Presidential vs Pariliamentary System?

Few new democracies adopt our model and most want a parliament with more than two parties.  It is far closer to democracy and far less vulnerable to monarchism.  However, there is no magic solution to make democracy safe from corruption or idiocy.  We have to appreciate that failing to govern ourselves leaves a vacuum that will be filled by others who are far less qualified than "we, the people" even if we are subject to getting things wrong.  It is the worst possible system, except for all the others.  This means that eternal vigilence is the price of liberty as well as being in it together with a lot of people we find hard to get along with.

I would go parliamentary in a NY minute, but I would also insist upon proportional voting and a big enough parliament to make local representation meaningful.  Public funding of elections follows, with a relatively brief period for campaigns because we need to keep the conversation going when there is no election coming too.  Do everything to make power come up from the bottom and make the top serve the people instead of the would-be masters.

Kenneth, are you referring to this post?:

Bruce Fein, who describes himself as 'conservative' was at the forefront of the drive to impeach Bush.

It's post #3 on this thread: Impeach Obama?

Keep asking those questions.  Keep searching for every possible angle.  You will have your own understanding to work with after all is said and done.  That is most invigorating.  You won't get tired.

I've stuggled with those questions myself. Of those options, I'd say "pawn" is most accurate. But I guess I would just call him an actor/participant. Like you. Like me. Just more high profile.

I don't know.  Sometimes it reminds me of graduate students as section leaders in Freshmen lecture courses.  It is hard to believe that a few short years ago, that was you saying those dumb things.  Obama may be educating frosh while we want him to be teaching a graduate research seminar.

I have given a lot of thought to parliamentary systems. I have to learn more. I do think it could be done in a hybrid system, a bicameral system with parliament/proportional and regional/district elections. This way regions get representation and groups that are not geographically isolated get representation. The US congress tries to do this to an extent, but proportional representation had not been invented when the constitution was written.

It would be possible, and probably desirable at the state level, where state congresses were modeled on the US congress, but did not have the same issues to solve, so that bicameral systems as they are set up now do not make sense at the state level. For instance, in MN, we have a House and a Senate. The state is divided into Senate districts and each of these districts is divided into two House districts. The House has twice as many members as the Senate, but since they are drawn up the same, they simply duplicate each other in their representation. If the House were changed to proportional representation and the Senate maintained its system of serving geographic districts, then they would represent differently and the two systems together would combine to make a fairer system. The speaker would be your Prime Minister, but not so prime, because there would still be a governor. But it would open the house to more than two parties.

I think the hate for Obama by the 1% is because he hurts their bottomline. Racism is used to mobilize hatred from those who do not share their ecnomic interests to create some kind of interest convergence.

This has been a Republican strategy for decade.  How do you get the poor rural farmer to vote for a corporate crony whose fiscal policy is in direct contradiction to your interests?  You play on bigotry, religion, gun ownership, abortion, etc. and pretend you give a crap about those things.  *cough* Santorum *cough*

The 1% has a funny way of showing their hate by donating more money to Obama than to his opponents.

They have been giving money to the opposition, too. The Kochs were major backers of Michele Bachman. Now there was not a chance in hell she was going to win, so why would they do that? Why would people who only care about money be bashing Obama so, when profits have increased more during his presidency than the last? Because modern politics is professional wrestling, and the politicians are characters who act out these charactatures for an emotional response from us. (Just because some of these people are too dumb to realize they are charactatures does not change the fact. I am talking to you Santorum. Or the ones who have come to believe the powerful character they portray is really them. Yeah, that's you Newt.)   They are messing with us. It is time to stop playing their game. Obama is as much of a tool as any of them.

OK, they do own the system.  Anyone in the game has to deal with them.  Do they hope Obama will keep liberals from revolting.  I doubt they need to spend any money for that, but I will allow that there is nothing of a serious challenge coming from the Right other than money; and I don't see who they could be grooming for the future.  There is the possibility that they think Romney has substance because he says everything they believe. 

If Obama is another "tool," he is of much higher quality than the China imports on the Right.  I can understand the indictment of the system, but I think the gloss is superficial.

There is the resentment of the college educated, the elite who put down blue collars, or there is just the experience that government has not done much of anything for you and more to you because you are on the lower level.  There is racism and the idea that reform is not for poor White schlubs and only takes their club membership card away.  There is military training where anyone who criticizes American wars must hate them.  And, there is always the temptation to blame your misery on the less powerful rather than taking on power directly. 

