Wall Street Is Too Big to Regulate | NYT | Gar Alperovitz

This article shares a lot with recent articles on gun control, climate change and anti-gang programs. Essentially, people know what some of the solutions are that they would like to implement that would have an effect, but cannot since democracy is broken.

The liberals lament that we would like to implement rational gun control laws, support social programs for youth, regulate emissions and nationalize (or regulate) banks. They say that the problem is that people are easily convinced corporate interests that this would hurt them. Eventually, they end-up saying that government does not have the “guts” to implement unpopular laws.

This short-term thinking is what got us into this mess to begin with. We all want rational laws, but that system is only sustainable with people understanding rational solutions to these problems. The reality is we just have not been doing a very good job or organizing around these rational issues.

The only way that the left is going to be able to combat these corporate-driven (not to mention irrational) positions is to go back to tried and tested organizing models. We must organize ourselves to go out and talk to people face-to-face. It is the only method that is more powerful than adverting, and better yet, will result in sustainable, long-term democratically-driven change.