era and people will look in amazement at the past when they sat in darkness and refused to see the light. . .  . . . Until that day, we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, even if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, even if he is taken for one of God's fools.  

This is necessary to keep the great idea alive."

Cheers to you Brightonsage. You've made my day and nailed it out of the park. What we're experiencing now is our own damn fault. We are the 99% and we've had the power all along. But we relinquished it, divided ourselves off, stupidly fell pray to materialism. We let it happen.

As depressing as it is to realize this, it is also incredibly liberating because, if we are responsible for the current state of affairs, we also have the power to improve it, the power to restore this great nation, this elegant yet messy republic. We can do this. And we will. I can feel it. The notion is rising within us.

We are beginning to realize that we've had the power all along. And from that knowledge, everything is possible.