As a liberal, educated man, I try to see why there is something to the perception of our critics so I can sift the material to see what should be addressed.  Understanding how they see the story does not make them right, but it does help me avoid, as much as I can, playing into their frames to no good end.

That's pretty much how I feel. I think there are some who are oblivious to the fact that they're merely actors in the political theater. Others are sociopathic, enjoy the perks and get off on treating fellow humans like toy soldiers (otherwise bored with life, they enjoy possessing the appearance of influencing millions of lives). And then there are the few - and I mean few - who are relatively aware of what's taking place but hope springs eternal and they want desperately to believe they can serve the greater good. I'm not sure which of the first two groups is the largest, but I suspect the second group is growing larger all the time (money's increasing influence makes it hard to remain ignorant).

That said, I generally try to avoid playing Internet Shrink. What's clear to me is that many, many people on this Earth are suffering (US-centrism that ignores 96% of the planet's population disturbs me). And I don't believe there's anything beyond this Earth. So, I've more or less stopped caring about any of this sh*t. I certainly don't have the patience for the plethora of Hartmann trolls, who have made this message board virtually intolerable (I'd rather they be ignored, but I can only control my own actions). The bigotry and willful ignorance is more than I can stomach. I just want to focus on easing suffering (through work and volunteering), and being the change I wish to see in the world. I'm not even sure why I still post here, but I'm posting less than I used to and I frequently take extended breaks. I suspect I will eventually stop altogether.

So that's a vote for the parliamentary system?

I get what you are saying. Some of the posting here, the arguing with the trolls or the stubborn who come for sport is just so much shadow boxing. But there is genuine discontent across the political spectrum, and it is justified, even if it is confused or defensive. I believe there is a paradigm shift underway. The old ideas of left and right are inadequate, but it is the only vocabulary we know, so we talk in circles around ourselves. There is a faction desperately trying to hold on to this system, because they know how to exploit it. And there is a faction that seems to have no idea that there is even a paradigm to shift. But suppose someone were to ask you, "Are you a Federalist, a Democratic-Republican, or a Whig?" The proper answer of course is, "uh...what?" The word 'capitalist' did not even exist when Adam Smith wrote about economics. And what language we do have has been systematically destroyed. The words we argue with, with each other, do not even make sense. They have either ambiguous meanings or have lost any kind of meaning whatsoever. But life will find a way to force us to clarify meaning, and the pigeon holes we have created for each other will collapse. For now, we really need to re-examine everything, our views, our beliefs, our identities. We need to question what they are based on. We may find that their bases are obsolete, and have been for some time.

Wow, I'm not sure where I was going with that. But there. There you go. And I am not going to bother to spell check it. Just stream of conscious.

I've been there -- a number of times, in fact.

I keep coming back because, despite the apparent preponderance of shallow thinking, self assertive bullies, I do have a chance to be myself here.  "Myself" is slower, more sensitive to my environment, very reflective, and as a result, by the time I've sorted out what I might have to say in most real life high-powered situations, (which is what our society has designed itself to emphasize) no one generally remembers what the topic I'm talking about was, or even if it came up.  While I may be ignored by the majority, and that's nothing new for me, occasionally I do get a chance to actually discuss something with someone.  And of course, I do enjoy writing, so here's a fun place for me to practice. I would, for instince, answer yes to each of the points on the following list:

The small percentage of people, who are also much like me, who have begun to study this somewhat despised, certainly intentionally devalued characteristic in our unselfcritically extroverted society, have been discovering that we sometimes seen as introverts (but we are probably just a subset) do have an important place in the species.  While the extraverts may exuberantly take this whole thing over a cliff, we provide a certain perspective that, for some in the species, ends up being a form of alternative survival strategizing.

So far they haven't run me off or deleted my posts despite my ever critical point of view.  I don't get that very often in my life, no matter where I am.  The internet may be one of the few places that doesn't kill that off.

I am on a break between leaving one town and moving to another, and while I am here I am indulging my perverse interest in the pathology as well as excersising my analysis and how to present any thinking.  I tell myself that this is healthy, but I may just be feeding an addiction.  It really helps to have you guys around, so if you stop and all I get is the wingnuts, I will have to head for the beach.

Well, we may never get back to the online culture of 2004, when Thom was working out of his home in Vermont.  There was a sizeable group here related to his work on ADHD and his Prophet's Way related work at Salem.  Few here now experienced that. Good people, all.  An eclectic mixture, with Europeans too.  We had some great mind-probing discussions, rather than these little caged gerbils running on a wheel discussions.  Then Thom's career took off and so did the trolls on the board.  That's probably not a coincidence.  Anyway, I appreciate the work you do DRC.  And I'm appreciative that they aren't being banned so that they come back with new handles we have to figure out all over again.  I took them on for awhile, and it's just not my style.  If you can do it without personal psyche damage, I tip my hat to you.

