All those issues you mention are true, but they are also the subject of heated debate and controversy in this country today. In fact, they are issues in the current political season. We know about them because they are being discussed by the press, and even here on the Zone. The Establishment elites are always blaming the lamestream media for all their problems. And they are absolutely right. That is, after all, the media's job.

When we were growing up, "the country we were raised to believe" could do no wrong, although we know now about all those things, racism, war, corporate hegemony, the oligarchs and plutocrats and their stranglehold on politics, etc. Back then, we couldn't even mention them without being accused of being Commies. Now we know better, they're out in the open, they are part of the national dialogue. And those who stood to profit by those injustices, or involved in the cover-up, are now forced out into the open to defend their complicity publicly. We know who they are now, they are no longer anonymous. That's why they are so ruthless, and so desperate, and so afraid of us. They are losing their grip, socially, culturally and politically and they know it. You remember the fifties, Bowz? Would this conversation have even been possible?

That's what I mean by progress. We have a fighting chance to do something about it now. The system may not work perfectly, but it works; and we have access to it. We have no guarantee that truth and justice will eventually prevail, but as long as we have not lost the capacity for outrage, we need not despair.