We knew this was coming, didn't we.

I was born in 1954. It's hung over my head my whole life. Yours too I bet. I grew up reading dystopian novels, tales of vicarious journeys into the dark side of man, nightmares that lodged themselves into the recesses of our psyches, nudged there by notions that those stories were too wild to be true. After World Wars I and II we knew what mankind was capable of, but we were better than that. Better fools than we would have ourselves believe.

Then came the 1960s and the world turned upside down. Change was in the air. Much of the upheaval in the 60s was about today, we just didn't realize it then. Hell, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. Little did we know, that was the start. The road and the proverbial can were going downhill at an ever quickened pace. The can took the wrong fork somewhere on that road, and we followed.

After the effort for a better world, that was beaten down at the barrel of a gun at Kent State, life became about excess. All the while though, in the back of the mind, it loomed. Mankind seems more adept at rationalization than rationality. Did this predicament we find ourselves in today sneak up on us or did we fool ourselves into believing our own arrogance? Did we look away in lieu of the good life?

Much like Dorian Grey, we sat at the apex of man, and exchanged our nation's youthful vigor for the pleasures of abundance after making a deal with technology, and comfort. That deal is now coming due. And like Dorian, we look at the landscape that reflects our excesses, and we see what we have become. And it's ugly.

In the end, Dorian slashes, with a knife, at the hideous figure staring back at himself in the portrait, and in a stark realization becomes that which he feared. A dark, empty, and rotten shell of a man. Dead by his own hand.

That is what a very vocal minority of people here like to tell everyone.
We can't win. There's no point in trying to defeat TPTB. There is no hope.
They practically yell it from the rooftops.

For arguments sake, let's say they're right.
How have you helped anyone here by telling us this?
Have you improved anyone's life by helping to crush what little hope they have?
It is my firm belief that a life without hope is not a fully lived life.

Just scrolling the Reddit threads of some of my favorite pages there, which include Chapo Trap House and Way of the Bern, and found two stories I thought people here might like.

Will Connolly is apparently a 17 year old kid from Australia who went to the press conference of a racist Australian Senator with an egg in his hand and smashed it on the bigot's head while he was being interviewed in front of tv cameras.

Tolerance, Purity, and Hypocrisy

We're all hypocrites...and bigots. I'm intolerant of intolerance, and bigoted against bigots. It's easy to find fault in others..in part to make our own faults more palatable. You can't expect purity from imperfect creatures. Our biology drives us toward greed in a cycle of hunger and acquisition and reward (so be careful what you hunger for). Purity is a rare condition on our planet. The Earth is all mixed up...air a mixture of gases, oceans a solution of salts and life, rocks a matrix of minerals. There are small rare pure mineral deposits, but most materials must be refined toward purity...and even Ivory soap is only 99.9% pure. The world isn't black or white, but various shades of gray. There are no perfect politicians, movements, policies, nor nations. However there are politicians, movements, policies, and nations working in the right direction. So what is the best approach...to encourage the forward momentum or cast aspersions about the inevitable imperfections?

What one understands and how one understands is dependent upon perspective – personal, cultural, educational, experiential or what have you. There is a range of variability in how we see things, from people to people and from person to person.

We've all been driven into the political wilderness by recent events, but it's been coming a long time. At least since Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his most important and most famous speech on Jan. 17, 1961.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”