Help me keep in touch with sanity as well.  If I start showing signs of it getting to me, I will be the last to know.  But, it is something I do so others don't have to.  Post more about what your permaculture work is showing you.  I think you are doing something important there.

Planet, I suppose words are always ambiguous. Labels, such as conservative and liberal, conjure up caricatures. I don't bother to identify myself anymore. It's difficult for me to even describe my perspective, or what I mean when I speak of fundamentally altering the way we interact with Earth and every species on Earth. Where do I fall on the political spectrum? I don't. It's been said that "nothing changes but the date." We've been fighting the same battles for so long. There's definitely a pattern or paradigm at work. I think of lesser evilism as working within, or propping up, the present system. It just doesn't interest me. Parliamentary vs. presidential? Meh, I'm anti-hierarchy.

Ren, from one introvert to another, I hear you. I'm right there.

DRC, I'll do what I can, but I am convinced we have to do what's right for our own temperament.  However that works out in politics for all the multitudes of temperament differences, I can't say.  It helped me to acknowledge what my temperament is so I could stop fighting it.  On the Myers Briggs-based Keirsey temperament sorter measurement scale, I come out an INFP, (wiki's explanation: INFP) probably the most challenging one to be gifted with for this particular culture.  Especially when dealing with judgemental factualist who despise certain things I'm good at, which seems to be what our anti intellectual, spectacle-orientation gives everyone as the cultural preferance.  Fortunately for society, I suppose, we are a small (only one) percentage.  I mean, who would they sell all this violence to if there were a lot more of us?  Being a rebel for someone who doesn't like conflict takes place on a lot of levels.

One has to do permaculture. 

He has to hang out with the powers that be in DC because he is the President.  "Mobbed up" is over the top.  The Elephant in the room is bleeding in the GOPocalypse.

Robert Reich (Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism) explains why our Presidential system is in trouble.  While contrasting it with modifying effects of a parliamentary system, he illustrates some of the reasons why we have marched steadily rightward while, at least he says, young Americans are:

As Santorum and Romney Battle for the Loony Right, the Rest of Us Should Not Gloat by Robert Reich

This is an important cautionary message to those who just reject the duopoly and want to vote protest without taking the consequences seriously.  We need to change this system, but until it is changed, it can be heisted by the monied interests if we divide ourselves in squabbles about strategy or philosophy.  "Lesser evil syndrome" can be avoided if we appreciate the problem, but if we want to be pure and clear of the duopoly, we are likely to be sorry about the results.  Work down ticket to build the base, but beware of giving up on Congress or the White House just because it is so depressing.

Not surprisingly, Reich neglected to mention all of the horrors brought on when Clinton was the figurehead of Empire. Horrors that required a "Democrat" to silence those would-be critics. If a "Republican" attempted to do what was done in Clinton's name or Obama's name, the quasi-left would scream bloody murder."Democrats" are a necessity, as the political theater would otherwise be seen for what it is.

You need 2 "sides." Or the appearance of 2 sides. Or else nobody will attend the theater. But the actors on both sides have the same goal, putting on a good show.

I am assuming that this conversation is taking place with the agreement that there is no possibility of  having a, um, cough, choke, monarchy attached to the possibility of looking at a parliament instead of a presidential? Am I correct?

If we could change the current Presidential system, I see no necessity for instilling a monarchy.  It seems to me the possibilities are open.  I believe Russia has a version that mixes a limited Republic, a parliament, with a president, who is elected.  It doesn't strike me as a good system, but that's what they came up with after their collapse.  Who knows what we would do after ours, should we have one.  There's a strong cultural leaning towards authoritarianism here in the U.S.  People live with it every day as if it's the most natural way to be in the world, meanwhile talking about their individuality and independence.  Talk about illusions.

That irony has not been lost on me. It has struck me as odd that authoritarians spend so much time promoting "individual freedom" and "personal responsibility." And so much time promoting adherence to the US Constitution, written by a select few to control the masses.

(Sorry to jump your response Garrett, but when I do these streams of consciousness, they usually need some editing,  Oh, wait!, I see it's a good thing, you were responding to the post above!  How nice of this screwed up software to allow that.)

