^^ What I do is try to spread the ideas we're discussing, and use the Internet as a force of instant communication and community across the world, to spread that message. I'm not the type of personality to be directly involved in politics. I would never make it; I know that. I'm much too passive and submissive. But being involved in politics is probably one of the most valuable things you can do to help. Actually I was just discussing this with my mom (it's her birthday so I gave her a call). I'm not really prepared to spend the next 45 minutes writing about it right now though. Perhaps I will feel motivated later!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Internet is undoubtedly the most significant emergent technology of our day. I think it's a huge, important step in the evolution of our race into the pure information age, or whatever it is you want to call it. The evolution of a higher consciousness than the individual.
Fear enters my mind often. But Hope is more prominent for me and always squashes the fear. I mean, we have a society of people who are totally disillusioned with everything, who have lost their cultural and moral identities (referring mostly to the US but generally to spread of this toxic form of consumerism we have today). The revolution in the 60s, I think, had the potential to go in a very good direction, or a very bad one. As always seems to happen, the actual result was somewhere in the middle. It seems that "good" and "bad" are always present in the world as oppositional forces (like everything else, it is made up of two opposing forces that form a dichotomy). The bad result of the 60s movement was that a whole generation of people took it too far and had kids, and raised these children who, with the aid of global marketing and consumerism, really have no sort of strong moral or cultural base. As a result, they just think that whatever it is that they want is what they should have. With role models like the politicians we have in office, who can blame them? These kids and young adults are disillusioned and lacking any sort of pride for their country or their belief system. They'll believe anything! The result of this is that we have entire generations of young people now who have no hope, who do not share my optimism for the future. They're destructive, nihilistic, and hopeless. I used to be one of them! What we need to do is to figure out some way that we can create a strong foundation for this and future generations, so that we can go back to a time when the perception of your country in the world matters to you, when your belief system cannot be undermined, when you share a hope for the future with your brethren!
If we reached that point, all this total apathy to the state of things, to the state of the environment, the government, and so forth, will not be possible, because the people will not feel apathetic but hopeful. Then we will want to rise up, become involved in the world, exert our influence to try to make things better for ourselves and our fellow man.
I have hope because the good and the bad always balance each other out. The backlash from the 60s was terrible but was necessary to make the world into what it is today, and the horrible things that are going on now are likewise necessary to bring about the awareness and passion that we need to make the leap into the next stage of humanity or whatever it is we're going towards that we are near the brink of.
The universe is perfectly rolled up into itself. I have faith that when it's all said and done, the journey will be painful and difficult, but it can only succeed despite whatever horrors we encounter to get there.
EDIT: Added a lot of stuff!