Metaphors are fun, now help me with this damn raft. :)
I am not sure what that raft ought to be.
I never thought I would see the day when Pravda would be more truthful, honest, and accurate than US media. The latter are completely taken over by little Goebbels's, goebbelslings if you will. There is so much misinformation and people have become so dumb and gullible, that perhaps the shock of reality in the form of a double-dip depression, debt crisis, and hyperinflation is the only thing that may wake them up. But, in reality, even that will just get spun as somebody else's fault, just like FDR's effect on the 1930s economy is still under debate. The left will not stop until capitalism and the free society are destroyed and replaced with a socialist nanny state dictatorship. Remember that the commie countries also had regular elections that did not mean anything. We are moving in that direction.
So, what about that raft? What is the solution for the private citizen?