As I told Kerry once when he was badgering me about this, "I have the choice of voting for no one I want or not voting.  I think I can make that choice for myself."  We all must, on that day.  Meanwhile we need to take stock of the reality we are living in, the reality each of us lives in.  Long term strategic planning requires that. 

I appreciate your pitch for the system, DRC.  There is much about this system that still maintains a stop-gap for some and I see it as necessary to prevent almost unimaginable horrors, but perhaps that's in reality becoming a dwindling group, more dwindling than I can know, which means the system no longer has much sense for them. 

And then there's the problem that the system itself is destroying life on this planet, and maintaining the system while it goes over a cliff is insanity.

The problem is we are measuring here, most of the time at least, with words and ideas that may not be the reality each human being faces in their immediate life, and then there's the problem that is becoming as an ongoing process as the system slowly crumbles all around us. It's a dangerous edge of illusion we flirt with, with these words. Consequently pitches are based on ideas, and those ideas may not be all that real for many people, and if those many become a huge majority, then the pitch is not going to be very meaningful for them. So I try to take that into account while at the same time allowing others to think for themselves and make up their own mind with these edgy, illusory pieces of disconnected argumentum tossed around in our minds.

I certainly wouldn't give up on something because it's "so depressing."  I never have.  I look at what energy and time I have, and I look at what I can accomplish.  I don't think I'm the only one doing that.  I see very clearly that I have limitations. I don't turn to drugs over this very real limitation reality, but maybe some do, I can't help that. But I too urge not to despair, but to keep working, seeking. 

I can't stop a freight train from going over a cliff, especially when I'm on it and no where near the brakes.  And as Howard Zinn said, "you can't be neutral on a moving train."  So I'm aware that I am not neutral.  I'm going to criticize Obama for failing where I can see he could have done otherwise because that's what I naturally will do.  I'm also going to take into account the bigger system that traps him, we all need to do that.  If we do, maybe we can find a way to change the bigger system somehow.  I don't know how, I don't know if there is a method for doing that. I'm going to do what I can do because I can do it.

I'm going to criticize the bought and paid for by corporations Representatives in Congress, I hold them more responsible than the Commander in Chief because this was not supposed to be organized like a private tyranny and they are supposed to know that too. And I'm going to point out why the radical right wing fringe, who seem genetically programmed to ignore that part of the system's design, endangers us all.  But the Democrats do not propose a system change.  They do not offer any brake technology to stop the train.  And maybe it will take some futile, desperate acts to be successful, or maybe nothing can be. I only know I don't know. In the end, I must be the actor who decides to to send in my Absentee Ballot with my marks in the boxes I choose, or go to my polling place and make those marks.  And I do what I do because I am not neutral.

ren, of course my point was about doing all that you are talking about while not being stupid about protests.  I want a lot more OWS ground up movement activity and a lot less 'faith' in our elections; but I want our votes to be able to block the worst if we cannot advance the better there.  If we are building movement activism instead of being nothing more than critics, we will be turning people on to grabbing the power instead of retreating into passivity. 

I do worry that a lot of disaffected Progressives want to give up the game to the tyrants just because empires suck.  If we are in solidarity with those who are truly screwed by American power, we cannot forget that we have some power to use in the system that does mean life or death for them.  It does not mean that we can only vote and not be about the end of empire because that is also part of our responsibility to others.

Even if you think Nader is Jesus, a political crucifixion is not going to liberate the poor.  I want people to value the work to be done at the bottom and outside the system while giving Caesar what is Caesar's.  Voting for Obama does not have to mean endorsing the empire or expecting him to be the change we need.  It might mean that Iran does not get bombed, and that is a big thing.

I don't think anybody is Jesus, lol.

What I think is that people who come to Thom's site haven't given up yet, and if they engage they won't be giving up.

I also think, from observation and experience, we also have those who come here to frustrate people into giving up.  They are the ones you need to be concerned with, in my humble opinion.  Their tactics are subterfuge and propaganda, essentially the now very sophisticated tools of NLP as applied by such well knowns as Frank Luntz and Karl Rove.  And some of them here are very good at it, they come back with new names and new operative designs.  But I still see them working out of the handbook.

I say let the concerned people find their ways to express themselves, however they do it that's comfortable for them.  What people say is not always what they will do when the chips are down. There will be a range because we are different.

The British monarchy and wealthy elite, along w/ the London bankers and their soul-brothers on Wall Street who patrol the US banks, is the part of the on-going British/US alliance that is the real empire behind the so-called US empire, IMO. The part that keeps us in long, financially-draining wars, over and over and over again. The Repugs are just the footmen that take good care of their personal needs.

