The USA does have a lot of great people, and a powerful culture as long as you can keep morale up. However, intelligent glimmers within clouds of addictive fug are unsustainable.

Intelligence, independence, and critical thinking require a stimulating environment (challenging yet secure) to develop. The overhead is too high for many families to provide this for their children in isolation. Enclaves of sanity could still be feasible except for the addictive factor I mentioned: the media-disseminated fug is heavily laced with potent subliminal appeals to survival imperatives. The Hummer ad is an example. For every woman who says, "Fagh!" after viewing it critically, there must be many who see the same ad without making the intellectual effort (if they were into effort, they wouldn't be watching the tube in the first place) but they will certainly pick up on the "protect my offspring" implication, and it may influence the car-buying ones to pick something heavy (with the usual costs, of course).

Seeing that the neocons control the money, the weapons, the media, and the state of the art in propaganda, how do you see us dreamers and believers shaping a better future?

What would an optimistic future look like, anyway? (I mean, one we can reach from where we are.)

Maureen

P.S. Akhenaton was a great patron of philosophy and the arts, but weren't there valid concerns among his contemporaries about getting people fed and keeping the barbarians from the unbuilt gates?