Why are we just sitting back and witnessing our own destruction?

[Cyrano]

Never mind. I know the answer to that question. It’s because those of us who realize we are being destroyed don’t have the means with which to stop it. And far too many others are totally clueless as to the whats and whys of what is happening to them.

What I’m speaking of here is the complete theft of our well being, our ability to be informed, our financial security, our lives as we have known them, and virtually every freedom we have taken for granted.

We know who the thieves are. They are the super wealthy who own/control multinational corporations, who own/control all means of distribution, who own/control everything we need for survival, who own/control our political system, who own/control the media, and who own and control us.

These owners are using the Republican Party as their spearhead in acquiring everything on this planet that there is to acquire. But, make no mistake about it. There are numerous Democrats who understand it and are going along with it to get their share of the spoils.

So here are my questions. Does anyone have the vaguest idea of what we can do to halt our slide into involuntary servitude? Does anyone have a clue as to how we can escape from the insidious oppression which has overtaken us? Does anyone know how we can regain our existence as a free people?

[Angry Dragon]

1. Unless there enough people of wealth

that believe in morality, ready to fight the other side of wealth, ready to spend some of that wealth to combat the lies, the only other solution is blood.

[Captain Beefheart]

50. Funny you should mention that...

I really feel bad for those who've paid off their mortgages and I further hope they received their ORIGINAL Satisfaction of Mortgage document. The fact is this securitization mess is a ponzi scheme on top of a ponzi scheme.

Florida's nationally unique "Rocket Docket" judges are the pets of the big banks and their "foreclosure mills".

It's sad that everything is about money but it is. The big banks were so eager to make loans (and immediately "securitize" them) they didn't bother with underwriting standards.

Why? Because not only did they insure the loans at the outcome-based value with AIG's Credit Default Swaps, but they also took short positions. In other words they placed bets that the loans would not perform. This created an incentive to make the largest loan possible to borrowers with the least likelihood of paying it back.

The investors (who refuse to be identified) have been made whole by the third party credit default swaps, the trusts are closed, and the "servicer" buys the rights to illegally "service" a loan that has been extinguished by the terms specified in the Pooling and Servicing Agreement. Can anyone say "securities fraud"?

What is ironic is the large financial players are now realizing these big banks and their ponzi schemes are being exposed and are shorting the banks.

That means they will make a lot of money and lobby (bribe) the legislature to tear down the banks and their fraud.

What goes around comes around as they say.

Where is the Florida Bar in all of this? Oh, they are busy threatening activist groups who SEE the fraud (crime) that has taken place.

The sad reality is it doesn't really matter what the majority of people think whether right or wrong.

Money rules.

The situation now exists wherein big banks have gamed the system and obtained vast amounts of wealth by criminal means.

All of a sudden the "rule of law" will become important and other financial institutions will use that "rule of law" to take the money for themselves.

Look at the "Wiki-Leaks" fiasco. The uproar did not rev up until rumors started swirling about big banks being exposed. What will be divulged? Emails from bank execs joking about how they've stolen money with the nodding approval of their govt. puppets?

People who don't realize that already never will.

The pendulum will swing and the predator will become the prey.

It won't have anything to do with altruism...it will be driven by greed.

Watch this video... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#40480146

The next "bubble" on deck is student loans. If you don't have a 100k degree don't bother standing in line for the job at the landfill.

[treestar]

2. Overdramatic

The idea of our "destruction" has been going on for decades, doesn't happen, it is starting to be a cry of wolf.

[DJ13]

3. Not wolf, more like lobster

[Octafish]

13. More frog.

While the kettle's near boiling, just about every hopping thing in it hasn't got a clue.

[earthside]

16. Oh, it's happening.

Conditioned by disaster movies, a lot of folks think that our destruction has to come as some sudden cataclysmic event.

However, "Rome didn't fall in a day" ... it took hundreds of years. The antecedents to the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were decades in the making.

And, that is what is going on in this country right now -- I note three significant events: Reagan's election in 1980; the theft of the 2000 election; and 9/11 -- milestones on our path to "destruction".

By "destruction", I mean ending of this country as a constitutional republic, the demise of genuine competitive free enterprise, and dumbing-down social decay as evidenced in our 24/7 celebrity culture.

We are witnessing, in my opinion, what is actually happening rather quickly in an historical perspective: the triumph of the mega-transnational corporate state and the "destruction" of the America that existed from 1789 until the latter half of the 20th century.

