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Many of us old hippies are simply tired of the life-long fight. Despite decades of trying to resist the reichward drift of this country, we cannot seem to make much headway. A political candidate must still worship religion to have any chance for office. Money is still worshiped as the barometer of success, value, essential "goodness" by most. Force is still the most effective means of exerting influence. All of the negative "isms" are still too powerful as factors in our lives. On the other hand - there is some room for optimism... More of our children do not "see" race. More of our children care about "the ecology" (remember that term?). The internet has given us a weapon to fight back against the corporate propaganda machine. The short-term, ADD-afflicted view has driven those in corporate control to be really stupid in their greed. They could have gone along, exploiting the masses, with much less negative fallout and resistance if they had been only a bit less greedy, less cut-throat, less heartless. But, their innate character (or lack thereof) has led them to do anything for that additional million or billion or trillion. Their blindness and indifference to the suffering they cause could have been avoided, with little cost to their bottom line. But they refused to rein in their abuses, even a little. That will be their downfall, though they may take all of us with them. Empires eventually fall. Because of the very nature of their existence. Hell, even "good" systems eventually fail. It is the nature of things. America was incorrectly seen and labeled as the "last great hope", etc.. What bullshit and arrogance. America is a teenager among nations. It was the beneficiary of fortunate geography (no wars fought here, so we are less inhibited about starting wars in other peoples' lands) and the accident of lucky timing. For our entire existence as a nation, we have acted like a trust-fund baby. Now, like a drunk adolescent with the keys to the family SUV, we run roughshod over the neighborhood, knowing that our father/military/wealth will keep us out of jail for running over the less fortunate. I had hoped, naively, that forty-some years after starting my own battle, things would be a lot better than they are now. I also suffered from that short-term focus that led me to that mistake. Evolution does take time. I hope the planet has enough time to survive until our species grows up.
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