I did my little tongue-in-cheek briefing to pose a dilemma- one I think is common today and growing more and more common. The dilemma of someone who has at least some of the levers to hand, and who gets it, but who is faced with the vast inertia of vested interests, denialists, predators, and a congress populated largely by manipulative, self-congratulatory dickheads, after a half-century of filtering out the last of the true old-style public servants.
Think Russ Feingold.
Don't know who would be comparable in Europe, but I'm sure they're there.
Whether you credit Obama with the wit to see the elephant isn't the point.

That dilemma occurs everywhere, at a time of paradigm shift, unless you see the "other" as just fools.

Who gets it?
How long ago did the light dawn?
What would be (has been) their possible courses of action?
Once the number of players who have made the transition grows beyond some critical mass, what happens? What's the range of likely outcomes?
Some of this is knowable.

My question was embodied in the title.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.