So, I don't think this is "crying wolf" at all.

[dgibby]

34. Agreed.

And I'd add the "personhood" of corporations, Citizens United, electronic voting machines with no paper trail, and the need for campaign finance reform, erosion of our constitutional rights, flagrant violation of the Rule of Law by the Govt, among others.

[glitch]

52. Agreed. The abandonment of the 800 year old Magna Carta and refusal to restore it

tells me all I need to know about where the U.S. Constitution stands.

[treestar]

63. This is just plain silly

Overdramatic. Our system is not falling apart at all.

This country is far from "destruction."

If people can't be serious they start on this stuff - it's like they are seeing too many movies.

We just got finance reform and a health care plan.

the doom and gloomers are always out, because they prefer to feel like victims. If they weren't victims, they'd have to face their inadequacies, so it's better to claim the entire world is falling apart.

[TheWatcher]

68. Your denial is what is silly.

If you ever had to face the actual reality of what is happening to your country, you wouldn't be able to function.

All people like you do is tow the Party Line, believe whatever Propaganda you are told that fits the reality you wish to be true, and then sit back in a comfortable cocoon of denial, as the Political Kabuki Theater is played out in the False Paradigm Truman Show you cling to, like an infant clings to it's favorite toy, blissfully unaware of the rot beneath you, as the foundations of the country continue to erode.

"We just got finance reform and a health care plan. "

This statement alone shows how terminally out of touch with reality you are.

You insult and name call, and continue to claim that the plate of dog shit given to us as "change" and "reform", is actually a delicious bar of Godiva Chocolate, insisting that fantasy is somehow reality.

Perhaps if one stays in denial long enough, and goes far enough across the Rubicon with their perception management, even shit can taste good, and be perceived as something it clearly isn't.

next you'll tell us 9.8% Unemployment is "Good News" and more of the Change you Demand That We Believe In.

[tekisui]

37. No, the idea of our destruction has not been going on, our destruction

has been. It is happening. It takes a long time for empires to fall. But, falling we are.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

38. Glossing-over

Doesn't happen? You do not see the destruction? You need to pay more attention.

[SammyWinstonJack]

66. Blinded by the light...or something.

:evilgrin:

[Greyhound]

47. Wrong. The destruction has been going on for decades, you just chose to pretend it isn't happening,

and that is your right. You do not however, have the right to dismiss what others are experiencing (though I have no doubt that you will continue to do so).

[TheWatcher]

57. Terminal Denial.

Part of the Problem, and more than happy to continue enabling that destruction because of addiction to said denial.

[Desertrose]

61. +1

Denial does enable the bastids to keep at it.

[Subdivisions]

60. What a profound and substantial rebuttal. BRAVO! n/t

[TheWatcher]

69. I would imagine at this point, They have pre-scripted comments and talking points that they

just Copy and Paste.

The Astroturf of Terminal Denial.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. I went out in my yard and attacked a tree.

After that I snarled at the dog and chased the cats up the stairs.

[NuclearDem]

14. This morning I took off my shirt and screamed at some mice

After that I ran down the street and stole my neighbor's scab off his right knee.

[Subdivisions]

62. My God! The brilliance with which you

took the OP's case apart!

Simply breathtaking.

[kentuck]

5. Pain.

There is no gain without pain.

[earthboundmisfit]

6. Those that have wanted to do away with any safety nets from the time they were put in place

are getting their wish. One thing you have to give them - they never gave up trying to undo the New Deal, and it's paying off for them - and HOW. :mad:

[lamp_shade]

7. My goodness...

[Octafish]

8. Use the only thing they don't control.

The Truth. And we still have the Internet to spread it.

The rest of the the means of communication, including Corporate McPravda, they control.

Outstanding post, yours, Cyrano. You have asked the central question, which few want to consider.

[OHdem10]

9. Could it be that nost activists(not all) but most will be okay even

during a Republican Adm.,--may not like it, but we will
not suffer, therefore, there is not enough motivation to
act.

This is not mean in any way but good faith. It is just
something I have often wondered about.

[RandomThoughts]

10. Don't give up your freedom.

If you evaluate based on circumstances then you can easily be gotten to join something you disagree with.

If you evaluate by best feeling and thought of what is correct, then you choose how you think on things.

So if your freedom is to know what is better and choose to be part of that or not, you are still free.



