What Can an Average Citizen Do?

A reader sent me this:

——–

What can one do, on an average citizen scale to make a difference? Is there an organization to support, rally behind? Also do you think that the current election coming up will change any of this. I do think that current status of our executive branch has been too heavily influenced by corporate greed. T. Jefferson warned us about the influence of banking, it has the government by the neck and the only ones benefiting are Goldman Sachs, it is quite annoying to see so many ex-private executives promoted to high ranking governmental positions, to me this is an outright sham.

Why would an executive making millions come to the governmental side? I wouldn’t waste my time, unless I could make it lucrative for myself, i.e. keep my cronies at GSachs in the loop and bail them out when they get themselves in trouble and get greased on the side, not to mention Citibank and the current SIV problem and round table discussions on bail out package….Free Markets no longer exist, it is controlled by those that influence politics and have enough at stake to tell the government what to do…As far as I am concerned that to me is the true problem for this country, the other problem is the debt loaded consumer is too worried about
losing their job and paying the bills that matters like this don’t even matter, and the wealthy could care less for things work out in their favor regardless, they are immune from worrying, then that leaves the middle class, of which is shrinking not because they are losing their jobs, but because inflation is eating at their salaries and they tend to fall into the poorer side of the spectrum, at which time they must worry to about putting food on the table, paying bills and trying to live a responsible life…all of which leads me to believe income gap widening leads to unrest and if left uncorrected we risk a collapsing of the republic and our fate like all democracies…ultimately… end up failing…

———-

I’m not sure I have any answer to the question, except to note that I think the public is not all that one sided. We all agree we don’t like corruption, but we don’t agree on what corruption is – especially if its by someone on “our side.” But aside from that, we don’t all want the same things or believe the same thing. If we can’t even agree on basic facts, such as whether Reagan was a small government President by any definition, then how can we agree on policy prescriptions?

So I don’t know what the solution is. I guess trying to get out what the “facts” are is one. Not particularly satisfying… Your thoughts.