[sanderjd]

Absolutely true. Ok, everybody has decided to care; now what?

I do think a big part of the problem is that the answer to "what should we do" has been pushed way too far up the chain. "Caring" is measured by voting patterns in presidential and congressional elections. But that's way too far up the chain, it's already too late to have an impact at that level. Impact comes from affecting the processes that control who becomes politically influential, which controls who is nominated in those elections. This is where local and state governments and other politically active institutions (including businesses) come into play, but it's not at all clear and very hard to predict in exactly which ways. Voting in elections and arguing with your parents is not even close to enough, but going further isn't an obvious path, and nobody ever talks about how to do it. From a personal standpoint, I'm interested in this stuff, and I vote, but I also recognize that I have no influence and no idea what to do about it, which isn't exactly motivating!

[caoilte]

Syriza (Greek election today) is an example of what can happen next but things have to be so very far gone before such a party can bubble to the surface. I think you're one more crisis away from it in America - and there's a very real risk that your leaders will divert attention towards blaming all of the problems on a minority group.

Find a pivot with a really long lever and jump on the end of it. The War on Terror is in full swing but we can defeat the war on drugs. You could get people to read this - or at least absorb the salient points, http://chasingthescream.com/.

[njs12345]

Greece having PR is a big reason why Syriza has been able to do so well -http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Greece