Or here is the real question, they believe everyone has a price, note that they would not send what is due to me on beer and travel money. So do you see for them the price is not material either, since that correction would not also get me to join them, but would allow me to maintain concepts of justice with compassion.


Think about that, I could get millions if I acted like some do, and could cause millions in transfers to happen making it really difficult on those with material things also if they ignore me.

But no material fix was given, because unless it includes training to be what I do not want to be by best thought and feeling, unless they can get me to join them, the money doesn't matter.


When I say it is not about the material, they prove it is not about the material also. This whole thing called life is about one side trying to break your spirit, and another giving hope and ways to try and help people.


The conditions you mention are because we are behind enemy lines. Welcome to the 101st Airborne paratroopers. It is not easy. I figure hold the bridge, till reinforcements arrive, been doing that for decades.


And when you can get a song from home on the radio, find joy in it.

[obxhead]

11. We didn't just sit back.

We put Dems in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House. What more can we do other than open revolt?

[azul]

24. Indeed. Tar and feathers? nt

[Cyrano]

30. Reply to 11 and 24

Open revolt? Tar and feathers?

Our owners also own homegrown terrorist organizations like Xe (formerly Blackwater) among others. They have had many years of practice in Iraq and Afghanistan at putting a stop to open revolts and tar and feathers.

Don't for a moment believe that they will be unleashed on us if/when we decide to "take to the streets."

[obxhead]

41. I agree with you 100%

I believe our armed forces would be turned against us as well.

I'm not calling for open revolt. Only saying there's not much more we can do. I guess we could vote in a 90 Dem Senate, but other than that we gave them as much power as will likely ever be possible. It was just squandered in the effort to make the wealthy more comfortable.

[Speck Tater]

12. They are the BORG. Resistence if futile.

I'm beginning to think that the best thing one can do is disconnect from "the system", go off grid, stay under their radar. Let the world do whatever it wants, just do like Thoreau and simplify, simplify. The less you need the less effect "they" can have on you.

[Cyrano]

39. Virtually impossible to stay off the grid today.

One would have to become a Jeremiah Johnson type character, and I'm not sure that even that is doable anymore.

[Speck Tater]

53. I heard that after the fall of the Soviet Union

a couple sociologists discovered some little villages in Siberia where the people thought that Russia was still ruled by Czars. If those folks could somehow manage to remain utterly untouched by the Soviet government then I suppose there are still places where one could go where government would not affect them.

For that matter, I imagine many urban homeless people are "off the grid" too.

[Skidmore]

15. Because we sit on forums and piss and moan and make up funny

cutesy labels for every group under the sun rather than get together and seek common cause and organize with other like minded people who may not agree 100% with our own beliefs. We too have devolved into splinter railing at the right and scraping to the destructive elements on the left who are embracing anarchy and the destruction of all semblance of order.

[Dreamer Tatum]

17. +1 "ReTHUGliKKKan"

[Skidmore]

23. You proved my point in one word.

Well, tell me where we are collectively organizing? I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" again last night. Where has the impetus gone for organizing in the manner those homeowners or factory workers did? I don't see it. I hear and read plenty of verbage but I see no really action on the community level. Nothing political or economic. Thinking outside the box and sidestepping entrenced economical systems. Are we not capable of pooling resources and assisting one another to create new businesses and institutions? Can we not organize outside of the professions? Can we not create our own banks? Our own factories and reclaim lost manufacturing? Where are the protests? And I'd like to see protests without clowns for a change, with the faces the people being seen. If I freaking want to go to a circus I'll buy tickets to one.

[Dreamer Tatum]

26. All of that pales in comparison to "Caribou Barbie"

But also, people are all too willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Binary thinking and snark are anathema to actual change, but to my mind that's all the "Left" is truly interested in.

Don't think so? How about "General Betray-us?" Ooooh. Lots of action there.

[avaistheone1]

18. k&r

[grasswire]

19. the century of the America dream seems to have been an illusion

...and we certainly bought into it hook line and sinker.

"You can be anything you want to be." Well, yes, if you lived in America between 1930 and 1980. You could go to college, buy a house, and live pretty well. A child of poverty could indeed rise to be a wealthy man.

But the masters have decided to take us another direction. And now we see that we are no more free to shape our own destiny than were our forebears, who may have been sharecroppers or slaves or sweatshop sufferers or homesteaders or peasants -- starving, ill, unable to live with human decency.

