The unfortunate fact is that the level of rhetoric across the political spectrum has become such that invective has become the rule rather than the exception and it seems that people have forgotten what they truly believe in the face of what corporations and candidates are doing their best to drill into their heads.
The system is broken and it is beyond time to find a way to step back from all of the high-level information (truth, fiction, and all things in-between) being put out by the parties and their various corporate backers and remember that citizens are individuals and individuals take care of one another. The most basic tenet of any society has always been people looking after one another as best they could. This is what we need to find our way back to, despite what politicians would have us believe.
It's not about capitalism vs. socialism vs. any other -ism. It's not about left vs. right. It's about doing what we can to make sure that our neighbors have enough to eat, that the sick have access to healthcare, and that there is some sense of balance, fairness and equity across this society. We need to figure out a way to live up to the ideals the we supposedly hold so high in this society without having to trample on the backs of the poor and the "other" at home and around the world to do it.
I wish I had an easy fix in mind, but I'm afraid there isn't one. I'm afraid that the only thing that can be done is for all of us to work at it on an individual level and to do what we can to realize that the rhetoric is designed to be divisive and to find a way past it to the common ground that is in there somewhere, even though we are being told by both sides that it is gone.
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