a plague of very clever lab rats...

Can humanity destroy its environment to the point of causing its own extinction?


This got me thinking about The Big Issues again and then I got all depressed - again. It's so much smarter to just do the Prozac thing and plod along in a warm fuzzy complacency, isn't it? Well, I'm not that smart. In fact, I'm so stupid I still think it's better to get right into the depressing issues if we're ever going to make informed political choices. I saw three Big Issues:

(1) The American Solution: The American Way, complete with it's rampant consumerism, already angering many societies with the way their own society, economy and environment are being eroded, pillaged, and exploited against their will, is infuriating millions to the point where some of them are resorting to terrorism as a way of striking back.

The American Solution is for America to use its huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to smash such recalcitrant societies and to forcibly turn them into compliant "democracies" so that the environmental and economic rape of that country can continue apace. And for what? To feed the insatiable needs of The American Way. It's called "protecting America's interests."

The American Solution leads to an endless string of wars of "liberation" to install compliant "democracies". This is called "freedom". Americans, being totally brainwashed by an amazing "education" system and American Kultcha, will happily die fighting for this "freedom". It's hard-wired into them. In the last fifty years The American Solution has killed many millions of people on their own soil using horrific weapons of mass destruction because it was "in America's interests."

(2) The Global Lifestylers. These are people outside America who have become addicted to The American Way. And they're happy to turn a blind eye to The American Solution. Some of them even support their own government's compliance with America's wishes and are happy for their troops to take part in The American Solution.

(3) The Global Corporations. These exist solely to service every whim of the The American Way and The Global Lifestylers. They have their own powerbase, called the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which now has the power to make all "member" countries pass laws giving the Global Corporations the freedom to "trade" unencumbered in these "member" countries.

Why would a country lay itself open to economic and environmental rape and pillage by these Global Corporations by becoming a "member" of the WTO? Well, because if they don't they'll incur either crippling trade sanctions or they'll be subjected to The American Solution and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of their people will be killed by "surgical stikes" and "unfortunate collateral damage" in order to "liberate" them from their "uncivilised" ways or their "bad" leaders.

And what are (1), (2) and (3) known as collectively? Why, darlings, it's called Civilisation. And it's oh so civilised... And where is "Civilisation" headed? It's headed for the endgame...

The Endgame: A global "society" of enclaved Very Rich Global Lifestylers serviced by a moderately well-off Middle Class which, by necessity, will also enjoy the security of the enclaves, protected by armies of contract mercenaries. These enclaves will be scattered throughout the world and they will replace or subjugate nations.

The idea of national sovereignty will be a faint memory. The secure enclaves will be corporation owned and ruled by boards of directors. The WTO will become a global government overseeing these corporations. Directors will be elected by shareholders. Each shareholder's voting power will be determined by the number shares owned - one share = one vote. Under this system of Corporate Oligarchy, 10% of the New Citizens will control 90% of the voting power. If you have no shares you will have no say at all - you will not be a New Citizen. You will be a non-citizen.

You'll have to own at least one share just to be allowed to reside within an enclave and corporate rules will no doubt give the corporation power to dispossess you of your shares if the corporation finds you guilty of some "misconduct". The Corporation will replace the judiciary.

Beyond the secure boundaries of these enclaves will subsist the slaves and the human detritus of this "Civilisation", kept at bay by brutal corporate mercenaries. No internet access for these sad non-citizens. Will anyone be bothered by the fact that these people will make up as much as 70% of the total population of the planet? No - why should they? These people are needed to work the pittance-paid jobs, the dirty jobs, the dangerous jobs. These people need to be exploited to maintian this "Civilisation". But to The Lifestylers' consternation, inexplicably, these dispossessed, disenfranchised, exploited, subjugated sub-humans will keep on turning into "terrorists". It just won't be safe outside the enclaves. It won't even be all that safe inside the enclaves...

Back to the present: Ford, the car manufacturing corporation, always in touch with consumers' future needs, is already developing a car for just such a terrorism-riddled "civilisation". It's called the SYNus and it comes complete with bulletproof windows and body. So you see, the future is not that far away - and according to Ford, this future will be here by 2010 - unless you change it... Quickly and decisively, my fellow platypusses... Don't wait for tomorrow... Or get ready to start grovelling to some corporate baron sometime soon.

And don't bank on dissident bloggers having internet access for too much longer, either. "Security" concerns and all that jazz. Might be cool to cache your favorite blogs soon so you can look at them after their writers have been silenced. You think this is far fetched? I don't.