This is a hard and shocking reality to absorb. Complete betrayal of humanity by the elites. Snookered. Used. Abused.

For people who were sold democracy, it's especially bitter now.

I don't know what will happen. I suppose it is as likely that fascism will come as it is likely that true leadership will arise to help us regain equilibrium. In the first case, the first task will be survival for ourselves and our loved ones. Expect the best, but prepare for the worst. And don't let go of your loved one's hand if they force you to get in lines.

[Lint Head]

20. There are things the common people can do

and have done throughout history. The corporate owners of our existence have us so controlled we have a false sense of normalcy. People must sacrifice and fight to protect freedoms. We are at the point where words are useless. Who wins American Idol and Dancing with the Stars is more important to people than saving our precious country.

[azul]

29. Lamentably, we have traded in our freedoms for security

of food and entertainment, and have been herded like domesticated cattle.

Until we get hungry or bored we will not bust through the cattle prods of Limbaugh and Beck and the fences of the Idiot Patriot Act. We be mostly contentedly corralled, though abused enough to shy from the limits, cause we are now scared of the responsibilities of freedom and crave masters.

[Lorien]

21. Um, yes, in fact I do. LETTER BOMB (no, not the exploding kind):

A journalist I know says that a hard copy letter sent to his station by a viewer is worth 10,000 emails and phone calls. If a station manager gets three hard copy letters on one issue, then he or she sits up and takes notice. Four and they take action. Other station employees and one newspaper reporter confirmed that.

I'd like to believe that every DUer could be inspired enough to tap out at letter at their computer RIGHT NOW to the President and their representatives, print it, address it, put a stamp on it, and mail it. For some reason that's always too much to ask. Despite a few DUers who will back me up on the assertion that one hard copy letter = 10,000 phone calls and emails, an equal amount will wail "it won't work"; and that will be all the de-motivation anyone needs to sit back and continue complaining without bothering with a letter, and envelop, and a stamp that COULD make a difference. An avalanche of hard copy letters? It would scare the shit out of them.

On edit:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

[OHdem10]

28. This is absolutely 100% correct. A Letter to a Congressman will

be read--4 or 5 letters they begin to squirm --lots of letters
and you see real action.

Emails, a person just sits and scans to look for a theme.

The letter takes effort. The Congressman, President, Head\of a
Company knows there is real concern if a person takes time
to sit down and write, put a stamp, go to PO and mail.

E Mails can be interpreted as the feeling of a moment
unless there are thousands on the same subjects. Cannot
be copied . must be original with each writer.

[Cyrano]

40. I have written perhaps more than 100 letters over time to

the White House, representatives and senators. And I know others who have done so.

The only change I've seen take place over the past few decades has always been for the worse. Nonetheless, I have received quite a few form letters in response.

At one time, the tactic of writing a personalized letter may have been effective. However, it's my belief that those in power today have become far too self-important and corrupted to react to virtually anything from outside their Washington bubble.

But what the hell. I'll go on trying, even though I really believe it's just one more futile activity. Not to mention a waste of stamps.

[azul]

22. I know, I know

A constitutional amendment:

"People have the right to be free of debt and financial obligation. Debt is loss of freedom, people have the right to have their lives not be controlled by usury. Excessive love of money has transformed our capitalistic system into a form of economic slavery for many.

Every four years, on the day of the presidential election, when people vote, their outstanding debts will be forgiven."

-The USA jubilee amendment. Debt is what this current financial racket is based upon.

[WingDinger]

25. Bunch o' crap. We have the means. We always have.

March, organize. Be as loud as the teafreaks, and we would get adequate coverage, respect. Maybe not as much, but plenty. And we could win every election henceforth. But, our window is closing. Radical gerrymandering etc. will see us powerless, if we buckle under, just as the teafreaks and GOP intend. If we continue to eat up the newt/ Rove insistance that liberals are passive by nature, and act like they FORCE US TO, then yes.

[TheKentuckian]

51. Ohh bull. Millions marching and protesting is and has been easily ignored

Did you forget the need for free speech zones, did you miss how they dealt with the IMF protests?

Who do you think you are appealing to?

You really think the Laissez Fare Klan gets coverage because they are loud? They are a willfully constructed propaganda scheme custom designed for the media to promote.

I don't think you appreciate what we are up against and have a feeble grasp on avarice.

