One of the many difficulties with being a natural person, as opposed to an institution or a corporation, is that conception is terminal. Sooner or later, we all die. And, it seems that every generation has to learn anew about politics and politicians. Yes, we have taken some received knowledge from our elders, but part of being human in the U.S. seems to be rebelling against our elders when we are young and mocking our elderly after we replace them as the generation in power (e.g., "Get off my lawn!"). This is especially so as generations move away from each other physically, instead of three or four generations living in the same Victorian or triple decker.

Maybe, the internet will change that some as so many of us become "published political writers." (I can dream!) Meanwhile, however, institutions have many advantages over humans. Whether it's organized religion, the Bohemian Grove, Bilderburg, Koch Industries, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Rockefeller Foundation, or whatever, institutions have the advantage of longevity, of organization, of receiving collective wisdom, of long-range planning, etc. And money, old and new and counting (literally and figuratively).

For a century and a half, conservative Democrats played the long con of turning the Party of the New Deal into the Republican Party. That process is now complete, thanks to acceleration by a wiley, conniving, admittedly dishonest grifter from the red, red state of Indiana named Al From and his two best-known and perhaps most personally ambitious disciples, accomplices and beneficiaries, Bill and Hillary Clinton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_From

We slept too long as Sodomcrats and Gomorrahcans robbed us blind and made us impotent. It's time to head elsewhere without looking back longingly at what was, what might have been, if only we had been more awake, more vigilant and less willing to co-exist with, and enable evil. Just ask Lot's wife.

However, we must take the hard lessons of the past with us. Jews went from Babylon to Egypt to Israel to the Diaspora to fleeing from both Hitler and Stalin and then back to Israel. Somewhere along the road(s), they learned very well a very hard lesson: the one thing "they" can't take from you is what you've learned, both your formal education and the painful lessons that your past taught you.

For us, forgetting was never an option. Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel

The Old Testament directed Jews to celebrate Passover every year to remember. And five or six millennia later (but who's counting?), Jews, for better or worse, are still celebrating Passover every Spring (by the lunar calendar) by reciting and reenacting the events of the night they fled Egypt.

While celebrating Passover at a seder that Christians have come to call "The Last Supper," Jesus supposedly took the unleavened Passover bread and wine, as observant Jews still do. However, he added a new commandment, "Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22, KJV) And two millennia later, give or take (but who's counting?), for better or worse, Christians are still taking "communion." Such is the power and long memory of institutions. Unfortunately, due to global warming caused by both us and natural forces, we no longer have the luxury of millennia.

If only we had been less willing to accept evil because someone (or many someones) cleverly convinced us that we had to vote for Democrats lest the Republicans annihilate us and the rest of the planet, also known as voting for "the lesser evil." Well, guess what, Mrs. Lot? Thirty years after Al From incorporated the Democratic Leadership Council with financial help and direction from the Koch brothers and corporate donors, we are further up the creek of evil than ever. Every Democratic think tank is a derivative of the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council, the neoliberal Progressive Policy Institute and the neoliberal Third Way. New Democrats have shredded social safety nets and stopped supporting unions, but have done little to nothing to fight Republicans or slow global warming.

The current standard bearer of the (New) Democratic Party is a Goldwater Girl and the only female founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council. She tells more lies than the wooden child, only she somehow gets away with lying while her nose somehow gets smaller . http://caucus99percent.com/comment/174457#comment-174457 That is what voting for the alleged lesser of two evils has given us. For the love of everything mundane or holy, stop voting for evil and spread the word to others, now and in the future. Donate, volunteer and vote for Jill Stein (and get ready: another election will be upon us in two years.)

Never forget or allow your kids or grandkids to forget. (Maybe we should devise a secular ceremony at which we re-enact every Tuesday morning how the one populist in the 2016 primaries out of maybe thirty or so politicians lost to a Goldwater Girl and then endorsed her?) And, since this post somehow evolved into a mash up of bible stories and politics, I'll wrap it up accordingly: Act fast. The End is Near. (For real this time, given global warming.)

All comments and suggestions for action are most welcome.