Frank,

If we were talking about a member of the Supreme Soviet then I'd agree with you that they want to live well with everyone else in poverty. However I think your garden variety watermellon green doesn't think about politics that deeply and is not that cynical. IMHO, what drives them is the desire to "feel good" without realizing their actions have consequences. I'm a second generation native born Californian (we're very rare). "Feel good" politics is very typical of the San Francisco Bay Area, i.e. we don't feel good about polluting the environment so we won't build power plants, we don't feel good about damming rivers so we don't have enough water to drink, etc. The litany is endless.

Gary