[Bonhomme Richard]

27. Unfortunately it has come to the point that things will not change until the rich..

pay a personal price for their greed.
Take that as you like.

[stray cat]

31. The tea party feels the same way

[Kablooie]

32. I'm afraid we will have to wait until things are so bad a revolution breaks out.

But things have to get much worse than now.

[SOS]

33. Thirty years of Friedman/Chicago School barbarism will be difficult to unravel.

The savage economic policies of Milton Friedman, first enacted in Argentina under Pinochet in the 1970s,
have been shown to be a complete failure, other than for big corporations and the very rich.

Argentina, Chile, Russia - all have been decimated in previous decades by Chicago School economic fantasies.

Nixon was willing to go ahead with the murder of Allende and the imposition of Friedman's asinine ideas in Argentina, but
he drew the line when facing an election in 1972. Friedman was told to get lost when it came to the US economy.
Carter also had no use for the Chicago hustlers.

But with Reagan and Thatcher in 1980/81 we started down a disastrous road.
Keynes was out and Friedman was in.

This great robbery (under the guise of neoliberal "free market" orthodoxy) should have ended in September 2008.
Neoliberalism is dead. It died with Lehman Brothers.
And yet this idiocy persists.

What comes next? In Argentina, the people simply set fire to American banks until the government capitulated and
defaulted on it's foreign debt. In the US we are stuck. Even Democrats like Clinton (who ardently supported the criminal Yeltsin)
and now apparently Obama, can't seem to shake off the utter failure, injustice and brutality of the Chicago School.

We need a new direction.
But how to turn the ship towards economic justice?

The answer will probably originate in places like Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Belgium.
Once neoliberal dogma is dumped in Europe, the US will be forced to reassess it's own policies at home and in the global economy.

[WilliamPitt]

35. What's this "we" shit?

You got a mouse in your pocket?

"Does anyone know how we can regain our existence as a free people?"

Assumes we were ever really free to begin with.

I have my doubts.

[Cyrano]

42. I'd say that from about 1945 to about 1980, we were about as "free" as

could be expected.

Yeah, McCarthy was there and so was Nixon, but both were eventually exiled to their own personal hells.

Today, the only ones who get their own personal hells are all the rest of us.

[WilliamPitt]

49. Mmm.

The Cold War made for a climate of extreme fear and manipulation. It was also the time when the MIC gained supremacy.

Not my idea of "free."

[WingDinger]

56. Every player could be expected to play their parts. No mavericks.

Makes for stability, after a fashion.

[Bluenorthwest]

70. Ok. So your group was better off then...ah the good old days

when schools were color coded, the gays were in jail or in the closet, and half the artists were on blacklists...
This is why I agree that 'we' is presumptive and even verbally imperialist if you will. Speak for yourself. Sorry if I don't long for arrest.

[Cyrano]

77. I don't look on them as "the good old days."

The ancient evils that have always existed were still with us and they fell far more heavily on many of the historically oppressed than on others.

Nonetheless, The Voting Rights Act, The Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid all came along during that period. We seemed to be on the right track until the powers that be derailed us. And they are now on a crusade to undo every humane piece of legislation passed during Roosevelt's "New Deal" and Johnson's "Fair Deal."

I don't expect to see a world in our lifetimes in which justice prevails. I doubt if we'll even see one in which fairness becomes the norm. But I haven't totally given up on our species. Perhaps in a few hundred years, or in the next millennium, we will learn, grow, and fulfill the dreams held by so many.

This, of course, assumes that we don't destroy ourselves first. Anyhow, here's to the time when the term "Utopia" becomes more than some abstract concept held by fools like me.

[Safetykitten]

36. Is that on the Discovery Channel?

[OneGrassRoot]

43. For those who want to DO (and have any energy remaining...

though I suggest that if there is energy to bitch and moan on an Internet forum, there is SOME energy remaining to be more constructive and proactive ;)), I share the following, though most suggestions/requests for action, or even brainstorming about action, fall on deaf ears...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9656969&mesg_id=9679395

:hi:

[Yavin4]

44. History Teaches Us That It's Eventually Up To The People To Decide Their Fate

There are those of us who recognize what's going on, but there are many more too caught in their individual lives and careers to notice. Just like the last crash caught everyone by suprise (not to those paying attention), the next collapses will also wake people up.

