can anyone name any 'public-serving' organization that isn't 'compromised' (read: affected in a way that doesn't jibe with your personal beliefs) by the political/societal beliefs of its leaders and workers?

Brad...ahhh...I really don't think it's all about getting things to jibe with your personal beliefs...that's sort of Pat's issue ain't it? I mean he wants shit to jibe with his personal beliefs. I think the idea is not to worry much about if others jibe with where you're coming from. Sure...express shock or horror or anger when they don't...but expect nothing and hope for the best. You can work for policy change but don't expect to win hearts and minds. To me the thing is what do these organizations set out to do? What is the stated mission? You can try to hold them accountable to that...like a church is most often in the business of saving souls...minor issue with that is it's hard to get hard data on their results...those that you'd have to poll being dead and all...but when they muscle in on medical and political science...well...you can define them as being out of their element no?

I think you can hold journalists and intel folks to what their stated mission is supposed to be...that way you can define when and when not to call them a failure.

the media? nope. government? nope. the church? nope. Boy Scouts? nope. PTA? nope. Sierra Club? nope. etcetera ad infinitum.

I think your brush is too broad...the fucking Sierra Club?

so pick your poison and work for its [stated] ideals, as we all push against each other, back and forth across the line of scrimmage and then back again. *yawn*  kinda tiresome, really.

I think you're scratching the itch here...but you sound like you have given up hope...let's go with intellect beats blind stupidity every time and go have a drink huh?

the media is liberal, the media is conservative, blah blah blah. what an endless and pointless discussion that one is. it's both, it just depends on which outlet you're talking about, it varies from place to place and source to source. it's, whether 'left' or 'right', mostly a bunch of surface details; the real story is either not discovered (through secreting it from the reporter or misdirecting them) or, worse, edited out.

So...now you acknowledge the compromise that you sort of pushed aside...is this what too much time in the hot tub does to you?

 the last thing the elite powers-that-be want is for the public to realize that they're getting fucked, every day.

But they all do think they are getting fucked everyday...one thing we do well in this country is complain...the poor say they are getting fucked while the rich whine about how they are getting fucked...everybody thinks they are fucked...it's our common bond...

so, hey, folks, after this Hummer commercial, we'll be bringing you a bunch of stories about gay marriage, abortion rights, gun violence, and the exclusive video from the puppy that was trapped in the drainpipe! here, distract yourselves, enrage yourselves, go argue amongst yourselves! have a good time! (and in the meantime, we'll be over here counting all the money.) as i've said, it ain't left and right, it's top and bottom.

Yeah...the commercials and the faux issues are all about keeping us all thinking we're fucked...don't give in Bradley! It's true...the word nigger no longer has anything to do with color...it's anyone making less than six figures...

so much of what we're fed serves only to nourish the selfish ego-beast in us, 'cause personal greed knows no bounds. damn i want that Escalade! and so much of what we're fed serves only to divide...and yes, conquer. and we buy right into it. we get trained to look at issues only through the lense of 'left' or 'right', and that's horribly dangerous and counterproductive.

Well..yeah...but this whole argument seems to feed upon itself...so...we're "out of the box" now...where are we going... 

here's an issue, any issue: you can look at it from any point of the circle, from 0 to 360 degrees. 'well, the best perspective is from here'...'oh yeah? the proper perspective is from here'...'well, you're just being a conservative jerk!'..."oh yeah? well you're just being an effete liberal!'

Hmmm...Einstein would have a different take on this I think and perhaps pose to you a similar question as he does when he asks an individual to confront Euclid's geometry..."What, then, do you mean by the assertion that these propositions are true?"

and so the two sides push back and forth, prepositioned according to their thoughts and beliefs (whether ignorant or otherwise) and the orthodoxy of [their conditioning within] the two main groups that have evolved (and i use that verb loosely).

I would only say here that you have simplified the problem to far too great an extent...leaving us in that netherworld of black and white...

the overwhelming problem is that the sides are pushing on a flat plane, like a dinner plate. the yin-yang of it is that there is, and probably will always be, a nearly 50-50 split among humanity, if it continues to choose to divide itself into the simplistic dynamic of 'liberal/left' and 'conservative/right'. the fighting would therefore be infinite.

Nature...including mankind...is far too sloppy for such an equal split...but you are offering theory...not fact...and I am in the best way...trying to blow up your skirt...you probably already caught that...

but just as most people's realities and politics are far more complex than that, most issues are spherical in their nature and the potential of their perspective points - and if peace is ever to be attained on Earth, there's a third way that must be found. rather than pushing fruitlessly along the same old flat plane of scrimmage, we must learn to go 'over the top'...sort of like flying over the North Pole.

I hope that you can see the danger in this line of thinking as well...as Mr. Baerwald points out...in perhaps a backhanded manner...we could find our way "over the top" in a rather easy fashion by letting our base urges get the best of us and killing all who oppose us...it really doesn't matter who's doing the killing...Bushco...or say...me, you, and Baerwald...I'm sure sitting in a hot tub with a bottle of tequila and some big ass sniper rifles we could find a solution that would please the three of us and only cost the elimination of a few thousand individuals...but would we be any better than Bushco at that point? Our arguments may may be spherical but our reality is multidimensional.

 if that can't be done for whatever reasons, then, as the Dalai Lama said, we must learn to compromise, 50-50. sometimes we have to give more than we think we should have to give...but that is the only way that peace is possible. i continue to hope that we can evolve to that.

The only thing I don't like about that argument is in the end it means we'd have to concede points we know to be wrong to supposedly contribute to the greater good...and there lies the heart...and maybe the place from which Mr. Baerwald's and in that case my anger as well...would emanate from.

Anyway...I am...quite obviously...messing with you...in a good way though...