I thought maybe I could get most everyone here upset with me

[PatrickforO]

34. This is a good post. Of course, I'm the quintessential idealist.

I look at things as they are and ask why we cannot change them to be how they should be.

We should have single payer healthcare.

Social Security should be expanded.

College at state schools should be free because it is an investment we make in our children, and we should not allow predatory capitalism to be perpetrated upon them.

Prisons should NEVER be for profit, and prisoners should not be used as slave labor to earn profits for corporate shareholders.

Since we spend more on our military than the next 9 countries combined, this expenditure should be cut down to 2000 levels over a ten year period, and those monies saved back should be spent on efforts to make people's lives better with things like health care, and maybe even nursing care for the elderly.

We should keep our parks pristine, and not shrink them.

Costs to get into national parks should not be precipitously raised like they are being, because this is only to pass on more of the costs to the American middle class while rich people and corporations get tax cuts.

Taxes should be substantially increased for both people and corporations (right now, the effective tax rate for US Corporations is around 16%, so laugh next time someone solemnly intones the US has the 'highest corporate tax rate in the world' without qualifying that statement with the word 'nominal.') in order to afford these programs that would produce far more economic security and economic justice for Americans.

If we did this it would be a good start, but what we really need to be working towards is planning at least two generations out to preserve the earth, mitigate global warming, and keep air and water clean. This way, our children and grandchildren can enjoy this earth the same as we've been able to. It really IS time for us to start thinking as a species...of course the right wingers, nationalists and some 'christian right-wing evangelicals' won't like that idea.

But we do.

So, to your point, will the Democratic party end up failing right alongside the Republican party because we can't wean ourselves from corporate donors?

Sadly, yes. We are not wise enough as a species to do what is necessary for our species to survive and thrive. Look at this thread - all the people who smugly say, 'well this is how things ARE, so we can't have it any different,' or 'the OTHER party won't quit using corporate donors so we can't either...'

Will homo sapiens survive the next few hundred years?

Probably not.