Soon, most of us will be cut out of the pie. Most of us won't have any economic stake in keeping the current system going. Once that critical mass is reached, then it will be up to the people to decide their fate.

[Bucky]

45. Except that I'm not just sitting back, it's not my destruction, and the only thing to witness...

...is a stupid turn in governmental policy. America survived a generation of inept laissez faire government between Ulysses Grant and Teddy Roosevelt. It didn't destroy the country. It created problems, but the world didn't end.

[Cyrano]

46. That was a different era. And even the Robber Barons had limited resources.

Not so today. The resoures of the "haves" and the "have mores" are virtually unlimited. And if they want to use the full power of those resources, who's to stop them?

[Greyhound]

48. What to do? Quit playing.

But that is far easier said than done, and not too many are willing to make the sacrifices required, so they will do nothing until they are forced out.

[okieinpain]

54. man this has been going on way before now. n/t.

[knotwurstforware]

55. because we have DWTS and beer and video games

K&R

[TheWatcher]

58. Exactly.

Americans as a whole want many things, but I can assure you that remaining a Free People is not one of them.

in fact, it is the one thing they seem to go out of their way to desperately avoid.

The love being lied to, they love being controlled, they love being stolen from, and they love being abused.

And they love to try and marginalize, mock, insult, and destroy anyone that tries to save them from themselves.

It's a weird, creepy fetish, almost to the point of mental illness.

Greatest case of Mass Cognitive Dissonance and Stockholm Syndrome in history.

We are a case study for generations to come.

[XemaSab]

59. Sign #547 of the Apocalypse:

A few weeks ago my mom suggested a forum between the progressives of Shasta County and the Tea Party to see if there are any areas that we can work together on.

Things are THAT bad, and the lower and middle classes are THAT screwed. :(

[Desertrose]

64. I think many are in a state of shock when they finally realize the truth.

Not sure what to do but we can sure as hell quit making it so damn easy for them to continue to get away with the crap on every level!

[RegieRocker]

65. To be free one must break the chains that binds them.

Then you can do what is necessary. I owe, I owe it's off to work I must go. Don't want to upset the apple cart. Don't want to stand out. Must be like others.

[dorkulon]

67. General strike, general boycott. That's how you make change.

But it won't happen until most of us are so poor we have nothing to lose.

[snot]

73. +1

[WhiteTara]

71. my cryptic advice?

run to the back of the herd.

I had a dream in which we were all cattle being herded to a gradually ever narrowing chute and at the end was the hammer bang to the head. All you can do is keep moving to the back of the herd; maybe there will be an escape somewhere down the line.

[donco6]

72. We're patsys - dupes - The Conned -

And now they've gotten away with the big haul and we can't do anything about it.

[snot]

74. For starters . . . how many people replying here

regularly check the DU Activist forum?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=106

Granted, it may not be all we wish it were; but what stops us from making it better?

[lyonn]

75. Let's not forget the highest court in the land that agrees with

the richest in this country. Bottom line is we must keep a Dem for President and hopefully retain the Senate. Four more years of "worse than Bush" would be total devastation. How effin depressing is all of this?

This a.m. Scheiffer (sp?) CBS and David Gregory on NBC had Kyle and McConnell on. I was Raging - All I could think was, and this is gross, but, "Stick those taxes up their A##'s".

Let the tax breaks expire, we can pay down some of Bush's war debt with the money........

[Amonester]

76. IMHO, 2 very different ways here (but highly improbable):

1 - Electing more real progressives each election round, and maybe after a few cycles, progressive legislations will pass (long term, and this planet might be done with the ability to sustain human life itself already, since the cRazies would have had the time to implement their cRazy agenda).

2 - Launching a nation-wide, MASSIVE Hunger Strike (partial) of at least 65 to 75 percent of all U.S. citizens for a short period estimated to last no longer than 2 to 3 weeks. After just a couple of weeks of this 'gigantic and unprecedented economic STALE' the actual 'sold-out' pols would simply come BEGGING "on their knees" for the leader(s) of the Hunger Strike to call it off: that would be the perfect moment to remind them "who's their only boss" (the American People, and not the banksters, not the health non-insurance CEOs, not the wall st. crooks, not the MIC CEOs, etc.), and which policies they will have to implement, otherwise, they will have to deal with another strike, then another, and another, if you know whatta mean... (BUT, such a massive strike is very unlikely: too much 'bread and circus' crap all over the place).

My two cents.