This is not a thread about ideology, this is a thread about tactics.

The method we are taught as children is to change the system from the inside, elect leaders or become leaders ourselves. This does not appear like a method that serves any good. Either the positions of so called leadership are impotent or the just and honest leaders are filtered out of any realistic chance at being elected.

To me the battle appears to be taking place in the mind, and it seems to be a battle between reason and propaganda, between partisanship and unity.

When I look at the people who are most positively affecting the world, the first person I think of is Thich Nhat Hanh. He runs a retreat center in France called Plum Village, referred to by some of my friends that have gone as Buddhist Boot Camp. The ripples of peace and compassion he causes are massive, though subtle and virtually unheard of on the public "stage." Chris Abani said in his TED Talk (which I highly recommend you watch if you haven't) that the world is never changed by grand, messianic gestures but in the simple accumulation of soft, gentle, nearly invisible acts of compassion. I believe Thich Nhat Hanh has a achieved the capacity of transform the world that I dream of achieving in my lifetime, but he failed to perform any heroic action such as ending the Vietnam War during the 3 months he traveled the United States on his teaching visa. In fact he may have been instrumental in causing more disunity by accidentally motivating a reactionary population into stigmatizing the soldiers drafted to fight that worthless war to begin with. This stigma partially led to the fall-out between the Hells Angels and Working Cass and the Student Pacifists. Had these two groups formed a united front the 60s revolution could have been successful in doing more than preventing the US from going to Fascism.

Getting to the point, what do you believe is a realistic method to heal and improve the world? I believe that we must work on our own minds, removing partisanship for the sake of it and striving always to find the compassionate approach, free of manipulation by the corruption that control of the public stage. Share what you believe.