Hello Percy!  How have you been?  

Well shucks, what can we do?  My utopian way of thinking would suggest that we restructure our governments.  Our government leaders should be required to take an oath whereby they are not allowed to be stockholders in large corporations, not allowed to work for large corporations and not allowed to accept any monies from large corporations.  Of couse, this would eliminate most of the greedy self serving politicians and perhaps all of them from ever wanting to pursue leadership in government.  hahahahah  A good thing perhaps?  The bottom line is that our government officials are NOT working for the people, by the people.  They are working for Big Corp, Big pharma, Big Agriculture and Big Insurance.

But let us not blame all our woes entirely on politicians.  Politicians are human and represent a small sector of the common citizen's mindset.  So, even if there were no leadership and the common people ruled, we would have the same issues with greed.  As you pointed out, humanity would have to make the quantum leap of producing a wise populus.  And, once again we are back to the beginning, where everything begins and ends..........' The Individual".  

I think that there are many great people in this world like Eckart Tolle who are appealing to the masses and perhaps changing a few minds, day by day, year by year.  But, I doubt that you or I will ever  witness the day when the majority of  humans have been absolutely forced to change and thus, an ultimate change occurs.

Our world is in a constant state of shifting from one extreme to the other and likewise, in a state of seeking balance. Humans are quite simple minded creatures that only react to crises when absolutely forced to. Planning ahead with conscious concern for future generations isn't one of civilizations strong attributes. So in the meantime, we shift to the far left and slowly shift to the right and teeter back and forth for an eternity.

Percy, we must, as individuals, live what we preach just as Jesus did, just as Schweitzer did.  I think that we need to be calm and assertive about everything in life and just keep doing as we do and know that what matters is now and not concern ourselves with the ' possible' outcome.  Live today with the confidence that our efforts will shape the future.