It is a Brave New World

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently nailed one more very important nail into the coffin of the experiment in human democracy.  The court's decision to further weaken campaign finance laws may very well be the tipping point for this very shaky edifice.   Frankly, this wonderful endeavor of participatory governing was never destined to work forever.  The forces aligned against it are just too strong, namely materialism, greed,  selfishness, cruelty and the intoxication of power.  Every once in a rare while, the nature of humans has been outdistanced by their intellect and we are presented with a magnificent experiment in humility and self-sacrifice.  That's why the Constitution of the United States is such an extraordinary document and why our political scientists have marveled at it for so long.  It codifies self-denial against our human nature.  But the experiment is reaching it’s long expected end and so to with it, I am afraid, the end of civilization as we know it.  I don’t presume to see clearly how it all ends, but I see so clearly that it is ending.  
The corporatocracy in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, “The World State”, may seem far more Machiavellian than our own corporatocracy, but it is probably only a matter of time.  After all, as the rich begin to take over this country (and many others), their first order of business is to consolidate their gains with gerrymandering and voter protection (actually disenfanchisement) laws including the one I am referring to.  As the income gap increases, poor people who would be expected to vote against the rich are relegated to serpiginous voting districts designed to negate their influence, blocked from voting altogether by draconian registration and identification requirements, and inundated with advertising that makes them believe that voting for representatives who support their interests would result in the loss of everything they’ve gained.  The dissemination of fear, which is what the Supreme Court has just encouraged and enabled, is what keeps the rich in power.  

But greed is an ugly and paradoxical addiction.  There is never enough power and money.  The rich and powerful will convince you their factories are not changing the world.  The need for clean air and pure water is a myth.  Climate change is a figment of the liberal imagination and as long as you work for your pennies an hour, the world is your oyster.

Unfortunately the joke is on them.  The water we drink may come in bottles that are more and more expensive, but so far, the air we breathe is shared by all, and as it disappears so to will we.  They may convince the disenfranchised of this world that less taxes are good, that lower incomes are noble, that their garbage is better in your back yard, but in the end, for surely it must end, their oil and gas, their water and air, and their lives will end along with ours and there is no magical space ship, no matter how much money they make, that will take them to a better place.