Just wanted to make sure no one is looking to get deeper into that quagmire, which the main-stream media is constantly conditioning us for. To me it seems that US citizens are being bombarded with fluff about their royals, their pop culture, etc, etc., etc., with the goal that, unconsciously, Americans will want to be a part of the circus of pretense that is all things British.

Instead, we should be supporting our own culture.....which is now recieving less and less money and less education.

Have you seen how low even Obama curtsies for the queen, ducky?

Karolina.  I for one am an avowed anti authoritarion.  Now that's not a simple label but a life long and ongoing study for me.  A very patient one on my part because of my personality type and my propensity to go deeply into the structure of things to try to understand meaning and truth.  At the same time I am aware I have no way of controlling any change that might come about. Most I can do is have some level of influence through discussion.

Ditto. 

ren, I presume you know that we are in close enough agreement that clarification of nuance is mostly about others appreciating the details.  My emphasis on calling out Obama bashing is to keep people in the larger game doing positive things instead of creating an atmosphere of negativity where people get discouraged and do nothing.

Glad to have Karolina in this conversation.

I'm not worried about you and me, DRC.

I just like to keep reminding myself and everyone else, it's not what you say, it's what they hear.  Frank Luntz said that, by the way.

And I was not actually talking to just you Ren, when I was asking this. I simply wanted to make clear that I am fighting to bring back true democracy ... and I actually do believe that our Constitution does not need an overhaul.

As far as Obama is concerned here, DRC .... I really was a bit mortified when I saw those news clips last year when he made some social blunder in front of the queen and they all looked straight ahead and carried on, ignoring him. I can honestly say that I was more angry at them than Obama was embarassed. Royals, my clASS. Crickey.

But of course you know I can't speak for anyone else.

Did you read any of that stuff I presented on the dangers of the presidential system?  Specifically, I call attention to its tendency towards authoritarianism, a path I've been tracing, especially with this Unitary Executive Theory, which actually dates back to arguments in the writing of the Constitution not just the Bush Administration and it's grabs for power.

Personally, I think our national size may now be better served by a regionally-based system, perhaps one not really that different from the one set up (with help from us) in Iraq.  It may not work well for them, but I think it could for us.

Of course strategically I believe we need to take care of this winner take all voting structure first.

There seems to be a fairly common presumption that if one lacks faith in national politics and does not buy a ticket to the show, that person is "doing nothing." Or, if one is neither a Republican or a Democrat, he/she must have supreme faith in some "third" party.

It's difficult for folks to think outside the box in which they have been indoctrinated.

I think what you are seeing, Garrett, is an off-shoot of rational thought, which tends to be composed of binary thinking.  In its extreme we get these black and white kinds of issue questions which are usually circular within a given tautology set, which generally depend on narrowly defined concepts.  Focusing on any one binary set, bringing facts to bear, may make for entertaining debate -- and many people entertain themselves endlessly with such debates -- but that entertainment is also a distraction from a need to step back and see bigger pictures.   Rationality and binary thinking has its place, especially when solving technical problems, but there are other levels of thinking too, and people who want to think strategically need to learn about them. 

Very few people learn to think strategically.  Some mind-scientists argue that there may be a genetic component to it, and that only a few people in a given population are really capable of it.  That may be a chicken an egg problem arising from educational enculturation in our overly technologically-focused culture, which uses the lense of rational thinking to solve its very rational organizational problems.  And questions like whether something is "legal" or "just" will generally give the nod to the more rationally based notion of legal, and facts are, of course, often based on word definitions, and you can see how that kind of focus takes us around in circles all the time if we let it. Meanwhile we may do infinite injustice to something, like, say, the environment, in the process; for instance, we may do it while legally protecting property rights as described by law (and ultimately a Constitutional social agreement) and arguing against the intrusion of some broader focus like a government regulation, which also may have a Constitutional basis.

I don't know if there is a school that teaches strategic thinking per ce.  I don't know of one, anyway. Generals, for instance, don't often make it to that level if they lack strategic thinking abilities.  Is it a talent those who do make it are born with?  That remains an open question for me.  But presumptions like those you've noted are the kinds of presumptions made at a rational, binary level of thought, I would argue.  And without the schooled discipline of scientific hypothesis testing to go with it, that abbreviated focus can be quite a nuisance to any serious effort to break free from the confines of a tautology.

