But you want just one? Let's start with Warren Buffet
Berkshire Hathaway / RJR / PacifiCorp, please! Here I thought you'd come with something hard. Here I'll even toss you a bone. Warren Buffet cancelled some coal fire power plants because of environmental concerns. He also bought a butt load of solar plants out in Arizona, I mean like massive amounts. Like he's like super epic hero!!! However, he might have canned six coal plants but didn't stop him from selling the coal overseas at a premium and those solar panels, I'll let you guess how much he really paid for them and how much was paid by the public / compare that to the ratio of how much of the energy will actually stay in Arizona. I love Warren Buffet, he's like the high school example of making off good by doing good. But please, if you honestly think he's trying to make taxes fair for you, you are not in the right ballpark, you are not even in the right sport. Next time try someone like Bill Gates who honestly is healing people while only conducting the most massive tax evasion program ever. The worst thing he did was give us a shitty OS. Warren Buffet wants you to smoke it up!!
You know, I remember someone once saying to me about increased taxes the following, "Don't regulate me, don't audit me. Everything else I have people to handle it."
Right... "Citizen, you can't win, so don't try.
Not saying you cannot win, but know how to fight the battle. Idealism is great, but actually knowing how to engage is a wholly different thing.
You say we shouldn't bother to try and get the government to help us (because they're bought.)
Nope, didn't say they were bought because that would be illegal, they work for the public and there are equally many people in each special interest group. So honestly you are promoting a strategy of which side can be the loudest, which in the end doesn't work. Just saying. But I guess it's pretty entertaining.
But instead we should put our money into another titan to clash with the older one?
Exactly, words are nice and cheap and with the advent of the Internet you can buy them them wholesale for a billion words on the penny. If you want change, you'll have to look elsewhere than words. Funding the "titans" so to say is one option that doesn't require a lot of bloodshed. Again, just saying, you're free to pick any other option you think is open to you.
But there's more at stake than just a fight. There's the environment, there's the economy, there's security...in both the local and global senses.
You'll never get Joe six pack to buy into your "fight" talking in such big terms. You are going to need lots of small, easy to digest words (since that's what I guess you're going to go fight with anyway), or you'll never get anyone on your side just saying "think of all the children in 100 years." Most people are doing well thinking what they are going to do next week, much less their great-grandchildren. Your argument would go over like a lead balloon to most voters, you obviously aren't a politician (which that's a good thing, it means you have a heart).
We need the government ... to ensure that the fight benefits everyone
I like how you keep saying bought, government, and what-not, but they are not the problem nor the solution. That's the perceived problem but it isn't the real problem. There's just no "unity" (massive quote fingers here) on the matter and there are a lot of non-government people out there that are getting paid to ensure there isn't unity. You think money (or whatever because at this point money is just like anything else) is being funneled to people on capitol hill and the reality of it is, yeah there is some, but nowhere near the amount that's put into the public's hand. Joe six pack's vote can be bought for a case of beer and its not illegal to buy his vote. Coca-cola can put a dozen vending machines in a school and buy the football team's supplies for the next few decades. Doctor's can buy drugs to save the lives of their patients with a Delta Express card and get a free trip to Maui in a few weeks and then turn around and bill your insurance for a profit. There's all kinds of avenues of using resources to get what you want done and the main issue isn't how you use them, but that you had them to begin with, that there be the problem. If the oil/coal companies thought they could survive the public backlash they'd send $50 to every single person in America (a drop in the bucket to them) and tell them that they, "highly urge you to vote 'no' on solar whatevers". Even if they had a 20% up-take on that, it's money well spent. What's more, the hoot and holler of this, it doesn't even have to be money! That's what is so awesome about all of that. Awesome, of course, meaning "like massively bad." People think money is the root of all evil and the fun fact is that this whole notion that we have needs that need to be met in order to live is a pretty active player in that whole evil thing.
You keep pointing at DC and the reality is you also need to point to the public (because it looks like you are looking for someone to blame here). You can keep pointing at DC, but don't forget the other players as well. That'll at least get you a glimmer of how humanity has shaped its own society and might impart some idea of why changing it isn't something that'll happen overnight or over the next century for that matter. Honestly, I think we ought to entertain at some level the notion that intelligence just leads to extinction and we just need to get over ourselves. Also, if you read all of this and think I'm just saying the problem is Joe six pack and/or the government and/or we should just give up, you're not paying attention.