RE: Political and economic ideologies are almost useless if not practiced
A better version can be found here http://www.thebookoflife.org/on-changing-world/
"It’s tempting to believe that people don’t do the right thing because they don’t have the right ideas. But in truth, we already have so many nice ideas at the back of our minds; the problem is, we don’t act on them, and we don’t do so because, at key moments, we lack reminders, motivation and encouragement."
The reason why people appear to act "stupidly" is because those with the power spend a good fraction of their wealth psychologically manipulating the masses. Just advertising alone comes to $1000 per person in America. That money is spent for a reason; now add in the funding of media channels by the wealthy, pushing the message that the wealthy create jobs and that fixing the environment is costly and destroys jobs, or that controlling pollution does the same. In short, follow the money. Remove that influence, and where do you think we would be?
One could argue that people were manipulated prior to the invention of the internet, tv, radio, even the printing press.
So, if you extend the introspection you have to go down to the level where you may need to ask "Why are we exploitable as humans? What are our psychological exploits? Can't we make lists of these exploits and teach humanity how to "patch them" so as to become immune from psychological manipulation?"
In a sense, it's not the money that buys ads. It's the "exploitable" nature of humans. If the ad can influence you then we have some serious problem right there that needs fixing / a strategy to fix this on a massive scale, involving all of humanity.
To some degree, one can immunize oneself. The problem is that neurological manipulation hijacks systems in our brain that have been honed by millions of years of evolution. For example, the desire to be accepted by one's peers. It is possible to develop a rank unconcern for the opinions of others, but it comes at a severe cost. But as long as you have that desire, you can be preyed on by people telling you that people won't like you - or you wont be similar to others - unless you do/buy XXX.
These triggers exist, whether we like them or not. It is how people willingly go to die in wars. The problem is that much money has been spent in understanding these triggers and in how to abuse them so that others can be controlled. So your argument is somewhat like saying "the amount of money spent on nuclear weapons is not the problem, the problem is that we need to be able to build bunkers that can withstand them".
True - there are some ways in which we can make ourselves more resistant - not watching TV, for example - as well as world travel (thoroughly recommended), CIA anti-brainwashing programs, occult practices, including Buddhist mind-training programs, and so on, NLP..
But the reality is that most people are highly susceptible to this, and it doesn't matter how much work you have done on yourself when the brainwashed masses come as a mob to your door, flaming torches and pitchforks at the ready, waiting to throw you into a concentration camp.
For a teenage girl whose parents cant afford the "in" clothing of the moment, the resulting social ostracism can fu* her mind up beyond belief, for life. If only she had learned to switch off her feelings about the opinions of others, eh?
(An example of psych research - http://www.ics.uci.edu/~tdebeauv/files/2011-WoWretention.pdf How to retain players in video games. One can also look at research in food about how adding sugar to foods can addict customers).
Personally I think it's pretty doable as both manipulation and awareness of manipulation techniques can be learned. But the establishment, obviously, doesn't have any interest in teaching people this kind of information.