So, anyway, what I want to say is that we need to be able to think and discuss on multiple levels at the same time if we are to take into consideration the reality of now more than 7 billion people mixed into various nation states at various organizational levels with often conflicting purposes on this planet.  A small rhizome community can easily be consumed by some aggressive swarming horde well armed with modern military technology.  So while I prefer that kind of face to face community social organization, there also seems to be some need for a larger organizational component.  I think we have some learning to do when it comes to communicating, and not much time to do it.

I had just read this thread then watched Maddow on the Justice Stevens interview, and Olympia Snow's exit, and couldn't help but think of the Powell manifesto's guide  to US Fascism.

I hope for a breakup of the Union, and a user pays system of Government Largesse. Who benefitted from bombing Iraq, and Afghanistan. Who gained from the genocide of Guatemala. Who won from the overthrow of Allende, and Iran's elected leaders. Nicaragua is another in a long list with bills to be submitted to the pirates.

About learning and communicating:  As Luntz says, what is heard is more important than what you say, so how we listen is the most important factor in learning.  Being able to hear what someone else is saying rather than how you can refute it requires patience and confidence that you will be able to think.  We get into argument where topping off the debate means controlling the narrative and agenda.

The old talking stick game drives us nuts because we are already thinking about our own statement after the other person begins.  Not after they finish.  I am as guilty as anyone, so this is also how we learn by recognizing ourselves in our criticism instead of pinning all the error on "them."  When we get into polemics and where we have a strong sense of being right, knowing how wrong "they" are, the idea that we can learn anything from them evaporates.  I had to learn this the hard way, and it is still my discipline rather than my habit.  "They" don't have to be correct to teach me something important.

Think of military intelligence to see an example where the agenda of victory defeats the ability to hear what the other side is really saying.  Those who get to know "them" and tell us what we don't want to hear do not receive promotions.

Anyway, we have whatever time we have and rushing does not get us where we need to be.  The important thing is not to get stuck in our own emotional and ideological ruts.  What does not fit is what opens our eyes to what is.  Certainty ought to make us uneasy rather than provide comfort.  It does not mean that we are wrong, but it does mean that we are not seeing or hearing all there is to see and hear.

Enjoy the day.

Any recommendations? Perhaps Awakening Consciousness would be one. Others?

Like following and violating an oath simultaneously, and then being sent to prison.

Which brings us back to the topic of a social agreement. And only a multitude of questions comes to mind. I have no answers. The ambiguity of words means any agreement will be open to interpretation, but who is empowered with the duty to interpret? Can a social agreement be applied to a large group of people if studies show communication breaks down in large groups (by which I mean 10+, much less 310 million or 7 billion)? How much respect is given to the natural world and other species when creating this agreement?

Vail's wonderful work did offer suggestions on how to avoid being consumed by aggressive forces, but those suggestions were probably insufficient, especially as we face times ahead in which desperate acts will become increasingly common.

Speaking of tautologies, a common one that bugs me is the suggestion - primarily from "liberals" - that we (presumably the US population) should and could return to these imagined, post-WWII glory days. It's just assumed that, in addition to being possible, that would be desirable. For starters, the New Deal - for quite a while - did not apply in full to women or people of color. To say nothing of the fact that such a US-centric perspective ignores the impact felt by the other inhabitants (both human and otherwise) of this planet we call Earth.

Are you referring to Krishnamurti's The Awakening of Intelligence, Garrett?  If so, I'd say it worked for me as a kind of inspiration to think about thinking itself, how I do it, what I do, and in that process of active mind, to get in touch with other levels, like my emotional and visual intelligence.  Some who know me might disagree that anything did me any good. :)

Like DRC seems to imply, it's about learning to listen and empathize when others speak.  It's an active, ongoing self discipline.  I look for inspiration and find it.  But I also imagine that in doing so there's a Platonic element to that.  That is, the notion of innate ideas, which he attempted to show could be revealed by his writings using Socrates and his Socratic dialog. His effort seems to have lasting power. In looking, it would appear that something in me already has a sense of what it's looking for, and in finding I may or may not be revealing what I already know at some innate level.

I don't believe there are any good formulas for living a rich inner life.  It's a self discovery, self creation kind of process.

I have too experienced all the complications of searching you have expressed.

I try to remember that each of us is struggling, no matter how dogmatic we try to be in our attempt to show we know.  But still, empathy with someone who bears the characteristics of a psychopath or sociopath is often more than I can muster.

I've never been one to call for saving the "Middle Class".  For much the same reasons you just explained about that return to those glory days.