Dystopia Is Alive and Well in America

[Peter Lemkin]

I was thinking yesterday about how I grew up reading novels and watching movies about dystopias (just recently re-watched Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL - how prophetic it was), and now we're all being swallowed up inside those "science fiction" stories.

Rod Serling will be on the other side waiting for us. ::beammeup::

He along with Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, and many others. I had an extraordinarily great set of English teachers in High School, along with politically enlightened parents and read all of the basic dystopic books of the 50s, 60s and 70s. I was always convinced that these were warnings of what would happen if things continued along the then current paths; but never in my wildest nightmares did I [or most others] think that we'd be 'there' already by 2000 [and in my lifetime!]...and now be heading into uncharted territory and beyond at breakneck (and ever increasing) speeds. Add to that the environmental destruction long ago warned about by Carson at al. and more recently by a host of others - including myself - as I'm an Environmental Scientist by training; and then we have the perfect concoction for the destruction of much life on Earth - humans included [and the cause] - very rapidly in evolutionary terms - and very painful for those humans who will have to endure the rapid and horrible degradation, depredations, and changes. We are, in my opinion, at the tipping point - both on the environmental and political matters; we either reverse direction completely - or we soon perish. Period. Soon, I'd say most of freedoms, democracy, any semblance of Peace and political World stability will be gone in much less than a century, and the Environment irreparably damaged for the next several tens of thousands of years by that time too...yet the People mostly sleep and the Powers That Be plunge ahead out of pure greed, avarice and total lack of regard for life and quality of life - for humans and all species. What a ****ing mess and a cosmic shame. The hour is getting very late. The clock reads one minute to midnight now, and ticking! :tampfeet:: ::headexplode::