as realities get grimmer, the possibilities tend to be forgotten. - Ellen Willis

I think the craving for freedom for self-determination, in the most literal sense is a basic impulse that can be suppressed but never eliminated.

The notion that there might be any need for, or possibility of, profound changes in the institutions that shape American life work, family, technology, the primacy of the car and the single-family house — is foreign to the mainstream media that define our common sense. And so conflicts that cannot be addressed politically have expressed themselves by other means. From public psychodramas like the O. J. Simpson trial, the Lewinsky scandal and Columbine to disaster movies, talk shows and "reality TV," popular culture carries the burden of our emotions about race, feminism, sexual morality, youth culture, wealth, competition, exclusion, a physical and social environment that feels out of control.

To refuse to fight for love that is both free and responsible is in a sense to reject the possibility of love itself.