Spending time in Brooklyn is a pretty good education.... if you stick around long enough to connect some of the dots.

You can see the slant of the local papers/politicians/deve;opers/residents/leaders evolve, or is that expose themselves in an interesting dance of seek the money/ support the source of the money/ obfuscate the connection/ avoid the consequences of being bought.

The naive become less so, but usually, before the anger can reach a boil, either become part of the problem, spawn or become affluent enough that a little malfeasance doesn't bother them that much anymore.

And so it goes.  Fresh people in.  People consumed by the process out.  No real progress.  Actually, often a regression. And no real accountability.  Some blame the courts, but  as SOPA has shown us, we are as guilty by pretending that the electorate, with a staggered effect, can keep the powers that be on their toes and on the better side of either a legal, moral or ethical right.

What gives is a a little bit of the collective soul every time we don't pay attention for whatever reason.