Hunter says in this post that s/he is looking for a speaker who cam provide some optimism. My suggestion would be Jello Biafra:
"Corporate dictatorship in my opinion is heading for a train wreck and that train wreck will happen in our lifetime...The time has come to start planning now, at least mentally, for what happens if there is a big takeover and the corporations fall."
The reason why we won't get much further than restoring the status quo anytime soon is that this is bigger than FISA, or Rove, or Cheney and Bush. This is the latest progress of a systematic attempt to create a corporate oligarchy hiding behind a democratic mask. Corporations have made inroads in government, in media, in business, economy, religion, entertainment, every single area of public life. It's been going on since Reagan, Nixon, even Eisenhower. It's only now that they've gotten so greedy, obvious and clumsy that they've revealed their methods to all concerned. And they can't stop. They don't care who they hurt now, who they make angry, how obvious their lies appear. They just need more of what they already have; money and power.
This is something that has been going on for decades, not years. We can't just awake from it like a bad dream. But never think we're helpless. We can elect Obama and more Democrats in Congress, and while that will probably at best create a holding pattern, it won't undo the damage done. But instead of giving into despair over that fact, we can take a breath, and logically, calmly, think about what's next. Because our job is bigger than just winning some grassroots elections or an occasional protest. We have to figure out how to best weaken the power structure that's, by and large, the only thing propping up the current regime. Imagine if all the dittoheads were forced to watch the Omar Khadr video over and over, without the benefit of a thousand gasbags bloviating it away. How many more people would be calling for Bush's impeachment then?
This scenario may seem out of reach now, but I don't think it is. Because they're vulnerable, far more than they want us to think. After all, corporations, media, and government alike have only gotten the power they have with the money coming out of our pockets. And we are only compelled to keep giving it to one of those. Suppose nightly news ratings went in the toilet? Suppose thousands of subscribers dropped the phone companies that received telecomm immunity?
Will it happen tomorrow, or next year? No. But we can start thinking about how to make it happen for the next outrage, or the one after that. Because there will be more. And eventually they will reach too far, and even the ones who have been hoping to benefit from their machinations will see that they're expendable. What we have to do is plan for that day, so that when it happens we're not squabbling among ourselves, but ready to reclaim what's rightfully ours. Now is the time for everyone to begin thinking how best to do that. Make no mistake; this is a long-distance struggle. But like some strugglers before us, we can only lose if we don't keep our eyes on the prize.